Journal of International Studies

This article is based on a speech given by Alexei Arbatov at the international conference “Russia in the 21st-Century World of Power” held to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and the tenth anniversary of  Russia in Global Affairs . The “power of arms,” in other words, the role of military force in politics and war is mostly determined by the nature of potential and real arms conflicts; by military-technical progress and available economic resources needed for defense; and by ambitions and phobias of state leaders, military-industrial complexes and their contractors at research centers and in the media. PREMONITION OF WAR Contrary to the widespread belief among the Russian military-political elite, all objective parameters indicate that the threat of a major war is now (and in the future) less than ever in modern history. And the reason is not the stockpiles of nuclear weapons possessed by the leading powers: during the Cold War the...

Amnesty International has just issued a  report   that is highly critical of the use of drones by the United States. Its main concern is the great number of civilian casualties that these strikes cause – the so-called collateral damage. There is considerable disagreement among observers about the extent of these casualties. Amnesty International relies on local people, who, as the report discloses, are keen to call attention to them. Whatever the actual number, though, they deserve careful consideration. One should first of all note that the main reason for these civilian casualties is that terrorists do not observe the most elementary rule of armed conflict – widely recognized and championed by the International Red Cross – the  rule of distinction . Under this rule, military forces should make every effort to separate military targets from civilian ones and spare the latter. Why do American drones have difficulty abiding by this? Mainly because the terrorist...

The sad, dangerous lessons of America's budget standoff. BY JAMES TRAUB   |   I've been thinking in recent days about doctrines of national decline. The fact that at the eleventh hour the U.S. Senate managed to paddle the canoe of state away from the thunderous cataract of default is hardly a sign that the United States has preserved its global standing. For one thing, Americans will find themselves witnessing the same melodrama in three months unless Congress agrees on a long-term fiscal plan, which seems, to put it gently, damn unlikely. For another, Americans have been stumbling in a fog of their own devising for the last generation or so. The end is not nigh; but the decline is. The United States is exhibiting extremely idiosyncratic symptoms of great-power decline. Take the classic account of the subject, Paul Kennedy's  The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers . Kennedy describes a syndrome, which afflicted the Roman Empire, imperial Spain, and Victorian E...

The Naval Diplomat did a double-take while wandering the defense contractors' exhibition halls in Sydney last week. This isn't uncommon, actually. Such displays always have a surreal feel to them. They typically feature photos or mock-ups of golly-gee weapon systems — implying that the casual visitor can whip out his MasterCard and take a Joint Strike Fighter or guided-missile destroyer home with him. For my money the best galleries were historical in nature. Several recounted the Royal Australian Navy's century-long history while paying homage to its pre-history — in particular to the Great White Fleet's port call in 1908. The visuals were simple and effective, deploying timelines, photos and ship models. Simple is good. One anomaly caught my eye, however, since I'm a relative newcomer to studying the RAN. The newly built battlecruiser HMAS  Australia  headed the new fleet's procession into Sydney Harbor one century ago. Despite her youth,  Australia ,...

Shanghai, China is set to become one of the world's most important cities in the future, analysts say. China, India and Brazil are taking the global economy by storm, becoming more politically confident on their way. But even as they form a front against the West, they will have to tackle slower growth and major domestic problems that their newly prosperous citizens are no longer willing to tolerate. What will be the world's most important cities in the future? To answer this question, the US-based journal  Foreign Policy  and the McKinsey Global Institute examined criteria such as economic growth and receptiveness to technology. The result? Shanghai edged out Beijing and Tianjin, followed by the first non-Chinese mega-city, São Paulo in Brazil. No Western European city ranks among the top ten "most dynamic cities." Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich don't even appear among the top 50, but other cities in China, India and Brazil do. If we are to believe the study...