CENTRAL ASIA
AP Photo
April 8, 2009
"Obama Gradually Changes Course"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, The Dubai Initiative
President Barack Obama's speech in Turkey gave vague hints couched in nice rhetoric -- intriguing hints that should be watched for signs of policies that affirm them. Large ships adjust their course slowly and incrementally, and Obama turned the wheel a few degrees.
AP Photo
January 29, 2009
"Iran's Islamic Revolution and Its Future"
Journal Article, Viewpoints, The Iranian Revolution at 30 Special Edition
By Abbas Maleki, Former Senior Research Associate, International Security Program
"Regime sustainability despite different internal crises and foreign threats underlines the fact that Iran enjoys a relatively rational decision-making process. The central slogan of the Iranian Revolution was "Independence, Freedom, and Islamic Republic." Today, Iran is an independent state, as it does not belong to an Eastern or a Western bloc. Although the country has not realized its ambition of economic independence, the revolution has provided economic welfare. Rural development has improved people's lives by providing villages with water, electricity, and infrastructure. The essence of independence also
referred to the specific relations between the Iranian monarchy and the United States. The US-sponsored 1953 coup against the popular Muhammad Mosaddeq government made Iran an American client state, leading to Iranian dependence in all aspects."
AP Photo
January 29, 2009
"The Geopolitical Factor in Iran's Foreign Policy"
Journal Article, Viewpoints, The Iranian Revolution at 30 Special Edition
By Kayhan Barzegar, Research Fellow, Project on Managing the Atom/International Security Program
"Revolutions either expand to export their ideologies or preserve themselves from the outside world. The 1979 Islamic revolution of Iran is no exception. A careful reading of Iran's actions in the region shows how and why Iran has shifted its policies to meet the latter aim. Since the revolution, Iran's leaders have faced the challenge of balancing their ideological (idealism) and geopolitical (pragmatism) approaches to foreign policy. Gradually, the Iranian leadership has come to focus on the geopolitical factor in the conduct of foreign policy; today, ideology one factor among many other sources of Iran's power, and serves the aim of preserving Iran's national security and interests...."
November 18, 2008
Securing the Bomb 2008
Book
By Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Project on Managing the Atom Co-Principal Investigator Matthew Bunn provides a comprehensive assessment of efforts to secure and remove vulnerable nuclear stockpiles around the world, and a detailed action plan for reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism. Securing the Bomb 2008 was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The full report, with additional information on the threat of nuclear terrorism, is available on the NTI website.
AP Photo
Summer 2008
"Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By Maria Stephan, Former Research Fellow, Intrastate Conflict Program/International Security Program, 2003-2005 and Erica Chenoweth, Associate, International Security Program
The historical record indicates that nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than armed campaigns in achieving ultimate goals in political struggles, even when used against similar opponents and in the face of repression. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support, neutralize the opponent's security forces, and compel loyalty shifts among erstwhile opponent supporters than are armed campaigns, which enjoin the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the opponent a justification for violent counterattacks, and are less likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections. An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims. These dynamics are further explored in case studies of resistance campaigns in Southeast Asia that have featured periods of both violent and nonviolent resistance.
Summer 2008
"The Window of Vulnerability That Wasn’t: Soviet Military Buildup in the 1970s—A Research Note"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
By Pavel Podvig
The Soviet strategic modernization program of the 1970s was one of the most consequential developments of the Cold War. Deployment of new intercontinental ballistic missiles and the dramatic increase in the number of strategic warheads in the Soviet arsenal created a sense of vulnerability in the United States that was, to a large degree, responsible for the U.S. military buildup of the late 1970s and early 1980s and the escalation of Cold War tensions during that period. U.S. assessments concluded that the Soviet Union was seeking to achieve a capability to fight and win a nuclear war. Estimates of missile accu¬racy and silo hardness provided by the U.S. intelligence community led many in the United States to conclude that the Soviet Union was building a strategic missile force capable of destroying most U.S. missiles in a counterforce strike and of surviving a subsequent nuclear exchange. Soviet archival documents that have recently become available demonstrate that this conclusion was wrong. The U.S. estimates substantially overestimated the accuracy of the Soviet Union's missiles and the degree of silo reinforcement. As the data demonstrate, the Soviet missile force did not have the capability to launch a successful first strike. Moreover, the data strongly suggest that the Soviet Union never attempted to acquire a first-strike capability, concentrating instead on strategies based on retaliation.
July/August 2008
"Separatism's Final Country"
Journal Article, Foreign Affairs, issue 4, volume 87
By Richard N. Rosecrance, Adjunct Professor; Senior Fellow, International Security Program; Director, Project on U.S.-China Relations and Arthur A. Stein
"Muller argues that ethnonationalism is the wave of the future and will result in more and more independent states, but this is not likely. One of the most destabilizing ideas throughout human history has been that every separately defined cultural unit should have its own state. Endless disruption and political introversion would follow an attempt to realize such a goal. Woodrow Wilson gave an impetus to further state creation when he argued for "national self-determination" as a means of preventing more nationalist conflict, which he believed was a cause of World War I...."
May 6, 2008
"Turkmenistan under Niyazov and Berdymukhammedov"
In the News
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
A monument of Turkmenistan’s former autocratic ruler, Saparmurat Niyazov, will be removed from the center of the country’s capital, the New York Times reported on Monday, May 5, 2008. The removal was ordered by Turkmenistan’s current president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. What seems to be a symbolic move away from the repression that has plagued Turkmenistan is more likely the removal of one autocratic legacy to make room for another.
AP Photo
April 14, 2008
"Separating Tibet and the Olympics"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Xiaohui (Anne) Wu, Associate, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
"Some people believe it is fair to vent their grievances with China, but don't see any unfairness in depriving China and its people of the dream to host the Games. In both 1936 and 1948, Chinese Olympian athletes had to detour through Asia to raise fund for their trips by performing in competitions. They ended up exhausted and defeated in the Olympics. It would be equally unfair to deprive the world's athletes of their dreams and the chance to compete in the most important global athletic competition."
December 11, 2007
"U.S. Primacy, Eurasia's New Strategic Landscape, and the Emerging Asian Order"
Working Paper
By Alexander Vuving, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2005-2007; Former Associate, International Security Program, 2007-2008
This paper argues that the current structure of international power in Asia is transitional. But neither hegemony nor multipolarity will likely be the next Asian order. The paper then assesses the prospects of the emerging regional order in Asia in terms of four options: bipolarity, the East Asian Community, U.S.-China condominium, and shared leadership. The paper concludes by discussing how Southeast Asian countries should prepare for the future strategic environment.
