FPRI Appoints New President
Alan Luxenberg named new FPRI President
On January 31, 2012, the board of trustees of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute elected Alan Luxenberg as president of the think tank.
Luxenberg, who had been FPRI’s acting president for a year, has served the organization since 1976, when he was still a student at the University of Pennsylvania, and over the years has served in virtually every position within the organization.
He said he hoped to carry on “the FPRI tradition of marrying history and geography to inform policy recommendations,” adding that while “we have no party line at FPRI, we are not neutral.” FPRI’s scholars, he said, “work to advance the interests of the United States of America.”
In 1990 he founded FPRI’s Wachman Center (originally known as the Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education), which ever since has served as the outlet for FPRI’s educational programming, including its nationally renowned History Institute for Teachers. Faculty from over 500 schools in 46 states have participated in the History Institute, a professional development program for high school teachers.
As head of FPRI’s Wachman Center, he established a collaboration in 2005 with Mason Crest Publishers, a publisher of books for the pre-college educational market, and wrote two books designed for middle and high school students: The Palestine Mandate and the Creation of Israel (Mason Crest, 2007) and Radical Islam (Mason Crest, 2009). The Palestine Mandate is part of a 10-volume series on the Making of the Modern Middle East; Radical Islam is part of a 10-volume series on Islam. FPRI served as editorial consultant on the two book series and on an earlier book series on Modern Middle East Nations.
Luxenberg also developed partnerships with the Reserve Officers Association in Washington, DC, which today hosts many FPRI conferences, symposiums and briefings, and with the First Division Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton, Illinois, where the Institute’s annual program on military history for high school teachers is held.
In 2009, he helped establish the Consortium on Grand Strategy, which is jointly sponsored by FPRI and Temple University’s Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy. The consortium is a unique undertaking that includes faculty from 15 different institutions of higher learning in Greater Philadelphia.
He serves on the board of the Global Philadelphia Association, a consortium of internationally oriented organizations in Philadelphia, and was chairman of Forum International, a predecessor consortium. He has also served on the boards of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, Congregation Adath Jeshurun (Elkins Park), Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education, and was Steering Comittee chairman of WAC’s Forum III division (for young professionals). He founded and chaired Penn Periodicals, a consortium of journals and magazines published at the University of Pennsylvania. For six years, he taught grades 7-10 in two religious schools in Elkins Park, PA.
He received a B.A. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, and an M.A. in history from Temple University, where he was a Russell Conwell Fellow.
North Korea
David S. Maxwell
With the death of Kim Jong-il and the ensuing temporary focus on North Korea, I was recently asked some questions that I think are worth considering. In light of the negative reaction of the South Korean stock markets to the rumor that the North had conducted a nuclear test, I was asked whether the North would ever carry out the irrational act of using its very limited nuclear weapons against the South when such an action would cause the end of the regime? In addition, given the horrendous suffering of the North, many rightly question why North Koreans do not rebel against the tyrannical and criminal dictatorship -- arguably one of the worst violators of human rights in modern history -- of the Kim Family Regime (KFR)? This paper will provide some thoughts on the answers to these separate but inter-related questions. Read “Is The Kim Family Regime Rational” »
FPRI Radio - Does Eastern Europe Offer Lessons for the Arab World?
Adrian A. Basora
Ambassador Adrian Basora is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Director of the Project on Democratic Transitions, an in-depth assessment of the political, economic and social transitions of post-communist Europe/Eurasia twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Taiwan Elections
Jacques deLisle
The American political phrase, “Don’t change horses in midstream,” does not, alas, translate well in Taiwan, but it does capture much of the tone of the recent elections on the island. Voters opted for continuity over perceived risk and uncertainty—including in relations with Mainland China—when they returned President Ma Ying-jeou (whose surname, appropriately enough, means “horse”) to a second and final four-year term and gave his Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party a continued majority in the legislature. In Taiwan’s fifth fully democratic presidential election and first-ever concurrent legislative and presidential balloting, the incumbent president received 51.6 percent, outpacing his principal challenger Tsai Ing-wen’s 45.6 percent, and KMT candidates secured 64 of 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan while candidates from Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party won 40 seats. Read “Taiwan’s 2012 Presidential And Legislative Elections” »
Taiwan's Presidential and Legislative Election:
Implications for Cross-Strait Relations, U.S. Policy and Domestic Politics.
January 20, 2012
In the January 14, 2012, elections, Taiwanese voters faced a choice between giving a second term to Ma Ying-jeou—who has pursued a policy of closer economic ties and broader rapprochement with the Mainland and who has drawn criticism for lackluster leadership, economic inequality and drawing to close to the PRC—and Tsai Ing-wen—whom Beijing and opponents in Taiwan portray as reckless proponent of independence and a threat to the economic gains achieved or promised by Ma’s policies. In voting for a legislature—for the first time held jointly with the presidential election, the Taiwanese electorate face a similar choice between retaining a supermajority for Ma’s KMT or giving Tsai’s DPP a larger share.
FPRI Senior Fellows Shelley Rigger, Vincent Wang, Terry Cooke and Jacques deLisle assess the elections’ meaning and implications: Why did the winners win and the losers lose? What does the outcome portend for cross-Strait relations during the next four years? What is likely to be the impact on U.S. policy toward, and relations with, Taipei and Beijing? What are the implications for the future of Taiwan’s democracy and for the significant economic, social and foreign policy decisions Taiwan’s government faces in the near term?
Syria
Andrew Spath
Revolutionary periods have a way of compressing history. Events unfold so quickly, and the flow of information is so dense, that our ability to comprehend them is diminished. This condition pervades the present political situation in Syria, fostering numerous popular fictions that contribute to miscalculating strategies of action. Two related popular fictions stand out in assessing the prospects of prolonged civil conflict or outright civil war. The first fiction insinuates a clear bifurcation between regime supporters and regime opponents. The second fiction, related to the first, suggests that sectarian divisions define clear lines of support and opposition to the Ba‘ath regime. Read “Opposition Groups In Syria: Myths And Realities” »
Think Tanks and Foreign Policy Program
The Global “Go-To Think Tanks”:
The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations in the World
By James G. McGann
Gone are the days when a think tank could operate with the motto “research it, write it and they will find it”. Today, think tanks must be lean, mean, policy machines. The report that follows summarizes the findings of a pilot project to identify some of the leading think tanks in the world, and provides lists of what might be called the “go to think tanks” in every region.
FPRI Radio - Military Budget
Kori Schake
Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of FPRI's Board of Advisors. She discusses the U.S. military budget.
