CIAO DATE: 05/2013
Volume: 37, Issue: 4
Spring 2013
How New and Assertive Is China's New Assertiveness? (PDF)
Alastair Iain Johnston
There has been a rapidly spreading meme in U.S. pundit and academic circles since 2010 that describes China's recent diplomacy as "newly assertive." This "new assertiveness" meme suffers from two problems. First, it underestimates the complexity of key episodes in Chinese diplomacy in 2010 and overestimates the amount of change. Second, the explanations for the new assertiveness claim suffer from unclear causal mechanisms and lack comparative rigor that would better contextualize China's diplomacy in 2010. An examination of seven cases in Chinese diplomacy at the heart of the new assertiveness meme finds that, in some instances, China's policy has not changed; in others, it is actually more moderate; and in still others, it is a predictable reaction to changed external conditions. In only one case-maritime disputes-does one see more assertive Chinese rhetoric and behavior. The speed and extent with which the newly assertive meme has emerged point to an understudied issue in international relations-namely, the role that online media and the blogosphere play in the creation of conventional wisdoms that might, in turn, constrain policy debates. The assertive China discourse may be a harbinger of this effect as a Sino-U.S. security dilemma emerges.
First Things First: The Pressing Danger of Crisis Instability in U.S.-China Relations (PDF)
Avery Goldstein
Since the mid-1990s, much has been written about the potentially disruptive impact of China if it emerges as a peer competitor challenging the United States. Not enough attention has been paid, however, to a more immediate danger-that the United States and a weaker China will find themselves locked in a crisis that could escalate to open military conflict. The long-term prospect for a new great power rivalry ultimately rests on uncertain forecasts about big shifts in national capabilities and debatable claims about the motivations of the two countries. By contrast, the danger of crisis instability involving these two nuclear-armed states is a tangible near-term concern. An analysis that examines the current state of U.S.-China relations and compares it with key aspects of U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War indicates that a serious Sino-American crisis may be more likely and more dangerous than expected. The capabilities each side possesses, and specific features of the most likely scenarios for U.S.-China crises, suggest reasons to worry that escalation pressures will exist and that they will be highest early in a crisis, compressing the time frame for diplomacy to avert military conflict.
Forced to Be Free? Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Rarely Leads to Democratization (PDF)
Alexander B. Downes, Jonathan Monten
Is military intervention effective in spreading democracy? Existing studies disagree. Optimists point to successful cases, such as the transformation of West Germany and Japan into consolidated democracies after World War II. Pessimists view these successes as outliers from a broader pattern of failure typified by cases such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Those in between agree that, in general, democratic military intervention has little liberalizing effect in target states, but contend that democracies can induce democratization when they explicitly pursue this objective and invest substantial effort and resources. Existing studies, however, often employ overly broad definitions of intervention, fail to grapple with possible selection effects in countries where democracies choose to intervene, and stress interveners' actions while neglecting conditions in targets. Astatistical examination of seventy instances of foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC) in the twentieth century shows that implementing prodemocratic institutional reforms, such as sponsoring elections, is not enough to induce democratization; interveners will meet with little success unless conditions in the target state-in the form of high levels of economic development and societal homogeneity, and previous experience with representative governance-are favorable to democracy. Given that prospective regime change operations are likely to target regimes in poor, diverse countries, policymakers should scale back their expectations that democracy will flourish after FIRC.
Climate Change and Insecurity: Mapping Vulnerability in Africa (PDF)
Joshua Busby, Todd G. Smith, Kaiba L. White, Shawn M. Strange
Many experts argue that climate change will exacerbate the severity and number of extreme weather events. Such climate-related hazards will be important security concerns and sources of vulnerability in the future regardless of whether they contribute to conflict. This will be particularly true where these hazards put large numbers of people at risk of death, requiring the diversion of either domestic or foreign military assets to provide humanitarian relief. Vulnerability to extreme weather, however, is only partially a function of physical exposure. Poor, marginalized communities that lack access to infrastructure and services, that have minimal education and poor health care, and that exist in countries with poor governance are likely to be among the most vulnerable. Given its dependence on rainfed agriculture and its low adaptive capacity, Africa is thought to be among the most vulnerable continents to climate change. That vulnerability, however, is not uniformly distributed. Indicators of vulnerability within Africa include the historic incidence of climate-related hazards, population density, household and community resilience, and governance and political violence. Among the places in Africa most vulnerable to the security consequences of climate change are parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and South Sudan.
Correspondence: Assessing the Synergy Thesis in Iraq (PDF)
Stephen Biddle, Jacob N. Shapiro, Jeffrey A. Friedman, John Hagan, Joshua Kaiser, Anna Hanson, Jon R. Lindsay, Austin G. Long
John Hagan, Joshua Kaiser, and Anna Hanson; Jon R. Lindsay and Austin G. Long respond to Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, and Jacob N. Shapiro's summer 2012 International Security article, "Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?"
Correspondence: Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (PDF)
Robert A. Pape, Ramesh Thakur, Gareth Evans
Gareth Evans and Ramesh Thakur respond to Robert A. Pape's summer 2012 International Security article, "When Duty Calls: A Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention."