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151. Containing Iran?: Avoiding a Two-Dimensional Strategy in a Four-Dimensional Region

Author:
Dalia Dassa Kaye and Frederic M. Wehrey
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
One of the most significant effects of the Iraq war is Iran's seemingly unprecedented influence and freedom of action in regional affairs, presenting new strategic challenges for the United States and its regional allies. Although Middle Eastern governments and the United States are in general agreement about diagnosing Tehran's activism as the war's most alarming consequence, they disagree on how to respond. The conventional U.S. view suggests that a new Arab consensus has been prompted to neutralize and counter Tehran's rising influence across the region in Gaza, the Gulf, Iraq, and Lebanon. Parallels to Cold War containment are clear. Indeed, whether consciously or unwittingly, U.S. policy has been replicating features of the Cold War model by trying to build a ''moderate'' Sunni Arab front to bolster U.S. efforts to counter Iranian influence. Despite signals that the Obama administration intends to expand U.S. engagement with Iran, the foundations of containment are deeply rooted and engender bipartisan backing from Congress. Even if the Obama administration desires to shift U.S. policy toward Iran, containment policies will be difficult to overturn quickly; if engagement with Iran fails, reliance on containment will only increase.
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Tehran, Arabia, Gaza, and Lebanon

152. The United States, India, and Global Governance: Can They Work Together?

Author:
Teresita C. Schaffer
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Two snapshots convey the flavor of India's pursuit of a larger role in global governing councils. The first dates from India's most recent accession for a two-year term to the United Nations Security Council in January 1991, just as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was coming apart and the end of the Cold War was in sight. The first major issue to come before the council was the package of resolutions that would end the first Iraq war. Harried Indian diplomats, faced with draft resolutions being pressed on them with great insistence by their U.S. counterparts, spoke of their need to ''find the non-aligned consensus.'' Whatever decision India made was bound to alienate an international constituency it cared about. For Indian officials, this moment captured both the advantages and drawbacks of participating in the world's decisionmaking. The then—Indian ambassador to the United States, Abid Hussein, expressed considerable frustration in a private conversation with me at the time: ''Do you realize that we will have to do this for two years?''
Topic:
Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, India, and Soviet Union

153. Embracing Chinese Global Security Ambitions

Author:
Jonathan Holslag
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Three warships sailed through the Straits of Malacca in December last year, en route to a milestone in recent Chinese military history. Joining the United Nations-backed international naval force in the Gulf of Aden, China sought to protect its global economic interests with military power for the first time. It is not, however, Beijing's only step toward a more proactive security policy beyond the Strait of Taiwan. China is gradually paving the way for a more prominent presence as a global military player by strategizing, training, and modernizing its military hardware.
Topic:
Economics and History
Political Geography:
China and Taiwan

154. Understanding the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy Debate

Author:
Christopher F. Chyba and J. D. Crouch
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 requires the U.S. secretary of defense to conduct a nuclear posture review (NPR) in consultation with the secretaries of energy and state, and to report the results to Congress before the end of 2009.The NPR, therefore, will be the Obama administration's forum for reviewing U.S. nuclear weapons policy, posture, and related programmatic and technical issues. Navigating and choosing among sharp disagreements in each of these areas, in order to map the wisest path forward for national and international security, is a difficult task. President Barack Obama has already made decisions on a number of important nuclear issues, but the NPR will need to relate these to the overall nuclear weapons posture. How will his desire to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) relate to the size and capabilities of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex? Should the United States arm some Trident submarines with conventionally/-tipped ballistic missiles? Should it pursue new arms control agreements with Russia beyond negotiating a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START)? What should medium/-term U.S. objectives for strategic and non/-strategic warhead numbers and types be? What about ballistic missile defense? The list of important questions is long and, unless integrated into a broader strategic vision, presents a disparate jumble of choices.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

155. The 2009 Israeli Election: A Bump in the Road to Peace?

Author:
Jonathan Marcus
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Israeli voters went to the polls in February 2009 for the fifth time in a decade. The campaign was overshadowed by the December 2008 Israeli offensive into the Gaza Strip: air operations beginning just two days after Christmas and Israeli ground operations following during the early days of the New Year. Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip some three weeks later but sporadic Palestinian rocket fire continued even after the election during the ensuing weeks of coalition formation. Inevitably an election which might have focused on the future path toward peace, or perhaps the onset of the economic crisis, was dominated by traditional concerns about security. The outcome enabled both the centrist Kadima party leader and outgoing foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and the standard bearer of the right, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, to claim victory. Kadima won the most seats in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, while the political right as a whole emerged with the best chance of forming the next governing coalition.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Israel

156. Shaping the Choices of a Rising China: Recent Lessons for the Obama Administration

Author:
Thomas J. Christensen
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
President Barack Obama ran a successful campaign on the theme of change. Yet, for addressing what is perhaps the greatest long-term strategic challenge facing the United States—managing U.S. relations with a rising China—change is not what is needed. President George W. Bush's strategy toward China is an underappreciated success story and the Obama administration would be wise to build on that success rather than attempt to radically transform U.S. policy toward China.
Political Geography:
United States and China

157. The Obama Administration and the Americas: A Promising Start

Author:
Abraham F. Lowenthal
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Because the new administration of President Barack Obama inherited the most demanding agenda, both at home and abroad, that any U.S. government has faced in many decades, few observers expected that it would devote much attention to U.S. relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. None of the countries of the Americas presents an imminent threat to U.S. national security. None is likely to be the source or target of significant international terrorism. With so much else to attend to, the Obama administration might well have relegated Latin America to the distant backburner.
Topic:
Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States and America

158. Russia's Spheres of Interest, not Influence

Author:
Dmitri V. Trenin
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
In the aftermath of the 2008 Georgian war, President Dmitri Medvedev, setting out Russia's foreign policy principles, spoke about the country's spheres of ''privileged interests'' and the government's obligation to defend Russian citizens abroad. Coming less than a month after Russia's armed response to Georgia's attack on its breakaway province of South Ossetia, where most residents had been provided with Russian passports, this statement produced a shock. It sounded as if Moscow was reclaiming the Soviet geopolitical legacy of Russia's spheres of influence and was prepared to intervene with force in countries with significant ethnic Russian minorities. The talk of Russian assertiveness, making rounds since the mid-2000s, was substantially enhanced by accusations of Russia's outright aggressive behavior.
Political Geography:
Russia, Moscow, and Georgia

159. Can Berlin and Washington Agree on Russia?

Author:
Stephen F. Szabo
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Both Russia and Germany are back on the U.S. agenda. Russia will be a key element of a wide array of policies to the Obama administration, including dealing with Iran and the construction of a broader nonproliferation regime, energy security, nuclear arms reductions, and Afghanistan. Russia policy will also be central to U.S. designs for NATO, including how to deal with Georgia and Ukraine, and the viability of a pan-European security structure.
Topic:
NATO
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, Europe, Washington, Ukraine, Georgia, and Berlin

160. Harnessing the Financial Furies: Smart Financial Power and National Security

Author:
Juan C. Zarate
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Washington Quarterly
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Economic sanctions have long been the national security tool of choice when neither diplomacy nor military force proves effective or possible. This tool of statecraft has become even more important to coerce and constrain the behavior of non-state networks and recalcitrant, rogue regimes which often appear beyond the reach of classic U.S. power or influence. The challenge is often how to use power to affect the interests of regimes that are likely immune to broad effects of sanctions on their populations.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
United States

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