This topic was the subject of her recent Orbis article,Margin Call: How To Cut A Trillion From Defense, Volume 56, Issue 1 Winter 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Europe
Jakub Grygiel
Were the EU a term paper, a lenient professor would likely give it a D+. It does not deserve an F, as it has survived several crises and has embodied the noble attempt to pacify the European continent. Despite persistent rumors and a perennial sense of foreboding, the EU has not failed yet. And the doggedness of European leaders—manifested by frequent meetings, multiple revisions of their agreements, willingness to expend their nations’ treasure, an obstinate defense of the euro—is akin to a student’s perseverance in editing a paper during an all-nighter. Surely, this counts for something and deserves a few points lifting the grade a bit. Read “One Market, One Currency, One People? The Faulty Logic Of Europe” »
Demograhy and the Arab Spring
Richard Cincotta
Much has been written about the circumstances that led Middle East experts to be blindsided by the successful series of popular demonstrations that kicked off the Arab Spring in December 2010. Little, if any, mention has been made, however, of an article describing the relationship between demography and democracy (“How Democracies Grow Up”) that was printed on the pages of Foreign Policy in March of 2008 — more than two-and-a-half years before pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets in Tunisia. In that essay, I describe a simple model driven by population age structure (the distribution of population by age) that can be used to statistically forecast democratization, with reasonable success. Read “Demography And The Societal Timing Of The Arab Spring” »
Venezuala
Vanessa Neumann
As if the world needed further evidence, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s new political appointments in the early days of January confirm his regime’s descent into militant narcoterrorism and increases the possibility of a coup d’état by a military junta should Chávez lose his grip on power either through his cancer (from which he dubiously claims to now be cured) or through an electoral defeat on October 7. Read “Venezuela Heads Deeper Into Militant Narcoterrorism” »
Of Related Interest
Egypt
Raymond Stock
German poet Heinrich Heine famously warned, "Where they have burned books, they will end by burning people." But the December 17 burning of Cairo's Institut d'Egypte on the first anniversary of the self-immolation of the Tunisian vegetable vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, which sparked the Arab Spring, stands the oft-used dictum on its head. In Egypt, especially, what was billed as a triumph of liberal democracy over dictatorship has rapidly morphed into an Islamist Spring feeding on the tumult of permanent revolution. After roughly a thousand deaths in protests since January (with many thousands more lost in surging crime), the dissolution of most of the nation's police, the dismantling of the formerly ruling National Democratic Party, the elimination of the State Security agency (replaced by a smaller, less-efficient National Security entity), and the virtual closing of the Israeli embassy, the January 25th Revolution has now, alarmingly, claimed its first intellectual institution as a casualty. Read “House Of Dust” »
Orbis
Edited by Mackubin T. Owens
Featuring:
- Margin Call: How To Cut A Trillion From Defense, Kori Schake
- China's Naval Rise And The South China Sea: An Operational Assessment, Felix K. Chang
- Confronting A Powerful China With Western Characteristics, James Kurth
- Religious Relations Across The Taiwan Strait: Patterns, Alignments, And Political Effects, Deborah A. Brown and Tun-jen Cheng
- Jordan: Between The Arab Spring And The Gulf Cooperation Council, Samuel Helfont and Tally Helfont
- The Arab Spring And The Saudi-Led Counterrevolution, Mehran Kamrava
- India's ‘Af-Pak’ Conundrum: South Asia In Flux, Harsh V. Pant
- Intelligence And Grand Strategy, Thomas Fingar
- The Reform Of Military Education: Twenty-Five Years Later, Joan Johnson-Freese
Complete Table of Contects and links to all articles
North Africa
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman
The year 2011 may well be remembered as a transformative one in the history of modern Arab states, a moment in which societies across the Middle East and North Africa "kicked back," after decades of unbridled domination by authoritarian state structures. But the verdict is still very much out, and already one can say that those who were in the vanguard of the protests have been replaced by a variety of groups, most important of which are Islamist movements. Read “North Africa’s Democratic Prospects” »
This essay is based on a presentation to a symposium on Contemporary Challenges Facing North Africa, sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Reserve Officers Association, November 30, 2011.
Audio of this symposium.
Hezbollah And Venezuela
Vanessa Neumann
Press stories, as well as a television documentary, over the past two months have detailed the growing cooperation between South American drug traffickers and Middle Eastern terrorists, proving that the United States continues to ignore the mounting terrorist threat in its own “backyard” of Latin America at its own peril. A greater portion of financing for Middle Eastern terrorist groups, including Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, is coming from Latin America, while they are also setting up training camps and recruiting centers throughout our continent, endangering American lives and interests globally. Some Latin American countries that were traditional allies for the U.S. (including Venezuela) have now forged significant political and economic alliances with regimes whose interests are at odds with those of the U.S., particularly China, Russia and Iran. In fact Iran and Iran’s Lebanese asset, “the Party of God,” Hezbollah, have now become the main terror sponsors in the region and are increasingly funded by South American cocaine. Read “The New Nexus Of Narcoterrorism” »
Military Ethics And Irregular Warfare
Colonel Tony Pfaff
Traditional military ethics accepts that soldiers have a reasonable interest in taking the least risk possible when conducting operations. However, when that risk is transferred to noncombatants, these same ethics require soldiers to observe the constraints of proportionality and discrimination to limit how much risk they transfer. In this view, assuming extra risk on the part of soldiers is obligatory, at least up to the point of mission failure. Since the limits of risks are identified with the requirement to accomplish missions, preserving lives of soldiers is experienced more as a concession to the requirements of military necessity and not an obligation itself. Read “Risk, Military Ethics And Irregular Warfare” »
Pennsylvania Homeland Security
Eli S. Gilman
Since the events of September 11, 2001, homeland security has become one of the most important responsibilities at all levels of government. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, however, systemic inefficiencies arose that precluded progress under the former governance structure. In particular, these inefficiencies stifled the ability of the state to perform virtually any of the Critical Infrastructure Protection duties intended to facilitate the resiliency of the Commonwealth through the identification of assets, the analysis of risk, and the development of strategies to mitigate that risk. While some attempts were made to address these issues in the decade since 9/11, the results mostly exacerbated existing issues rather than instilling any long-term solutions. Read “Risk And Re-Org” »
Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs
Lorenzo Vidino
The Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest and most influential Islamist movement. It was founded in Egypt in 1928. And, like most of the grassroots movements that appeared in Egypt at the time, it was strongly opposed to colonial rule and advocated Egyptian independence. But while most of the movements that opposed British colonialism at the time in Egypt took from Western ideologies, the Brotherhood based its discourse on Islam. Creating what would become the model of generations of Islamists, the Brotherhood saw in Islam the answer to Western military, political, economic, and cultural influence over the Muslim world. Read “The Muslim Brotherhood” »
The Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs was established in 1996, with a gift from John M. Templeton, Jr., M.D., president of the John Templeton Foundation. In 1995, Dr. Templeton retired from his medical practice to serve full-time as president of the Foundation. After receiving a B.A. from Yale University, Dr. Templeton earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained in pediatric surgery under Dr. C. Everett Koop at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. After serving two years in the U.S. Navy, in 1977 he returned to CHOP, where he served on the staff as pediatric surgeon and trauma program director. He also served as professor of pediatric surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Templeton has published numerous papers in medical and professional journals, in addition to two books, A Searcher’s Life and Thrift and Generosity: The Joy of Giving.
Kim Jong Il
Gilbert Rozman
Monday, December 19, 2011
FPRI Senior Fellow, Gilbert Rozman, comments on the death of Kim Jong Il, future developments in North Korea and the implications for the region and U.S. foreign policy.
