Turkey’s Parliamentary System Has A Presidential Stage-Manager (Tamar Friedman, FPRI)

http://www.eurasiareview.com/10062016-turkeys-parliamentary-system-has-a-presidential-stage-manager-oped/

The Great War’s Impact On American Foreign Policy And Civic Religion (Walter A. McDougall, FPRI)

Thirty-five years ago James Field wrote a provocative article titled “American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book.” His point was that noneof the mighty forces that supposedly propelled the United States to world power can really be shown to have caused the Spanish American War of 1898 or U.S. annexation of an insular empire. Not Social Darwinism, the White Man’s Burden, or the closing of the frontier; not industrialization and the quest for foreign markets, or fears about urbanization, immigration, and labor unrest; not even Europe’s scramble for colonies and challenges to the Monroe Doctrine. At most those were ex post factojustifications for the leap into Progressive Imperialism, whereupon they took on a life of their own. Field concluded that imperialism was not the “American way of life” as historian William Appleman Williams claimed, or even the “aberration” Samuel Flagg Bemis claimed, but a sheer accident.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/03052016-the-great-wars-impact-on-american-foreign-policy-and-civic-religion-analysis/

China’s ADIZ Over South China Sea: Whole, Partial Or None (Felix K. Chang, FPRI)

Ever since China declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea in late 2013, many wondered whether China would do the same over its claims in the South China Sea. Early this year, the United States began to publicly warn China that it would not recognize a Chinese ADIZ over the South China Sea. Given the timing of its admonition, Washington seemed like it was preparing for a Chinese reaction to a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on a Philippine case against China’s South China Sea claims, which is expected in May.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/01052016-chinas-adiz-over-south-china-sea-whole-partial-or-none-analysis/

Perilous Fictions, Perilous Policies (Adam Garfinkle, FPRI)

http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/03/perilous-fictions-perilous-policies/

Defying the Pundits (Darryl G. Hart, FPRI)

To fathom the support from Christian Americans (Evangelical and Roman Catholic) for Donald Trump, perhaps a comparison to Turkey will help. The republic of Turkey has a long history of religious and secular rivalry. To make Turkey a modern and western nation and to distinguish it from the Ottomans, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk embraced a French-styled secularism (laicity) that excluded Islam from politics entirely. Only with the 2003 election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as prime minister as leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) did Islam make its way back into the Turkish government, thanks to AKP’s roots among the Turkish Muslim electorate. Erdogan has hardly ended hostility between secularists and Muslims as the 2013 protests in Istanbul indicated – disputes that escalated from objections to police brutality to protests over Erdogan’s efforts to reappropriate Turkey’s Ottoman past. Still, his party remains the political voice for many devout Muslims.

http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/03/defying-the-pundits/

China’s Military Reorganization – and America’s Window of Opportunity (June Teufel Dreyer, FPRI)

In September 2015, as part of the festivities marking the 70th anniversary of victory in World War II, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would cut 300,000 troops. A spokesman for the country’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) described the cuts as “fully showing China’s sincerity and aspiration to join hands with the rest of the world to maintain peace, pursue development and share prosperity. And also demonstrates China’s active and responsible attitude toward the [sic] international arms control and disarmament.”

http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/03/chinas-military-reorganization-and-americas-window-of-opportunity/

Divining a “Trump Doctrine”: Finding the Contours of Donald Trump’s Foreign & National Security Policy (John R. Haines, FPRI)

The ancient Greeks maintained that divination — how mortals learn the will of the gods — requires inspiration in the form of phrensy or madness. It was thought especially useful when some calamity shows the gods to be displeased. Today, simply imagining Donald Trump as Commander-in-Chief prompts many political oracles to the requisite condition.

http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/03/divining-trump-doctrine-finding-contours-donald-trumps-foreign-national-security-policy/

What Georgia Needs to Do to Join the West (Luis Navarro, FPRI)

http://www.fpri.org/article/2016/03/what-georgia-needs-to-do-to-join-the-west/

The ‘Rail Baltica’ Project: True European Interconnectedness? (Tamari Ramishvili, FPRI)

Russia possesses a tremendous amount of control over the Baltic states’ rail infrastructure—including the ability to cut off all international train service between them. There is no direct passenger train service connecting the Baltic states to one another or to the European Union. Today, all international rail lines run east, dating back to the Russian Empire, and later to the Soviet Union, when direct connections between Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were discouraged and everything had to go through Moscow.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/02032016-the-rail-baltica-project-true-european-interconnectedness-oped/

Saudi Arabia’s Brinkmanship In The Syrian War (Brandon Friedman, FPRI)

