In Search of the Right War
Roberto Menotti
Review of: Winning the right war : the path to security for America and the world / Philip H. Gordon. - New York : Times Books, 2007. - xviii, 203 p. - ISBN 978-0-8050-8657-7
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A Neo-liberal Agenda for America
Emiliano Alessandri
Review of: Statecraft : and how to restore America's standing in the world / Dennis Ross. - New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. - xii, 370 p. - ISBN 978-0-374-29928-6
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Ancient and Modern Empires: The United States as the New Rome
Riccardo Monaco
Review of: Are we Rome? : the fall of an empire and the fate of America / Cullen Murphy. - Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2007. - 262 p. - ISBN 970-0-618-742 22-6; 978-0-547-05210-6 (pbk)
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Moral and Strategic Dimensions of Humanitarian Military Intervention
Costantino Pischedda
Review of: Humanitarian military intervention: the conditions for success and failure / Taylor B. Seybolt. - Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2007. - xvii, 294 p. - ISBN 978-0-19-925243-5
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Recent Publications

International economy

The Chinese economy: transition and growth / Barry Noughton. - Cambridge ; London : The MIT Press, c2007. - xvi, 528 p. - ISBN 0-262-14095-0 ; 978-0262-14095-9
Since the early 1980s, China has consistently been the most rapidly growing economy on the planet, sustaining an average annual growth rate of 10 percent from 1978 through 2005, according to official statistics. Yet, in spite of its economic growth, China's future is seriously threatened by some weaknesses. The author argues that, just as China's potential was underestimated in 1989, its future as an economic competitor or potential strategic rival is probably overestimated today. The question therefore is, is China a real economic superpower or, rather, a struggling developing country?
The aim of the book is to explain China's remarkable rise and to peer into the future, analysing some of the most relevant challenges facing China: poverty, incomplete transition from a rural to an urban society, developmental and environmental concerns. Firstly, even if China's economic growth is remarkable, the country is still struggling to emerge from poverty. Indeed, profound differences characterise regional economies, some of which are marked by extreme poverty, others by relative prosperity.
Secondly, it is difficult to see China as a whole because of the fragmentation and complexity of its economic fabric. In addition to state-owned enterprises, the mosaic of the Chinese productive structure is also made up of household businesses and multinational corporations. Transition from bureaucratic socialism toward a market economy is still incomplete. As stated by the author, China has always been an "outlier": among developing countries because of its socialist institutions; among socialist countries because of the uniqueness of its economy and institutions. In fact, China continues to follow its own distinctive path: the evocative strategy of "crossing the river by groping for stepping-stones", succeeding in its goals with little large-scale conflict and relatively lower social costs. China's experience shows that markets do work and should be at the heart of all countries' development efforts but, at the same time, it does not lend support to "market fundamentalism", given that China is still reaping some of the benefits of its socialist past.
Thirdly, the challenge of development: education and technology levels are low, transportation and industrial infrastructure still have to be built, institutions that support a highly productive economy are non-existent or have only just been created. Without a doubt, the government needs to invest in human skills and physical infrastructure to create effective institutions and protect the underprivileged and vulnerable sections of the population.
Lastly, many regions of China present a picture of rapid economic growth and severe environmental damage. The centuries-old demographic pressure on China's limited natural resources has led to severe environmental degradation. A hundred years ago, most of China had already been stripped of forests. Modern economic growth has created another set of challenges: massive pollution and apparently unsustainable demands on natural resources. All of this has imposed serious costs on the Chinese economy and diminished the well-being of the Chinese population, attesting to the ongoing conflict between the needs of economic growth and the obligation to protect biological and human diversity. (G.N.)

