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2. Fall 2022 edition of Strategic Visions
- Author:
- Alan McPherson, Brandon Kinney, Jay Lockenour, Alessandro Iandolo, Penny Von Eschen, and Ryan Langton
- Publication Date:
- 12-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Strategic Visions
- Institution:
- Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University
- Abstract:
- This edition of Strategic Visions includes four interviews with visiting speakers and members of the CENFAD community. In a print-aexclusive interview, the 2022-2023 Richard Immerman Fellow Brandon Kinney talks about his current research for his dissertation. I also sat down with Temple University Professor of History Jay Lockenour to discuss his new book, Dragonslayer: The Legend of Erich Ludendorff in the Weimar Republic and Third Reich. In addition to delivering lectures at CENFAD, Alessandro Iandolo and Penny M. Von Eschen also met with me over Zoom to talk about their recent projects. These interviews appear in print and video below. Lastly, Strategic Visions features an essay and three book reviews from Temple History graduate students. In his essay, “A Reckoning for the Field,” Graydon Dennison pushes historians to think beyond traditional actors and chronologies when studying United States diplomacy. Joseph Johnson reviewed Jacob Darwin Hamblin’s The Wretched Atom: America’s Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology, Andrew Santora reviewed David Harrisville’s The Virtuous Wehrmacht: Crafting the Myth of the German Soldier on the Eastern Front, 1941-1944, and Lucas de Souza Martins reviewed Kenneth P. Serbin’s From Revolution to Power in Brazil: How Radical Leftists Embraced Capitalism and Struggled with Leadership.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, History, and Academia
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, North America, and United States of America
3. The Emergence of a Latino Political Ethnicity: 1990 to the Era of Trump
- Author:
- Alan Yang
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Alan Yang examines how ordinary U.S. Latinos of different national origin ancestries have become an increasingly cohesive panethnic political group since the time of the 1990 Latino National Political Survey. He argues that this trend towards increasing convergence across national origin has been both reinforced and disrupted on questions related to politically relevant sentiments and perceptions two years into the Trump presidency.
- Topic:
- Politics, History, Ethnicity, Political Science, and Donald Trump
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
4. Abolishing School Resource Officers Amidst the Black Lives Matter Movement: A History and Case Study in Oakland and Los Angeles
- Author:
- Wendy Gomez
- Publication Date:
- 05-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
- Institution:
- School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
- Abstract:
- This paper explores the potential of abolishing school resource officers (SROs), their history in education, and their role in exacerbating the effects of the school-to-prison pipeline and racial injustice. In the midst of calls to defund the police, policies to abolish police in schools are a vital first step. This paper argues that there is an interconnected history between SROs and surveilling youth-led civil rights movements. Today, we see the results—SROs have negatively impacted Black and brown youth subjugating them to higher rates of school-related arrests. Using historical case studies of Oakland and Los Angeles, this research draws on the potential to enact policies that end police in schools. Additionally, this paper places organizers as key actors in policy change. The analysis situates the movement to eliminate SROs as an extension of the civil rights struggle and as a microcosm of the modern-day struggle for abolition.
- Topic:
- Education, History, Police, Domestic Policy, Black Lives Matter (BLM), and Case Study
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
5. The Economic Impact of Tax Changes, 1920–1939
- Author:
- Alan Reynolds
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Estimates of the elasticity of taxable income (ETI) investigate how high‐income taxpayers faced with changes in marginal tax rates respond in ways that reduce expected revenue from higher tax rates, or raise more than expected from lower tax rates. Diamond and Saez (2011) pioneered the use of a statistical formula, which Saez developed, to convert an ETI estimate into a revenue‐maximizing (“socially optimal”) top tax rate. For the United States, they found that the optimal top rate was about 73 percent when combining the marginal tax rates on income, payrolls, and sales at the federal, state, and local levels. A related paper by Piketty, Saez, and Stantcheva (2014) concluded that, at the highest income levels, the ETI was so small that comparable top tax rates as high as 83 percent could maximize short‐term revenues, supposedly without suppressing long‐term economic growth. Such studies could be viewed as part of a larger effort to minimize any efficiency costs of distortive taxation while maximizing assumed revenue gains and redistributive benefits.
