Over‐promising and under‐delivering? Ambitions and risks in US defence strategy

Recent changes to US defence strategy, plans and forces have placed the United States at greater risk of over‐promising and under‐delivering on its global security ambitions. In 2012, the Obama administration released a new defence strategic guidance document to adapt to a shifting security environment and defence budget cuts. The guidance upholds the two long‐standing American goals of global pre‐eminence and global reach, but seeks to apply this military power by using new planning and regional concepts. It revises the Department of Defense's force planning construct, an important tool used to size US military forces, and identifies the Asia–Pacific and the greater Middle East as the two regions where the US military should focus its attention and resources. There are three major risks facing this revised US strategy: emerging security threats, the role of US allies and partners, and domestic constraints in the United States. Included in these risks are the proliferation of advanced military technologies, the US response to the rise of China, the continued prevalence of state instability and failure, the capability and commitment of NATO and other US allies, additional US budget cuts, political polarization in the United States, and interservice competition within the US military. In light of these risks, the United States faces a future in which it will continue to struggle to direct its military power towards its most important geopolitical priorities, such as rebalancing towards the Asia–Pacific, as opposed simply to respond to the many security surprises that are certain to arise. If the past is any guide, American political leaders will respond to the aforementioned risks in the worst way possible: by maintaining the current US defence strategy while slashing the resources to support it.     

U.S. Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: Balancing Values and Interests

The rapid and unpredictable changes in the Middle East collectively known as the “Arab Spring” are posing tremendous challenges to U.S. policy formation and action. This article will explore and evaluate evolving U.S. policy in the Middle East and its potential implications. There has always been a tension in American foreign policy between pursuing American “values” (foreign policy idealism) and protecting American “interests” (foreign policy realism). For decades, the United States has sought to “make the world safe for democracy,” while at the same time often supporting repressive, nondemocratic regimes because of national security or economic self‐interest. The tension between these two fundamentally distinct policy orientations has become even more pronounced as the United States tries to respond to the Arab Spring uprisings. Why did the United States actively support the rebels in Libya but not the protestors in Syria or Bahrain? Is there an emerging, coherent “Obama Doctrine” on intervention in Arab countries, or was Libya just a “one‐off” event? These are some of the questions that this article will attempt to answer.     

The politics of expressive forms,ethnographic practice,and indigenous–state relations

This review examines four recently published ethnographies of North American Indian communities in both the United States and Canada, each reflecting the ways in which sovereignty and self-determination are realized and compromised. The evolving indigenous polities discussed in these works each articulate with the nation-state that encompasses them in different ways, in large part by virtue of the kinds of resources the communities are perceived to manage by salient institutions in the dominant society. These works are also insightful concerning the possibilities and limitations of ethnography in highly politicized settings.     

性别、种族、男性气概：再读二战之前美国本土华人历史

美国自快速工业化后,男性白人因失去手工业时代的支配地位而对外来移民和少数族群采取仇视的态度,将男性华人视如女性而置之于权力边缘。美国华人可说是在性别分化的机制运作之下,经历了种族歧视。男性华人尝试藉由抗争罢工、司法诉讼等方式争取尊严,这些行动虽然不一定都产生了良好效果,但从中我们可以看到美国华人男性气概的形成过程。本文主要以现存美国本土华人研究的二手资料为基础,以性别为关注点,力图重新给男性华人以不同的定位,从而使美国华人的研究更加完整。     

跨国教育流动中的刻板印象与身份建构——以在美中国留学生为例

伴随在美中国留学生群体的不断扩大，中国留学生在美国社会中的体验和经历备受关注。本文主要通过深度访谈，了解在美中国留学生与美国本土社会及国内社会的互动，及互动对其塑造社会认同的影响。研究发现，来自美国社会的刻板印象一方面阻碍了该群体的深度融入，另一方面造成了中国留学生群体的“自我规训”，使该群体对于美国社会产生一定的疏离感。此外，在教育流动的过程中，留学生增强了其国家认同，中国人身份和留学生身份处于共生共荣的关系。然而，来自“群体内”的刻板印象增加了留学生群体社会认同建构的不确定性。因此，在美中国留学生群体的身份建构是一个动态的过程，并在“人-人”和“人-地”的互动不断发展和变化。     

