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1561. The Climate-Security Century: Three Climate Hotspots

Author:
Mark Nevitt
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The climate-security century is here. With global temperatures rising, climate change is poised to massively destabilize the physical environment. This century may well be defined by our ability (or inability) to reduce our collective greenhouse gas emissions. We must also adapt and respond to climate change’s multivariate security impacts. From raging wildfires in Australia and California to melting ice sheets and permafrost in the Arctic, climate change acts as both a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflict. Climate change is also unlike any other traditional security threat. It accelerates and exacerbates existing environmental stressors—such as sea level rise, extreme weather, drought, and food insecurity—leading to greater instability. Climate change impacts are already taking center stage this century, forcing us to think more broadly about climate change’s relationship with human security and national security. Complicating matters, climate-driven temperature increases do not rise in a neat, uniform fashion around the globe. The pace of climatic change unfolds unevenly and erratically. Some parts of the world—such as the Arctic—are warming at a rate two to three times faster than the rest of the world. Three specific climate-security “hotspots” foreshadow greater destabilization and serve as climate “canaries in a coal mine”—a sneak preview of our climate-destabilized future.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, National Security, and Human Security
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1562. Forget China: A Policy for an Interconnected Region

Author:
Scott McDonald
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The United States (U.S.) must approach the growing assertiveness and revisionism of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by deemphasizing its importance to U.S. policy formation. Although this will seem counterintuitive to most observers, it is an important first step in placing the very real challenges posed by the PRC in their appropriate context. Neither is this to suggest the intentions and actions of the PRC do not pose a serious threat to the interests of the U.S., for in many areas they do. However, in crafting foreign policy, the U.S. government must first focus on promoting and defending its own interests. By contrast, the popular emphasis on “countering” other states is a second-handed approach that cedes the initiative and allows one’s adversary to control one’s policy. That is not to say that U.S. policy should not, where appropriate, be confrontational. Washington should not feel the need to kowtow or appease an increasingly aggressive Beijing. However, any action—cooperative or confrontational—must be taken in pursuit of a larger, positive purpose. The starting point for any policy towards the PRC, therefore, is a grand strategic approach to the Indo-Pacific as a region. It lies in a positive, provalue orientation towards building the world in which the U.S. wants to live.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and United States of America

1563. The Siren's Song of Coast Guard Behavioral Norms in the Western Pacific

Author:
Marc Zlomek
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Since 2014, naval forces operating in the Western Pacific have agreed on the need to moderate operational assertiveness against the risk that a miscalculation on the water could lead to wider confrontation. Increased activity by coast guards in these waters dictates that the same considerations should apply to white hull vessels. In 2015, President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China committed to developing behavioral norms for coast guards. The fact that six years later no such coast guard norms have materialized even though the naval services provide a readily adaptable blueprint is curious, to put it diplomatically. In April 2014, the 21 member-navies of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium approved the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) to promote communication and operational safety when their vessels met. In November 2014, the United States Secretary of Defense and the Chinese Minister of Defense signed a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on The Rules of Behavior for Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters (The Rules or Rules of Behavior). The Rules, which took root during the 2013 Sunnylands Summit between President Obama and President Xi, are meant to reduce the risk of an incident at sea and to promote confidence building between the United States and Chinese military. CUES and The Rules are similar in many respects and share the same fundamental purpose of reducing the risk of an incident at sea. During the 2015 Sunnylands Summit, President Obama and President Xi committed to developing similar measures for coast guards. At the time, China took the position that the China Coast Guard was not covered by the existing instruments. While no such coast guard version of The Rules exists, the China Coast Guard’s astounding growth and militarization, combined with the United States Coast Guard’s increased regional presence, serve to underscore the need. As detailed in this article, the very bureaucratic reorganization that transformed the China Coast Guard into a military service now make the existing Rules of Behavior easily applicable. The two sides do not need a new coast guard specific agreement but could voluntarily apply the existing Rules of Behavior to white-hulled vessels as they do to gray-hulled vessels. The solution of adapting the Rules of Behavior used by the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) and the United States Navy (USN) to the United States and China Coast Guards is so simple that its failure to materialize begs the question of whether China wants shared expectations for coast guards or if it believes that operational unpredictability better serves its strategic interests.
Topic:
Armed Forces, Navy, Norms, and Coast Guard
Political Geography:
Asia-Pacific

