FOREIGN POLICY

NATO’s 2012 Chicago summit: a chance to ignore the issues once again? Andrew M. Dorman, International Affairs, pp. 301–312. The NATO organization and its members are beginning to gear themselves up for the forthcoming summit in Chicago in May 2012. Such summits are always important, especially when they are held in the United States. For example, the 1999 Washington summit held to mark the alliance’s 50th anniversary occurred against the background of an apparently failing war in Kosovo and a US President fearing impeachment as a result of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Moreover, this summit is happening in a US presidential election year and in a location particularly symbolic for the current incumbent President Obama. It will also follow on from the French presidential elections, thus presenting the first opportunity for either the new French president or a re-elected Nicolas Sarkozy to make a mark on the international scene. READ MORE

Willing or waning? NATO's role in an age of coalitions. Karsten Jung, World Affairs, March 16, 2012, pp. 43+ “Twenty years after the great debate over NATO's future at the end of the Cold War, we appear to have come full circle--"back to the future," in John Mearsheimer's words. Its instrumental role in pacifying the Balkans, its major commitment in Afghanistan, and its recent operation in Libya notwithstanding, the role and relevance of the alliance appear no more certain today than they were when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. International relations specialists are certainly wondering. Rajan Menon has recently pondered "the end of alliances," and Stanley Sloan speculated about whether NATO might no longer be a "permanent alliance." In April 2011, James Joyner joyfully declared that the Libyan operation was helping "NATO get its groove back," but only four months later, toward the end of an exhausting half-year battle with Muammar el-Qaddafi's third-rate force, he was much less optimistic, penning a commentary for the National Interest titled "NATO fails in Libya.” READ MORE

American Grand Strategy and the Democratic Peace. Paul D. Miller, Survival, April/May 2012, pp. 49-76. “US foreign policies for two decades have been justified with reference to the spread of democracy and human rights. As a grand narrative to explain America's role in the world, there is no credible alternative.” READ MORE
 
Conservatives, Liberals, and Human Rights. Mark P. Lagon and William F. Schulz, Policy Review, February 1, 2012, var. pages. “Putting politics aside in search of common ground. When the american section of Amnesty International was first founded in the 1970s, William F. Buckley was one of its earliest supporters. The prime mover behind the American section, Ginetta Sagan, was a mentor to those of all political stripes, including, for example, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, whom no one has ever accused of being a “leftist.” When George W. Bush called in his second inaugural address for the United States to affirm “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world,” he was issuing a call with which no human rights advocate could possibly disagree. The board of Freedom House, a prominent human rights organization, is rife with ex-Bush administration officials like William H. Taft IV and Paula J. Dobriansky, and with scholars like Ruth Wedgwood and Joshua Muravchik who are generally identified with the conservative end of the political spectrum.” READ MORE

MIDDLE EAST, IRAN & AFPAK

Syria and its Neighbours. Emile Hokayem, Survival, April/May 2012, pp. 7-14. “Syria's strategic stability is in jeopardy, but there is nothing inevitable about the fate of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Much will depend on whether and how its neighbours intervene.” READ MORE

Arab Spring or Islamist Winter? Michael Totten, World Affairs, Jan/Feb2012, pp. 23-42. "The phrase 'Arab Spring' is a misnomer. The political upheavals sweeping Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria are concurrent yet different phenomena, and it’s premature to assume that any of them, let alone all of them, will bring their respective countries out of the long Arab winter of authoritarian rule. In the medium term, the number of genuinely liberal democracies to emerge in the Arab world is likely to be one or zero." READ MORE

Turkey and America Face Iran. Philipp C. Bleek & Aaron Stein, Survival, April/May 2012, pp. 27-38. “Rapidly unfolding events in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, provide Washington and Ankara both motivation and opportunity to cooperate over how best to blunt Iranian influence.” READ MORE

Enlisting Islam for an Effective Afghan Police. Austin Long and Andrew Radin, Survival, April/May 2012, pp. 113-128. “Establishing an effective police force has eluded both the Afghan government and ISAF. Increasing the prominence of Islamic policing will complement current efforts to defeat the insurgency.” READ MORE