A View from America: Map Collecting, ‘Treasure-House’ Libraries,and American Civic Influences on the History of Cartography

Abstract

The study of the history of cartography in the United States has been profoundly shaped by the peculiar American institution sometimes known as the ‘treasure house’. These libraries, located in major metropolitan areas and at prestigious universities, were created through the philanthropy of businessmen of local and national significance, most of whom also collected maps and books. The collecting patterns of these philanthropists and the institutions they helped to found emphasized materials (including maps) relating to American history and culture before 1800. This emphasis on pre-nineteenth century holdings tended to marginalize the historical study of most post-1800 cartography in the United States until the middle of the twentieth century. At the same time, as a case study of Chicago’s Newberry Library shows, the development of these collections was flavoured by the civic and regional pride of their host communities and the aspirations to be regional, national and global metropolises.     

‘The races and conditions of men’: women in nineteenth-century geography school texts in the United States

Geography schoolbooks published in the United States were important opinion makers in the nineteenth century, often joining the Bible as the main source of information about the world outside North America. The texts examined here are noteworthy for their static and pejorative treatment of non-American cultures and may be seen as playing a key role in forming isolationist and chauvinist American public opinion. They also played a role in reinforcing ideas about the proper niche for women in American society, even though it may seem at first that these books could not have had much influence on ideas about American women because they barely mentioned women, almost always relegating them to illustrations and captions. The few women depicted were usually characterized as ‘poor souls’ in distant lands worthy of pity. We discuss the national political context in which these writers (many of whom were women) were producing geography school texts, the social roles they were fulfilling by reinforcing such limited images of ‘foreign’ women, and the sources they may have used in their research. Furthermore, we demonstrate that much more could have been drawn ethnographically from the illustrations of women. The images of women in these geography schoolbooks reinforced the marginalization of women, particularly non-white and non-western women.     

The 1864 Sully Expedition and the Death of Captain John Feilner

This article addresses an area of nineteenth century American history that is often ignored in history textbooks. While a great deal of emphasis is often placed on the Civil War era (1861–65), it is also important to realize that other notable events occurred during the same time on the northern plains of the United States. As a result of the 1862 Minnesota Uprising by the Santee Sioux, the United States military began an aggressive campaign to break the will of the Sioux Indian nation. General Alfred Sully’s first retaliatory campaign in 1863, which resulted in the disgraceful events at Whitestone Hill, and his follow‐up campaign of 1864, in which Captain John Feilner was killed, reflect the attitudes and hostilities that existed during the 1860s. This article addresses the situation on the northern plains as whites continued to move westward.     

Body Snatching & Grave Robbing: Bodies for Science

This paper parallels the history of body snatching for dissection in the United States with the robbing of Native American graves by nineteenth‐century anthropologists for osteological collections. The implications of the similarities revealed are discussed; specifically whether ethical responsibilities to the deceased were being upheld by researchers and how these practices were maintained through the exploitation of marginalized members of society. In both cases, bodies were commodified in the grave (interred as people and later extracted as resources) and clandestinely acquired, studied and then disposed of or stored away. For doctors, the traffic in cadavers ended when voluntary donation of bodies to science increased in the twentieth century. For anthropologists the situation has been reversed, as they now face the potential destruction of their skeletal collections as a result of legal reforms such as NAGRPA.     

略论20世纪40年代中国赴美学者对美国汉学的影响

目前学界对于美国汉学史的研究,多侧重于美国汉学概况、研究范式转变和著名中国学家及其著述的研究,而缺少从华裔汉学者对美国汉学之影响这一角度研究的论著。论文就赴美华裔汉学者对美国汉学的影响这一论题作了总体性探析。结果表明,20世纪40年代,一批从事中国文史研究的华裔学者赴美潜心于中国文史研究。他们在美所从事的文史研究是美国汉学发展的重要组成部分,对美国汉学产生了重要影响。他们对美国汉学的基础性贡献和推进作用具体表现在：协力培育美国汉学的基础、矫正美国汉学发展中的流弊、开拓美国汉学研究的新领域。     

LIVING WITH THE LONG CYCLE TODAY

There is a need for a new rationale to guide American security policy, including arms control and disarmament. In light of fundamental changes in the external and internal environment, American security policy would appear to have to rest on the following four assumptions: (1) the multiplication of threats, allies, and adversaries; (2) the disparity between greater absolute military power at the disposal of the United States and greater relative impotence in wielding it to influence events abroad; (3) the globalization yet divisibility of American and international security, economic, and political regime interests; and (4) the persistence of divided domestic consensus as the shaky basis from which to project American military power to shape the international environment in ways congenial to often conflicting American preferences.     