From the FPRI Archive
- North Korea: The Nadir of Freedom, Kondgan Oh, May 2007
- Status and Leadership on the Korean Peninsula, David C. Kang, Orbis Fall 2010
- The End Of History: `Neojuche Revivalism' And Korean Unification, Victor D. Cha, Orbis Spring 2011
- The Twin Peaks Of Pyongyang, Ralph C. Hassig and Kongdan Oh, Orbis Winter 2006
- Putting Together the North Korea Puzzle, Kongdan Oh and Ralph Hassig, June 2009
- Understanding the Koreas: A Report of FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers, June 2005
Vaclav Havel
Adrian Basora
Monday, December 19, 2011
FPRI Senior Fellow, Adrian Basora, comments on the death of Vaclav Havel and the lessons to be learned from Czechoslovakia in the 1990s for democratization efforts.
As U.S. Ambassador in Prague, 1992-95, Mr. Basora worked with Czech and Slovak leaders to assure a successful transition during the periods preceding and following Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Divorce." He led implementation of American assistance programs and guided U.S. policy in support of the Czech transition to a successful market economy and consolidated democracy, thus helping to lay the groundwork for Czech entry into NATO, the OECD and the European Union. Contact Information »
Egypt
Raymond Stock
Mubarak had cautioned that if he gave up the presidency at that time, chaos would follow, and the feared Muslim Brotherhood rise to power. Overwhelmingly, the media and regional experts dismissed his claims as the fear-mongering of a dictator desperately clinging to his job. But since then, events seem to have proved him right and those who mocked him wrong. That may be shocking to some—and hardly amounts to an excuse for many aspects of his rule. Yet it does reveal the actual complexity of what had seemed a simple case of the people bringing down a tyrant. Instead, the demonstrators gave the military a pretext to remove a flawed leader about to install his son, Gamal (who was not one of their own) to succeed him, replacing him with something worse, with even worse likely to come. Read “The Islamist Spring” »
Teachers' Conference
April 21-22, 2012
FPRI’s Wachman Center, in association with the First Division Museum at Cantigny, is proud to be presenting their seventh weekend-long conference for teachers on subjects in military history. On April 21-22, we will be focusing on great battles and how they have shaped American history. We are proud to feature the leading scholars and practitioners on the subject. Complete Conference Information »
Previous History Institutes on Military History
Including audios, videos, papers and lesson plans.
Program on Teaching Military History
Egypt
Eric Trager
Friday, December 2, 2011
FPRI Associate Scholar, Eric Trager, comments from Cairo on developments in Egypt and the implications for U.S. foreign policy.
Teaching The Middle East:
Between Authoritarianism And Reform
Adam Garfinkle
In September 2002 Adam Garfinkle wrote “What Our Children Should Learn about 9/11.”.
"My first point was that our children should know the facts. My second point was that, once they had a grounding in the facts, our children should not abjure moral judgment. My third point was that our children should learn to make both analytical and moral distinctions. And last, my fourth point was that our children must learn to live with uncertainty, and specifically to understand the difference between living in fear and living with fear. That’s a subtle distinction in language, but a huge distinction in reality, and in regard to the implications for policy.
Ten years have passed since 9/11 and more than nine years have passed since I wrote that piece. I would not change a word had I to write it over again, but I have learned plenty over the past decade. I have therefore found the exercise of reflecting on this short essay quite illuminating, if also a little disheartening. Without repeating that little essay to you now, I want to go back over each of the four points, especially the first one, in order to reflect on what the past decade has wrought." Read “What Our Students – And Our Political Leaders – Don’T Know About The Middle East” »
Amin Tarzi
Since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has never been free of political intrigue. However, since the disputed June 2009 presidential election, the level of intrigue has increased. And the recent pubic rift between the two highest office holders—the unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the elected president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad—may very well be pushing Iran and the Islamic Republic regime close to the brink. While the denouement of this latest political wrangling has yet to be written, the “writing on the wall” suggests that the results will be anything but anti-climactic. Read “Iran’s Internal Dynamics” »
The Middle East and the US in Geopolitical Perspective
Michael S. Doran
October 16, 2011 / Philadelphia, PA
These presentations were part of Teaching The Middle East: Between Authoritarianism And Reform, a History Institute for Teachers.
Jordan
Tally Helfont
In recent weeks, a contentious debate has arisen in Jordan over what should be done about the country’s troublesome northern neighbor, Syria. Though the Jordanians, like many others in the region, were mostly preoccupied with their own internal troubles over the past eight months, there has been a palpable change in the discourse on Syria in the kingdom. Indeed, the recent slew of activities by the Arab League has brought the Syrian troubles to the fore. However, it was two other major events that sparked the intensification of this debate in Jordan—namely, King Abdullah II’s recent BBC interview in which he conceded that Bashar al-Assad had lost the legitimacy to rule and the subsequent attack on the Jordanian embassy in Damascus by pro-Assad, Syrian protesters. Read “Jordan’s Quandary Over Syria” »
Samuel Helfont and Tally Helfont
No Arab state has been able to ignore the sweeping changes of the Arab Spring. It has dominated the Arab language news, and changed the perceptions of millions about what is politically possible. Yet in each society, the demands for change have manifested differently. In Egypt and Tunisia, the people were able to topple their respective regimes through peaceful protests. In Syria and Libya, the demonstrations have increasingly turned into bloody clashes and civil war. In Bahrain, what started as a call for reform, quickly spiraled into sectarian politics and culminated in violent confrontations. Caught between all of this is one of America’s staunchest allies in the region and one of only two Arab states to have officially made peace with Israel. The small, yet strategically located Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is now teetering on the edge of the Arab Spring. Read “Jordan’s Protests: Arab Spring Lite?” »
FPRI Annual Dinner Keynote Address
Reflections on the Arab Spring
Fouad Ajami
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Fouad Ajami was presented with the Seventh Annual Benjamin Franklin Public Service Award and gave the keynote address at FPRI's 2011 annual dinner. The event was attended by over 360 people. Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. was dinner chairman.
Hezbollah
Benedetta Berti
While the Middle East undergoes fast-paced, dramatic social and political change, Hezbollah has been trying its best to shield itself from the process that has been redefining the balance of power and reshuffling the political cards in the region—focusing instead on consolidation and continuity. Read “Can Hezbollah Cope With A Changing Middle East?” »
Wilson Ramos
Vanessa Neumann
The November 9 kidnapping and subsequent rescue of Major League Baseball player Wilson Ramos, a catcher for the Washington Nationals, has shone a spotlight on Venezuelan crime rates. Unfortunately, his kidnapping was commonplace; only his swift and successful rescue is a rarity. Read “Kidnappings In Venezuela” »
Related Interest
Asia Program Conference
Friday, November 4, 2011
China’s long-term rise and its recent international assertiveness have made long-standing and recently emerging issues of relations along China’s periphery matters of pressing international concern. The rapid development that has provided the material underpinnings for China’s rapid rise as a regional power has been fueled partly by economic integration along China’s periphery. Foreign investment flows, integration in a regional supply chain that feeds global markets and burgeoning intraregional trade have made Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and other states in East Asia key participants in China’s rise and eroded the economic significance of political borders in the region.
This conference addresses this complex cluster of issues.
