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CIAO DATE: 06/06
October 2005
Contributors
Contending cultures of counterterrorism: transatlantic divergence or convergence? WYN REES, RICHARD J. ALDRICH
Terrorist attacks on the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom have underlined the differing responses of Europe and the United States to the 'new terrorism'. This article analyses these responses through the prism of historically determined strategic cultures. For the last four years the United States has directed the full resources of a 'national security' approach towards this threat and has emphasized unilateralism. Europe, based on its own past experience of terrorism, has adopted a regulatory approach pursued through multilateralism. These divergences in transatlantic approaches, with potentially major implications for the future of the relationship, have appeared to be mitigated by a revised American strategy of counterterrorism that has emerged during 2005. However, this article contends that while strategic doctrines may change, the more immutable nature of strategic culture will make convergence difficult. This problem will be compounded by the fact that neither Europe nor America have yet addressed the deeper connections between terrorism and the process of globalization.
Greetings from the cybercaliphate: some notes on homeland insecurity DAVID MARTIN JONES, M. L. R. SMITH
One of the paradoxical effects of the 7 July bombings in London was to expose the ambivalence in the British government's attempt to wage war on terror by forcefully prosecuting war against those who resort to jihad abroad, actively participating in coalitions of the willing whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, while affording some of Islamism's key ideologists and strategists a high degree of latitude in the United Kingdom itself. This indicates a number of contradictions in official policy that simultaneously recognizes the globalized threat from violent Islamic militancy while, under the rubric of multiculturalism, tolerating those very strains of Islamist radicalism, some of which draw upon the interdependent and transnational character of conflict, to render the UK vulnerable to those very same violent forces. Consequently, the British authorities displayed a studied indifference towards this developing transnational phenomenon both during the 1990s and in some respects even after the London bombings. To explore the curious character of the government's response to the Islamist threat requires the examination of the emergence of this radical ideological understanding and what it entails as a reaction to modernization and secularism in both thought and practice. The analysis explores how government policies often facilitated the non-negotiable identity politics of those promoting a pure, authentic and regenerated Islamic order both in the UK and abroad. This reflected a profound misunderstanding of the growing source and appeal of radical Islam that can be interpreted as a consequence of the slow-motion collision between modernity in its recent globalized form and an Islamic social character, which renders standard western modernization theory, and indeed, the notion of a 'social science' itself, deeply questionable.
The future of political Islam: the importance of external variables MOHAMMED AYOOB
Much has been written about the potential of political Islam to affect in major ways the future of Muslim societies and polities around the world. However, most analyses of political Islam that explicitly try to assess its future potential concentrate on its innate characteristics as a political ideology with the propensity to mobilize its adherents for purposes of regime change or social transformation or both. Therefore, these analyses emphasize the inherent nature of, and the in-built contradictions within, Islamism. Far less has been written about the environment external to the phenomenon of Islamism, namely, the milieu in which Islamist groups operate and propagate their ideology. Moreover, only a minuscule portion of the writings on political Islam try explicitly to analyse the impact that variables external to the inherent characteristics of political Islam are likely to have on Islamism's future prospects. This article attempts to fill this gap by putting Islamism in a wider perspective and by analysing the impact of environmental factors external to Islamism as an ideology, and largely outside the control of Islamists, on the future potential of political Islam.
US democracy promotion in the Arab Middle East since 11 September 2001: a critique KATERINA DALACOURA
Promoting democracy in the Middle East has been a key foreign policy objective of the Bush administration since n September 2001. Democratizing the Arab world, in particular, is seen as an important instrument in the 'war on terror'. To help democratize the Arab Middle East, the US initiated a number of policies which, it claims, have encouraged reform. But what has really been the impact of US initiatives? This article examines the implementation of US democracy promotion policies across the Arab region, and in particular Arab countries, and argues that it has had mixed results. The article suggests three reasons why this is so. First, democracy is part of a wider set of US interests and concerns with which it is frequently in contradiction. Second, the Bush administration conceives democracy as a panacea: it overlooks the problems its implementation may cause and lacks clear ideas about achieving this implementation. Third, democracy promotion policies have limited outcomes because neither a politically neutral nor a more interventionist approach can initiate a reform process if it is not already underway for domestic reasons. On the basis of the three critiques, the article concludes with recommendations for US policy.
Killing with kindness: funding the demise of a Palestinian state ANNE MORE
This article sets out to show the widening gulf that has emerged between the international community's professed diplomatic endgame to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following a two-state paradigm, the aid strategy it has put forward since 1993 in support of this political goal, and the developments on the ground in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Within the context of a volatile Oslo peace process and the intifada, aid to the Palestinians has mainly been used as a substitute for international political will and to compensate for the lack of genuine bilateral negotiations between the parties. Aid, however, cannot buy peace. Not only has the international community's 'aid for peace' strategy failed to attain its stated political and socio-economic objectives, but it is also the central contention of this article that such international intervention has actually been harmful. Donors have ended up financing Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian territories and its expansionist agenda at the expense of international law, the well-being of the Palestinian population, their right to self-determination, and the international community's own developmental and political goals. Looking ahead, despite the widespread current optimism generated by Gaza disengagement, this does not bode well for the emergence of a viable Palestinian state or the individual and collective security of the Israeli and Palestinian people.
