CIAO DATE: 10/2012
Volume: 88, Issue: 5
September 2012
Pragmatism or what? The future of US foreign policy (PDF)
David Milne
This article discusses the intellectual sources of the presidential candidates' foreign policies. In the case of Barack Obama, the article examines the formation of his worldview, his intellectual inspirations, his most significant foreign policy appointments and the diplomatic course he has pursued as president. Mitt Romney’s foreign policy views are harder to identify with certainty, but his business and political career - as well as the identity and dispositions of his advisory team-all provide important clues as to the policies he will pursue if elected in November 2012. The article finds much common ground between the two candidates; both are results-driven pragmatists, attuned to nuance and complexity, who nonetheless believe that US geostrategic primacy will continue through the span of the twenty-first century. The gulf between the candidates on domestic policy is vast, but on foreign policy - Romney’s bellicose statements through the Republican primaries served a purpose that has passed - there is little between them.
Bush, Obama and a faith-based US foreign policy (PDF)
Lee Marsden
On the eve of the 2012 presidential election, this article considers the claims for a faith-based foreign policy by examining the construction of a faith-based discourse by academics and successive presidents. Using faith-based initiatives and USAID as a case-study, the article discusses criticisms of the policy and focuses on the role of a conservative evangelical organization, Samaritan’s Purse, to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of faith-based approaches. The article argues that advocates of faith-based foreign policy, in seeking special privileges for ecumenical religious actors, overlook their declining international significance and the opportunities afforded to less tolerant but more populist religious actors which have the potential seriously to harm US foreign policy objectives.
Over-promising and under-delivering? Ambitions and risks in US defence strategy (PDF)
Travis Sharp
Recent changes to US defence strategy, plans and forces have placed the United States at greater risk of over-promising and under-delivering on its global security ambitions. In 2012, the Obama administration released a new defence strategic guidance document to adapt to a shifting security environment and defence budget cuts. The guidance upholds the two long-standing American goals of global pre-eminence and global reach, but seeks to apply this military power by using new planning and regional concepts. It revises the Department of Defense's force planning construct, an important tool used to size US military forces, and identifies the Asia–Pacific and the greater Middle East as the two regions where the US military should focus its attention and resources. There are three major risks facing this revised US strategy: emerging security threats, the role of US allies and partners, and domestic constraints in the United States. Included in these risks are the proliferation of advanced military technologies, the US response to the rise of China, the continued prevalence of state instability and failure, the capability and commitment of NATO and other US allies, additional US budget cuts, political polarization in the United States, and interservice competition within the US military. In light of these risks, the United States faces a future in which it will continue to struggle to direct its military power towards its most important geopolitical priorities, such as rebalancing towards the Asia–Pacific, as opposed simply to respond to the many security surprises that are certain to arise. If the past is any guide, American political leaders will respond to the aforementioned risks in the worst way possible: by maintaining the current US defence strategy while slashing the resources to support it.
Justifying sacrifice: Barack Obama and the selling and ending of the war in Afghanistan (PDF)
Trevor Mccrisken
Since taking office, United States President Barack Obama has attempted to refocus and revitalize the US war against terrorism. The centrepiece of this effort has been an increased emphasis on the war in Afghanistan, which he has characterized as the real frontline of the war on terror-as opposed to the ‘distraction' of the Iraq war. After years of fighting under the Bush administration, Obama has had to ‘sell' to the US public the renewed effort in Afghanistan and bordering Pakistan in order to maintain support for his policy. In speeches and other public pronouncements, Obama has drawn heavily on the idea of ‘sacrifice' to justify the deepening of the commitment to the war, arguing that the costs of the war are necessary in order to keep the US safe from further terrorist attacks. This article explores this symbolic engagement with the sacrifices being made in the name of keeping the United States ‘safe' from terrorism. It considers whether this approach resonates with public and elite opinion; it also considers the sustainability of underlying public support for the war and analyses how Obama has adapted his approach in order to fulfil his goal of drawing the US intervention to a close. While Obama appears to have judged well the price that the US public is willing to pay to defend against terrorism, it is argued that there are major risks involved in using the central principle of sacrifice when justifying the war. Obama has risked creating a ‘sacrifice trap' whereby the more emphasis is placed on the sacrifices being made, the more necessary it becomes to demonstrate outcomes that make those sacrifices worthwhile. Obama's ultimate objective of withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan may yet be undermined, therefore, by the justifications he has given for the continued importance of the commitment.
Escaping from American intelligence: culture, ethnocentrism and the Anglosphere (PDF)
Richard J. Aldrich, John Kasuku
The United States and its closest allies now spend over $100 billion a year on intelligence. Ten years after 9/11, the intelligence machine is certainly bigger-but not necessarily better. American intelligence continues to privilege old-fashioned strategic analysis for policy-makers and exhibits a technocratic approach to asymmetric security threats, epitomized by the accelerated use of drone strikes and data-mining. Distinguished commentators have focused on the panacea of top-down reform, while politicians and practitioners have created entirely new agencies. However, these prescriptions for change remain conceptually limited because of underlying Anglo-Saxon presumptions about what intelligence is. Although intelligence is a global business, when we talk about intelligence we tend to use a vocabulary that is narrowly derived from the experiences of America and its English-speaking nebula. This article deploys the notion of strategic culture to explain why this is. It then explores the cases of China and South Africa to suggest how we might begin to rethink our intelligence communities and their tasks. It argues that the road to success is about individuals, attitudes and cultures rather than organizations. Future improvement will depend on our ability to recognize the changing nature of the security environment and to practise the art of ‘intelligence among the people'. While the United States remains the world's most significant military power, its strategic culture is unsuited to this new terrain and arguably other countries have adapted to it better.