The G8 system and the G20: evolution, role and documentation / Peter I. Hajnal - Aldershot ; Burlington : Ashgate, c2007. - xviii, 277 p. - (Global finance series). - ISBN 978-0-7546-4550-4
The Group of Eight is one of the central international institutions of the 1990s and is emerging as a leading, effective centre of global governance in the 21st century. The unique character and the growing importance of the G7/G8 system are thoroughly explored in this book, which can be divided into two main parts. While the first part looks into the history and peculiarities of the G7/G8 framework, the second deals with the proposals to reform the G8-G20 system.
The book updates and enriches the subjects covered in Hajnal's earlier volume, The G7/G8 system of 1999. In fact, the G8 has evolved profoundly as an institution, in terms of membership by incorporating Russia as a full member, and as regards the agenda by including issues that combine economics and politics, like the revival of Africa, to reflect changing global realities.
The first part of the book (Chapters 1 - 10) discusses the origins, characteristics, role and agenda of the G7/G8 system and reviews its evolution. It surveys the G7's origins, the G7/G8's economic and political context, the summit meetings, the growth in membership and the question of potential members.
Looking at the annual G8 summits, the book also underlines how the influence on the G8 processes, agenda and modus operandi of non-G8 countries, international organisations and non-state actors (the so-called business and civil society) has grown in recent years. In fact, dialogue with civil society, involving parallel summits and partnerships, which started at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, has played an important role in the G8's development, especially in agenda building, and represents a very constructive and productive interaction.
The G8 system has moved through different phases of focus, approach and effectiveness, raising questions of legitimacy and justice and facing critiques and increasing demands for reform. The second part of the volume (Chapters 11 - 16) delves into the growing debate on how the G8 might be improved and reformed. In this respect, a particularly significant step in the development of the G8, increasing the representativeness and legitimacy of the system, was the founding in the late 1990s of the G20 finance ministers' forum. Set up to strengthen the international financial architecture, it now operates in complete autonomy.
The book also provides an extremely useful and detailed study of the complex and elusive G8 documentation, going beyond official documents and evaluating other important sources of information, such as internet resources, which are essential for a better understanding of the processes and complexities of the G8 system. (M.A.C.)

Global imbalances and developing countries: remedies for a failing international financial system / edited by Jan Joost Teunissen and A. Akkerman. - The Hague : Forum on Debt and Development, c2006. - xv, 181 p. - ISBN 90-74208-29-1
This book is the second volume put out after the conference on "Global Imbalances and the US Debt Problem: Should Developing Countries Continue to Support the US Dollar?", held in The Hague in 2006. While the first gave special attention to the position of China in global imbalances, this volume focuses on the position of Africa and East Asia.
A collection of contributions by several authors of different nationalities, it debates how the unfolding of global financial imbalances can affect the external financing condition in which emerging market economies operate. It also provides proposals for reform of the international monetary system.
In the first part of the book, Louis Kaskende, chief economist of the African Development Bank, observes that a large proportion of Africa's exports are priced in US dollars, while imports are mainly denominated in euros. As a result, any depreciation of the dollar is "a source of a double whammy on African countries": export earnings are reduced in relative value while imports become more expensive. Furthermore, Africa depends on a few commodities for most of its export earnings, making it very vulnerable to volatility and downward movements in prices.
Some of the Asian authors analyse the role that the US and East Asian countries can play in resolving the current global imbalances. To reduce the massive accumulation of international reserves in Asian countries, they suggest combining expenditure-increasing policies with expenditure-switching policies; that is, concerted revaluation of East Asian currencies against the dollar and concerted action to maintain mutual exchange rate stability among East Asian countries. Brian Kahn, however, senior deputy head of the Research Department at the South Africa Reserve Bank, doubts whether this concerted action will happen. In fact, the biggest problem is that the main deficit country, the United States, can sustain its deficit as long as the surplus dollars in Asia are recycled back into the US. Finally, the Korean economists suggest that deeper regional financial integration among East Asian economies would be an effective way to increase investment in the region.
The second part of the book analyses the role that the IMF should have in addressing global imbalances and discusses the need for reform of the international monetary and financial system. In particular, the chapter by chief economist William R. White of the Bank of International Settlement (BIS) provides a new and unorthodox view on global imbalances, contrasting the more conventional view of increased volatility and global imbalances. White sees the need for a new macro-financial stabilisation framework to help prevent the build-up of external imbalances that could have a severe impact on economic outlook and unemployment. The new framework would ideally have both a domestic and an international dimension. The remedy suggested by Jane D'Arista, a US international financial expert, is to create an international clearing agency (ICA) that would serve as an institutional platform for a new global payments system. It would clear transactions denominated in the member's own currencies by crediting and debiting their clearing accounts, which would constitute the international reserves of the system. D'Arista's proposal is criticised, however, by Dutch central banker Henk Brouwer, who observes that a similar proposal was already put forward in the past but never materialised because of the opposition of the major economies.
The importance of this book lies in its intent to provide innovative proposals and remedies for reforming the world financial system and preventing global financial imbalances. In fact there can be no doubt that a more effective world financial system has to be devised and that it should incorporate a more egalitarian payment system and provide more democratic governance of the institutional structure. (F.O.)

