The RCEP minus India: Reasons and Implications
The RCEP was to be a potent vehicle to support the spread of global production networks and reduce the inefficiencies of the multiple prior Asian trade agreements. Yet India still pulled out. Why?
Indonesia’s Global Maritime Fulcrum: Confronting Maritime Irregular Warfare’s Twin Threats in the South China Sea and Maritime Southeast Asia
This paper examines Indonesia’s Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF) initiative, and its present and future importance, primarily in combating the threat of maritime irregular warfare (MIW) in Southeast Asia. Specifically, it references the rise of grey-zone operations in the South China Sea, particularly by China.
How a Population of 4.2 Billion Could Impact Africa by 2100: The Possible Economic, Demographic, and Geopolitical Outcomes
Since the United Nations released the 2017 edition of its annual World Population Prospects report that predicted a surge in the population of Africa as early as 2050, African leaders and development economists have debated how the continent should prepare. This article analyzes Africa's looming demographic explosion and its likely consequences to help provide the foundational knowledge required for African leaders to make informed policy decisions.
The Indic Roots of Espionage: Lessons for International Security
In international scholarship, the enormous Indic legacy on formulating and categorizing spy networks is more or less forgotten. This analysis will address this void in scholarship by shedding light on the sophisticated Indic spy system.
Three to Tango: Argentina, IMF, and Debt
An examination of Argentina’s current political economy reveals that many structural vulnerabilities persist to this day. Will the current IMF program work?
A Post-Arms-Control World: The United States, Russia, and a New Policy Paradigm after the INF
As this historically significant arms-control treaty unravels, two of the world’s superpowers are heightening the potential for military conflict.
On The Taming of Free Speech
In the 1920s, the ACLU brought civil liberties to the forefront of political discussion. Despite the Bill of Rights being in place, the inability of the judiciary to act on civil liberties caused constraints on the relationship between the state and its citizens. As a result, civil liberties had limited effects on society. As an example of the shifts in civil liberties, Weinrib focuses on the creation of the ACLU as an offshoot of the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM) with an agenda to press the U.S. government for the expansion of civil liberties during WWI. In doing so, the author illustrates the conflict between citizens and the state over civil liberties and the aim of the AUAM to create a balance between social interests and to promote civil liberties.
Confucius Corrects The Communist Party
The return of Confucius as a notable figure in the Chinese government's public presentation has been the subject of substantive scholarly discussion. Unlike much of this work, however, the present paper engages two questions difficult to assess within pure academia: how does the government fare when judged from a traditional perspective it now uses to justify its own actions, and what effects, if any, would closer adherence to that tradition have on modern governance?
Women in Afghanistan: The Forgotten Objective
The US decision to focus on civil rights and institutions as a part of an overall counter-insurgency strategy was not a mistake. The suggestion that the United States has no obligation to address women’s rights in the negotiation process because “such rights have never existed in most of Afghanistan” is an insult to the thousands of women that have sacrificed for the American ideals of freedom and equality pushed by the Allies since 2001.
The Nuclear Spectrum
Much of the public discourse on nuclear security is based on the implications of binary scenarios: a nuclear state versus a non-nuclear one. This approach does not account for the fact that beyond these two positions lies a spectrum of relative nuclear capabilities and characteristics. Factors that determine the position of a state in this nuclear spectrum include the size of its nuclear arsenal, its delivery capabilities, the vulnerabilities of its nuclear infrastructure, and its tactical deployment strategy. The state’s relative position, in turn, produces different security implications.
The Second Wave?
It is clear that while the momentum of the Arab Uprisings of 2011 had been arrested – and, in Egypt, Syria, and Bahrain, reversed or crushed – the root causes that brought them about still exist and have, in most states, not been addressed and are “burning embers under the ashes.”
The Superpower and the “Stans”: Why Central Asia is Not “Central” to the United States
Although Central Asia stands as a region of strategic importance, relations between the United States and the five Central Asian republics are limited in scope. Why? [T]he absence of a Central Asian lobby, the nature of the many “linkages” between the “Stans” and other nearby Great Powers, and the onset of a “New Cold War” between Russia and the West impede the fostering of greater ties between the United States and the Central Asian republics. Central Asia’s importance from a U.S./Western perspective will also likely continue to dissipate unless local elites implement significant reforms in the near future.