- Topic:
- Economics, History, Tax Systems, and High-Income People
- Political Geography:
- North America, Global Focus, and United States of America
6. Making “Devoted Efforts” Visible: The National Museum of American Diplomacy
- Author:
- Jane Carpenter-Rock
- Publication Date:
- 02-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- In a 1956 State Department memo, J. Burke Wilkinson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, articulated the Department’s need for a “display room or museum for the preservation and exhibition of documents and objects important in the history of the Department of State and the Foreign Service.” Again in 1958, a series of internal memos urged the creation of a “Department Museum” and the development of a “related presentation program” to include “eighty additional galleries in the U.S. posts all over the world,” an idea supported by then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. For over sixty years, the effort to establish a “Department Museum” has waxed and waned. Intervening issues like war, international crises, changes in administration, and the ever-present need for office space, have often taken priority. However, the long-held vision of establishing a Department museum is finally taking shape in the form of the National Museum of American Diplomacy. With a projected opening date of 2022, this long-awaited museum promises to be a platform where the American people can finally see the “devoted efforts of the Department’s officers and employees to further the interest of our nation.” This article will explore the development of the National Museum of American Diplomacy and its goal to shed light on the history and practice of American diplomacy through the stories of its people.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, History, and Museums
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
7. Disenfranchising Democracy: Constructing the Electorate in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, David A. Bateman
- Author:
- Dawn Langan Teele
- Publication Date:
- 07-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- David A. Bateman’s new book explores nearly all of the crucial questions concerning democracy and inclusion that we are grappling with today, from the very broad—how do the ways in which we think about the origins of our nation inform the welcoming or hostile attitudes we assume in relation to immigrants and outsiders?—to the very narrow—do requirements that voters present physical documents verifying their identity reduce the electoral participation of minority groups? In answering these questions, Bateman offers a detailed portrait of the political machinations that result in electoral reforms, describing elites’ efforts to blur lines between expediency and morality and the circumstances that led conservative parties (the same that today seek to abolish laws that give special status to protected classes of people) to work hard to establish and maintain legal provisions that awarded different rights to different groups. Fundamentally, Bateman explains why steps toward inclusive democratic institutions are often accompanied by steps back, which leave us uncertain of our accomplishments and anxious about our future. Remarkably, though, Disenfranchising Democracy considers these familiar dynamics and dilemmas not in the contemporary world but in the rather distant past, drawing on a wealth of archival sources to analyze the timing of electoral reforms, the emergence and ossification of party- based patterns of support for franchise reform, and the political ideas of would-be reformers and resisters in three of the world’s first semidemocratic countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
- Topic:
- History, Elections, Democracy, Book Review, and Political Science
- Political Geography:
- United Kingdom, Europe, France, North America, and United States of America
8. Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing, Robert A. Caro
- Author:
- Meena Bose
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Robert Caro’s monumental study of Robert Moses (The Power Broker) and multivolume (four books completed and a fifth in progress) work on Lyndon B. Johnson comprise years of intensive data collection about each individual’s formative years, strategic advancement in public leadership and political power, and mastery of policymaking. To develop these unique and authoritative biographies, Caro undertakes a daunting research agenda that includes comprehensive scrutiny of the public archival record, interviews with numerous people who knew or worked with Moses or LBJ, and immersion in the physical setting that molded each individual. In Working, Caro takes readers into his world of analyzing how these two leaders acquired and used political power, providing an inside look at the diligent, indefatigable search for truth underlying these unparalleled biographies. The advice that has guided Caro throughout his writing career, first as a journalist and then in his books, comes from an editor who memorably said, “Turn every page. Never assume anything. Turn every goddamned page” (p. 11). Caro heeded this advice when he began working on the Moses book, which he decided to write after learning that Moses, as commissioner of New York City’s Department of Parks, had succeeded in getting state approval for a study to construct a new bridge, despite multiple traffic and pollution concerns. As Caro writes, Moses “had enough power to turn around a whole state government in one day” (p. 13).