Featuring presentations by:
- Michael Green, Georgetown University and Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Sheila Smith, Council on Foreign Relations
- John Garver, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Allen Carlson, Cornell University
- Jacques deLisle, FPRI and University of Pennsylvania
- Michael C. Davis, University of Hong Kong
Keynote address by Michael Green on Implications for U.S. Policy and Interests
Video and audio of presentations.
Materials from earlier FPRI Asia program conferences
Happy Birthday USMC
Frank G. Hoffman
In an era in which our national security establishment is being asked to consider draconian cuts as part of the Nation’s reaction to its strained fiscal health, it behooves us to truly understand the unique character of the institutions that make up our armed services. More specifically, on this date, celebrated around the world as the 236th birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps, we should pause and appreciate the particular contributions that our Corps of Marines provides for us and the great value the Nation garners from its investment in its Force-in-Readiness. Read “The Marine Mask Of War” »
Related Interest
- The Marines: 235 Years Of Individual Valor And Institutional Adaptation, Frank Hoffman, 11/2010
- Reflections on Memorial Day, Mackubin Thomas Owens, 5/22/2009
- The Marines: Premier Expeditionary Warriors, Frank Hoffman, 11/2007
- A New Maritime Strategy: Navigating Uncertain Waters, Frank G. Hoffman, 11/3/2006
- Changing Tires on the Fly: The Marines and Postconflict Stability Ops, Frank G. Hoffman, 9/10/2006
- Iwo Jima and the Future of the Marine Corps, Mackubin Thomas Owens, 2/23/2005
Transnationalism
John Fonte
The concept of “global governance” is in the air. For many of the world’s elites—who gather at places like Geneva, Davos, The Hague, UN headquarters in Manhattan, and wherever the G20 meets—global governance is the “big idea.” Leading thinkers argue that today’s global issues are too complex for the “obsolete” nation-state system. Major political leaders say that “global problems require global solutions.” We are told that “sovereignty” must be redefined as something that is “shared” or “pooled.” Read “Sovereignty Or Submission” »
Afghanistan Two: The Unnecessary War?
Hon. Dov S. Zakheim
The “policy wonks” who assume high government office after an election rarely think about implementation. They act as if executing policies is a job for somebody else. At the very end of my book, I quote the famous line by Leona Helmsley: “taxes are for the little people.” For policy wonks, implementation is for the little people. They don't worry about such matters; their concern is to make policy. Read “How We Failed In Afghanistan” »
Intelligence, Policy, and the Iraq War
Joshua Rovner
The major national security controversies over the last decade have revolved around intelligence. Critics blamed the intelligence community for failing to alert policymakers before the September 11 attacks, but others argued that the White House ignored intelligence that warned of the looming danger. Critics of intelligence also blamed it for exaggerating Iraq’s capabilities and terrorist links before the war, but others argued that White House pressure caused intelligence leaders to inflate the threat. And the continuing controversy over estimates of the Iranian nuclear program has convinced some observers that the intelligence community is deliberately seeking to constrain policy. As these examples attest, it is impossible to understand contemporary strategic debates without thinking about the role of intelligence in strategy. Read “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq” »
Middle East Media Monitor
Michael Sharnoff
After weeks of massive popular protests against his rule, Mubarak resigned in February 2011. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf, replaced Mubarak as a transitional regime. Shortly after assuming power, the SCAF declared they would honor previous commitments, including the peace treaty with Israel. However, with the rise of anti-Israel sentiments in the post-Mubarak era, the SCAF appears caught in a complex web of satisfying popular aspirations, which oppose or have reservations about the peace treaty with Israel, while not abandoning the strategic dividends the treaty has produced.” Read “Post-Mubarak Egyptian Attitudes Toward Israel” »
Gilad Stern and Yoram Schweitzer
What began as the Arab Spring, and is now being referred to as the long Arab Summer due to its inconclusive aftermath, has been commonly perceived by the media and academia as an indicator of al Qaeda’s downfall. The main reason for al Qaeda’s apparent demise was the assumption that the turmoil had depleted the movement’s relevance, relegating it to the sidelines. After decades of preaching that the only way to remove the corrupt tyrannies of the Muslim world was by armed and violent jihad, the relatively peaceful overthrow of Zine El Abidine Bin-Ali and Hosni Mubarak through mass demonstrations seemed to prove al Qaeda's teachings were wrong. This setback to the movement’s narrative not only challenged al Qaeda’s ideology, some even argued that it undermined its very existence. However, within this discourse, little attention was given to al Qaeda’s own perception of these Middle East uprisings.” Read “Al Qaeda’s View Of The Arab Spring” »
Benedetta Berti
On June 30, after a lengthy and much delayed investigation, the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) finally issued the indictments of four individuals accused of having been involved in the plotting and execution of the assassination of Lebanese PM, Rafic Hariri, in February 2005.
Confirming the rumors that had existed in Lebanon since at least the summer of 2010, the first suspects to be indicted by the tribunal are also members of Hezbollah. Unsurprisingly, the release of the indictments has produced very strong reactions, both from within the ranks of Hezbollah's supporters as well as from its political opponents, further shaking the already precarious foundations of the Lebanese political system. Read “Hezbollah On Trial” »
- The Arab Summit That Wasn’t And The Deterioration Of Iraqi Politics, Samuel Helfont, 7/2011
- An Enemy From Within: The Iranian Regime And The New Political Challenge, Raz Zimmt, 6/2011
- Turkish Media Coverage Of The Western Intervention In Libya, Sevil Çakir Kilinçoglu, 5/2011
- The Rise And (Future) Fall Of A Turkish-Iranian Axis , Gallia Lindenstrauss and Yoel Guzansky, 4/2011
- Qaradawi's Return and Islamic Leadership in Egypt, Aaron Rock, 3/2011
- WikiLeaks in the Arab Press, Tally Helfont, 2/2011
Iraq
Eric Davis
The end of 2011 will mark a watershed in U.S.-Iraqi relations. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that the United States and Iraq signed in December 2008 calls for all American forces to leave Iraq by December 31, 2011. While it is still unclear whether U.S. troops will remain in Iraq beyond this year, there is little doubt that U.S.-Iraqi relations will undergo significant change. What will that change look like? Will it mean a substantial decline in U.S. influence in Iraq? In light of Iraq’s strategic importance both in the Middle East, and to U.S. regional interests, as well as the importance of its continued efforts at democratization, what form should U.S. policy take after the drawdown of U.S. troops?” Read “U.S. Foreign Policy In Post-SOFA Iraq” »
Iraq
Yoel Guzansky, Jonathan Schachter and Gallia Lindenstrauss
Maritime chokepoints are among the most sensitive locations where geography, trade, and politics meet. The challenges posed by Middle Eastern chokepoints, in particular, were evident even before the massive dependence on oil of the twentieth century. These points have become increasingly volatile in recent years, and especially since the Arab uprisings began. Complications include increased regional instability and aggravation of existing threats, preeminently piracy, terrorism, and the challenges posed by Iran.” Read “Between Piracy And Persia” »