The predicament of 'civil society' in Central Asia and the 'Greater Middle East' OLIVIER ROY
This article discuses the concept of 'civil society' and how it has been used by the international community to promote democratization. It addresses some of the dimensions and side-effects of the policy, such as the relationship with traditional societies and power networks. It also addresses the importance of attending to the conditions of implementation, political issues such as nationalism and Islam, and political actors who may only have recent democratic credentials. Political democratization—free elections—is clearly popular in the Greater Middle East and Central Asia. During the last two years people have voted every time they have had the opportunity, despite the dangers. The debate concerning the compatibility of Islam and democracy overlooks the fact that the main obstacle to democratization in the area is usually not a religious but a secular authoritarian regime. The difficulty of building a democracy with people we do not consider to be democrats is discussed. There can be no democratization process without taking into account the mainstream Islamist parties and without acknowledging the importance of nationalism. There is a clash between the 'war on terror' approach and the call for elections: one cannot put Hamas and Hezbollah on the terrorist list and call for free elections in which both would emerge as legitimate and representative political movements.
Planning post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq: what can we learn? ANDREW RATHMELL
This article discusses the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction planning and mission management and assesses what happened under the CPA. It draws lessons for the future international effort in Iraq and for the international community as it considers how to plan and organize future such missions.
South Asia's arms control process: cricket diplomacy and the composite dialogue STUART CROFT
This is a crucial process: Indian—Pakistani relations are highly crisis prone, and the nuclear dimension may add to that. Symbols—as in all processes—have been very important, and the ability of the two countries to talk politics and play cricket has been highly significant; it symbolizes the hope for the future.
Old wine in new bottles: China–Taiwan computer-based 'information warfare' and propaganda GARY D. RAWNSLEY
This article considers the operational utility of computer-based information warfare across the Taiwan Strait. It reviews the capacity of both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan to wage offensive and defensive information warfare, and acknowledges that both sides have invested and continue to invest considerable amounts of resources into developing their information warfare ability, both have taken part in the Revolution in Military Affairs process that has redefined military strategy in an age of high-technology warfare, and computer-based information warfare will serve as part of a broader military strategy that revolves principally around conventional methods of attack and deterrence. However, using a critical security approach the article suggests that the capacity to wage computer-based information warfare is currently limited, and plays more of a psychological role in the propaganda offensive that continues across the Taiwan Strait. Hence, computer-based information warfare is 'old wine in new bottles'.
The new South Africa's foreign policy: principles and practice JAMES BARBER
This article outlines principles which, shortly before taking office in 1994, the ANC said would be the foundation for its future foreign policy. The ANC stated that their core concern was the pursuit of 'human rights', which were directly related to the promotion of democracy. Other principles included respect for international law, support for peace and disarmament, and universality. These were to be pursued in four settings. First, the global division between the First and Third Worlds as the government was concerned about economic inequality and unjust global trading systems. Second, international organizations as these were seen as central to the search for human rights, peace and equality. Third, demilitarization resulting in South Africa's forces being used for self-defence and peacemaking and keeping only. The government believed that this would produce savings which could be redirected into social development. Finally, supporting the rest of Africa as the ANC believed South Africa could not flourish if surrounded by poverty. The article examines how far the ANC governments of Presidents Mandela and Mbeki have succeeded in implementing the principles, and how far they have fallen short. The article also includes a discussion of Mbeki's policy towards Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
Nixon, Kissinger and the breakup of Pakistan, 1971 GEOFFREY WARNER
Based upon recently published American documents, this article examines the United States's policy towards the crisis which led to the breakup of Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh at the end of 1971. President Richard M. Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, deliberately kept this policy closely under their control and were guided more by geopolitical than by moral considerations. In particular, they were anxious to forge a new relationship with communist China and the contribution of the Pakistani president, Yahya Khan, in facilitating contacts between the US and China were greatly appreciated by the two men. Nixon's visceral dislike of the Indian prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, also contributed to a degree of myopia and misperception regarding India's objectives and their possible consequences. As the conflict between the rebels in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and the central government deepened and Indian involvement on the side of the rebels grew, Nixon and Kissinger saw another threat in the shape of Soviet military and moral support for India. An Indian victory would not only increase India's prestige and position vis-à-vis those of Pakistan, but tip the global balance of power towards the Soviet Union and away from the United States. Frantic diplomatic efforts, combined with scarcely veiled threats, finally succeeded in preventing the total disintegration of Pakistan, but there is some doubt as to whether this was likely in the first place and whether US policy was successful in relation to either China or the Soviet Union.
Letter to the Editor Richard Cottrell
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