- Topic:
- History, Book Review, Political Science, and Public Policy
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
9. Starving the Beast: Ronald Reagan and the Tax Cut Revolution, Monica Prasad
- Author:
- Christopher Faricy
- Publication Date:
- 01-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- Why has the Republican Party centered its domestic agenda around tax cuts for three decades? Monica Prasad presents a thorough, complicated, and convincing story of the political motivations and impact of Ronald Reagan’s Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981. Starving the Beast argues that the ERTA marked the transformation of the Republican Party from a party of fiscal responsibility to one of tax cuts. Reagan showed his fellow Republicans that running on tax cuts was not only electorally popular but came with no economic or political costs. Republicans could now distribute government benefits through the tax code as a counter to Democratic expansions of the welfare state. This strategy united disparate factions within the party and is still one of the GOP’s only popular policy positions.
- Topic:
- History, Political Science, Tax Systems, and Ronald Reagan
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
10. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Naval Integration and the Future of Naval Warfare
- Author:
- Michael Flynn, Andrew Rhodes, Michael F. Manning, Scott Erdelatz, Michael Kohler, John T. Kuehn, B. A. Friedman, Steven A. Yeadon, Matthew C. Ludlow, Terje Bruøygard, and Jørn Qviller
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Advanced Military Studies
- Institution:
- Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
- Abstract:
- In 2019, the 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps released his planning guidance that laid out the strategic focus and future direction of the Marine Corps. General David H. Berger’s intent for the following four years concurred with the analysis of the previous Commandant and the necessary alignment of the Corps with the National Defense Strategy for the future needs of the Fleet by focusing on five areas: force design, warfighting, education and training, core values, and command and leadership. General Berger cogently noted that the coming decade will be characterized by conflict, crisis, and rapid change—just as every decade preceding it. And despite our best efforts, history demonstrates that we will fail to accurately predict every conflict; will be surprised by an unforeseen crisis; and may be late to fully grasp the implications of rapid change around us. Berger’s primary concern is that the Marine Corps is not fully prepared— equipped, trained, or organized—to support the naval force. To that end, force design became the priority for Marine Corps efforts to fulfill its role for the Fleet as prescribed by the U.S. Congress. The level of change required to integrate the Corps of the future with the naval forces of today would not happen overnight and certainly not without a great deal of growing pains to ensure the Corps is equipped and prepared for the future security environment. When Force Design 2030 was released in March 2020, the Marine Corps was prepared to make the force-wide changes necessary to partner with the Navy and serve as the country’s naval expeditionary force. Our current force design, optimized for large-scale amphibious forcible entry and sustained operations ashore, has persisted unchanged in its essential inspiration since the 1950s. It has changed in details of equipment and doctrine as technology has advanced toward greater range and lethality of weapon systems. In light of unrelenting increases in the range, accuracy, and lethality of modern weapons; the rise of revisionist powers with the technical acumen and economic heft to integrate those weapons and other technologies for direct or indirect confrontation with the U.S.; and the persistence of rogue regimes possessing enough of those attributes to threaten United States interests, I am convinced that the defining attributes of our current force design are no longer what the nation requires of the Marine Corps. Berger’s plan pointed to specific areas of change required to make force design a reality: the size, capacity, and capability of the Corps. In an austere fiscal environment, the Marines must assess their current capabilities to achieve a smaller footprint with broader reach—do more with less. As the reality of COVID-19 and the 2020 U.S. presidential election have so poignantly reminded us all, these tasks cannot and should not rest on any single shoulder and any response should be well considered and intended to benefit the greater good. This issue of the Journal of Advanced Military Studies (JAMS) will address elements of the Commandant’s Planning Guidance, particularly the concept of naval integration and what it means for the Services, especially the Marine Corps. Our authors look to the past for relevant examples of military successes and failures of integration, but they also discuss how future warfare will play out based on these concepts. The authors explore the topic from a variety of perspectives, including those for and against, and they offer analyses of past and current attempts and what naval integration may mean for the future of the Corps. The following articles