Rising Tension Over Iran: Is Iran trying to develop nuclear weapons? Roland Flamini, CQ Researcher, February 7, 2012, var. pages. “Successive U.S. presidents have insisted that a nuclear-armed Iran is “unacceptable.” Iran's Islamic leadership insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but even as U.N. inspectors headed to Tehran in late January, the body of evidence from earlier inspections raised nagging questions that the Iranians have failed to answer, such as why facilities for a peaceful program would be buried hundreds of feet underground. A nuclear Iran would alter the strategic balance in the tense Middle East and, some say, possibly trigger a regional atomic arms race. Although the United States and Europe have imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, the Iranians have not stopped enriching uranium or begun operating their nuclear program with more transparency. But with Israel reportedly considering a pre-emptive strike on nuclear facilities in Iran — which has vowed to destroy Israel — the question of the sanctions' effectiveness may be moot.” READ MORE

EU ISSUES
 
European Foreign Policy and the Euro Crisis. Jan Techau, Carnegie Endowment, February 29, 2012. “A US Q&A concluding that the euro crisis demonstrates the fundamental need for cooperation and in the long run EU member states will be drawn closer together.” READ MORE

The Perils of Wishful Thinking: On Europe and the Middle East. Walter Laqueur, World Affairs Journal, March/April 2012, var. pp. “Forecasting political events is always risky because chance plays such a decisive role in what becomes history. Given its inherent weaknesses, the breakdown of the Soviet Union, for instance, may have been inevitable. But if instead of Mikhail Gorbachev, appointed as General Secretary of the Communist Party as a sort of accident in 1985, a hard-liner had been chosen by the Politburo and if he and like-minded comrades had managed to hold onto power for another twenty years, what would we have witnessed? As the price of oil went up exponentially (from two dollars a barrel to as much as one hundred and fifty), the Soviet economy would have prospered, the empire would not have fallen apart, and the wisdom of the Communist Party and its leaders who brought about these gigantic achievements would have been praised.” READ MORE

Practising homeland security across the Atlantic: practical learning and policy convergence in Europe and North America. Ruben Zaiottia, European Security, March 2012, pp. 1-19. “Despite different traditions, interests and perceptions characterizing North American and European approaches to homeland security, since 9/11 policy-makers across the Atlantic have formulated increasingly similar policies to deal with terrorism and other international security threats. Challenging mainstream accounts elaborated in the policy convergence literature, and drawing from sociological works in performance studies, this essay argues that the recent evolution of homeland security policies in Europe and North America can be understood as an instance of ‘practical learning’. From this perspective, this outcome is the result of the acquisition on the part of European and North American policy-makers of the practical knowledge necessary to carry out the new policies, policies learned by mimicking the practices of their counterparts across the Atlantic. This argument is then applied to examine two cases of policy convergence in Europe and North America – the proposal for a ‘European Passenger Name Record’ system and the project of a regional ‘Security Perimeter’.” READ MORE

The SWIFT Affair and the Global Politics of European Security. Marieke De Goede, Journal of Common Market Studies, March 2012, pp. 214-230. This article examines the ‘SWIFT affair’, whereby United States security authorities acquired access to financial data of European citizens, and argues that it is a powerful lens through which to understand current shifts in European security governing. The affair demonstrates the institutional challenges produced by the deployment of private, commercial data for security, and analyzes the ad hoc innovations produced in European Union (EU) governing as a result. Furthermore, the SWIFT affair has allowed the EU to position itself in the global security landscape as a normative power that promotes the values of privacy and data protection. However, the development of a European Terrorism Financing Tracking System, coupled with the way in which the EU itself is keenly implementing risk-based and data-led internal security measures, means that critical attention to the EU’s own security practices remains urgent.  READ MORE

FINANCIAL MARKETS/ECONOMIC ISSUES
 
Cross-Border Resolution of Failed Banks in the European Union after the Crisis: Business as Usual. Zdenek Kudrna, Journal of Common Market Studies, March 2012, pp. 283-299. "The post-2007 financial crisis created an opportunity for reforms that could close the regulatory gap between transnational banks and national bank resolution regimes. During the decade before the crisis, the European Union tried to develop a cross-border bank resolution regime relying on voluntary agreements and complex governance networks. However, these arrangements failed to commit national authorities to multilateral resolution as was exemplified by the case of Fortis. The crisis experience provided the Commission with an opportunity to propose legislation that would either deepen the pre-crisis co-ordinated regime, or replace it with an integrated resolution regime for systemically important cross-border banks. The Commission considered the more ambitious reforms, but after the experience with negotiations over the powers of European Supervisory Authorities, postponed the proposals for an integrated regime until after 2014. The initial round of post-crisis reforms thus remained limited to minimal improvements of the pre-crisis status quo." READ MORE

