Journal of International Studies

(Brookings.edu) - Editor's note: Teresita Schaffer has started work on a book called  India at the International High Table . The book, co-authored with Howard Schaffer, will examine how India sees its role in the world, and how this translates into India’s negotiating style. This article argues that the latest Manmohan Singh-Obama meeting did some useful work but was an example of "small ball" — incremental moves with modest and hopefully steady results for U.S.-India relations. It was published in The Hindu October 7, 2013. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s White House visit September 27 was workmanlike and cordial, but the sense of barely meeting low expectations was hard to miss. The two governments put out a long list of accomplishments. They announced a few new items, notably a new defence framework statement and a preliminary contract between Westinghouse and the Indian nuclear authorities regarding construction of a nuclear power plant in Gujarat. The discuss...

(An article by  Cheng Li , posted on Brookings.edu) Abstract: Crucial to any analysis of China’s political trajectory is an understanding of the kind of leadership that is governing the country. This is even more important now given the emergence of new political elites with distinct educational and professional credentials who will be running the country for the next decade and beyond. Throughout PRC history, changes in the composition of the political elite have often reflected—and sometimes heralded—broad social, economic, political, and ideological changes in the country at large. This essay examines the rapid rise of “lawyers” and legal professionals in both Chinese higher courts and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Focusing on the 52 leaders who hold law degrees in the newly formed 376-member Central Committee of the 18th Party Congress, this essay identifies three distinct sub-types of this elite group for further analysis. This study links the tr...

Later this month, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will travel to Beijing. The visit will cap a year that has been full of ups and downs in India’s relations with China. The tale of three trips is representative. One in May by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, his first abroad, was intended to signal the  importance Beijing placed in the Sino-Indian relationship . But it took place in the aftermath of—and some would say was overshadowed by—a border standoff between the two countries’ militaries. In July, the Indian defense minister visited Beijing to rebuild trust and defense ties. Media coverage, however, focused on  warnings  to India issued by a PLA general, which Chinese officials had to rush to  dismiss . And Singh will be travelling from a country that is largely preoccupied domestically. When discussions do turn to China, they have focused on  concerns  about Indian capacity vis-à-vis that country, Indian politicians  accusing  the...

President Barack Obama’s reluctance to intervene in Syria has occasioned yet another round of soul-searching on America’s role in the world. His reflective speech at the U.N. General Assembly has led commentators to wonder whether the United States remains willing to play its traditional and indispensable role in maintaining world order. “Nation-building at home” is the newest term of art, and even the dreaded I-word is making one of its periodic comebacks. Bill Keller of The New York Times sees a “new isolationism” creeping across the land, while Sen. John McCain alleges that there are 15 isolationists in the Senate GOP caucus. This debate on America’s role in the world is not new — indeed, it is a constant and a healthy conversation. America’s expansive commitments and unique power deserve constant re-evaluation. But however one feels about the wisdom of deeper involvement in Syria — and the two of us disagree among ourselves on that point — it should be easy to see that Obama...

Summary For two decades, the United States has sought to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Occasional success in freezing elements of that program, together with pledges by Pyongyang to end it, inspired hope that denuclearization could actually be achieved. Hope also grew from the belief that there existed a collection of incentives, including diplomatic normalization, security guarantees, and food assistance, which would convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions. These hopes have been dashed. U.S. policy has failed to achieve its objective. Important lessons have been learned from years of negotiating with Pyongyang. Among them is that North Korea probably was never serious about ending its nuclear and missile programs. We have learned that even the most robust package of inducements was insufficient to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear pursuit. North Korea has shown itself willing to endure tough sanctions to preserve its nuclear and missile as...

Any list of Iran articles from this week would have to start with the Geneva nuclear talks.  Coverage of the talks was largely positive, drawing on the tone of the meeting which,  as reported by Michael Gordon of the  New York Times,   an American official called “intense, detailed, straightforward, [and] candid.”  Just to give you a sampling of analyses,   the Washington Post  wrote in an editorial that America should be happy  with the seriousness of the Geneva talks but not satisfied, as there remains much that Iran is not willing to concede.  Scott Peterson of the  Christian Science Monitor   wrote  that the scant attention paid to the bilateral meeting of Iranian diplomat Abbas Araghchi and the State Department’s Wendy Sherman shows how quickly direct interaction between Iran and the United States has become somewhat normal, after years of being taboo. Against the backdrop of the talks,  Robin Wright wrote in...

Just as a last-minute deal ended the standoff that had shuttered the U.S. government, the second most important negotiations in the world this week took place in Geneva. The talks on Iran’s nuclear program were the first since the June election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and they offered the first real test of whether Rouhani’s audacious campaign to rehabilitate Iran’s reputation and its economy could generate a more constructive negotiating process and meaningful constraints on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In outlining a framework that appears to address the main areas of international concern surrounding its nuclear activities, Iran has passed the first hurdle of that test. Still, Geneva represented only the beginning and a painfully belated one at that — more than a decade after the full scope of Tehran’s nuclear activities first came to light and only after sanctions have cost Iran tens of billions in revenues and eroded its access to the international financial sy...