1564. Adversaries or Competitors: A Conversation on U.S. - China Relations with David Dollar

Author:
Dylan Land and David Dollar
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Fletcher Security Review (FSR): How would you characterize the relationship between the U.S. and China today? Are the two countries adversaries or competitors? How might this change under the Biden administration? Dr. David Dollar (DD): The relationship is very complicated. In some ways, the U.S. and China are collaborators on a global order and global public goods, and they are obviously competitors in a healthy economic sense—the same way the U.S. competes with Japan or Western Europe—but then I would say the U.S. has legitimate security concerns about China. I don’t think China is an adversary, but there’s the risk that it becomes an adversary. China is really the only country in the world powerful enough to be a threat to the United States, so that potential threat colors the relationship. As far as the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration, some of the measures President Trump has taken are perceived as harsh toward China, but he has given them a pass on other things. He has not personally raised issues of human rights or democracy. Trump is perceived as someone who has respect for strongmen around the world, so I think in some ways the U.S. under President Trump has given China a pass, while being tough in other areas. I would expect the Biden administration to be more consistent; it will certainly raise human rights and democracy issues, and it will continue some of the sanctions that deal with national security. I’m hoping the Biden administration rationalizes the economic policy because clearly the trade war with China has not worked, so we need to try something different.
Topic:
National Security, Interview, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

1565. The Future of the Eurasian Economic Union

Author:
Katia Glod
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) was established in 2015 and incorporates five countries of the former Soviet bloc—Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. The declared goal of the project was to create a common market with 180 million consumers, coordinate economic policies, and eliminate non-tariff barriers. The idea behind the EAEU was to revive the economic ties that had broken down when the Soviet Union dissolved by facilitating better growth and more trade. Its member states claimed that the EAEU would emulate the European Union (EU) by adopting a system based on clear and transparent rules to promote free trade. The reality, however, is proving different. So far, the EAEU has failed to transform into a full-fledged economic union. Many outstanding issues require greater political will from the member states to work out common approaches and practices.
Topic:
Economics, Tariffs, Free Trade, and Soviet Union
Political Geography:
Russia, Eurasia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Belarus

1566. Pandemic Preparedness: A Conversation with Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo (Interviewed by Dana Hatic)

Author:
Jennifer Nuzzo and Dana Hatic
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Fletcher Security Review (FSR): Dr. Nuzzo, thank you for taking the time to speak with FSR today. I would love if you could give us a brief introduction and tell me about what your role has been like since the start of the pandemic. Jennifer Nuzzo (JN): I am an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. I am also a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. I have been involved working on COVID-19 since the first news of an outbreak in China. I run a project called the Outbreak Observatory, which does operational research to improve outbreak responses. One of our activities is to publish a weekly blog, which we do to take stock of what is going on in the world and to try to learn about events—even if we are not actively doing research projects on them, just reminding people that things are happening all the time.
Topic:
Security, Interview, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

1567. Economic Crisis and Elections: A Recipe for Turbulence in Latin America

Author:
Jimena Blanco
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Latin America experienced the second biggest pandemicinduced economic contraction of any region in 2020, just behind the Euro-zone, and Verisk Maplecroft’s Recovery Capacity Index—which measures more than a dozen factors that determine a region’s ability to recover from the crisis—puts Latin America below all but Africa in recovery capability. The resulting social and economic distress has worsened longstanding inequalities and acted as a catalyst for civil unrest. Despite restrictive lockdowns, the pandemic crisis and economic shock sparked demonstrations across the region throughout 2020 as governments proved unable to meet even the most basic needs of their populations. A string of general elections scheduled for 2021 will take place against a backdrop of a surge in poverty and unemployment, setting the stage for another unstable year. With forecasts from the International Monetary Fund projecting the regional economy unlikely to recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2023, and household incomes not until 2025, this situation will continue. Falling tax receipts will cripple governments’ ability to address spiralling demands from already impoverished workers likely to be pushed into even lower-paid, unstable, and informal jobs. Young people and informal workers who average 60 percent of the regional labour force, on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, will continue to be disproportionately affected. Dissatisfied and often disenfranchised, these sections of society can be particularly restive, able to mobilise fast in political or anti-establishment protests.
Topic:
Elections, COVID-19, Civil Unrest, and Economic Crisis
Political Geography:
Latin America

