Washington’s Phantom War The Effects of the U.S. Drone Program in Pakistan

By Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90 Iss. 4, Jul/Aug 2011

Drone strikes were successful in killing high-level leaders of the Taliban and al Qaeda. But few are. On average, only one out of every seven US drone attacks in Pakistan kills a militant leader. The majority of those killed in such strikes are not important insurgent commanders but rather low-level fighters, together with a small number of civilians. As the pace of the drone strikes has increased, so, too, has their accuracy. So far, the US has paid too little attention to how the strikes are seen in Pakistan. There are a number of steps Washington could take to make the drone strikes more palatable to Pakistanis concerned about civilian casualties and violations of their country’s sovereignty. To begin with, the US should make the program more of an operational partnership with Pakistan. Additionally, US and Pakistani officials should be more forthcoming about the program’s existence. A more transparent drone-strike program would increase accountability, in particular regarding civilian casualties.

Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring: The Myth of Authoritarian Stability

By F. Gregory Gause III
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90 Iss. 4, Jul/Aug 2011

The vast majority of academic specialists on the Arab world were as surprised as everyone else by the upheavals that toppled two Arab leaders last winter and that now threaten several others. It was clear that Arab regimes were deeply unpopular and faced serious demographic, economic, and political problems. Yet many academics focused on explaining what they saw as the most interesting and anomalous aspect of Arab politics: the persistence of undemocratic rulers.

Understanding the Revolutions of 2011 Weakness and Resilience in Middle Eastern Autocracies

By Jack A Goldstone
Foreign Affairs, May/Jun 2011, Volume 90, Issue 3,

The wave of revolutions sweeping the Middle East bears a striking resemblance to previous political earthquakes. As in Europe in 1848, rising food prices and high unemployment have fueled popular protests from Morocco to Oman. As in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989, frustration with closed, corrupt, and unresponsive political systems has led to defections among elites and the fall of once powerful regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and perhaps Libya. Yet 1848 and 1989 are not the right analogies for this past winter’s events. The revolutions of 1848 sought to overturn traditional monarchies, and those in 1989 were aimed at toppling communist governments. The revolutions of 2011 are fighting something quite different: “sultanistic” dictatorships. Although such regimes often appear unshakable, they are actually highly vulnerable, because the very strategies they use to stay in power make them brittle, not resilient. It is no coincidence that although popular protests have shaken much of the Middle East, the only revolutions to succeed so far- those in Tunisia and Egypt-have been against modern sultans.

The Rise of the Islamists How Islamists Will Change Politics, and Vice Versa

By Shadi Hamid
Foreign Affairs, May/Jun 2011, Volume 90, Issue 3

For decades, U.S. policy toward the Middle East has been paralyzed by “the Islamist dilemma”-how can the United States promote democracy in the region without risking bringing Islamists to power? Now, it seems, the United States no longer has a choice. Popular revolutions have swept U.S.-backed authoritarian regimes from power in Tunisia and Egypt and put Libya’s on notice. If truly democratic governments form in their wake, they are likely to include significant representation of mainstream Islamist groups. Like it or not, the United States will have to learn to live with political Islam.

China’s Search for a Grand Strategy A Rising Great Power Finds Its Way

By Wang Jisi
Foreign Affairs, March-April 2011, Volume 90

Any country’s grand strategy must answer at least three questions: What are the nation’s core interests? What external forces threaten them? And what can the national leadership do to safeguard them? Whether China has any such strategy today is open to debate. On the one hand, over the last three decades or so, its foreign and defense policies have been remarkably consistent and reasonably well coordinated with the country’s domestic priorities. On the other hand, the Chinese government has yet to disclose any document that comprehensively expounds the country’s strategic goals and the ways to achieve them. For both policy analysts in China and China watchers abroad, China’s grand strategy is a field still to be plowed.

Finish the Job: How the War in Afghanistan Can Be Won

By Paul D Miller
Foreign Affairs, January-February 2011, Volume 90

Pessimism abounds in Afghanistan. Violence, nato casualties, corruption, drug production, and public disapproval in the United States are at record levels. Ahmed Rashid, a prominent Pakistani journalist and an expert on the region, declared the U.S. mission in Afghanistan a failure in his scathing 2008 book, Descent Into Chaos. Seth Jones, the leading U.S. scholar on the Taliban insurgency, has argued that the United States had an opening to make a difference in Afghanistan after 2001, but that it “squandered this extraordinary opportunity.” U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates attempted to manage expectations when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2009. “If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose,” he argued, “because nobody in the world has that kind of time, patience, and money.” U.S. policymakers and the public increasingly doubt that the war can be won. These assessments are based on real and credible concerns about the rising insurgency, the drug trade, endemic corruption, and perennial government weakness.