Transatlantic relations

Alliance management and maintenance : restructuring NATO for the 21st Century / John R. Deni. - Aldershot : Burlington : Ashgate, c2007. - vi, 122 p. - ISBN 978-0-7546-7039-1
After the end of the Cold War, NATO began to review its doctrine through the publication of the new 1991 and 1999 Strategic Concepts, which emphasised the changed international political and security environment. More importantly, NATO began to reshape its force and command structures to provide lighter, more flexible and more quickly deployable forces to be able to cope with the need for expeditionary missions far away from European borders. The result was the creation of the NATO Rapid Deployment Corps (NRDC) and the actions taken in 2002 and 2003 to implement it. All marked the concrete beginning of a deep transformation effort.
This book analyses alliance management and maintenance, taking the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as an example, and looks into how this organisation modified its doctrine first and then its command and force structures to deal with changes in the security environment.
The book is meant as a bridge between scholarly studies on alliance formation and duration, and more practical studies on NATO transformation. In fact, John Deni refers not only to scholars but also to practitioners when he examines the process and outcome of NATO's doctrinal changes, while he bases the study of structures and command on an analysis of the NRDC experience.
Analysing the level of integration between NATO doctrine and structures, on the one hand, and its strategy, on the other, the author demonstrates that a threat-based perspective is necessary but insufficient to explain the management of NATO's transformation. If threat-based perceptions help to understand why and how NATO initiated this process, the political bargaining ensuing from the various levels of NATO's and member states' interests and dependencies can explain the shape that this process took and the delays in it. This is demonstrated by two facts: the military organisation took more than ten years to implement doctrines and strategies, and when it did, it decided to establish a useless capability surplus (6 rather than 3 High Readiness Force headquarters as was deemed necessary). In the case of the Eurocorps, every single national interest (mainly of a budgetary nature, but not only) of Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Italy and even France, was taken into account. For the High Readiness Forces, the countries bargained for the designation of its headquarters. The inefficiency with which the alliance and its members states allocated increasingly scarce resources (defence procurement funds) is the most significant manifestation of the sub-optimal doctrinal and structural response to the transition from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era.
This "missed opportunity" leaves the alliance particularly challenged in fulfilling its own strategy and explains current capability shortcomings: that is why, for example, NATO is forced to ask its members to fill capability needs for the ISAF mission or is forced to lease commercial aircraft from third countries to deploy in Afghanistan. The achievement of this book is that it offers the reader an original assessment of the management efforts made yesterday to explain the (not excellent) state of the organisation today. (L.M.)