Is More ‘Brussels’ the Solution? New European Union Member States’ Preferences about the European Financial Architecture. ANETA SPENDZHAROVA, Journal of Common Market Studies, March 2012, pp. 315-334. "The changes in the European financial architecture in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis have highlighted the tension between the need for greater centralization of financial regulation at the EU level and the reluctance of some Member States to give up national regulatory autonomy. This article analyses the attitudes of new EU Member States toward the EU financial regulatory reforms. It investigates whether the extent of foreign ownership in the domestic financial sector, Euroscepticism, government support for deregulation and recent experiences of a severe financial crisis have an impact on countries’ reservations. According to the results of the analysis, the higher the foreign ownership of a country’s financial sector, the more reservations it expresses. The Eurosceptic attitude of the political parties in government matters as well. The more the governing political parties are opposed to EU integration in general, the more reservations one finds in a country’s official position on the new EU financial architecture." READ MORE
 
The Villain. Roger Lowenstein, The Atlantic, April 2012, var. pp. "The left hates him. The right hates him even more. But Ben Bernanke saved the economy—and has navigated masterfully through the most trying of times. The U.S. Federal Reserve was founded 99 years ago, as a bulwark to the banking system and an antidote to its frequent runs and panics. Strictly speaking, it was America’s third attempt at a central bank. The first, organized by Congress in 1791, was allowed to expire after 20 years, leaving the young republic with only a patchwork system of weaker state banks. During the War of 1812, Congress realized its error (in the absence of a central bank, inflation had run rampant), and in 1816, it chartered a second bank, again for 20 years. The Second Bank of the United States was, in the main, a success. Its notes were circulated as currency, and it astutely managed their supply so as to keep the economy humming. Alas, President Andrew Jackson, a fierce opponent of both paper money and national banks, campaigned in 1832 against renewal of the charter, and indirectly against the bank’s brilliant but impetuous head, Nicholas Biddle. Resentment against financiers was running high, and the election became a referendum on the genteel Philadelphia banker versus the rough-hewn war hero—and a referendum on the bank itself. Jackson won, and the Second Bank was, per his promise, destroyed. The U.S. economy promptly plunged into a severe depression. Biddle died not long after, in semi-disgrace, but the battle between bankers and populists never went away." READ MORE

Youth Unemployment: Are high youth jobless rates creating a “lost” generation? Reed Karaim, CQ Global Researcher, March 6, 2012, pp. 105-128. “Across the globe, the economic crisis has led to soaring youth unemployment — above 50 percent in Spain, nearly that high in Greece and above 30 percent in many other countries. The crisis also has exacerbated already-high levels of youth unemployment in the Middle East and North Africa, where frustrated, unemployed college graduates were at the forefront of last year's Arab Spring revolutions. Angry, jobless youths have taken to the streets in other countries, as well, including the U.K. Countries are grappling with the problem, but solutions remain elusive. Youth unemployment is seen both as a matter of demographics — disproportionately higher numbers of young people in many countries — and structural problems in labor markets, such as laws protecting older workers' jobs. Many observers believe if the issue isn't addressed, further upheavals will occur, while others worry that the world could be facing a ‘lost generation’ of discouraged workers whose earnings will be diminished for decades.” READ MORE

The Dark Side of Cyber Finance, Christopher Bronk, Cody Monk & John Villasenor, Survival, April/May 2012, pp. 129-142. « Digital technology has created a new playing field for illicit financial transactions. Governments and industry will have to be as fast-moving and adaptable as the criminals and terrorists to meet the threat.” READ MORE