Middle East Circa 2016
Martin Kramer
When I received the assignment for today, it reminded me of that 1999 book, Dow 36,000. At the time the authors wrote it, the Dow stood at 10,300, and the book became a bestseller. But today the Dow is only 20 percent higher than it was then-it’s only at 12,700. Last February, one of the co-authors wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Why I Was Wrong About ‘Dow 36,000’.” “What happened?” he wrote. “The world changed.” Well, what a surprise. Now there was a lot of talk that sounded like “Middle East 36,000” just a couple of months ago. This is a new Middle East, everything you thought you knew is wrong, bet on revolution and you´ll be rewarded handsomely with democracy. Let’s face it: Americans like optimistic scenarios that end with all of us rich and the rest of the world democratic. There’s much in the American century since World War Two to foster such optimism. But while you enjoy reading your copy of “Middle East 36,000.” I’m going to quickly tell you what’s in the small print in the prospectus-the part that’s in Arabic.” Read “The Middle East Circa 2016” »
Hertog Program on Grand Strategy
Walter A. McDougall
A classic treatise on grand strategy specifically addressed the geopolitics of the Pacific Rim in the aftermath of the First World War. Its cautionary conclusion warned that great powers drawn to compete for commerce and empire in the vast vacuum of the North Pacific invariably over-reached. Bids for hegemony by Spain and Portugal, then Britain and Russia, had already been thwarted and the likelihood in the 20th century was that Japan would be tempted to overreach followed, perhaps, by the United States. Read “History And Strategies” »
Stuart J. Kaufman
U.S. grand strategy is entering into a period of limited resources in which the U.S. will have no choice but to pull back from some international commitments: perceived fiscal constraints probably will drive U.S. retrenchment in the coming years. The U.S. situation driving this cutback is in some ways similar to the one experienced by Britain in the 1960s, when financial constraints forced Britain to abandon its global role. The reason for the coming American retrenchment is not, however, that the US cannot afford to maintain its current commitments, but rather that Americans refuse to pay for the government services-civilian and military-that they demand. America’s long-term fiscal problem, and the coming American retrenchment, is primarily the result of domestic politics, not economics. The Republican policy of "starving the beast" will increasingly be starving the national watchdog; the Democrats will again turn to cutting guns to preserve funds for butter. Read “Too Cheap To Rule” »
Don M. Snider
It is usually assumed that one of the principal strategic means in which the United States held a comparative advantage was in our human resources, the men and women serving in our armed forces. While I do not disagree with that contention, I offer a cautionary note particularly about our ground forces which by all accounts are now, after a decade of war, utterly exhausted. Thus, it is not so clear to me that the human fabric from which we have woven our professional forces into units of effective land power will be able to hold their professional edge amidst the near-term reductions in funding and forces structure now envisioned for the Department of Defense. Read “Leadership For Military Professions” »
Additional products from the Hertog Program
- Intelligence And Grand Strategy, Thomas Fingar
- Sovereignty - The Ultimate States' Rights Argument, Anna Simons, 7/2011
- Defining And Teaching Grand Strategy, Timothy Andrews Sayle, 1/2011
- Leveraging Strength: The Pillars of U.S. Grand Strategy in World War II (26 pages, 170K
 ), Tami Davis Biddle, Orbis Winter 2011
- Small Is Beautiful: The Counterterrorism Option In Afghanistan, Austin Long Orbis Spring 2010
- Can the United States Do Grand Strategy?, Walter McDougall, 4/2010
- The Promise and Failure of American Grand Strategy after the Cold War, Jeremi Suri, 3/2010
- Winning The Wars We're In, John Nagl, 11/2009
Afghanistan - NATO Training Mission
LTG William B. Caldwell, IV
Commander, NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan
September 13, 2011
As commander of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, LTG Caldwell will provide an update on the Afghan military and police. He will consider the evolution of Afghan forces during his nearly two years in Kabul and highlight future challenges for creating an enduring force. Complete event onformation
Audio of Beyond the Tenth Year: The Afghan National Security Force.
William B. Caldwell, IV. and Derek S. Reveron
Ten years ago, Afghanistan was politically fractured, economically irrelevant, and socially repressive. The Taliban government, recognized by only three countries at the time, reduced the nation’s GDP per capita to under $170, almost completely destroyed public infrastructure, and ruptured Afghanistan into a conglomeration of belligerent localities, geographically isolated from one another. Afghanistan hosted al-Qa’ida and we soon learned what the latest National Military Strategy of the United States underscored, “In this interdependent world, the enduring interests of the United States are increasingly tied to those of other state and non-state actors.” Afghanistan is no exception. Read “Beyond The Tenth Year In Afghanistan” »
Chinese Politics
Jacques deLisle
The Xinhuamen—the New China Gate—is the formal entrance to Zhongnanhai—the South and Central Seas that are part of the former imperial park and that have long housed the compound where China’s top elite live and work. Just inside the gate stands, in Chairman Mao Zedong’s calligraphy, the slogan wei renmin fuwu—“serve the people.” The implied message is that building a new China—here, the People’s Republic—means “serving the people.” I begin with this reference to, and an overview of, the Mao Era—the first nearly three decades of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) (1949-1976)—because so much of what has gone on during the Reform Era—the last third of a century of rapid and radical change—depends on what went on before, partly as a reaction against it and partly as a continuation of past patterns.” Read “Politics And Governance In The People’s Republic Of China” »
Iraq and the Bomb
Hal Brands and David Palkki
On March 27, 1979, Saddam Hussein, the de facto ruler and soon-to-be president of Iraq, laid out his vision for a long, grinding war against Israel in a private meeting of high-level Baathist officials. Iraq, he explained, would seek to obtain a nuclear weapon from “our Soviet friends,” use the resulting deterrent power to counteract Israeli threats of nuclear retaliation, and thereby enable a “patient war”—a war of attrition—that would reclaim Arab lands lost in the Six Day War of 1967. As Saddam put it, nuclear weapons would allow Iraq to “guarantee the long war that is destructive to our enemy, and take at our leisure each meter of land and drown the enemy with rivers of blood.” Read “Why Did Saddam Want The Bomb?” »
Taiwan
June Teufel Dreyer
The current state of U.S.-Taiwan relations leaves much to be desired. A recent analysis describes the island’s narrowing options, tracing a trajectory toward absorption by China. Given a continuation of current trends, it is difficult to disagree with this conclusion. It is my belief that U.S. actions bear a large measure of responsibility for this drift, and that for two major reasons—first, to ensure its national security and maintain regional peace; and second, to remain true to its own founding beliefs, the United States must make efforts to reverse this drift. Read “Why Taiwan Matters” »
Russia and the Arab Spring
Stephen Blank