Changing identities and evolving values: is there still a transatlantic community? / edited by Esther Brimmer. - Washington : Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2006. - xvi, 136 p. - ISBN 0-9766434-3-X ; 978-0-9766434-3-2
The question of whether or not there is still a transatlantic community is crucial for the political and cultural debate in Europe and the United States. The community's existence and the relations between the two sides of the Atlantic deeply influence political trends and government policies in all Western countries.
This collection of essays is based on the proceedings of the conference "Changing societies and transatlantic relations", organised in 2005 by the Centre for Transatlantic Relations and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. One of the book's main merits is that the authors who examine the various aspects of the current evolution of Western societies, often looking for the roots of the divergent political behaviours on the two sides of the Atlantic, come from different nations and institutions, with dissimilar cultural backgrounds and points of view.
In the first two parts, the essays are focused on the identities of Europe and the United States, and on the images that each has of the other. The third part addresses a new and important issue that Western societies now have to deal with: the integration of Muslim minorities. The fourth part focuses attention on the balance between values and security policy, an extremely delicate issue after the 9/11 attacks. Together, the four parts provide a complex and interesting analysis of the main characteristics of transatlantic relations today.
Two of the most interesting issues discussed are the approach towards Islamic terrorism and the Middle East crises. With regard to the former, Alain Chouet explains that the target of counter-terrorism policy should not be the so-called rogue states, but the terrorist groups based inside some Islamic institutions in the world. In his view, with the exception of the particular case of the Taliban regime, the US military response has been "irrelevant" in hitting the terrorist network. He maintains that a multilateral approach involving police and intelligence services closely linked to diplomatic, political and social measures would achieve better results. Chouet provides several examples and explanations to support his theory in a very pragmatic way, making reasonable comparisons with the European experience in fighting leftist terrorist groups during the Cold War.
As for the Middle East crises, Michael Brenner's analysis covers a broader range of issues. For example, he identifies some cultural differences between American and European societies that he believes contribute to the different approaches of Western governments to Iraq. On the one hand, optimism is an American national trait and has been reinforced by the victory in the Cold War. Therefore, the replacement of communist tyranny by free market democracy in Eastern Europe brought with it the assumption that people liberated from autocracy would naturally gravitate toward Western values and institutions. On the other hand, Europeans have learned from their history that the past "casts its shadow over the present", and are sceptical about imposing political ideals that ignore the history and culture of a specific country. Brenner's analysis lays the ground for a brief policy prescription regarding the future of transatlantic relations that could represent a good base for future political debate. (A.M.)

Hegemony or empire? : the redefinition of US power under George W. Bush / edited by Charles-Philippe David and David Grondin. - Aldershot ; Burlington: Ashgate Publishing, c2006. - xviii, 237 p. - ISBN 0-7546-47744 ; 978-0-7546-4774-4
Since 11 September 2001, US foreign and security policy has raised many questions and doubts. In particular, the decision of the Bush administration to deal unilaterally with the threat of Islamic radicalism and terrorism has been the object of much criticism. The Center for the United States of the Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at the University of Québec (Montreal) decided to contribute to the debate, inviting several scholars and researchers from various disciplines and different parts of the world to express their viewpoints on the US "Grand Strategy" aimed at shaping a new world order and on its consequences for the future. Their contributions are contained in this collection of essays.
The book is divided into two parts, each consisting of five chapters. The first part focuses on the various aspects of the "Bush doctrine". The authors look at the geopolitical and strategic context of the "war on terror", noting a distinction between hegemony and empire in the way the US exercises its power. They examine the theoretical dimensions of the Bush administration's foreign policy, focusing in particular on the influence on national security strategy of neo-conservative intellectuals, and look at its policy towards Islamism and attitude towards international law. The domestic management of the "war on terror" is also considered: its economic and social-cultural dimension, especially the administration's policies towards the media, and the reactions of the US Congress to them.
The second part of the book investigates the regional and international dimensions of US power. The authors examine the significant and perhaps under-analysed role of the North American periphery (Canada and Mexico) in shaping and constraining US foreign policy, including an assessment of the role of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Analysis also includes a discussion of US support for electoral processes and democratisation in Africa (nowadays mainly in northwest Africa), typical of the new US approach to this continent, which is seen as a new battlefield in the global "war on terror" and a provider of strategic natural resources. Finally, they debate the US security architecture in Central Asia in light of the American post-9/11 military redeployment, and Washington's alliances in the region as it faces the rise of China. This part of the book also examines perceptions of the Bush administration abroad (in Canada, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa), and seeks reasons to explain the US' declining popularity, particularly in Europe.
The essays are all well-documented and offer much information. The authors present different theses, but all agree that the degree of US supremacy after 9/11 has had negative by-products for the international system. Therefore, they see the need for a rapprochement between the United States and Europe in order to reinforce the Atlantic Alliance. At times, the quality of the research is compromised by a strong anti-American bias. This is especially obvious in the cases in which the authors draw on the French school of international relations theory. For this more ideological than fact-based approach, the Bush administration's "war on terror" is an ideal target. (E.S.)