Wilsonianism: the dynamics of a conflicted concept

Americans have generally seen the principles and objectives proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson during the First World War as having continued relevance for United States foreign policy. However, they have often differed over their application to specific situations, particularly because there is likely to be a tension between a drive to establish democratic values across the globe and commitment to a universal system of collective security. Rather than seeking a pure, abstract definition of 'Wilsonianism', it is more illuminating to examine its origins and evolution in relation to the development of American foreign policy over the years. Tracing this historical process reveals that Wilson committed himself to a postwar league of nations during the period of American neutrality, but it was only as the United States became a belligerent that the spread of democratic government became a policy objective, and then only in a partial and qualified way. A similar pattern has been discernible in subsequent decades. It has been during conflicts, or the run-up to them, that the more ideological and revisionist aspects of Wilsonian principles have come to the fore, whereas it has been in the aftermath of conflicts that there has been the greatest interest in the potentialities of a universal collective security organization. There has also been a broad shift of emphasis over time. As confidence in America's power position has grown, the core of Wilson's legacy has more often come to be seen as the promotion of democracy rather than the strengthening of international institutions. The persistence of both themes may be seen as reflecting basic and enduring elements of the policy-making context—on the one hand, the interests of the United States as a status quo power, and on the other, the demands of domestic American opinion.     

How the East Influenced Drug Prohibition

In much of the academic literature drug prohibition is often described as an American, or at least a Western, construct. This paper shows how prohibitions were enforced in Asian countries while the United States and Western Europe were routinely trading opium. The concept of prohibition being a distinctly American construct is, therefore, flawed. Furthermore, Western missionaries to China are often credited as important actors in the formulation of Western prohibitions. These missionaries may, however, have been influenced by the prohibitionist ideals of the peoples they were trying to convert to Christianity. This paper does not dispute the importance of American pressure on the global spread of prohibition but rather seeks to add balance to its historiography, by elucidating how Western prohibitions were pre-dated, and possibly influenced, by Eastern prohibitions.     

The Recall of Edmond Charles Genet: A Study in Transatlantic Politics and Diplomacy

Edmond Charles Genet's brief but tumultuous diplomatic mission to the United States in 1793 has been a frequently studied episode in American history. American historians have established its origins in a specific phase of Girondin revolutionary diplomacy, described its impact on the development of American neutrality and American attitudes toward the French Revolution, and delineated its catalytic effect on the formation of the first American party system. But they have not satisfactorily explained the dynamic interaction between the climactic events of this episode—the Washington administration's decision to demand Genet's recall less than three months after he arrived in the nation's capital as the French Republic's first minister to the United States and the French government's ready acquiescence in the matter. While correctly pointing out that the root cause of the demand for Genet's recall was his pointed defiance of American neutrality policy, American scholars have misconstrued the divisions among President Washington and his cabinet officers that shaped this decision and been too ready to account for French acceptance of it as a simple function of the shift in power from the Girondins to the Jacobins and the beleaguered French Republic's need for friendly relations with the United States.¹     

Canadian studies and American geography: trends and issues

Geography is perceived to be a relevant contributing discipline within a growing Canadian studies community in the United States, and the Association of American Geographers (AAG) retains a viable Canadian Studies Specialty Group. Since the early 1990s, however, the number of American geographers affiliated with Canadian studies organizations has not significantly increased: the community of scholars remains small and geography holds a peripheral position in terms of its actual contribution to US‐based Canadian studies programs. This article documents and interprets these trends using membership data collected by prominent professional organizations in Canadian studies and geography. It also explores the question of why American geography's Canadian regional specialists are not engaging formal Canadian studies initiatives in greater numbers. The observations that emerge suggest that a diversification of research themes in Canadian studies, particularly in the realms of environmental and physical science, would both increase participation by American geographers and enhance the field's ability to address pertinent aspects of the Canadian experience. Although observations presented pertain directly to the state of Canadian studies in American geography, they may also shed light on the lack of involvement by geographers in a variety of area studies fields in the United States and elsewhere.     

