CIAO DATE: 06/2012
Volume: 127, Issue: 1
Spring 2012
Accomplished and Embattled: Understanding Obama's Presidency (PDF)
Theda Skocpol, Lawrence R. Jacobs
THEDA SKOCPOL and LAWRENCE R. JACOBS assess the policy accomplishments and shortfalls of President Barack Obama since 2009. They highlight the obstacles with which Obama and his political allies have had to contend and challenge commentators who claim that Obama has accomplished little. They explain why conservative and Republican opposition to Obamaʼs presidency has been fierce and unremitting.
Regime Change in the Middle East: Problems and Prospects
Daniel Byman
DANIEL BYMAN discusses the diplomatic and security implications of the Arab Spring. He finds that new alignments have begun in the Arab world and that the regionʼs stability is being shaken. He argues that these changes affect an array of declared U.S. interests.
Nuclear Disarmament: Should America Lead?
Regina Karp
REGINA KARP looks at the relationship between nuclear disarmament and world order. She argues that the new security environment compels a reassessment of how national security and international security governance are balanced. She concludes that sustainable arms control and disarmament initiatives involve a debate about who makes the rules and the benefits that come to those who live by them.
Stability, Transition, and Regime Approval in Post-Fidel Cuba
Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, Gregory A. Petrow
JONATHAN BENJAMIN-ALVARADO and GREGORY A. PETROW examine Gallup World Poll data from Cuba to evaluate both the level of Cuban regime approval, as well as its causes. They conclude that Cubans are satisfied overall with their leaders, and that part of this satisfaction stems from equating the regime with the state.
Republican Elites and Foreign Policy Attitudes
Joshua W. Busby, Jonathan Monten
JOSHUA W. BUSBY and JONATHAN MONTEN analyze opinion polls, focusing on the degree of congruence between Republican elites and the general public on foreign policy. They find Republican elites to be consistently more internationalist than the public on most dimensions.
Robert Jervis
U.S. Presidents and Foreign Policy Mistakes by Stephen G. Walker and Akan Malici. Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2011. 360 pp. Cloth, $100.00; paper, $29.99.
Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security by Thomas Fingar. Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2011. 176 pp. Cloth, $60.00; paper, $21.95.
If perfect policies and complete foresight are beyond us, perhaps we can at least minimize mistakes and reduce uncertainty. These are the objectives of the two books under review. Of course this is not new, and the fact—if it is a fact—that things have not gotten much better might lead us to wonder if even these somewhat-modest objectives can be reached. General Carl Von Clausewitzʼs comment may still apply: “We know more, but this makes us more, not less uncertain.” [On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 102].
David Kang
Thomas Christensen has written a superb book that will be of value to scholars of both international relations theory and East Asian security. Refining theories of alliances to explore when and under what conditions weakly coordinated alliances lead to miscalculation, and when and why tightly coordinated alliances might also lead to miscalculation, Christensen provides a number of insights into the complexities of international relations. Christensen argues that while it may seem that facing a united and coordinated set of enemies may appear to be dangerous, it may be just as dangerous to face a set of enemies that are uncoordinated and internally divided. This is because engaging in successful coercive diplomacy with divided enemies is more difficult. Furthermore, internal divisions can lead to mixed signals and contradictory diplomacy, both of which can increase the possibility for miscalculation.
China in 2020: A New Type of Superpower, Hu Angang (PDF)
Andrew Scobell
Writing about the rise of China and what this means for the rest of the world has become a cottage industry outside of China. Virtually all of these books, however, have been written by non-Chinese, not that one has to be Chinese to be able to understand contemporary China and engage in informed speculation about that countryðs future and its implications for the planet. Nevertheless, the opinions and ideas of most Chinese authors on these subjects tend to be inaccessible to non-Chinese speakers. The Brookings Institution has done a great service by selecting some of the most interesting and influential Chinese intellectuals and translating their writings into English in its “Chinese Thinkers Series.”
Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap Between Latin American and the United States, Francis Fukuyama
Thomas J. Trebat
The Threat on the Horizon: An Inside Account of America's Search for Security after the Cold War, Loch K. Johnson
Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism, and the Medvedev Succession, Richard Sakwa
Mikhail Alexseev