1568. The UN Security Council: Stress Tested

Author:
David M Malone
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
After the United Nations’ (UN) 75th anniversary, it is easy today to forget that this most central and far-reaching of all multilateral organizations was born in very high hopes of its permanent relevancy in maintaining international peace and security. But by baking in a veto for each of the five victorious World War II powers—or deemed as such by the 1945 governments in Washington and London, the godparents of the UN Security Council—the seeds of its frequent spells of semiparalysis were sown, spells which have been intensifying for at least the past four years. Indeed, the council arguably operated at near-peak effectiveness only during the years between 1987 – 1994, when the Cold War was ending and then briefly, as of 1990, appeared to have ended. However, misjudgments in Washington over the extent to which Moscow’s alignment with the thinking of Western capitals could be taken for granted—an attitude bitterly resented at the time by the new Russian Federation—ended that brief spell.
Topic:
United Nations, History, Multilateralism, and UN Security Council
Political Geography:
Russia, Global Focus, and United States of America

1569. Currency Power & International Security

Author:
Benjamin Cohen
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
For anyone concerned about U.S. national security, international finance today poses an intriguing dilemma. On the one hand, in geopolitical terms, the United States seems to have entered a period of relative decline. Some commentators speak of a broad power transition from unipolar hyperpuissance to a new, more threatening multipolar world. Others focus more narrowly on the rise of China and the risk of a “Thucydides Trap.”72 Yet in global finance, the U.S. dollar remains undeniably dominant, still by far the most popular national monetary unit in use for international purposes.73 The greenback is as mighty as ever. Can this disparity continue, or should we expect that geopolitical decay will be followed by—perhaps even exacerbated by—an erosion of the dollar’s standing? Much rides on the answer. An international currency is a source of power for the economy that issues it.74 For some three-quarters of a century, the greenback’s central role in monetary affairs has enhanced the political capabilities of the United States. America’s security has been amplified by currency power. At a time, therefore, when the nation is feeling increasingly vulnerable to adversaries abroad, the outlook for the dollar’s future takes on added importance. Three questions are addressed in this essay. First, how does a currency’s international standing affect the political capabilities of the issuing country? Second, how has currency power been used by the United States? And third, what are the prospects for the greenback looking forward? Much analysis suggests that the outlook for the currency is not bright.75 Some experts worry that we are approaching a tipping point that could lead to an abrupt and panicky dumping of the dollar. I disagree. No sudden rush to the exits would appear to be likely. But over time it does seem plausible to anticipate a gradual, maybe even accelerating loss of monetary primacy. The threat to the greenback—and hence to U.S. security—is not the sudden appearance of a wolf at the door. The risk, rather, is a persistent spread of termites in the woodwork.
Topic:
Economics, International Security, Geopolitics, Finance, and Currency
Political Geography:
China and United States of America

1570. Medical Security, Covid Challenge and the U.S. - Japan Alliance

Author:
Kent Calder
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
National security has been classically conceived as a narrowly military and state-centric concept, especially in the Western industrial world. Security is, generations of strategists and statesmen have told us, a matter of defending core nation-state values and interests by force of arms. Two world wars across the first half of the twentieth century, and a long nuclear confrontation to follow, engrained this military and state-centric conception deeply into global consciousness and public discourse. The tragic COVID-19 crisis now confronting us suggests that this logic may be flawed, or at least oversimplified. Over 2.3 million people worldwide died in the first year of this global pandemic, with well over 100 million infected. These figures are likely understated.44 Untold millions of people continue to suffer from “long COVID” maladies around the world.
Topic:
Economics, Health, National Security, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, North America, and United States of America