present the capabilities that will be required to shift from a traditional power projection model to a persistent forward presence and how the Marine Corps can exploit its positional advantage while defending critical regions. Our first author, Dr. Matthew J. Flynn, presents a historical approach to the topic in his article “The Unity of the Operational Art: Napoleon and Naval Integration.” Flynn’s research calls for greater coordination between the sea and land domains to improve U.S. national security. His article draws parallels between Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat and the importance of naval integration for military success: “Napoleon’s fate reveals a great deal about naval integration and how it explains France’s defeat and, most importantly, that there is but one operational art—not one for land and one for sea.” Our second author, Andrew Rhodes, also relies on a historical example with his discussion of the salient lessons that can be learned from the Sino-Japanese War. Rhodes encourages professional military educators and planners who are developing future operational concepts to look beyond simply retelling history and consider how the legacy of this conflict might shape Chinese operational choices. He reinforces From the Editors 9 Vol. 11, No. 2 the concept that military history is not simply a resource for answering concerns about future conflict, but it encourages us to ask better questions about the role of the sea Services and how they can handle uncertainty when preparing for the future. Lieutenant Colonel Michael F. Manning’s “Sea Control: Feasible, Acceptable, Suitable, or Simply Imperative” offers a historical review of early twentieth century Japanese naval battles as a framework to model possible future contests for control of the maritime domain. Manning believes that control of the maritime domain is a prerequisite for assured access and sets the condition for successful Joint operations. Manning believes that “nations not only have to compete with their enemy’s major air and naval capabilities but must also defend against land-based airpower; missiles; torpedoes; short-range, antisurface warfare assets; and coastal mines.” Colonel Scott Erdelatz (Ret) and his team of coauthors focused on an old approach for a new era of naval integration that acknowledges the long-term threat posed by China but also considers how much of what we know as the Marine Corps should be retained to fulfill other missions. Erdelatz et al. also analyze how radical integration might incur significant risk for the Marine Corps if long-term force structure decisions are based on still-evolving concepts and unproven technologies. Major Michael Kohler’s article, “The Joint Force Maritime Component Command and the Marine Corps: Integrate to Win the Black Sea Fight,” discusses how most current Marine and Navy integration takes place at the Service-chief level and primarily focuses on the Pacific. Kohler, however, believes that naval integration is also an important component of a successful defense against Russian expansion in the Black Sea region. Dr. John T. Kuehn shifts the focus to carriers and amphibious operations with his article “Carriers and Amphibs: Shibboleths of Sea Power.” Dr. Kuehn argues that aircraft carriers and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs) with an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit represent shibboleths of seapower that conflate a deeper understanding of where the U.S. Fleet belongs now and where it needs to go in the future to face the challenges of the twenty-first century. Major B. A. Friedman’s article, “First to Fight: Advanced Force Operations and the Future of the Marine Corps,” then circles back to the traditional Marine Corps stance as always first to fight and the need for advanced force operations in the Corps of the future. Steven A. Yeadon’s article, “The Problems Facing United States Marine Corps Amphibious Assault,” rounds out the current perspective with a review of issues the Marine Corps has faced with amphibious assaults. Yeadon offers actionable information on current limitations and vulnerabilities of U.S. amphibious forces to chart a way forward for a robust forcible entry capability from the sea. The discussion closes with two articles looking to the future of naval in- 10 From the Editors Journal of Advanced Military Studies tegration and the Marine Corps. Major Matthew C. Ludlow’s article, “Losing the Initiative in the First Island Chain: How Organizational Inefficiencies Can Yield Mismatched Arsenals,” presents what may be considered a losing proposition of initiatives in China’s First Island Chain; however, strategic gaps in capabilities have emerged that could dramatically impact the ability to execute an island-defense strategy. The final article by Lieutenant Colonels Terje Bruøygard and Jørn Qviller, “Marine Corps Force Design 2030 and Implications for Allies and Partners: Case Norway,” offers a larger discussion of Force Design 2030 and its future implications for American allies with a case study on Norway. The authors encourage the Department of Defense to consider greater interoperability between and among Services and allies, including increased communication with allies on changes happening at the Service and national level of the U.S. armed forces. The remainder of the journal rounds out with a review essay and a selection of book reviews that continues our focus on naval integration, but it also highlights continuing challenges in national security and international relations. The coming year will be busy for the JAMS editors as we work to provide journal issues on a diverse range of topics relevant to the study of militaries and defense.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, War, History, Military Strategy, Power Politics, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Geopolitics, Navy, Oceans and Seas, and Seapower