Sudan’s Secession Crisis: Can the South Part From the North Without War

By Andrew S. Natsios
Foreign Affairs, January-February 2011, Volume 90

Under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the 2005 deal that ended the lengthy civil war between the north and the south of Sudan, voters in the south are supposed to vote on January 9, 2011, to decide whether their region should secede and form the world’s newest country. The civil war, which lasted 22 years and during which an estimated 2.5 million southerners died, was fought over several issues: the central government’s long-standing neglect of Sudan’s periphery; the excessive concentration of jobs, wealth, and public services in the region known as the Arab triangle, along the northern part of the Nile River valley; the government’s brutal attempts to impose Arab culture and Islam on the south, where Christianity and traditional religions prevail; its persistent refusal to grant the south any autonomy (except for a brief period in the 1970s); and its exploitation of the south’s resources, particularly its oil, to fill government coffers. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which was signed by Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, and John Garang, the leader of the southern rebellion, who was killed in a helicopter crash soon after the deal, was intended to correct some of these problems. It gave the south its own semiautonomous government and an independent standing army and required the upcoming referendum on secession. But now Khartoum’s stalling tactics are threatening to delay the vote, with potentially disastrous consequences.

A Globalized God Religion’s Growing Influence in International Politics

By Scott M. Thomas
Foreign Affairs, November-Deccember 2010, Volume 89

Around the world-from the southern United States to the Middle East-religion is on the rise. It is growing in countries with a wide variety of religious traditions and levels of economic development, suggesting that neither poverty nor social exclusion is solely responsible. The religious resurgence is not simply defined by the growth of fundamentalism-rigid adherence to a particular set of rituals and doctrines-but is occurring through a variety of renewed rituals and practices, both public and private.

What Happens Next in China and the United States

The next step in China’s economic growth will come from the ongoing and careful courtship of Taiwan. China absorbed Hong Kong and Macao without any major economic and cultural disruptions. While there was a decline in property values in Hong Kong in the late 1990s when it was absorbed into the People’s Republic of China, property values now are comparable or higher than when it was annexed. The reunification with Taiwan has been a more delicate courtship. It is being done in many small steps, such as permitting direct flights between the two. These flights have stimulated tourism between Taiwan and mainland China.

China: The Growing Giant

Prosperity and Poverty

Arriving in China through the airports of Beijing or Shanghai, you enter a spacious and ultramodern terminal. The building is clean. There are large open spaces and soaring ceilings. Everything appears efficient and contemporary-no different from terminals in Zurich, Tokyo, or New York City. It’s easy to get through baggage claim and customs fast. Gateways have always been important in Chinese culture as a way of protecting the interior as well as impressing visitors with their splendor, and these portals to modern China initially impress you as well-planned, twenty-first-century hubs.

United States: The Weakening Giant

Think of the United States as a large and mature oak tree. It is tall and has many branches, representing the political, geographical, and economic diversity of the country.

Beating America

The devastation of Europe and Japan during World War II gave the United States a unique opportunity to dominate international commerce and, later, to dominate the world political stage as the biggest superpower. Before the war, Britain, France, and Germany were viewed as the world’s superpowers, but that ended in the ashes of ?res and bomb fragments in Dresden, Coventry, and throughout the rest of the Continent. During the decades in which Europe, Russia, and Japan recovered from the war’s devastation, the United States was able to exploit its own unchallenged economic and political power. The result was a new world order.

Introduction

China is threatening to usurp the position of the United States as the global leader in wealth. Will the United States remain wealthy and strong, or will the United States be financially weakened by China?

Contents

ChinAmerica: The Uneasy Partnership that Will Change the World
By Handel Jones
2010

Contents

Introduction

Part I: Beating America
1. The Front Lines of the ChinAmerica Wealth Battle
2. How CEOs Replaced Generals

Part II: United States: The Weakening Giant
3. The Declining U.S. Automobile and Steel Industries
4. U.S. Computer industry—a winner to date
5. The Role of Government in U.S. Industry

Part III: China: The Growing Giant
6. What Is China Today?
7. Chinese Culture
8. Chinese Government Policies
9. Chinese Economic Philosophies
10. China’s Future Looks Bright

Part IV: What Happens Next in China and the United States
11. Taiwan and Its Synergy with China
12. A Restructuring Plan for the United States

How to Handle Hamas (3)

By Daniel Byman
Foreign Affairs. New York: Sep/Oct 2010. Vol. 89, Iss. 5; pg. 45

(Daniel Byman is a Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of the forthcoming book A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.)

Cease-Fire Calculus

If Hamas cannot be uprooted, can it be calmed enough to not disrupt peace talks? Maybe-and the chance is worth pursuing. Although often depicted as fanatical, Hamas has shown itself to be pragmatic in practice, although rarely in rhetoric. It cuts deals with rivals, negotiates indirecdy with Israel via the Egyptians, and otherwise demonstrates that unlike, say, al Qaeda, it is capable of compromise. Indeed, al Qaeda often blasts Hamas for selling out. Hamas has at times declared and adhered to cease-fires lasting months, and some leaders have speculated that a truce lasting years is possible. And although Hamas has refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, its leaders have also said they would accept the UN-demarcated 1967 borders between Israel and the Palestinian areas as a starting point for a Palestinian state. Perhaps the most important sign of pragmatism has been Hamas’ general adherence to its cease-fire after Operation Cast Lead.