The second North Korean nuclear crisis

In 2002 the inclusion of North Korea by the Bush administration within the 'axis of evil' portended a break from the Clinton policy of engagement. Despite the apparent inconsistencies of this categorisation, North Korea's undoubted possession of some weapons of mass destruction capability seemed to make it a possible target for US containment if not preemption. However, Pyongyang's chief motive in such weapons development might actually be to guarantee regime survival. The revelation that North Korea had been developing a covert uranium enrichment program led US policymakers in the Bush administration to contemplate a policy of quarantine and containment. The wider policy community is divided on the question of whether Pyongyang was seeking a new bargain with the US, or whether this program was intended to produce a deterrent from possible US attack. These alternatives prescribe, respectively, a new negotiating approach or a strategy designed to dissuade. But the actual policy choice hinges on the outcome in Iraq.     

The West's moral and political crisis

The West is in the grip of a moral panic with unforeseeable political consequences. After four decades of neoliberalism, cracks are beginning to appear in the form of nationalist challenges from the right and a youthful insurrection from the left, both frequently described as ‘populist’ by establishment figures. The Faustian compact made with finance capital by the traditional parties of the centre‐left in the 1990s now leaves them on the verge of extinction. The underlying conditions for this disarray are a massive demographic shift at the global level which will see Asians and Africans with over four‐fifths of the world's population in 2100. This editorial briefly reviews the Cold War and the transformations that have occurred since. A world revolution after 1945 was overthrown by a counter‐revolution in 1979–1980 which is itself under threat now. The American Empire is sustained by mercantilism, militarism, the world currency, intellectual property and the Internet economy. Free markets are just an ideological fig leaf for this. The editorial concludes with a review of recent political events in the US, France and Britain: Trump's presidency, Macron's improbable rise and Corbyn's surge in May's snap election. In Britain's case, the terrorist attacks, hung parliament and Grenfell Tower fire constitute a perfect storm that could sink the British political right.     

The City of London in the Asian crisis

This paper seeks to understand the Asian crisis through theeyes of the City of London. Relying upon material provided byThe Financial Times (FT), we construct an index of pessimismto chart the dominant City of London interpretation of the pathof the crisis. This index is set against data on the actualperformance of the Hong Kong, and Tokyo, London, and New Yorkstock markets over the same period. We have the luxury of retrospectivelyreconstructing the actual path of the crisis whereas the FT(and global financial markets) had to respond to specific eventsin a chain of apparent cumulative events. Our goal is to explainthe construction of the dominant pessimistic interpretationof the path of the crisis, placing the City of London in thecontext of global markets (in time, between Tokyo and New York).In the penultimate section of the paper we report on an interviewwith Riley, the FT columnist, about the results of our analysis,emphasizing the apparent homogeneity of information and opinionin the City of London as opposed to New York. The conclusionfocuses upon the implications of this argument for the studyof discontinuities between global markets, and the future offinancial centres.     

The Atlantic Empires in the Eighteenth Century

Spanish America; John J. Tepaske     

The United States and the Cyprus crisis of 1974

Based upon two recently published volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States series of declassified diplomatic documents for the period of the Nixon and Ford presidencies, this article focuses upon the crisis which erupted in Cyprus in the summer of 1974 at the time of the transition between the two administrations. A Greek-sponsored coup on the island led to a Turkish invasion and the threat of war between two of America's NATO allies and culminated in the collapse of the Greek military junta and the de facto partition of Cyprus. Emphasis is placed upon the role of Henry Kissinger and his advisers in their efforts to defuse the crisis, efforts which were only partially successful. The conspiracy theories which surround the episode are found wanting and the limitations of the Anglo–American 'special relationship' highlighted.     

The future of NATO enlargement after the Ukraine crisis

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that his country's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 was partly in response to NATO enlargement. NATO leaders counter that eastern enlargement is not a cause of the Ukraine crisis, and they argue that enlargement does not threaten Russia, but rather it creates stability for all of Europe. This article examines the history of NATO–Russian tensions over enlargement, considers how NATO's enlargement policy factored into the Ukraine crisis, and reviews options for the future of enlargement. Drawing on diplomatic history and geopolitical theory, the article explains Russia's persistent hostility towards NATO's policy of eastward expansion and highlights NATO's failure to convert Russia to its liberal world‐view. The alliance's norm‐driven enlargement policy has hindered the creation of an enduring NATO–Russia cooperative relationship and helped fuel the outbreak of conflict in Georgia and Ukraine. In light of this, NATO should alter its current enlargement policy by infusing it with geopolitical rationales. This means downgrading the transformative and democratization elements of enlargement and, instead, focusing on how candidate countries add to NATO capabilities and impact overall alliance security. A geopolitically‐driven enlargement policy would prioritize countries in the Balkan and Scandinavian regions for membership and openly exclude Georgia and Ukraine from membership. Ultimately, this policy would have the effect of strengthening NATO while giving it more flexibility in dealing with Russia.     

大西洋岸边的精彩动物世界

<正>纳米比亚被誉为"沙海交响"之国,因为在纳米布沙漠边,就是澎湃汹涌的大西洋。如果说纳米布沙漠是多么的古老而又热情如火,那么大西洋则是一贯的冰冷却又激情四溢。不过有一点是共同的,那就是拥有丰富的动物资源。大西洋的寒流虽然不像印度洋那么讨人喜欢,但对于海洋动物和鸟类来说,这里食物丰富,绝对是生活的乐园。     

The political future of ASEAN after the Asian crisis

The 1997 Asian financial crisis has been a debilitating experience for the ASEAN countries, with attendant political transformation and economic readjustment. Regional unity has also been affected: ASEAN appears to lack resolve and cohesion as well as the ability to forge common action. While political change has been effected and more open systems are in place, ASEAN countries now seem set to bounce back with renewed vigour and a business-as-usual approach to their economies. However, ASEAN's revitalization into the next century will significantly depend on the region's most important polity, Indonesia, the country most affected by the crisis and now undergoing substantive change.