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Japan, China, Europe, Norway, Asia, North America, United States of America, and Black Sea
11. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Spring 2020
- Author:
- Donald M. Bishop, Valerie Jackson, Christopher Davis, Evan N. Polisar, Kerry K. Gershaneck, Troy E. Mitchell, James R. R. Van Eerden, Rosario M. Simonetti, Paolo Tripodi, David E. McCullin, Christopher Whyte, and Jeannie L. Johnson
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Advanced Military Studies
- Institution:
- Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
- Abstract:
- In 2010, MCU Press published the first issue of this journal, formerly known as Marine Corps University Journal, to serve as the bridge between the military Services and the professional military educators, strategists, and historians within the greater Department of Defense community. During the ensuing years, the press and the journal have evolved to offer innovative and active content that continues to serve as a forum for interdisciplinary discussion of national security and international relations issues and how they impact the Department of Defense, the Department of the Navy, and the U.S. Marine Corps. Now, 10 years later, we see the need to evolve and offer a wider base for those conversations to take place. To celebrate this 10-year anniversary and to reflect the journal’s change in focus over time, the journal has been renamed the Journal of Advanced Military Studies (JAMS) to honor the constant innovation of our content, our authors, and the topics we present to our readers. JAMS will continue to offer readers thematic, biannual issues that encourage and continue the debates happening across Marine Corps University, the Services, and the Department of Defense. It is no coincidence then that this issue of JAMS focuses on innovation and the future of warfare. Each of the articles presented offers the readers a deep dive into a historical, current, or forward-looking perspective on innovation and the military Services. As with any discussion of the military and abstract concepts such as innovation, we must first set the parameters of our discussion. For many readers, the term innovation evokes thoughts of technology, shiny gadgets, and artificial intelligence. While innovation is not necessarily synonymous with technology, it is certainly a challenge to say what in fact it is—a thing, a concept, an action, the people involved, or all of the above. The experts may not agree on what innovation is, but they can agree that it requires change or transformation to be successful. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War compares the nature of warfare to that of water for “just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions.” More contemporary agents of innovation include military theorists such as Earl H. Ellis, John R. Boyd, Michael D. Wyly, and John F. Schmitt. Lieutenant Colonel Earl Ellis’s work on Advanced Base Operations in Micronesia (Operation Plan 712) in 1921 clearly demonstrated his ability to forecast the future needs for amphibious warfare in the Pacific two decades prior to World War II. Though most readers will recognize former Air Force colonel John R. Boyd for his observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) decision-making loop, his more innovative work may well be seen in the energy maneuverability (E-M) theory, a mathematical study of fighter aviation. Then-major Wyly was tasked with reforming the Marine Corps concept of maneuver warfare in the wake of the Vietnam War. The work of Wyly, Boyd, and William S. Lind would serve as the foundation for Warfighting, Marine Corp Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1, that was later formally written by then-captain John Schmitt, along with several other doctrinal publications, including Ground Combat Operations, Campaigning, Command and Control, Planning, Expeditionary Operations, and a revision of Warfighting. The articles in this issue of JAMS continue the discussion fostered by these innovative pathfinders. Our introductory section from the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity discusses the conception and creation of the center and some of its most innovative programs, including the award-winning Destination Unknown graphic novel and the center’s first essay contest, the U.S. Marine Corps Postmortem, and offers insight from Marine Corps leaders who consider both success and failure as critical measures for the strength of an organization. For example, Lieutenant General Loretta E. Reynolds contemplates how the Corps “must find a way to manage today’s risks while constantly readying ourselves for the emerging challenges of the future fight.”