Attracting Jobs: Do tax breaks for business spur employment? Marcia Clemmitt, CQ Researcher, March 2, 2012, pp. 205-228. “Tax-supported subsidies aimed at luring companies to relocate or retain offices and factories in specific locations have proliferated. Local and state governments, engaged in fierce competition for jobs, are giving businesses up to $70 billion annually in tax breaks, new roads and training facilities and other incentives. Economic-development officials and companies that have relocated for subsidies say the incentives have spurred employment growth and helped some businesses stay profitable. But critics, who include many economists, argue that the incentives generate relatively few new jobs and instead lead many companies merely to shift operations from one place to another, depending on where they can broker the best deal. Among the most controversial subsidies are those supporting professional-sports stadiums. Supporters say new sports facilities help cities raise their profile and attract growth, while critics charge the subsidies fail to pay for themselves.” READ MORE

CLIMATE & ENERGY

U.S. Petroleum Security and Energy Independence. Jonathan Chanis, American Foreign Policy Interests, February 2012, pp. 20-26. “Over the last few years, technological advances have vastly increased the ability of the United States to produce petroleum on its own territory. This startling turnaround in U.S. petroleum prospects has caused some to believe that the United States can become energy “independent.” After examining the production data and the concepts of “independence” and “energy security,” the conclusion is reached that while U.S. petroleum security is dramatically improving, energy “independence,” as conventionally understood, is not realistic. The ultimate degree to which U.S. petroleum security improves is highly dependent on (1) the outcome of numerous political disputes within the United States between petroleum and environmental interest groups and (2) the future investment policies of the international oil companies and Saudi Arabia.” READ MORE

UNITED STATES ISSUES

Immigration Conflict : Should states crack down on unlawful aliens? Kenneth Jost, CQ Researcher, March 9, 2012, pp. 229-252.  “Americans are very concerned about illegal immigration but ambivalent about what to do about it — especially the 11 million aliens currently in the United States illegally. Frustrated with the federal government's failure to secure the borders, several states passed laws allowing state and local police to check the immigration status of suspected unlawful aliens. Civil rights organizations warn the laws will result in ethnic profiling of Latinos. The Obama administration is suing to block several of the laws for infringing on federal prerogatives. Advocates of tougher enforcement say undocumented workers are taking jobs from U.S. citizens, but many business and agricultural groups say migrant workers are needed to fill jobs unattractive to U.S. workers. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law providing stiff penalties for employers that knowingly hire illegal aliens. Now, the justices are preparing to hear arguments on the controversial, new Arizona law that inspired other states to crack down on illegal immigration.” READ MORE

The Once and Future Liberalism. Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, March- April 2012, var. pp. We need to get beyond the dysfunctional and outdated ideas of 20th-century liberalism. Writing about the onset of the Great Depression, John Kenneth Galbraith famously said that the end had come but was not yet in sight. The past was crumbling under their feet, but people could not imagine how the future would play out. Their social imagination had hit a wall. The same thing is happening today: The core institutions, ideas and expectations that shaped American life for the sixty years after the New Deal don’t work anymore. The gaps between the social system we inhabit and the one we now need are becoming so wide that we can no longer paper over them. But even as the failures of the old system become more inescapable and more damaging, our national discourse remains stuck in a bygone age. The end is here, but we can’t quite take it in. READ MORE

SPACE PROGRAM

The Case for Space. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2012, var. pages. “As Mars looms within reach and China ramps up its space program, the United States is turning its back on the stars through stinginess and partisan bickering. But the country can't afford to abandon space.” READ MORE

Space Program: Can NASA set a new course for human exploration? John Felton, CQ Researcher, February 24, 2012, pp. 177-204. “More than 40 years after astronauts first walked on the moon, the U.S. space program is in search of direction. With the end of the space shuttle program last year, the United States must rely on Russian Soyuz rockets to send Americans into space. Private contractors are building spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and beyond, but those won't be ready for years. Meanwhile, budget cutters have pared NASA spending, and President Obama has angered some space enthusiasts by proposing to shift funds from two international Mars missions to a new telescope slated to replace the aging Hubble observatory. Mars remains a tantalizing destination, and a sophisticated rover is scheduled to land there in August to search for signs of life. But a human landing may be decades away. Obama has rejected returning to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars, preferring to send astronauts to an asteroid.” READ MORE