1571. The Essentiality of Cognitive Diversity in American National Security

Author:
Barry R. McCaffrey
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Two decades after UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security was passed, the Biden administration appears poised to usher in a new era of female leadership. Why is this increase in cognitive diversity so important to American national security? The U.S. national security enterprise is undergoing a profound transition. As the world moves toward cyber and information-centric modes of conflict, cognitive and intellectual diversity will arguably play a more decisive role in determining success—more so than the number of infantry divisions, aircraft carriers, or fighter wings a nation can deploy. National security organizations must therefore transform to fully leverage all available talent and innovation in the national security sector to drive success across the spectrum of conflict around the world. The complexity and interconnectedness of nations around the world make effective national security strategy development and operations extremely challenging. Boiled down, successful national security strategy, policy, and operations ensure the continued existence of nations and their way of life. This mandate places immense pressure on presidents when they build their senior leadership team. Presidents must choose a team to deter and defeat potential threats, and thus can neither afford poor nor ineffective leadership.
Topic:
Gender Issues, National Security, Women, Leadership, and Diversity
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

1572. Do Morals Matter? A Conversation with Dr. Joseph Nye

Author:
Joseph S. Nye, Grady Jacobsen, and Alex Betley
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Fletcher Security Review (FSR): Welcome, Dr. Nye, to The Fletcher Security Review. Thank you very much for spending time with us today. Before we discuss your recent book, Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump, would you mind speaking first about the origins of your career? Many readers of FSR are young professionals pursuing careers in diplomacy and national security. I am sure they would appreciate hearing that background. Joeseph Nye (JN): Well, I came to Harvard to do a Ph.D. Thinking I was going to go into the State Department, I thought it might be useful to have a Ph.D. but, in the process, I wound up doing some teaching and enjoyed it. I went and did my thesis in Africa and enjoyed writing about that. When Harvard offered me a job, I thought I would take it for a little while. A “little while” turned out to be quite a long while. I emphasize this to say that if you do not have all your career moves figured out at this stage, not to worry about it. Leave room for serendipity. In any case, as it turned out, I enjoy the writing and the research. After working in Africa, I went to Central America, and then spent some time in Europe looking primarily at regional integration and then broadened out to a number of things related to trade. . .
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Ethics, Interview, and World System
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

1573. Post-Covid Security Landscape: A Conversation with Raffaelo Pantucci

Author:
Raffaello Pantucci
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Fletcher Security Review (FSR): Thank you for joining FSR today. To begin, what challenges do you believe countries or security practitioners will face in preventing terrorism or countering violent terrorism in a postCOVID-19 world? Raffaelo Pantucci (RP): There are going to be a lot of challenges. The difficulty with trying to make judgments about what is going to happen in a post-COVID world is that we are not in the post-COVID world yet. We are still in the midst of the pandemic, so a lot of this work and assumptions that we look into are based on assessments of what we think could happen. I think a number of things will happen. First, I think we are going to see real pressure on security forces’ resources. On the one hand, kinetic security forces—police and intelligence services—probably will not suffer too much. But the real dilemma will come with some of the upstream funding. Money is being used to try to stop people from being drawn to violent groups in the first place. Countering violent extremism projects will face immense challenges since it is very hard to understand and make direct causal links between the issues the programs are addressing and the ultimate threats. We are going to see a push on budgets and that will result in cuts for security forces. These will have an impact in different ways in different places. Unfortunately, terrorist threats are global. You can have a good grip on your threat matrix, but it has links across borders which are beyond your control. This creates a potential risk if a country you are connected to does not have a grip on their security and are under the same sort of budgetary pressures, then it is possible you will see a negative knockon effect.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Interview, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1574. Grievance in Space and Time: The State, Militias, and the Irredentist Temptation

