By Stephen M. Walt
Most social scientists would like to think that their work helps solve important problems. For scholars of international relations, there is certainly no shortage of issues to address: ethnic and religious conflict, managing a fragile world economy, global terrorism, climate change, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the Euro crisis, etc.—the list is endless.
Read MoreBy Bernard Yudkin Geoxavier
China will likely take a conservative and self-interested approach toward the UN Security Council and future humanitarian interventions, and will thus address international and regional crises through a pragmatic case-by-case strategy. Yet within this case-by-case strategy, while China’s actions may vary, its rationale does not.
Read MoreBy Paul Carroll
North Korea poses serious international security risks that have increased since it demonstrated a nuclear weapons capacity in 2006. Nations like China and South Korea have clear interests and vulnerabilities vis-à-vis North Korea, as does the United States; these relationships are based on historical and geopolitical factors that will endure.
Read MoreBy Patrick Mendis
A series of Chinese-built ports and airfields across the Indian Ocean comprises a grand “string of pearls” strategy within which Sri Lanka has become a crown jewel. The new forces of global power are geoeconomic, in which every capital in the world—from Washington, Beijing, London, and New Delhi to Karachi, Tehran, and Tokyo—seeks out Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, as part of the twenty-first century’s latest “Great Game.”
Read MoreBy John Teton
The long-recognized human right of freedom from hunger remains unrealized because traditional remedies for addressing it continue to prove inadequate. Nonetheless, the goals of ending starvation and malnutrition worldwide can be achieved through a global commitment to the International Food Security Treaty, which will place that right under the protection of enforceable national and international laws, and catalyze the development of systems necessary to effect those goals.
Read MoreAn Interview with David S. Cohen on the Treasury’s role in addressing terrorist threats, terrorism financing, and the efficacy of sanctions.
Read MoreAn Interview with Alexander Evans on his career as an academic and diplomat, as well as policy-making and diplomacy in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.
Read MoreBy Francis J. Gavin
International relations scholars and foreign policy makers often look at each other’s profession the way a bored spouse might gaze upon a forbidden but tempting lover. To the policy maker, the impenetrable walls of the Ivory Tower seem mysterious and exotic, a place of deep reflection and refined dialogue where they can escape the vicious and politicized battles that often dominate government life.
Read MoreBy Robert Jervis
I have been interested in politics, especially international politics, for as long as I can remember. The times in which I grew up and my personal surroundings were permeated by politics.
Read MoreBy John M. Owen IV
Insofar as I remember my own thinking before I was trained in political science, my natural inclination concerning political life was toward idealism. I tended to believe that ideas—especially political ideas or ideologies—were where the action was, and I assumed that ideologies motivated people more than material interests did.
Read MoreBy Marc Trachtenberg
I started college at Berkeley in 1962 and by the end of my first year there I pretty much knew that I wanted to become an historian, and that in particular I wanted to study the history of international politics. There were times when I was not sure I would actually be able to spend my life in this field, but I did ultimately manage to get a good job and it still strikes me as a little amazing that society was willing to pay me, quite generously in fact, for doing something I really wanted to do.
Read MoreBy Wei Rixin
Whereas ultimately only history will shine light on the details of Bo Xilai's departure, it is safe to say even now that this episode reminds the CPC of the necessity and urgency of initiating overdue political reforms for China's long-term national interest as well as the good of the party.
Read MoreBy Nikolaj Werk
The West urgently has to rethink its understanding of rationality to fully grasp why its continued stricter sanctions on Iran are unlikely to bring about their intended outcome.
Read MoreBy Robert Valencia
Though FARC still poses some degree of threat to the Colombian population, the revolutionary force no longer has the clout it possessed decades ago. The deaths of its rank and file members, its dwindling military power, and mounting rejection from Colombians leave little option for FARC but to reach a peaceful yet uneasy end to the conflict. Otherwise, the Santos administration—and perhaps ensuing administrations—will continue using cutting-edge weaponry that has so damaged FARC while utilizing civilian means to encourage guerrilleros to leave the organization’s ranks and reintegrate into Colombian society.
Read MoreBy Ozge Zihnioglu
Despite their critical rhetoric and diplomatic gestures in protest the West and other Arab countries have failed to put an end to the Syrian leadership’s brutality in the more than a year since the start of the insurgency.
Read MoreBy Dwight Bashir
The Arab Spring has reinvigorated debate about the relationship between religion and state across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Missing from the debate is the idea of a “third way” – the full embrace of freedom of religion as a universal right, with a robust competition among various religious perspectives in the marketplace of ideas.
Read MoreBy Sebnem Gumuscu
The Turkish government has been using different instruments, such as democracy promotion, Islamic solidarity, and economic interdependence to foster stability while playing for greater influence over the emerging regimes. Yet this instrumentalism, which benefits Turkey in the short term, unless well-balanced by tangible support from the Turkish state in treating the new regimes as equal partners, may decrease Turkish credibility in the medium to long term.
Read MoreBy Mark Dietzen
Turkey’s state-sanctioned denial of its genocidal past and the hypocritical US failure to speak truthfully about the Armenian Genocide threatens the reputations of both as well as their respective capacities for regional and global leadership.
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