Human rights/People's rights

Il genocidio: l'Europa tra passato, presente, futuro / a cura di Giorgia Ficorilli, Enzo Maria Le Fevre Cervini. - Roma : Cide, c2006.- 95 p. - (I quaderni del Cide. Indagini e resoconti ; 2). - ISBN 88-901393-8-2
In defining the legal concept of "genocide", the International Convention on the Prevention and Repression of the Crime of Genocide sanctioned its abolition, but paradoxically also triggered a collective trend towards disengagement that has undermined its credibility and effectiveness. As a result, the political dimension of the prevention of genocide still has to achieve the same level of assertion as the legal dimension, generating the same kinds of ideas and practices as those developed for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This slim book, the product of a series of seminars on "genocide and violation of the right to life" held at the University of Rome III, offers an overview of the issue in successive stages: historical premises, case studies, prevention instruments and strategies, with a special focus on the European Union.
The first part goes over the genesis of the definition of genocide (1940s) and the main legal "structures", from the Nuremburg tribunal (1945) to the International Criminal Court (signed in 1988, entered into operation in 2002), which introduced new legal principles, such as nullum crime sine lege, and the non-retroactivity of ratione personae. Thereafter, it focuses on Europe, analysing how human rights are protected: from the Treaty of Amsterdam to the Nice Charter (2000), from the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights to the Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe (signed in 2004). Thus it looks at all political and legal instruments active inside the EU.
To describe concretely the role taken on by the EU in specific cases of genocide, the examples of Armenia, the Balkans and the Sudan are used, each with a brief summary and an analysis. The collective origin of this chapter makes for a certain dishomogeneity. Nevertheless, the image of Europe that emerges is of an entity hardly present and not well equipped to prevent the crime of genocide. The only positive note in this part of the book is the recent establishment of the European arrest warrant which, however, raises problems of harmonisation among member states. A new opportunity for Europe to play a more active even if tardy role in protecting human rights is offered today by the Darfur crisis, which it is hoped the EU will take up.
The last part of the book analyses the main political instruments for the prevention of genocide, with special attention to the European Union: fair socio-economic development that does not exclude any social group and the elimination of poverty at the global level (Millennium goal); human rights and democracy education to limit nationalism and racism; pursuit of the rule of law; a constructive approach to conflict resolution by the elites, not only economic and political, but also in the media; the use of preventive diplomacy not only at the top political and military levels, but also at intermediate levels and among local authorities and the population; new strategies and instruments for conflict prevention, also through international cooperation between different people. All of these measures can be applied equally well to the "pre-conflict" as to the post-conflict stage and can be used to prevent the possible deterioration of a conflict already under way. To these must be added early action as an instrument of preventive diplomacy (the threat of the use of force) and the need to create an international legal structure ensuring the certainty of the penalty.
The book underlines the need for new experimentation, new forms of international law that go beyond the traditional role of the states, and suggests that Europe could provide a good model as well as a good promoter of this. (M.Cr.)