The UN Arms Trade Treaty: arms export controls, the human security agenda and the lessons of history (PDF)
Mark Bromley, paul holtom, Neil Cooper
The UN conference to negotiate an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) concluded on 27 July 2012 without reaching consensus on the text of a draft treaty and saw both the US and Russia calling for more time to negotiate. The ATT process marks the latest in a series of attempts to insert human security concerns into arms export controls. The setback in July raises questions about the current level of international support for the human security agenda, as well as the relative power of different actors to shape global governance structures. This article locates the ATT negotiations in the broader history of multilateral efforts to regulate the international arms trade, from the 1890 Brussels Act to post-Cold War initiatives. The historical record shows that such efforts are more likely to succeed if they are negotiated or imposed by major arms exporters. The introduction of human security concerns, as well as the merging of export control and arms control agendas, went some way towards reversing this trend. In particular, it created a broad international coalition of supportive states and NGOs from the global North and South. Yet disagreements over the purpose of an ATT remained. The draft ATT included human security provisions, but China, Russia, the US and a number of emerging powers ensured that state security considerations remained paramount in decision-making on arms exports. The US was the first major actor to announce its unwillingness to sign the draft ATT in July 2012 and two alternative interpretations of US actions are considered. The article concludes by considering the options available to supporters of the ATT process following the 2012 conference and examines the notion that the ATT campaign has become an initiative ‘out of its time’, one that might have had success in the 1990s but not in current circumstances.
Climate security, risk assessment and military planning (PDF)
Chad Michael Briggs
Climate and environmental changes pose emerging and unique challenges to international security-as the global community experiences issues of food insecurity, severe droughts and floods-and have cascading impacts on energy supplies and infrastructure. Environmental hazards may shift abruptly, posing new risks to vulnerable systems and critical nodes in ways that diverge from historical experience. Effective risk assessments and planning will require understanding of how climate change will affect natural disasters and disaster response, and how hazards may be more extreme or unique from past experiences. This article discusses the role of climate change in affecting security planning from a military perspective, and how integration of scientific data and intelligence methods can foster assessment and effective response.
Resource wars: searching for a new definition (PDF)
Jasper Humphreys
The use of the phrase ‘resource wars' covers an ever-widening list of categories that range from minerals and oil to rhino horn, timber and much more; anchored around this milieu are phrases like ‘natural security' and ‘environmental security'. While this proliferation has splintered the identity of the phrase ‘resource wars', the more worrying impact is that it has allowed governments to ignore pressing problems related to biodiversity and the environment because the solutions are deemed too complex, time-consuming, and expensive with indeterminate outcomes. However, failing to address these problems not only increases the risk of conflict but also leads to a lack of trust in governments with the result that they risk being seen as ‘the enemy of the people'. A first step to avoid this negative spiral should be to rethink the phrase ‘resource wars'.
Mainstreaming the environment into postwar recovery: the case for 'ecological development' (PDF)
Richard Milburn
Twenty years on from the original Rio Summit and the emergence of sustainable development, which first raised awareness of the importance of the environment to humanitarian development, significant strides have been taken to integrate environmental considerations into humanitarian development, but such considerations still remain largely ostracized from core security and humanitarian theory and practice. An important issue and opportunity is therefore being ignored. This article argues that an evolutionary step beyond sustainable development is now required, both to unite under a common banner the work on this subject carried out to date, and to encourage further practical and theoretical work to be carried out to mainstream the environment into postwar recovery. To enable this transition, this article suggests adopting the concept of ‘ecological development'. This concept of using the management and development of the environmental resources of water and biodiversity to mitigate conflict, promote peacebuilding and a transition from conflict towards peace-and a subsequent durable post-conflict recovery-is then expounded, demonstrated through case-studies of two very different conflicts, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Afghanistan. The article concludes that through the implementation of ecological development, environmental management should be mainstreamed into security and humanitarian development theory and practice in order to promote a more durable and effective methodology for post-conflict recovery in the twenty-first century.
Review article: Obama and the third Bush term: towards a typology of Obama studies (PDF)
Timothy J. Lynch
Twenty years on from the original Rio Summit and the emergence of sustainable development, which first raised awareness of the importance of the environment to humanitarian development, significant strides have been taken to integrate environmental considerations into humanitarian development, but such considerations still remain largely ostracized from core security and humanitarian theory and practice. An important issue and opportunity is therefore being ignored. This article argues that an evolutionary step beyond sustainable development is now required, both to unite under a common banner the work on this subject carried out to date, and to encourage further practical and theoretical work to be carried out to mainstream the environment into postwar recovery. To enable this transition, this article suggests adopting the concept of ‘ecological development'. This concept of using the management and development of the environmental resources of water and biodiversity to mitigate conflict, promote peacebuilding and a transition from conflict towards peace-and a subsequent durable post-conflict recovery-is then expounded, demonstrated through case-studies of two very different conflicts, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Afghanistan. The article concludes that through the implementation of ecological development, environmental management should be mainstreamed into security and humanitarian development theory and practice in order to promote a more durable and effective methodology for post-conflict recovery in the twenty-first century.