What consensus? Geopolitics and policy paradigms in China and the United States

The Washington Consensus is not what it was. A model of development associated with the Untied States, it has been diminished both by apparent failures, widespread criticism and by the recent economic crisis that had its origins in the US. Anglo‐American capitalism has lost a good deal of its influence and attractiveness. As a consequence, alternative models of development have become more prominent, especially the so‐called Beijing Consensus. The authors argue that at one level this evolving policy discourse and debate reflects a long‐term structural change in the relative positions of China and the United States. However, it is far from clear that this transformation has gone far enough to underpin a significant ideational or policy challenge on China's part. On the contrary, the debate in China demonstrates that there is little appetite for, or expectation of, a major paradigm change in the near future.     

George W. Bush,Barack Obama and the future of US global leadership

The foreign policy world views of George W. Bush and Barack Obama differ dramatically. Bush made terrorism the focal point of his foreign policy and dismissed the idea that either allies or international institutions should constrain America's freedom of action. Obama sees terrorism as one of many transnational problems that require the cooperation of other countries to combat and, as a result, the United States must invest more in diplomatic efforts to build partnerships. Despite these differences, both presidents share one common conviction: that other countries long for US leadership. Bush believed that friends and allies would eventually rally to the side of the United States, even if they bristled at its actions, because they shared America's goals and had faith in its motives. Obama believed that a United States that listened more to others, stressed common interests and favored multinational action would command followers. In practice, however, both visions of American global leadership faltered. Bush discovered that many countries rejected his style of leadership as well as his strategies. Obama discovered that in a globalized world, where power has been more widely dispersed, many countries are not looking to Washington for direction. The future success of US foreign policy depends on the ability of policy‐makers to recognize and adapt to a changing geopolitical environment in which the US remains the most significant military, diplomatic and economic power but finds it, nonetheless, increasingly difficult to drive the global agenda.     

20世纪60年代以来影响墨西哥裔美国人在美国参政的要素分析

自20世纪60年代以降,美国人口总数及其种族构成发生了巨大变化,其中西裔和亚裔群体数量急剧增长。作为西裔群体当中最大的一支族裔团体,墨西哥裔美国人开始积极参与美国政治,并逐渐对美国的社会、经济、政治和文化等领域产生重要影响。本文以墨西哥裔美国人在美国的政治参与为研究对象,综合运用历史学、社会学和政治学等研究方法,全面分析和理解该群体在美国政治参与的现状,认为政治文化、社会经济地位和政治动员等因素共同影响了墨西哥裔美国人自20世纪60年代以降在美国的政治参与。     

Developmentalities and Calculative Practices: The Millennium Development Goals

Abstract: This paper focuses on wide‐ranging governmental discourses that enable new ways of shaping social and economic affairs in the field of development. Directing particular attention to the Millennium Development Goals, we refer to these discourses as developmentalities. As a form of governmentality produced through these Goals, developmentalities draw on the turn of the century to recast certain development problems and offer reformulated solutions to these problems. We argue that they rely on three forms of neoliberal rationalities of government—information profiling, responsibilization, and knowledge networks, and their calculative practices, to shape global spaces and new capacities for individuals and social groups. Our analysis is based on extensive policy documents, reports, and development initiatives affiliated with the United Nations and other organizations, as well as insights derived from in‐depth interviews and conversations with United Nations policy and research personnel from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).     

‘Personifying the coloured community’: Sonny Leon and the ambiguities of the politics of co-option and resistance in the apartheid state

Abstract

The traditional focus regarding the Angolan Civil War, 1974–1976, has been on the nature of Soviet and Cuban involvement, the American response to communist activities, and South Africa's invasion. A point often mentioned, but rarely elaborated upon in the literature, is the degree to which the United States of America (USA) encouraged South Africa to intervene in the Angolan conflict. This paper investigates the extent and nature of American collusion with South Africa in the civil war, and the degree of complicity of senior American officials. The paper argues that on balance, the evidence suggests that senior elements of the United States executive branch, covertly and informally, colluded with South Africa. South African politicians overestimated the depth and extent of American support for its intervention, and when the USA ceased its assistance, they felt betrayed by Kissinger.