Author:
Bradford McGuinn
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
The armed militia is an emblem of political decay. With the weakening of institutions designed to regulate the ambitions and anxieties of those inhabiting a state, and with the erosion of a political culture meant to confer legitimacy upon the rituals of governance, martial energy once held to constitutional prescription in the service of impersonal public rule can be redirected toward private purpose. Dissenting factions within a governmental structure, groups seeking its overthrow, or militias fighting within society itself challenge the viability of states, stability in their regions, and international order. This essay will consider ways in which narratives of grievance play dangerously upon the triangular system of mutual obligation that ideally orders interaction between a state, society, and the military. In this configuration of civil-military relations, the state exercises a “legitimate monopoly” on the production of violence, binding militaries to civilian control. Acting as an acid upon the alloy of this triangle, allowing leakage of “privatized” violence, is a dissatisfaction with a configuration of geography, politics, and culture of such intensity that reality can be considered oppressive.
Topic:
Security, Armed Forces, State, and Militias
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1575. Losing the Long Game: A Conversation with Phillip Gordon (Interviewed by Zach A. Shapiro)

Author:
Philip Gordon and Zach Shapiro
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Fletcher Security Review (FSR): Dr. Gordon, it’s a pleasure to introduce you to our audience. Your new book, Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East, is fascinating and we are excited to hear about it. To get us started, could you briefly describe your argument? Philip Gordon (PG): In briefest form, as the title of the book indicates, the argument is that regime change in the Middle East doesn’t turn out very well. I’ll just unpack that a little bit. First, by “regime change” what I’m talking about is when the United States sets out as a matter of policy to bring about a different government and political system in a country for whatever reason. It’s not when it happens naturally or internally. We have to have it as a policy and we have to do something about it. It turns out that we’ve done this fairly regularly in the post-World War II period. In fact, we’ve done it on average about once per decade. In the book, I look back all the way to the first time in 1953, to the CIA-backed coup in Iran, and look at all the episodes for the track record. I started thinking about this in particular as the Trump administration was pivoting towards what looked like a regime-change policy in Iran. It wasn’t their official, announced policy, but it looks like that’s what they were trying to achieve in Iran. That led me to think more about the track record: when have we done this before, why have we done it, and how it has turned out?...
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Regime Change, and Interview
Political Geography:
Middle East and United States of America

1576. The Interactions of International Relations: Racism, Colonialism, Producer-Centred Research

Author:
Deep K. Datta-Ray
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
The racial hierarchy underscoring colonialism persists, organises core-periphery interactions and so undermines International Relations’ (IR’s) purpose of accounting and explaining to mitigate violence. Despite IR’s awareness of its colonialism, it reconstitutes in the hermeneutic’s deductive and inductive method via aphasia (calculated forgetting) about its heuristic: diplomacy. The result, analytic-violence or the core’s heuristic corrupting interaction with the periphery. Yet, its evasiveness testifies to a meaningfulness beyond IR’s hermeneutic. Irretrievably corrupted by its heuristic, IR’s hermeneutic is ejected for an altogether new hermeneutic: Producer-Centred Research (PCR). Eschewing deduction and induction, and so colonialism, PCR initiates with abduction or a problem arising from theory and practice to resolve it in terms of rationality because of its, and the problem’s, significance. Changing “rationality” to “rationalities” registers the core’s rationality as colonialism while preventing it from contaminating PCR’s collection and assessment of peripheral practices to determine if they cohere into another rationality. Moreover, treating peripheral practitioners authoritatively, as capable of rationalising themselves and thus equal to rationality, further protects PCR from aphasia. Verifying efficacy shows PCR’s decolonisation of the hermeneutic is not entirely replicated externally, amongst IR scholars. The core engages PCR, but it incites violence in the periphery which defends rationality and so is colonialism’s bastion, now.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Colonialism, Eurocentrism, Racism, and Hermeneutics
Political Geography:
India and Global Focus