Re-orienting the fundamentals : human rights and new connections in EU-Asia relations / Georg Wiessala. - Aldershot ; Burlington : Ashgate, c2006. - xv, 183 p. - ISBN 978-0-7546-4363-0
In his latest book, Georg Wiessala, professor of International Relations at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, one of the world's leading experts on EU-Asia-Pacific Relations, Human Rights (HR) and European Union foreign policy, provides an in-depth analysis of the position of human rights in the political dialogue between the EU and Asia and of the EU's role as a promoter of human rights and democracy in Asia. It is a valuable instrument for understanding the most innovative trends in EU-Asia relations and the deeper potential of human rights issues in the development of this dialogue.
The point of departure is an analysis of the EU's actorness in Asia within the theoretical dimension of international relations and European integration theory. Referring to existing theories, the author argues for the adoption of a social-constructivist frame of reference as the most suitable model for investigation of the EU-Asia relationship since it is instrumental in identifying the patterns of opportunity and constraints of EU-Asia dialogue and in analysing the EU's efforts at constructing a value-based foreign policy, including human rights, democracy and good governance.
In the second part of the book, Wiessala lays out a detailed overview of the effects of human rights issues on EU-Asia relations. In particular, the impact of human rights in EU-Asia relations is found to be twofold, with both enabling as well as inhibitory potential. On the one hand, the author suggests that the EU's strategic human rights initiatives towards Asia are part of a process incorporating community law, diplomacy and competencies into a sort of HR agenda. After analysing EU HR policies for Asia, Wiessala concludes that the EU's export of its own identity and values has had a significant enabling effect on Asia-Europe cooperation, inspiring an increasingly critical public discourse, as compared to the traditionally fragmentary Asian approach to human rights issues. On the other hand, diverging interpretations of values, issues of "non interference", marginalisation of human rights issues with respect to the primacy of trade interests within diplomatic fora, as well as a relative lack of participation of civil society still persist and undermine the potential of the transcontinental debate over HR.
In the third part, moving from general theory to empirical discussion of case studies (EU relations with Burma, China and Indonesia), the author demonstrates that the EU has developed a large variety of approaches towards human rights protection and the promotion of democracy. In the author's view, these policy patterns contain the seeds of a much wider, more lateral development of EU-Asia relations, a multifaceted dimension of partnership to be achieved by opening up the EU's Asia policies to much higher, more holistic and cross-cutting concerns and to more lateral thinking and policy-planning. More precisely, Wiessala convincingly argues that the most promising aspect of the deeper potential of the EU-Asia relationship lies in the field of cultural and educational cooperation.
"People-to-people-contacts" and the "human face" of EU-Asia contacts that have originated in the cultural dimension of EU-Asia relations through a large number of academic and educational initiatives is spreading to other, more political areas and is seen as a valuable tool in overcoming intractable stereotypes and differences in value systems. (S.B.)

Miscellaneous

The European Union and its neighbours : a legal appraisal of the EU's policies of stabilisation, partnership and integration / edited by Steven Blockmans and Adam Lazowski. - The Hague : TMC Asser Press, c2006. - xxxii, 653 p. - ISBN 90-6704-201-3; 978-90-6704-201-7
Over the last fifteen years, the EU has developed a number of different strategies, policies and legal agreements with the countries beyond its borders, involving a wide range of political, diplomatic, economic and legal instruments. Given the heterogeneous nature of the topic, the literature has traditionally chosen a geographic approach (Eastern Europe, the Southern Mediterranean, the Western Balkans) or an approach based on the type of political or legal relationship (the European Neighbourhood Policy, etc.). In addition, both political and legal analyses tend to be compartmentalised. This book is a notable exception in that it makes an overall analysis of the EU's relations with all its neighbours that successfully combines a rigorous legal approach with political sensitivity. The authors suggest that the EU should adopt a flexible approach when dealing with its neighbours and should not ignore the membership aspirations of some of them, that is Ukraine.
Another quality is its homogeneity, which is usually difficult to find in edited books. Each chapter of the second part of the book - specifically devoted to the EU's relationship with one country or a block of countries - is detailed and comprehensive, yet follows the same structure: it starts with a historical and political background and passes on to in-depth legal analysis of the main agreement/s between the EU and the neighbouring country. This structure helps the reader make his/her own comparison of the EU's relations and agreements with different (groups of) countries in addition to the comparative review included in the conclusions.
Nonetheless, some aspects could be improved. First of all, while homogeneity is definitely one of the book's stronger points, it is not always achieved. For example, the chapter on Ukraine has a more politically-oriented approach and tone, while most of the others, even when making policy suggestions, tend to adopt a more sober and academic tone. In addition, there are a number of minor factual errors.
Even with these shortcomings, the book is well written and provides a useful contribution to legal and political research on the complex but ever more important topic of the EU's relations with the countries that surround it. (M.Co.)