China claims Japan’s Senkaku Islands and vows to seize them in a “short, sharp war,” if necessary. China’s successful seizure of the islands would shatter the Japan-America security alliance and severely undermine U.S. credibility. This study examines China’s attack campaign by tracing its territorial claims to the East China Sea and by addressing its Senkakus campaign doctrine, the military and paramilitary forces it will employ, how the campaign will unfold, the timing of the attack, how China might counter U.S. intervention, and steps the United States and Japan should take to deter it.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Territorial Disputes, Military Intervention, Alliance, and Conflict
Concerned about a potential drift in the relationship, The Project 2049 Institute conducted a series of working-level dialogues, resulting in the production of a study addressing the medium to long-term challenges that appear likely in Taiwan and across the Taiwan Strait. The objective of this report is to make detailed policy recommendations for Washington as it endeavors to strengthen relations with Taiwan, while at the same time mitigating tensions that are emerging in relations across the Strait.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Bilateral Relations
While the financing sources of non-state armed groups (NSAGs) both during active hostilities and after peace agreements has received much attention in the academic and peace-practitioner fields, information about the funding of NSAGs during the time between active fighting and the conclusion of a peace agreement is much less available. This study aims to fill that gap by investigating the sources of financial support for armed groups during ceasefires and peace negotiations. Through information gathered from the selected cases of ETA in the Basque Country, the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the KNU in Myanmar, GAM in Aceh, and several armed groups in Mali, the study examines the various internal and external options available for NSAG funding when a unilateral or bilateral ceasefire is in place and analyses whether ceasefires represent a fundraising constraint or an opportunity for non-state belligerents. The study also makes projections for the longer-term prospects of NSAGs’ receiving financial support to sustain their post-war security, political and socio-economic transformations. Lastly, some general lessons are drawn for third parties involved in supporting peace processes with NSAGs.
The peace talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) have become a global reference for negotiated solutions to armed conflicts.
The talks demonstrated how a well-prepared and robust process design can contribute significantly to the outcome of a negotiated settlement. In several ways the process broke new ground. The parties developed frameworks and established mechanisms that laid the groundwork for building legitimacy for the process and increasing confidence in it. The direct participation of victims at the negotiating table and the effective inclusion of gender in the process are examples of this.
Support for constitution making is an important element of international engagement in countries emerging from conflict or political transition. This support often focuses on promoting inclusive constitution making, recognising that this can help establish a more inclusive state and social contract, and address exclusion-related drivers of fragility. However, such support is frequently based on an incorrect assumption that an inclusive constitution-making process leads automatically to inclusive content and outcomes.
This report examines key elements required to promote inclusion in the constitution-making process, the constitutional text, and in terms of outcomes from the new constitution. It argues that constitution making in fragile and conflict-affected states must be understood as part of wider political settlement bargaining that shapes the opportunity structures for promoting inclusion at every stage. Finally, the report examines both the important role international actors can play in supporting inclusive constitution making and the challenges they face in doing so.
Topic:
Constitution, Fragile States, State Violence, and Armed Conflict
It is perhaps not impertinent to suggest that American constitutional theory and history, owing to the longevity of the document that
is their subject, hold lessons for constitutionalism everywhere, but
especially for European constitutionalism—the more recent and ever
evolving treaties that serve as a “Constitutional Charter” for the
European Union. An American constitutionalist looking east today,
seeing everything from Brexit to Grexit plus the reactions in
European capitals, must be struck by the tension in the EU between
exclusion and inclusion in its many forms, including individualism
and collectivism. Those themes underpin my discussion here. The
issues surrounding them are universal. They are at the heart of the
human condition.
Topic:
Markets, History, European Union, and Constitution
Political Geography:
Europe, North America, and United States of America
It is a pleasure to be back here at Cato and to be invited to speak
once again at this annual conference. This is one of the premier ongoing monetary policy conferences, and the participants, both at the
podium and in the audience, attest to its prominence.
This is a session on international monetary arrangements, and
there has already been an interesting discussion. I find myself in substantial agreement with the comments of John Taylor, so I do not
wish to repeat his points. What I will try to do is put the rules-based
approach to international monetary policy coordination in a context
that I hope will help us understand some of the past failures so we
might avoid them in the future. In many ways, I will simply be
reminding us of some principles we all have known for some time,
yet which we seem to forget all too frequently.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Monetary Policy, and Banks
How often do we hear references to the notion that we live in a
rules-based global trading system? Addressing the World Economic
Forum at Davos in January 2017, British Prime Minister Theresa
May praised liberalism, free trade, and globalization as “the forces
that underpin the rules-based international system that is key to our
global prosperity and security” (Martin 2017). Chinese President Xi
Jinping likewise extolled the virtues of a rules-based economic order
at Davos, winning widespread praise for defending free trade and
globalization (Fidler, Chen, and Wei 2017).
But could someone please explain: What exactly are those rules?
Because if we are going to invoke the sentimentality of Bretton
Woods by suggesting that the world has remained true to its precepts, we are ignoring geopolitical reality. Moreover, we are denying
the warped economic consequences of global trade conducted in
the absence of orderly currency arrangements. We have not had a
rules-based international monetary system since President Nixon
ended the Bretton Woods agreement in August 1971. Today there
are compelling reasons—political, economic, and strategic—for
President Trump to initiate the establishment of a new international
monetary system.
Topic:
Economics, International Cooperation, and Monetary Policy
Over the past few years I have been making the case for moving
toward a more rules-based international monetary system (e.g.,
Taylor 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2017). In fact, I made the
case over 30 years ago in Taylor (1985), and the ideas go back over
30 years before that to Milton Friedman (1953). However, the case
for such a system is now much stronger because the monetary system drifted away from a rules-based approach in the past dozen
years and, as Paul Volcker (2014) reminds us, the absence of a rulesbased monetary system “has not been a great success.”
To bring recent experience to bear on the case, we must recognize that central banks have been using two separate monetary
policy instruments in recent years: the policy interest rate and the
size of the balance sheet, in which reserve balances play a key role.
Any international monetary modeling framework used to assess or
to make recommendations about international monetary policy
must include both instruments in each country, the policy for
changing the instruments, and the effect of these changes on
exchange rates.
Using such a framework, I show that both policy instruments
have deviated from rules-based policy in recent years. I then draw the policy implications for the international monetary system and
suggest a way forward to implement the policy.
Topic:
International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Monetary Policy, and Central Bank
This article uses newly gathered and available data and autoregressive methods to create an economic freedom index for the 1950s and 1960s for up to 95 countries. The resulting index allows not only for a longer time series but also for a larger sample of countries than has been previously available.