Interventionism in US foreign policy from Bush to Obama
This chapter considers the evolution of US policy and practice towards foreign military intervention under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and in terms of strategic intent finds no evidence of substantive change. Although the language of the ‘Global War on Terror’ has been replaced by one of a ‘transnational global conflict’ the underlying policy drivers remain the same: America’s security and related interests continue to shape its foreign policy and provide the justification for an exceptionalist interpretation of international law, to the disappointment of those who hoped Obama's election would usher in a new era of strengthened global norms. However, a change in US official thinking is evident in a greater appreciation of the limitations of certain forms of intervention, and in the emergence of alternative policy instruments to deliver US strategic objectives.
International NGOs and International Development Assistance: What They Can and Cannot Contribute to Combating Terrorism
In this chapter I argue that much recent thinking about the links between ‘development’ and combating terrorism has been misguided and that the response to both poverty and terrorism has suffered as a result. At the conceptual level there is a potential clash between altruism and self-interest; whereas the purpose of development work is to secure human rights and justice for all people for altruistic reasons, counter-terrorism is usually framed in terms of self-defense and self-interest. There is also a moral deficit: Western governments pay more attention to the development needs of states seen as posing a global security threat than to those where human suffering is greatest, and the absence of a consistent foreign policy approach to issues of poverty and conflict undermines the authority of the West’s interventions. At the practical level, the role of ‘development’ in combating terrorism is almost certainly overplayed. Poor people do not necessarily become terrorists, although poverty and – especially – injustice provide the narrative that leaders of terrorist organizations use to justify their activity. Successful action to combat terrorism requires us to acknowledge people’s grievances and legitimate aspirations to a better life, and give some hope that these can be met, as well as to insist robustly on the rule of law. This should include a determined effort to engage armed groups in political processes rather than allow them to fall back on extremist tactics. Instead, the current policy preference is for the diversion of aid funds into military budgets, in the misguided belief that this will help win the ‘war on terror’; this option also reflects the difficulties faced by donor governments struggling to reconcile their nominally altruistic development goals with their more self-interested security concerns. For all these reasons international NGOs and other independent development actors have of necessity to keep their distance from official action by governments to combat terrorism and even official development agencies struggle to define their role as part of a ‘comprehensive approach’. I argue that governments can help to close this gap by adopting a broader concept of self-interest, based on the recognition that security is an entitlement of rich and poor people alike. Terrorist activity damages the poor as much as the rich (if not more so) but perceived injustice and the unaddressed grievances of the poor and marginalized – exacerbated by the exclusion of armed groups from political processes - allow it to flourish. The challenge facing Western governments engaged in the attempt to combat terrorism is to apply the principles of equity and social justice consistently across all aspects of our foreign and security policy so that development and counter-terrorism can be mutually reinforcing.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1