1577. Hedging as a Survival Strategy for Small States: The Case of Kuwait

Author:
İsmail Numan Telci
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Strategic hedging has not been studied adequately in Middle Eastern countries. This study is an attempt to include hedging into the analysis of a small state’s foreign policy choices. It contends that the hedging strategy can be applied to small states because of its confrontation at three levels: international, regional and sub-regional. It is argued that Kuwait has pursued a hedging policy by taking possible shifts in the global and regional power distribution and the lasting regional security dilemma into consideration. By strengthening military cooperation with China and Turkey, Kuwait has aimed to hedge the risks that could arise from the rise of China and Turkey in the Gulf, the US’ retrenchment from the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia’s aggressiveness. The main purpose of this strategy is analysed as a move to empower the regional alliance with Turkey, ensuring Kuwait’s security and warding off potential risks from the changing dynamics of the Middle East.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, Military Affairs, and Hedging
Political Geography:
China, Turkey, Middle East, Kuwait, and Gulf Nations

1578. A Government Devoid of Strong Leadership: A Neoclassical Realist Explanation of Turkey’s Iraq War Decision in 2003

Author:
Samet Yılmaz
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
This study deals with Turkey’s Iraq War Decision that led up to the March 1 Parliamentary Motion Crisis in 2003 from the perspective of neoclassical realism, which analyzes the interaction between systemic and unit-level variables. The United States requested Turkey’s collaboration in the war against Iraq. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government initially sought a peaceful settlement but eventually decided to align with the United States. Systemic and structural factors made cooperation with the United States an imperative for Turkey, which may be classified as a secondary state in the regional context. While the domestic political environment was favorable for the Turkish government to reach such a decision, it was hindered by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT). In this framework, the study has two primary purposes. The first is to prove that in restrictive international environments where opportunities and threats are clear and the decision-making process is constrained by time, domestic divisions may matter in foreign policy and prevail over the systemic imperative, contrary to conventional expectations. The second is to demonstrate that in a restrictive international milieu, strong leadership, a factor underappreciated by neoclassical realists, is essential even for single-party governments, which are normally expected to have greater autonomy in democratic parliamentary systems, to formulate foreign policy.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, Leadership, Domestic Politics, Iraq War, Political Parties, and Neoclassical Realism
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Mediterranean

1579. Tianxia (All-Under-Heaven): An Alternative System or a Rose by another Name?

Author:
Mehmet Şahin
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
Tianxia is considered as an alternative institutionalization to govern the international system. It refers to world governance that is regulated by a world institution. Accordingly, a world institution plays the harmonizer role under this system. States, on the other hand, choose their economic models and the leader organizes the relations among different units. This paper thus argues that Tianxia is an alternative framework to Western-oriented IR theories. In that sense, this article aims to explore the similarities between the philosophical idea of Tianxia and Western-oriented IR Theory. More specifically, the article explores the issue from the international system perspective. The epistemological gaps and ontological similarities between the two frameworks will be demonstrated.
Topic:
International Relations, Governance, International Relations Theory, and International System
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Global Focus

1580. Reputation Building as a Strategy for Terror Group Survival

Author:
Efe Tokdemir
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace
Institution:
Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
Abstract:
In this paper I investigate terror groups' survival. The fate of terrorists hinges heavily on the power the terror group derives from its reputation. The reputation, which depends on policies and actions the group takes within their constituency, determines the degree to which each group can find recruits, resources, and support for its cause. I contend that terror groups investing on positive or negative reputation within their constituency— the people they claim to represent==are likely to survive longer. Yet, I argue, building a positive reputation has a greater impact on a group’s staying power given that this attracts loyal and committed supporters. Conversely, groups with no clearly defined reputation-building policies undergo an organizational change. I find support for my expectations by testing my arguments over all domestic terror groups active between 1980 and 2011 using the RTG and GTD databases. The findings reveal that once a terrorist group is formed, it is exceedingly difficult to obliterate it so long as it follows a clear reputational strategy to achieve their goals.
Topic:
Terrorism, Non State Actors, Group Survival, and Reputation
Political Geography:
Global Focus