By June 2011, the Arab revolutions had evolved into a series of disconnected but increasingly violent civil wars—particularly in Libya and Syria. The international community has certainly not been spared the effects of these wars. As a long-time patron—if not an ally—of these states, Russia views these trends with mounting anxiety. These revolutions and civil wars pose three serious challenges or even threats to Russia. Read “Russia’s Anxieties About The Arab Revolution” »
Arab Uprisings
Theodore Friend
The journalistic notion of an "Arab Spring" is faulty on two counts. Climatologically, from Morocco to Yemen, it is absurd; there is no such season. It is also misleading, because analogy with the "Prague Spring" of 1968 runs into the unhappy fact that protests by Czech citizens against their imperial masters were crushed by Soviet tanks. The Cold War did not thaw out until two decades later. Read “The Arab Uprisings Of 2011” »
China's Leadership Transition
Jacques deLisle
Beijing’s current Taiwan policy is likely to remain in place as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) begins a transition from the so-called fourth-generation leadership headed by President and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao to the fifth generation leadership headed by Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. This shift, which will formally begin in 2012, may be accompanied by leadership changes in the other two polities that matter most for cross-Strait relations, with the incumbent presidents in Taiwan and the United States both facing reelection challenges. Given the crisis-prone history of cross-Strait relations during much of the last decade and a half, the common connection between changes in leadership and changes in policies, and the risk of an adverse reaction in Beijing to the content or outcome of the presidential campaign in Taiwan, the relatively bright prospects for sustaining current cross-Strait policies are a reflection of the remarkably strong—but still possibly insufficient to prevail—interests and preferences favoring continuity and stability in China’s Taiwan policy. Read “Beijing’s Taiwan Policy” »
Taiwan
Jacques deLisle
The question of Taiwan's sovereignty and status generally evokes three strands of discussion. First, does Taiwan meet the criteria for statehood or something very close to statehood in the international system—and specifically in international law? Here the locus classicus is a dusty old document called the Montevideo Convention that states what most people consider to be the standard under customary international law. What does it take to be a state? According to the Convention, there are four criteria. Read “Taiwan: Sovereignty And Participation In International Organizations” »
Fort Hood
Clint Watts
Major Nidal Hasan’s killing of his fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas undermines the common trust binding America’s all-volunteer, multi-ethnic military force. Hasan’s violence forces all service personnel to take an introspective look at their organization and persistently assess the possibility of extremists in their ranks. After Hasan’s attack, many questioned the U.S. military’s ability to recruit, train and retain Muslim military members without exposing service members to violent extremism. Unfortunately, Hasan’s violence against fellow soldiers and fellow Americans is not unique. Recent history offers repeated examples of current or former military members conducting violent attacks in support of many different extremist causes. To ensure the integrity and safety of the all-volunteer force, the U.S. military needs a structured approach to assessing and mitigating the threat of lone-wolf extremists in the ranks. Read “Major Nidal Hasan And The Fort Hood Tragedy” »
Of Related Interest
Libya and International Law
Jeremy Rabkin
It was a February decision of the UN Security Council that invited the Criminal Court to take jurisdiction over events in Libya. Any one of the leading NATO powers (the United States, Britain and France) could have vetoed that resolution but they all welcomed the intervention of the international prosecutor. The United States did insist on excluding itself (and other non-parties to the ICC treaty) from the resolution conferring special jurisdiction on the Court. Other NATO states supported wording that would cover their own forces in Libya.
Proximate and ultimate motivations may be disputed, but the consequences are clear. We are now fighting—or at least, conducting some sort of armed intervention—by very constraining rules. Read “Libya: Our First Cosmopolitan War? ” »
Afghanistan
By Larry Goodson and Thomas H. Johnson
On May 20, 2010, General Stanley McChrystal, then the American commander in Afghanistan, referred to the operation in Marjah, Helmand—an operation earlier touted as a potential turning point for U.S. Afghan counterinsurgency (COIN)—as a “bleeding ulcer.” Immediately, we were reminded of a similar expression from an earlier Afghan War. On February 1986, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev speaking to the 27th General Congress of the Communist Party posited that the Soviet war in Afghanistan had become a “bleeding wound.” Was McChrystal’s comment just an unfortunate choice of words or a harbinger that the United States faced a Soviet-style disaster in Afghanistan? Read “Parallels With The Past” »
Missile Defense
By Captain George V. Galdorisi, USN (Retired) and Scott C. Truver, Ph.D.
An exchange between George Galdorisi, Scott Truver, and James Jay Carafano stimulated by Carafano’s earlier FPRI E-Note “Resetting Missile Defense,”. Read “Resetting Missile Defenses: Setting The Matter Straight” »
By James Jay Carafano
What’s changed in the last few years? Pretty much both political parties now agree that missile defenses are integral to America’s national security. They serve to protect and defend the homeland from the threat of ballistic missile attack. Defenses cover US deployed forces and assets overseas. They also safeguard friendly and allied nations.
There is consensus as well that there are threats worth defending against. Currently, at least 30 countries in the world have ballistic missile technologies. True, some of these nations are our friends. The mere fact, however, that ballistic programs have become so ubiquitous demonstrates that robust defenses should now also be axiomatic. Read “Resetting Missile Defenses” »
Special Report
Glevum Associates, a firm run by FPRI Senior Fellow Andrew Garfield, has just released a report of probably the most extensive survey to date of Yemen's population.
The survey dealt with how Yemenis feel toward their government, Jihad and violence, and the role of the United States in the Middle East. The survey was conducted over a one week timeframe in late January and polled a representative sample of 1,005 Yemeni adults from eight city regions.
Findings include:
- President Saleh still enjoys some support in the country.
- Support for US intervention in Yemen is almost zero.
- AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) has a disquieting level of support within Yemen.
Glevum Associates provides in-depth social science research and human terrain analysis to a variety of global clients, including the U.S. Government and military. Utilizing focused face-to-face research tools, their in-country teams directly engage local populations to offer their clients a detailed understanding of community attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs, and monitor the impact of U.S. funded programs sponsored in host nations.
Read “2011 Yemen Stability Survey” » (40 pages, 1.12 MB )
See also:
FPRI brought together a group of experts to discuss the survey as well as recent developments, including the reported shift in US policy toward a public role in easing Yemen's President out of office despite his cooperation in fighting Al Qaeda.
FPRI's panel includes Andrew Garfield, founder of Glevum Associates, Curtis Cobb, a survey methodologist with Glevum, and Christopher Swift, an attorney and political scientist.
This event took place on Thursday, April 14.
