ASIA
AP Photo
September 2008
"Russia's Recipe for Empire"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Foreign Policy
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
Russia’s recent campaign against Georgia is a textbook example of how powerful states forged empires in centuries gone by. For those who have forgotten, here’s how it’s done.
AP Photo
September 2, 2008
"The Neocons vs. The Realists"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, The National Interest
By Joshua Muravchik and Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
"A must-read debate about our foreign-policy future. Does realism offer the best solutions to today’s threats? Or will neoconservatism be responsible for our policy triumphs? The choice is clear after eight years of failed Bush policies, says Walt, but Muravchik thinks the House of Kristol may well be vindicated." — National Interest
AP Photo
September 2, 2008
"Guns and Gold of August"
Op-Ed, The Korea Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations
"...Military force is obviously a source of hard power, but the same resource can sometimes contribute to soft power behavior. The impressive job by the American military in providing humanitarian relief after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and the South Asian earthquake in 2005 helped restore America's attractiveness....By bombing, blockading, and occupying many parts of Georgia, delaying its withdrawal, parading blindfolded Georgian soldiers, and failing to protect Georgian citizens, Russia lost its claims to legitimacy and sowed fear and mistrust in much of the world...."
AP Photo
September 1, 2008
"China's Winning Olympic Spirit"
Op-Ed, The Boston Globe
By Xiaohui (Anne) Wu, Former Research Associate, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom, 2004-2008 and Jason Qian
"...The "one world, one dream" ideal even transcended Chinese nationalism when some globetrotting Chinese coaches led foreign teams in the Games. Indeed, many Chinese felt proud of the Chinese gymnastics coach of US gold medalist Shawn Johnson and the Chinese coach of the US silver-winning women's volleyball team. One dream for the world's celebration of sports does not sound like such an empty slogan in such cases...."
AP Photo
August 27, 2008
"Après Musharraf, Patience"
Op-Ed, Interntional Herald Tribune
By Hassan Abbas, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program/Project on India and the Subcontinent
"...The notion that somehow developing countries, and especially Muslim-majority states, cannot adjust to democratic model is a flawed assessment. The track record of democratic governments in Pakistan is indeed mixed, but it is also true that democracy takes time to develop....Western governments, primarily the United States and Britain, have shown far more patience with dictators than with elected leaders. Periods of military rule in Pakistan — 1958–69; 1977–88; 1999–2008 — lasted an average of 10 years, while democratic phases lasted an average of less than three years and were often declared to be unstable, corrupt and weak. Foreign aid also declined during the democratic periods...."
AP Photo
August 24, 2008
"Soft Power and Beijing Olympics"
Op-Ed, Real Clear World
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations
"The enrollment of foreign students in China has tripled from 36,000 to 110,000 over the past decade, and the number of foreign tourists has also increased dramatically to 17 million per year even before the Olympics. In addition, China has created some 200 Confucius Institutes around the world to teach its language and culture, and while the Voice of America was cutting its Chinese broadcasts from 19 to 14 hours a day, China Radio International was increasing its broadcasts in English to 24 hours a day.
But just as China’s economic and military power does not yet match that of the United States', China’s soft power still has a long way to go...."
AP Photo
Summer 2008
"Identities, Interests and the Resolution of the Abkhaz Conflict"
Journal Article, Caucasian Review of International Affairs, issue 3, volume 2
By Ondrej Ditrych, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007-2008
"The recent crisis in Abkhazia reveals a fundamental qualitative change in the conflict in which the balance among three main actors is shifting, and increasingly the conflict plays a more important role in the triangular relations between Georgia, Russia and the West. The search for a new equilibrium in the conflict, one that would be an optimal outcome for the actors involved, will require rethinking the mutually constitutive roles (identities) and interests they want to assume with respect to the conflict and the entire South Caucasus...."
AP Photo
August 18, 2008
"Musharraf Exit May Affect U.S. Plans"
Media Feature
By Xenia Dormandy, Senior Associate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent, was interviewed for National Public Radio's All Things Considered on the impact of Musharraf's resignation for U.S. foreign policy.
Michael Bronner
August 16, 2008
"When the War Ends, Start to Worry"
Op-Ed, New York Times
"EVEN as Russia and Georgia continue their on-again, off-again struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a frenzied tea-leaf reading about the war's global political ramifications has broken out across airwaves and think-tank forums. But as the situation on the ground recedes inevitably to some new form of the pernicious "frozen conflict" that has plagued the region since Georgia's civil wars of the early 1990s, few are paying attention to a less portentous but equally critical international threat: an increase in the longstanding, rampant criminality in the conflict zones that is likely to further destabilize the entire Caucasus region and at worst provide terrorist groups with the nuclear material they have long craved."
August 13, 2008
"Climate of Security"
Op-Ed, The Korea Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations
"...Climate change will put stress on weak governments in poor countries and may lead to an increase in the number of failed states and become an indirect source of international conflict. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon argued in 2007 that the Darfur conflict 'began as an ecological crisis, arising in part from climate change.'
Such direct and indirect effects from human activity, while not malevolent in intention like terrorism, argue for a broadening of our concept of security and the adoption of new policies...."