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Counterinsurgency, Culture, Armed Forces, Authoritarianism, Cybersecurity, Democracy, Geopolitics, History, Surveillance, Think Tanks, Propaganda, Innovation, Armed Conflict, and Game Theory
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Haiti, North America, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific
12. What Allies Want: Reconsidering Loyalty, Reliability, and Alliance Interdependence
- Author:
- Ian D. Henry
- Publication Date:
- 04-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Leaders often believe that states that demonstrate disloyalty toward an ally will acquire a reputation for disloyalty, and thus damage other alliances. But in some circumstances, excessive loyalty to one ally can damage—perhaps even destroy—other alliances. The First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954–55) shows that alliance interdependence is governed not by a reputation for loyalty, but by assessments of allied reliability.
- Topic:
- Security, History, Partnerships, Alliance, and State
- Political Geography:
- Taiwan, Asia, North America, and United States of America
13. Normalization by Other Means—Technological Infrastructure and Political Commitment in the North Korean Nuclear Crisis
- Author:
- Christopher Lawrence
- Publication Date:
- 07-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- The 1994 Agreed Framework called for North Korea to dismantle its plutonium-production complex in exchange for civilian light water reactors (LWRs) and the promise of political normalization with the United States. Today, scholars look back at the Agreed Framework as a U.S. offer of “carrots” to bribe the regime, but this framing overlooks the credibility challenges of normalization and the distinctive technical challenges of building LWRs in North Korea. Political and technical analysis reveals how the LWR project helped build credibility for the political changes promised in the Agreed Framework.
- Topic:
- Nuclear Weapons, Politics, Science and Technology, History, Infrastructure, Crisis Management, and Normalization
- Political Geography:
- Asia, North Korea, North America, Korea, and United States of America
14. On the Origins of Entrepreneurial Alertness: Did Bauer and Yamey Precede Kirzner?
- Author:
- J. Robert Subrick
- Publication Date:
- 10-2020
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- After the Second World War, the entrepreneur virtually disappeared from economic analysis (Baumol 1968). This neglect followed from the emerging models of general equilibrium that formed one aspect of the core of economic theory. By assumption, the Walrasian auctioneer knew the appropriate prices necessary to equate quantity supplied with quantity demanded in each market. In addition, the auctioneer knew when and by how much to adjust prices when an exogenous factor changed such as income or production technology. Trade only occurred at equilibrium prices so that markets cleared. No market participant chose or changed prices; it occurred exogenously. Kenneth Arrow recognized the lack of real world mechanisms to determine and adjust prices in competitive markets. He identified a logical gap in the perfectly competitive model. He wrote that “there is no place for a rational decision with respect to prices as there is with respect to quantities” (Arrow 1959: 42). Prices exist independent of consumer and firm behavior. A complete model would have to provide a solution to the conundrum.
- Topic:
- Markets, History, Entrepreneurship, and Economy
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
15. Reevaluation of U.S. Security Policy towards South Asia
- Author:
- Ahmad Ejaz
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- South Asian Studies
- Institution:
- Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
- Abstract:
- South Asia has always been regarded as a significant area for the security interests of the United States. In view of the U.S. threat perceptions in Asia, the American policy makers were constantly motivated to construct a stable security system in the region. The U.S. security programme in South Asia actually is predominantly exerted on United States-Pakistan –India triangular relationship. Given its strategic perspective in the area, the U.S. policy is found transferred. During the Cold War days, the U.S. interests were attached with Pakistan. Thus Pakistan was regarded as the „America‟s most allied ally in Asia.‟ With the end of Cold War, the U.S. policy underwent a tremendous change that subsequently picked India as a potential counterweight to China and called it a „natural partner.‟ Eventually, the U.S.-Pakistan relations had been in a depressing setting. However, in the post 9/11 period, the two countries came closer and collaborated in war against terrorism. But this single-issue alliance could not engulf the differences between the partners. This paper attempts to trace the US security policy and its maneuvering in South Asia during and after the Cold War periods.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Cold War, International Cooperation, International Security, History, Military Strategy, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, South Asia, North America, Punjab, and United States of America
16. The Rwandan Genocide Revisited
- Author:
- Robert E. Gribbin
- Publication Date:
- 05-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- Twenty-five years ago, in April 1994, the havoc of genocide visited Rwanda. In a three-month-long paroxysm of violence, almost a million souls died. The country was devastated, the remaining population cowed, government non-existent, and the economy in shambles. Twenty-five years ago, in April 1994, the havoc of genocide visited Rwanda. In a three-month-long paroxysm of violence, almost a million souls died. The country was devastated, the remaining population cowed, government non-existent, and the economy in shambles.