For additional information contact Alan Luxenberg at (215) 732-2774 x105 or lux@fpri.org
Humanitarian Intervention
By James Kurth
The final collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought a definitive end to the Cold War. It also brought an end to an international system defined by two superpowers and the beginning of a new global system defined by only one, the United States. The prevailing American ideology of international affairs—its literal worldview—had long been liberal internationalism, and the United States promptly proceeded to reshape global affairs according to its precepts. Now, two decades after its beginning, the global ascendancy of the United States and its ideology seems, to many observers, to be approaching its own end. It is an appropriate time, therefore, to review and reflect upon the course of liberal internationalism over the past two decades and, in particular, to discern what its recent transformation into liberal transnationalism may mean for America’s future. Read “The New Liberalism In Global Politics” »
See also:
Philadelphia's Maritime History
By Nicholas Pagon
Few cities can claim a more extraordinary historical legacy than Philadelphia. This claim may initially seem grandiose, but it is rather a matter of ascertainable history; and the mere fact that it might be considered grandiose, even by so many of its own citizens today, is itself somewhat extraordinary and worth exploration. The evolution of what is now sometimes referred to as the Pax Americana—as an emotive terminology expressing the degree of influence America genuinely does have in the world today, and considering all that this term really implies, including the political, the economic, and the military—truly took its initial form right here. The various influences which led to the American form of Democracy, the American manifestations of individual and religious freedom (and of individual rights and responsibilities), the American forms of economic enterprise (in most all of its guises), the American ideals of civic participation (even in contention), and even much of the American military (especially naval and marine), all truly first coalesced in this city—and then, evolving, spread back outwards to the world. This process began well before the events of the American Revolution—even if that is indeed its most famous manifestation; and it continued well into the early 20th century—even as Philadelphia gradually ceded pre-eminence in politics and the military to Washington and in economics to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. This is a spectacular legacy indeed, and the words “Philadelphia Freedom,” therefore, do still have some measure of resonance around the world even today. Read “Philadelphia: How One City’s Maritime History Changed The World” »
Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs
By June Teufel Dreyer
The current state of U.S.-Taiwan relations leaves much to be desired. A recent analysis describes the island’s narrowing options, tracing a trajectory toward absorption by China. Given a continuation of current trends, it is difficult to disagree with this conclusion. It is my belief that U.S. actions bear a large measure of responsibility for this drift, and that for two major reasons—first, to ensure its national security and maintain regional peace; and second, to remain true to its own founding beliefs, the United States must make efforts to reverse this drift. Read “Complete testimony” »
Testimony before the
U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission
China’s Narratives Regarding National Security Policy
The Chinese narrative emerges most clearly from Chinese-language publications on the great powers, including the United States, and on challenges in East Asia, notably in 2010 those related to North Korean belligerence and regionalism involving both Northeast and Southeast Asia. It is part of an orchestrated, top-down expression of Chinese national identity. There are divergent views, but not direct contradictions. Read “Rozman testimony” »
My testimony focuses on Chinese national security policy narratives that are specifically directed at Americans. China’s propaganda – or, “information management” – officials craft different narratives for domestic and foreign audiences, respectively. The information management apparatus is well-funded and occupies an elite position within the Chinese party-state. It has authority to dictate media coverage priorities within China and to coordinate with the Chinese policy experts who speak frequently to foreign media outlets and intellectuals. In addition, the propaganda overseers take advantage of technological tools that enable, for instance, selective denial of access to websites within China. Finally, they benefit from the language barrier that prevents many Chinese people from reading news from other countries. We should consider what Chinese authorities are trying to achieve whenever there are disjunctions between what is said at home and abroad on national security policy. Read “Newmyer testimony” »
Economics In History
By Lucien Ellington
Historians work in a discipline with few inherent concepts and are obliged to draw upon many fields in recreating the past. Yet authors of most school history texts, state and national standards and curriculum materials seldom incorporate economic analysis in their work. Just look at state standards that include Adam Smith and John Locke but draw no connections between their economic thought and contemporary institutions, to world history texts that treat the British Industrial Revolution as a virtual crime against humanity
This essay’s objective is to integrate an economic perspective into five common topics that are taught, depending upon the course, in every world or U.S. history survey class; Ancient Greece and Rome, Imperial China, Colonial English America, the British Industrial Revolution, and the U.S. depression of the 1930s. An annotated list of pedagogical resources for topics is also included along with general resources. Read “Economics In History: What Every High School Student and Teacher Needs to Know” »
FPRI Featured Articles
FPRI's Program on National Security held a conference on the foreign fighter problem, September 27-28, 2010, in Washington, DC at the Reserve Officers Association, which cosponsored the conference. General William Ward, Commander of US Africa Command, delivered a videotaped message to the conferees, and Terence Ford, Director of Intelligence and Knowledge Development for US Africa Command, delivered the keynote. Read “The Foreign Fighter Problem: Recent Trends And Case Studies” »
From the FPRI Archive July 2003
By Philip Jenkins
... there is a long record of antipathy between America and at least certain Muslim states, if not Islam itself. Muslims in America have been trying for a long time to make themselves recognized as fully American. Two years ago, they thought they had achieved their greatest victory when finally the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp with the Arabic words for Eid Mubarak, “blessed holiday.” In a case of disastrous timing, the stamp came out on September 1, 2001. But the achievement of that stamp showed that Muslims had the self-confidence to feel deserving of representation as an American community. Politicians now routinely speak of church, synagogue and mosque. It is ironic in light of recent events that one of the great criticisms of the Bush administration in its first few months was that it was too closely tied to Muslim causes in this country. Read “Islam in America” »
For Educators
By Josiah Bunting III
The generation of George Marshall, the American generation born between roughly 1880 and 1900 or 1905, was also such a generation. The British historian Paul Johnson considers it the “ablest in our history, almost as good as that of the American founders.” This is the generation bounded roughly by 1880 extending all the way up to include the people that led the United States during the Cold War, Walter Isaacson’s so-called “wise men.” Read “Gen. George C. Marshall And The Development Of A Professional Military Ethic” »
By Thomas G. Rawski
China’s remarkable economic boom, now in its fourth decade, has spawned numerous discussions of “China’s Rise.” Beijing’s self-congratulatory slogan “China’s peaceful rise” has advanced this theme. From a historical perspective, however, this terminology seems misplaced. Both the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) empires occupied key positions in Asian trade and diplomacy. Crude figures compiled by Angus Maddison, author of several sweeping studies of global economic history, show China contributing nearly one-third of global output as late as 1820. The great boom of the late twentieth century has enabled China to regain some of the global economic weight and leverage that the Middle Kingdom enjoyed during the Ming and much of the Qing eras. Read “The Rise Of China’s Economy” »
By Sumit Ganguly
