Rethinking security: a critical analysis of the Strategic Defence and Security Review

In 2010 the coalition government conducted a major review of defence and security policy. This article explores the review process from a critical perspective by examining and challenging the state‐centrism of prevailing conceptions of current policy reflected in the quest to define and perform a particular ‘national role’ in contrast to a human‐centric framework focused on the UK citizen. It argues that shifting the focus of policy to the individual makes a qualitative difference to how we think about requirements for the UK's armed forces and challenges ingrained assumptions about defence and security in relation to military operations of choice and attendant expensive, expeditionary war‐fighting capabilities. In particular, it confronts the prevailing narrative that UK national security‐as‐global risk management must be met by securing the state against pervasive multidimensional risk through military force, that military power projection capabilities are a vital source of international influence and national prestige and that the exercise of UK military power constitutes a ‘force for good’ for the long‐term human security needs of citizens in both the intervened and intervening state.     

Complex security and strategic latency: the UK Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015

Whichever party or parties form the next UK government, a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) is expected to begin soon after the general election in May. The review might be a ‘light touch’ exercise—little more than a reaffirmation of the SDSR produced by the coalition government in 2010. It seems more likely, however, that the review will be a lengthier, more deliberate exercise and one which might even last into 2016. For those most closely engaged in the process the challenge is more complex than that confronted by their predecessors in 2010. The international security context is more confused and contradictory; the UK's financial predicament is still grave; security threats and challenges will emerge that cannot be ignored; the population's appetite for foreign military engagement appears nevertheless to be restricted; and prevailing conditions suggest that the risk‐based approach to national strategy might be proving difficult to sustain. Two key questions should be asked of the review. First, in the light of recent military experiences, what is the purpose of the United Kingdom's armed forces? Second, will SDSR 2015–16 sustain the risk‐based approach to national strategy set out in 2010, and if so how convincingly? Beginning with a review of the background against which SDSR 2015–16 will be prepared, this article examines both enduring and immediate challenges to the national strategic process in the United Kingdom and concludes by arguing for strategic latency as a conceptual device which can complement, if not reinvigorate, the risk‐based approach to national strategy and defence.     

美国“国家安全国家”的创生

1940年代中期至1950年代末,冷战对美国国家构建产生了重大深远的影响:一种全新的现代美国国家形态——"国家安全国家"——在"为总体冷战而进行总体准备"的过程中被塑造出来。国家安全国家构成对美国主流政治传统的重大偏离,其创生、扩张和演进是冷战时期美国国家构建和总体政治变迁的重要方面。它不仅涉及联邦政府组织体制和对外政策决策程序的重组,也涉及国家和社会关系的重构。国家安全国家的中枢制度和标志是国家安全委员会,其经历的持续变动体现了国家安全国家与"帝王式总统权"之间存在复杂的共生和互动关系。在更广阔的历史背景中,国家安全国家的重大意义在于它与"福利国家"和"管理型国家"共同构成20世纪美国国家构建和国家扩张长期运动的三个基本向度。     

The Secret Society's Secret: The Invoked Reality of the Tiandihui

This essay examines two sets of reports in the Qing-dynasty Jiaqing and Daoguang periods (respectively 1796-1820 and 1821-45) in order to understand better the perceived reality of the Tiandihui.The first set,found among the papers of Jiangxi governor Xianfu (1809-14),allows a comparison of a criminal gang that invoked the Tiandihui ceremony with one that did not.The second set includes the diary of Taihe county magistrate Xu Dihui (in office from 1824) that recorded various events which came to be reported to the senior officialdom as having been conducted by secret societies.By collating the incidents as reported in the diary and memorials to the emperor,the authors argue that the pressure of the administrative process was responsible for the ultimate acquiescence by the Hunan governor Han Wenqi (in office 1825-29) in the perception of an indisputable connection of the incidents with secret societies.Moreover,both sets of reports show that participants in secret-society ceremonies and officials who suppressed them knexv that the acclaimed networking of the Tiandihui as implied in its folklore was very far from the reality.     

The Internal Security Acts of 1798: The Founding Generation and the Judiciary during America's First National Security Crisis

It is a truism that a nation must protect itself from internal enemies as well as foreign threats of aggression and invasion. But that is not the entire matter. Our American democracy has striven, with mixed success, to be careful that the justified ends of the American experiment—freedom, justice, and the rule of law—are not sacrificed on the altar of the means to protect these ends.     

The Presidency and National Security: Presidential Foreign Policymaking, 1945-1999

Busby, Robert. Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair: The Politics of Presidential Recovery. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 222. $65.00, hardbound.

Garrison, Jean A. Games Advisors Play: Foreign Policy in the Nixon and Carter Administrations. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 192. $34.95, hardbound.

Hogan, Michael J. A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. v, 525. $37.95, hardbound.

Hyland, William G. Clinton's World: Remaking American Foreign Policy. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. Pp. i, 221. $24.95, hardbound.     

20世纪80年代邓小平国家安全思想论析

20世纪80年代,邓小平继承和发展了毛泽东的国家安全思想,紧紧围绕以经济建设为中心,积极营造有利的国家安全环境,使中国经济迅速发展,综合国力和国际地位不断提升,国家安全得到了切实有力的保障。邓小平的国家安全思想是理性和务实的,适应了当时国内发展任务的需要,对中国的安全战略起过重大的指导作用,也为后来的国家安全决策提供科学的依据和借鉴。     

解读清代秘密社会的文化密码--《文化与叛乱》简评

刘平博士的《文化与叛乱》一书,是以清代秘密社会为对象,从文化角度研究农民反抗问题的。该书由商务印书馆于2 0 0 2年1 1月出版发行。我们通览全书,颇多感想———作者脚踏实地,勤于思索,为学术界奉献了一本视野开阔、内容丰富的好书。一该书的研究视角新颖而独特。这主要体现在:其一,拓宽了秘密社会史研究的视野。秘密社会史研究是中国社会史研究领域里的一株奇葩,其成果固然骄人,但研究者们主要从事件史、政治史的角度,聚焦于会党、教门的形成、发展、演变及其活动等的考证和争论。本书独辟蹊径,从文化层面对清代秘密社会进行剖析。当然,…