- Topic:
- Security, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, Genocide, Politics, History, Peacekeeping, Refugees, and Memory
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Africa, Tanzania, North America, Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, United States of America, and Zaire
17. Hong Kong — Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
- Author:
- Dick Virden
- Publication Date:
- 11-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- Watching the unfolding drama in the streets of Hong Kong, as police and protestors clash daily over the city-state’s future, brings back vivid memories of another, distant era when, for visitors like me, the then-Crown Colony was a tantalizing, intoxicating, mixture of East and West. It was more than half a century ago, in January of 1967, when I first stopped in Hong Kong en route to Bangkok for my initial assignment in the Foreign Service. I’d never ventured outside the United States before and was bowled over by the sights, sounds, and smells of this teeming island group off the tip of mainland China.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, History, Democracy, Protests, and Memoir
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, North America, Hong Kong, and United States of America
18. Rascals, hysterical women, and bankers: Dealing with American citizens abroad, 1921
- Author:
- David A. Langbart
- Publication Date:
- 02-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- In October 1921, responding to complaints about the attention American citizens received from their diplomatic and consular representatives overseas, the Department of State sent a circular to American diplomatic and consular officers. The Department noted that the “value of the foreign service to the country as a whole is unquestionably affected by impressions resulting from the experiences of Members of Congress, officials, American business men and tourists.” The circular further noted that nothing should be done to cause anybody to form a negative impression of the “value and importance of the service or of the courtesy and capacity of its personnel.” The Department, therefore, directed that staff be instructed “in the most explicit terms, that no proper effort should be spared to satisfy every American citizen, regardless of rank or position, who applies to the mission for assistance or information.” In response to the directive, Ulysses Grant-Smith, then serving as U.S. Commissioner in Budapest, Hungary, sent the following letter to Under Secretary of State Henry P. Fletcher in which he challenged the underlying assumptions of the Department’s circular.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, History, Memoir, and Archive
- Political Geography:
- Hungary, North America, and United States of America
19. Southern Nation: Congress and White Supremacy after Reconstruction, David Bateman, Ira Katznelson and John S. Lapinski
- Author:
- Paul E. Herron
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Political Science Quarterly
- Institution:
- Academy of Political Science
- Abstract:
- In his treatise on southern politics, V.O. Key Jr. wrote that “in state politics the Democratic party is no party at all but a multiplicity of factions struggling for office. In national politics, on the contrary, the party is the Solid South; it is, or at least has been, the instrument for the conduct of the ‘foreign relations’ of the South with the rest of the nation” (Southern Politics in State and Nation [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949], 315). In an early (and laudatory) review of that book, Richard Hofstadter suggested that Key missed an opportunity to fully consider whether the South had affected national politics in more ways than through the reliable delivery of Democrats to Washington, but he noted that this might require another book (p. 7). David Bateman, Ira Katznelson, and John S. Lapinski have written that book. Southern Nation examines how the South influenced public policy, Congress, and the development of the American state from the close of Reconstruction to the beginning of the New Deal. The authors focus on the region’s role in national politics at a critical juncture when industrialization and a rapidly changing economy required new policy solutions. They show that the white South used this opportunity to rebuild its place in the federal government, secure home rule, and shape the national agenda.
- Topic:
- Government, History, Book Review, Political Science, and White Supremacy
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
20. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Great Power Competition
- Author:
- Christopher C. Harmon, T. J. Linzy, Jack Vahram Kalpakian, Bruce I. Gudmundsson, Ryan Burke, Jahara "Franky" Matisek, Zsofia Budai, Kevin Johnston, Blagovest Tashev, Michael Purcell, David McLaughlin, Kashish Parpiani, Daniel De Wit, and Timothy Chess
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Advanced Military Studies
- Institution:
- Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
- Abstract:
- In this issue of MCU Journal, the authors discuss various concepts of power and great power competition. For generations, scholars have debated changes in power and how that evolution could potentially impact the United States, its allies, and those hovering on the edge of greatness in whatever form that may take. The concept of power has taken on many meanings as the character of warfare has adapted to the time—hard power, soft power, sea power, airpower, space power, great power, combat power, etc. So how do we define such an abstract concept as power? The Department of Defense (DOD) defines combat power as “the total means of destructive and/or disruptive force which a military unit/formation can apply against the opponent at a given time.” Clearly, power must be projected; and for our purposes, that means an entity has the “ability . . . to apply all or some of its elements of national power—political, economic, informational, or military—to rapidly and effectively deploy and sustain forces in and from multiple dispersed locations to respond to crises, to contribute to deterrence, and to enhance regional stability.”