If you examine the panoply of former British colonies, the case of India is exceptional for its liberal and democratic institutions. The vast majority of British colonies either did not emerge as democratic states or quickly succumbed to the temptations of authoritarian rule. Consider states such as Kenya in East Africa, Malaysia, or even Sri Lanka, which remains nominally a democratic state but, in reality, has become an ethnocracy, privileging the majority community. India’s twin, Pakistan, has undergone long periods of military rule and has not seen democratic consolidation even when brief democratic openings have appeared. Read “The Story Of Indian Democracy” »
By Evelyn S. Rawski
Chinese attitudes towards their traditional civilization have reflected the shifting political agendas of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the early twentieth century, some intellectuals identified Confucianism as a major barrier to the creation of individuals who could participate in building modernity. In the words of the short story writer Lu Xun, filial piety and other Confucian values had imprisoned individuals, forcing them to sacrifice their own dreams to perpetuate the family. It, along with Buddhism and Daoism, had to be destroyed so that a new society could arise in China. Read “Confucius In A Business Suit” »
By Thomas B. Gold
There is a curse attributed to an ancient Chinese philosopher which goes, “may you live in interesting times.” (I learned recently that this curse was likely made up by an unknown foreigner and not a Chinese after all.) Yet, as I prepared this presentation about Chinese society, I could not help keeping my eyes on the unfolding political events in the Middle East, and North Africa as well as post-earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster Japan, and asking questions at the very root of Sociology: what makes social order possible? How do societies hold together, if they do, in the face of inconceivable and unprecedented breaches of their accustomed ways of doing things? How do the leaders of these societies think about and try to plan for, to quote a popular business book, “Black Swans” – highly improbable events? Read “Understanding Chinese Society” »
FPRI Recent Articles and Audio
- Notes On Teaching 9/11, Alan Luxenberg, 9/2011
- America Ten Years After 9-11, Edward A. Turzanski, 9/2011
- Beyond The Tenth Year In Afghanistan: Security Force Assistance And International Security, William B. Caldwell, IV. and Derek S. Reveron, 9/2011
- 9/11 And U.S.-China Relations, Jacques deLisle, 9/2011
- The Disruptive Cost Of Fear - Our Desire To Return To The World Of September 10Th And What It Has Cost Us, Lawrence A. Husick, 9/2011
- What Students Can Learn From Steve Jobs, Lawrence Husick, 9/2011
- The Summer Of Canadian Content—2011, David T. Jones, 8/2011
- Why Did Saddam Want The Bomb?, Hal Brands and David Palkki, 8/2011
- Do The Post Communist Transitions Offer Lessons For The Arab World?, Adrian A. Basora, 8/2011
- Jordan’s Protests: Arab Spring Lite?, Samuel Helfont and Tally Helfont, 7/2011
- Sovereignty – The Ultimate States’ Rights Argument, Anna Simons, 7/2011
- The Arab Summit That Wasn’t And The Deterioration Of Iraqi Politics, Samuel Helfont, 7/2011
- Russia’s Anxieties About The Arab Revolution, Stephen Blank, 7/2011
- More E-Notes »
FPRI Radio
Briefings - Audio
- Contemporary Challenges Facing North Africa, Symposium, 11/30/2011
- India's Multiple Revolutions, Sumit Ganguly, 10/21/2011
- The Rise of China and Taiwan's Response: Implications for the United States, Yeong-kuang Ger, 10/14/2011
- Al Qaeda and Jihadi Movements After Bin Laden, Christopher Swift, 10/05/2011
- Beyond the Tenth Year: The Afghan National Security Force, LTG William B. Caldwell, IV, 9/13/2011
- The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Samuel Helfont and Tally Helfont, 9/09/2011
- How Does China’s Naval Rise Matter to South and Southeast Asia?, Felix Chang, 7/6/2011
- Cyberspace: The Next Battlefield, Lawrence Husick, 6/16/2011
- Egypt, Regime Change, and The Muslim Brotherhood, Symposium, 5/24/2011
- The Evolution of Revolution: Latin America and the Future of Chavismo, Dr. Vanessa Neumann, 5/6/2011
- Bin Laden's Demise and Its Implications, Panel Discussion, 5/4/2011
- Can There Be An “After-Socialism”?, Alan Charles Kors, 4/28/2011
- Reflections on the Arab Uprisings, Abdallah Schleifer, 4/21/2011
- Panel Discussion, 2011 Yemen Stability Survey, 4/14/2011
- The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al Qaeda, Peter Bergen, 4/10/2011
- Fighting Transnational Cartels in the Western Hemisphere, Robert Killebrew, 4/7/2011
- The Second Arab Revolution, Michael Doran, 3/28/2011
- EGYPT: An Eyewitness Report, Eric Trager, 2/9/2011
- The Geopolitics Of Northern Mexico And The Implications For U.S. Policy, David Danelo, George W. Grayson, 1/20/2011
Recent BookTalks - Audio
- The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square, Steven A. Cook, 1/11/2012
- Political Demography: How Population Changes are Reshaping International Security and National Politics, Jack Goldstone, Monica Duffy Toft and Richard Cincotta, 12/13/2011
- Russia’s Past, Present and Future, David Satter, 12/01/2011
- Woman, Man, and God in Modern Islam, Theodore Friend, 12/08/2011
- Hard Line: The Republican Party and US Foreign Policy Since World War II, Colin Dueck, 9/22/2011
- Sovereignty or Submission: Will Americans Rule Themselves or Be Ruled by Others?, John Fonte, 9/14/2011
- A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan, Dov S. Zakheim, 7/27/2011
- A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism, Daniel Byman, 7/20/2011
- Radicalization and Counter-radicalization in America: An Update, Peter Neumann, 6/29/2011
- Why Hitler Lost, Andrew Roberts, 6/15/2011
- The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East, Timur Kuran, 3/24/2011
- U.S. Civil-Military Relations after 9/11: Renegotiating the Civil-Military Bargain, Mackubin Thomas Owens, 3/4/2011
FPRI Featured Orbis Articles
By Jacques deLisle / Fall 2010
Soft power, like so much else in relations between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan, is asymmetrical and freighted with implications for U.S. policy and U.S.-China relations. For China, soft power largely serves—or strives—to reduce alarm (or at least reaction) among other states concerned about China’s new-found hard power or, perhaps more realistically, the hard power that China’s economic rise can underwrite. Much of the value for Beijing of soft power is—and is likely to remain for quite some time— its potential contribution to reducing the likelihood that other states will react to China’s rising hard power in ways that could threaten China’s interests.
Read Soft Power in a Hard Place:
China, Taiwan, Cross-Straight Relations and U.S. Policy »
By Kenneth Allard / Winter 2010
While we have always assumed a neat institutional distinction between the United States’ internal defenses and the military power mobilized to protect its international interests, are porous borders and trans-national syndicates blurring those boundaries?
Read Change and the American Security Paradigm »
By James Kraska / Winter 2010
Coupling its new asymmetric naval force to visionary maritime strategy and oceans policy, China ensured that all elements of national power promoted its goal of dominating the East China Sea. The United States, in contrast, had a declining naval force, maritime strategy focused on lower order partnerships, and a national oceans policy that devalued strategic interests in freedom of navigation. Read How the U.S. Lost the Naval War of 2015 »
FPRI Featured Footnotes
By James Sanzare, December 2005
James Sanzare taught social studies in the Philadelphia School District for over thirty years and has visited 200 countries or other territorial entities. This paper is a report on his 2005 trip to Libya. Read “To the Shores of Tripoli” »
By John Calvert, May 2010
Shiism is the second-largest denomination of Islam, after Sunni Islam. Today, the Shia comprise about 10 percent of the total population of Muslims in the world. Read “Shiism: What Students Need to Know” »
By John Calvert, April 2010
It is the mark of a great world religion to accommodate different outlooks and sensibilities. According to the majority Sunni view, the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 C.E. without naming a successor. If Muhammad had had a son, the Muslims at Medina might easily have settled the issue of the succession, but the one son born to the Prophet died in infancy. Read “Sunni Islam: What Students Need to Know” »
- Defending U.S. Maritime Commerce In Peacetime From 1794 To Today, James Bradford, 9/2010
- The U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers In American History, Todd Shallat, 8/2010
- Why The Military Makes Public Health A Priority, Sanders Marble, 7/2010
- The Military’s Role in Stimulating Science and Technology: The Turning Point, Kathleen Broome Williams, 5/2010
- The U.S. and Iran in Historical Perspective, Shaul Bakhash, 9/2009
- Teaching the Long War and Jihadism, Mary Habeck, 10/2009
- The U.S. Navy in World War II, James Kurth, 9/2009
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