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1522. Obama and the Middle East: The End of America's Moment?
- Author:
- Fawaz A. Gerges
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- WITHIN Fawaz Gerges' text, The End of America's Moment?-Obama and the Middle East, the author endeavors to examine President Obama's implementation of inherently stagnant policies towards the highly volatile and rapidly evolving Middle East. Furthermore, Gerges elaborates on the manner in which the globalists and the Israel-first school succeed in shaping public opinion in the United States about the Middle East and how this process perpetually cripples Obama.
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, Middle East, and Israel
1523. Prisoners of Ourselves: Totalitarianism in Everyday Life Turkey and the Dilemma of EU Accession Towards a Social History of Modern Turkey: Essays in Theory and Practice
- Author:
- Laurence Raw
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- ALTHOUGH written from a variety of perspectives at different points in history, all three books reviewed here offer penetrating insights into Turkish politics past and present, as well as commenting on how they are interpreted both inside and outside the country. Written in English, while he was guest professor at the University of Marburg, Germany (having quit his post at Boğaziçi University in protest at the law curtailing academic freedom), Gündüz Vassaf's Prisoners of Ourselves comprises a series of meditations mostly written between October 1986 and March 1987. His basic thesis is straightforward enough: although human beings consider themselves members of the free world, they are actually subject to totalitarian rule. He surveys some familiar binaries—for example, madness and sanity—and shows how they are used to curtail individual liberties. Western historians have conventionally accepted that the Nazi period in Germany was one of collective madness. However the validity of that judgment can be called into question in the light of Adorno and Horkheimer's research, which discovered that anti-semitism in the United States was much higher than it had been in Germany after Hitler came to power. Vassaf concludes that everyone is part of that “collective madness,” in which one nation is willfully prioritized over another as a means of sustaining power (p. 35). Anyone questioning that notion is abruptly silenced.
- Topic:
- Politics and History
- Political Geography:
- United States, Turkey, and Germany
1524. Time for Tough Love in Transatlantic Relations
- Author:
- Anand Menon
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- The furore that greeted news that negotiations were to start on a transatlantic free trade agreement revealed not only the potential importance of any putative deal, but also the tendency of Europeans to view international politics almost uniquely in economic terms. This neglect of security and broader geostrategic issues is short-sighted and dangerous. It is precisely the liberal world order in place since the Second World War that has allowed Europeans to develop their economic potential. Leaving it to the United States to preserve that order is an increasingly problematic strategy, with the US ever more reluctant to police the world in the way it once did. The US has, for many years, asked its partners to contribute more to the preservation of common security interests. Given the failure of these attempts to date, it might be time for Washington to resort to tougher tactics in an attempt to entice Europeans out of their geostrategic retirement.
- Topic:
- Security and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Washington
1525. The 'TTIP-ing Point': How the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Could Impact European Defence
- Author:
- Daniel Fiott
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- The European Union and the United States are on the verge of agreeing to a transatlantic free trade agreement. The proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is aimed at boosting EU and US economic growth, but the negotiating partners have not excluded the defence sector from negotiations. Europe is at a tipping point regarding the rationale for its defence-industrial integration efforts. Any TTIP extending to the defence sector will raise questions about the nature of the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base, and, crucially, how it impacts the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Common Security and Defence Policy.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
1526. Developing a New Type of Relationship Between China and the US
- Author:
- Zhu Liqun
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- This rejoinder to Daniel Twining's article in the last issue (June 2013) of The International Spectator argues that both China and the United States recognise how important their relationship is for the world and the Asia-Pacific in particular. But the risk of tension on the security front has increased recently due to the US policy toward maritime disputes that has actually involved meddling between the parties involved, and its 'pivot' to Asia which targets China with more military engagement in the region. The China-US relationship has never been an easy one with the US certain of its primacy and China proud of its glorious past, which almost makes a conflictual power transition a self-fulfilling prophecy. Management of the relationship is the key for both countries to bring about more cooperation and to rein in competition. Co-evolution, a new type of relationship among major countries, is the only way out, in which the logic of interaction is 'live-and-let-live' rather than mors tua, vita mea.
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Asia, and Asia-Pacific
1527. US and EU Human Rights and Democracy Promotion since the Arab Spring. Rethinking its Content, Targets and Instruments
- Author:
- Daniela Huber
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- The momentous changes in the Middle East and North Africa have brought the issue of human rights and democracy promotion back to the forefront of international politics. The new engagement in the region of both the US and the EU can be scrutinised along three dimensions: targets, instruments and content. In terms of target sectors, the US and EU are seeking to work more with civil society. As for instruments, they have mainly boosted democracy assistance and political conditionality, that is utilitarian, bilateral instruments of human rights and democracy promotion, rather than identitive, multilateral instruments. The content of human rights and democracy promotion has not been revised.
- Topic:
- Human Rights
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Middle East, and North Africa
1528. International energy security challenges for Europe in the coming years
- Author:
- Iana Dreyer
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Issues: Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs
- Institution:
- Slovak Foreign Policy Association
- Abstract:
- The European Union's approach to "energy security" has strongly focused on diversifying its gas import sources and routes, and mitigating the risks of supply disruptions from Russia at home. Yet gas markets have changed dramatically recently: Liquefied Natural Gas trade and new suppliers of gas have emerged. The shale gas revolution in the United States has made markets more liquid. Today's key energy security challenge is domestic: increased recourse to intermittent sources of renewable energy has destabilized electricity markets and blackouts cannot be excluded. To prepare for the future, the EU will need to introduce coherence in its climate change policies, as recourse to coal - the most CO2 emitting of all fossil fuels - is rising again. It could also engage more closely with China and India to deal with shared concerns about rising oil and gas import dependency and pollution from coal, and rethink its approach to Russia and other energy suppliers in its neighborhood.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and Europe
1529. Defending America in Cyberspace
- Author:
- Keith B. Alexander, Emily Goldman, and Michael Warner
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The National Interest
- Institution:
- Center for the National Interest
- Abstract:
- PRESIDENT BARACK Obama has identified cybersecurity threats as among the most serious challenges facing our nation. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel noted in April that cyberattacks "have grown into a defining security challenge." And former secretary of defense Leon Panetta told an audience in 2012 that distributed denial-of-service attacks have already hit U.S. financial institutions. Describing this as "a pre-9/11 moment," he explained that "the threat we face is already here." The president and two defense secretaries have thus acknowledged publicly that we as a society are extraordinarily vulnerable. We rely on highly interdependent networks that are insecure, sensitive to interruption and lacking in resiliency. Our nation's government, military, scientific, commercial and entertainment sectors all operate on the same networks as our adversaries. America is continually under siege in cyberspace, and the volume, complexity and potential impact of these assaults are steadily increasing.
- Topic:
- Security, Development, and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and America
1530. The Decline and Fall of France
- Author:
- Milton Ezrati
- Publication Date:
- 11-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The National Interest
- Institution:
- Center for the National Interest
- Abstract:
- FRANCE's ECONOMY is not just doing badly. It is in profound decline. The slide has proceeded far enough now that businesspeople and politicians across the Continent increasingly refer to France as the "sick man of Europe"-quite a distinction at a moment when Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy share the hospital ward. For decades, European Union structures were strong enough to allow Paris to ignore the country's economic shortcomings. No longer. Unless Paris reforms its economic policies and practices, it could have a disastrous effect. Further economic woes may undermine the Franco-German cooperation on which the EU has relied, confronting the union with either dissolution or, more likely, an increasingly Germanic future.
- Topic:
- Economics and Reform
- Political Geography:
- United States, France, and Germany