- Topic:
- Security, NATO, Climate Change, International Cooperation, Migration, History, Power Politics, Armed Forces, Navy, Populism, Grand Strategy, Alliance, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Strategic Competition, Geography, Ottoman Empire, Information Technology, and Clash of Civilizations
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Russia, China, Europe, Sudan, India, Norway, Asia, France, North America, Egypt, Arctic, United States of America, and Antarctica
21. Journal of Advanced Military Studies: Economics of Defense
- Author:
- Patrick Callaway, James Lockhart, Nikolas Gardner, Rebecca Jensen, Ian Brown, J. Craig Stone, Lauren Mackenzie, and Kristin Post
- Publication Date:
- 03-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Advanced Military Studies
- Institution:
- Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
- Abstract:
- During the past two decades, the U.S. government infrastructure has ground to a halt for a variety of reasons, particularly due to deficit reductions, military spending, health care, and overall party-line budget disagreements, but even more recently on border security and immigration. Regardless of party politics and the daily administrative drama in the White House, how does one of the wealthiest countries in the world prepare for the impact of making war and defending peace within these economic and political constraints? Authors for this issue of MCU Journal address the economics of defense and how those costs impact nations. Aside from the economic costs the United States bears for its defense, the articles in the Spring issue of MCU Journal will demonstrate there are other costs and unique limitations faced by America and other nation-states. For example, smaller nations such as Oman must rely on technologically advanced allies for their defense support. Long-term political costs also may apply to these nations, as James Lockhart’s article on the Central Intelligence Agency’s intervention in Chilean politics discusses. There are also other ways to wage “war” that are discussed in this issue; for example, looking to the past, President Thomas Jefferson attempted to wage a trade war against Great Britain and France to maintain U.S. trade neutrality and, looking to the present and future, governments must address the real costs of cyberwar. Finally, we must consider the political and diplomatic costs associated with U.S. servicemembers and their work in foreign states, but also the relationship repair they must rely on to keep the peace.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Counterinsurgency, Culture, Armed Forces, Military Affairs, Authoritarianism, Cybersecurity, Weapons, Economy, Military Spending, History, Coup, Trade, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Augusto Pinochet
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Afghanistan, China, South Asia, Canada, Asia, South America, North America, Chile, Oman, and United States of America
22. American Espionage: Lessons from History
- Author:
- Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Institution:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Abstract:
- This essay is a historical inquiry into the issue of the intelligence community’s standing—its prestige and credibility in the eyes of the executive, Congress, the press, and the public. Its premise is that the intelligence community needs a high reputation for both competence and morality to serve the best interest of national security. The intelligence community has not always had a high standing in the White House. Historian Christopher Andrew has argued that most presidents have ignored the insights offered by secret intelligence. In an article published in 2017, Stephen Marrin, formerly of the CIA and now editor of the influential journal Intelligence and National Security, stated, “strategic intelligence analysis frequently does not influence the creation and implementation of American foreign policy.”1 Why do presidents sometimes appear not to listen or understand? The answers range over a wide area. A particular president may be intellectually in- adequate or have a short attention span, making him incapable of appreciating what the analysts tell him. Information from other, non-secret sources such as diplomatic channels or the press often override the significance of information secretly obtained. Political considerations may intervene, but a president may also hold the spies in poor esteem. This low standing could be due to the real or perceived incompetence of the spies. It also could be due to their inability to persuade on account of their inferior position in the Washington pecking order.
- Topic:
- Intelligence, National Security, History, and Espionage
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America