Book Reviews (PDF)
Books reviewed in this issue
International Relations theory
The Eurocentric conception of world politics: western international theory, 1760-2010. By John M. Hobson.
The concept of the political. By Hans J. Morgenthau. Edited by Hartmut Behr and Felix Rösch.
Mao's China and the Sino-Soviet split: ideological dilemma. By Mingjiang Li.
A dictionary of 20th-century communism. Edited by Silvio Pons and Robert Service.
International organization, law and ethics
Justice and the enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11, and the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. By William Shawcross.
Hybrid and internationalised criminal tribunals: selected jurisdictional issues. By Sarah Williams.
Sentencing in international criminal law: the approach of the two ad hoc tribunals and future perspectives for the international criminal court. By Silvia D'Ascoli.
The new protectorates: international tutelage and the making of liberal states. Edited by James Mayall and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira.
Corruption and misuse of public office: second edition. By Colin Nicholls QC, Tim Daniel, Alan Bacarese and John Hatchard.
Conflict, security and defence
Manhunt: the ten-year search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad. By Peter Bergen.
Governance, civil society and cultural politics
Sex and world peace. By Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli and Chad F. Emmett.
After secularism: rethinking religion in global politics. By Erin K. Wilson.
Political economy, economics and development
Finance and the good society. By Robert J. Shiller.
Energy, resources and environment
Global health governance. By Sophie Harman.
Phake: the deadly world of falsified and substandard medicines. By Roger Bate.
The European Union as a leader in international climate change politics. Edited by Rüdiger K. W. Wurzel and James Connelly.
International history†
Documents on British policy overseas: series III, volume VIII: The invasion of Afghanistan and UK-Soviet relations, 1979-1982. Edited by Richard Smith, Patrick Salmon and Stephen Twigge.
Marigold: the lost chance for peace in Vietnam. By James G. Hershberg.
Ending empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and post-war decolonization, 1945-1973. By Simon C. Smith.
The sorrows of Belgium: liberation and political reconstruction, 1944-1947. By Martin Conway.
The devil in history: communism, fascism, and some lessons of the twentieth century. By Vladimir Tismaneanu.
Molotov: Stalin's cold warrior. By Geoffrey Roberts.
Europe
Hungary: between democracy and authoritarianism. By Paul Lendvai.
Turkey: what everyone needs to know. By Andrew Finkel.
National and European foreign policies: towards Europeanization. Edited by Reuben Wong and Christopher Hill.
Russia and Eurasia‡
Deception: spies, lies and how Russia dupes the West. By Edward Lucas.
Restavratsiya vmesto reformatsii: Dvadtsat' let, kotorye potryasli Rossiyu. By Vladimir Pastukhov.
The political economy of Putin's Russia. By Pekka Sutela.
Putin's United Russia party. By Sean P. Roberts.
Russian politics: the paradox of weak state. By Marie Mendras.
Roads to the temple: truth, memory, ideas, and ideals in the making of the Russian revolution, 1987-1991. By Leon Aron.
Power games in the Caucasus: Azerbaijan's foreign and energy policy towards the West, Russia and the Middle East. By Nazrin Mehdiyeva.
Middle East and North Africa
Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: inside an authoritarian regime. By Joseph Sassoon.
The Saddam tapes: the inner workings of a tyrant's regime, 1978-2001. By Kevin M. Woods, David D. Palkki and Mark E. Stout.
The Syrian rebellion. By Fouad Ajami.
The battle for the Arab Spring: revolution, counter-revolution and the making of a new era. By Lin Noueihed and Alex Warren.
Lebanon: the politics of a penetrated society. By Tom Najem.
Lebanon adrift: from battleground to playground. By Samir Khalaf.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Catastrophe: what went wrong in Zimbabwe? By Richard Bourne.
South Asia
Pakistan on the brink: the future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West. By Ahmed Rashid.
The future of Pakistan. By Stephen P. Cohen and others.
Religion and conflict in modern South Asia. By William Gould.
East Asia and Pacific
Maonomics: why Chinese communists make better capitalists than we do. By Loretta Napoleoni.
Korean unification: inevitable challenges. By Jacques L. Fuqua Jr.
Escape from Camp 14: one man's remarkable odyssey from North Korea to freedom in the West. By Blaine Harden.
Latin America and Caribbean
Haiti: a shattered nation. By Elizabeth Abbott.
Fixing Haiti: MINUSTAH and beyond. Edited by Jorge Heine and Andrew S. Thompson.
Bolivia: refounding the nation. By Kepa Artaraz.
The Amazon from an international law perspective. By Beatriz Garcia.