Prince Khaled bin Sultan Al Saud, the co-commander of coalition forces during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, argues in his 1995 biography Desert Warrior that Israel took its “bomb out of the basement” during the war to convince the U.S. that it had to do more to stop Saddam’s “Scud” missile attacks on Israel, which were launched from mobile launchers. Prince Khaled believed Israel was using its military capabilities as much to pressure its ally, the U.S., as it was to frighten its enemies.[1] Whether this version of events tracks closely with the truth is perhaps less important than how the Saudis perceived it. Indeed it may be fair to say, based on recent events, that Saudi Arabia is now making this gambit, fact or fiction, part of its own tactical playbook.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/23022016-saudi-arabias-brinkmanship-in-the-syrian-war-analysis/

Why Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou’s Day-Trip To Taiping Island Was Such A Big Deal (Jacques deLisle, FPRI)

When Taiwan’s soon-to-step-down President Ma Ying-jeou made a pre-Lunar New Year’s visit to Itu Aba / Taiping Island in late January 2016, the international-lawyer-turned-president was reaffirming a long-standing claim that the Republic of China held sovereignty over the largest landform (as well as many smaller ones) in the hotly disputed South China Sea region. Remarks Ma made on the island reiterated often-stated bases for the ROC’s claims. A presidential appearance on the island was not without precedent: Ma loosely reprised a 2008 expedition by his ever-controversial predecessor Chen Shui-bian. Yet, Ma’s move drew sharp rebukes abroad, most notably from Washington and also from Hanoi and Manila. Several contexts of Ma’s gambit made the otherwise-seemingly-anodyne assertion of a well-known position more significant and controversial.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/18022016-why-taiwan-president-ma-ying-jeous-day-trip-to-taiping-island-was-such-a-big-deal-analysis/

Follyanna? (Adam Garfinkle, FPRI)

Eleanor H. Porter’s 1913 classic, Pollyanna, bequeathed to the English language a new and concise term for oblivious, overweening optimism and its dangers. Barbara Tuchman’s flawed but popular 1984 book, The March of Folly, described what happens when a political elite’s failure to B-team its own complacency leads to catastrophic violence. Put them together and one gets Follyanna—a dangerous inability to see the world and its bad actors for what they are because idealist illusions blur and color one’s metaphorical eyesight. That is possibly the best description yet of the Obama Administration’s general orientation to U.S. foreign and national security policy.

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/follyanna

Why Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou’s Day-Trip to Taiping Island was Such a Big Deal (Jacques deLisle, FPRI)

When Taiwan’s soon-to-step-down President Ma Ying-jeou made a pre-Lunar New Year’s visit to Itu Aba / Taiping Island in late January 2016, the international-lawyer-turned-president was reaffirming a long-standing claim that the Republic of China held sovereignty over the largest landform (as well as many smaller ones) in the hotly disputed South China Sea region. Remarks Ma made on the island reiterated often-stated bases for the ROC’s claims. A presidential appearance on the island was not without precedent: Ma loosely reprised a 2008 expedition by his ever-controversial predecessor Chen Shui-bian. Yet, Ma’s move drew sharp rebukes abroad, most notably from Washington and also from Hanoi and Manila. Several contexts of Ma’s gambit made the otherwise-seemingly-anodyne assertion of a well-known position more significant and controversial.

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/why-taiwan-president-ma-ying-jeous-day-trip-taiping-island-was-such-big-deal

Structure, Strategy, and American Power: Insights from America’s Last Geopolitical Resurgence (Hal Brands, FPRI)

1979 was a bad year for U.S. foreign policy. At home, the country was being battered by stagflation and the second oil shock, developments that raised fundamental questions about the economic underpinnings of American power. Abroad, the United States was suffering a seemingly unending series of setbacks and humiliations. From the revolutions in Iran and Nicaragua, to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the collapse of détente, to the taking of dozens of American hostages in Tehran, signs of U.S. impotence and decline abounded. The United States was “entering the decade of the 1980s as a wounded, demoralized colossus,” Business Week noted—a country that no longer controlled events but was at the mercy of them.

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/structure-strategy-and-american-power-insights-americas-last-geopolitical-resurgence

Parliament without Politics: The Effort to Consolidate Authoritarian Rule (Ann M. Lesch, FPRI)

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/parliament-without-politics-effort-consolidate-authoritarian-rule

Philadelphia’s Message to the World (Alan Luxenberg, FPRI)

Late last year, Philadelphia became the first US city to be granted World Heritage City status by UNESCO. This is an opportunity for Philadelphians to pause and reflect on precisely what it is that constitutes Philadelphia’s contribution to world history, and what, if anything, Philadelphia can teach the world today.

http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2016/02/philadelphias-message-world

Silicon Valley Meets The Snake Eaters: State Department’s Countermessaging Goes Back To The Future (Clint Watts, FPRI)

“Bring in folks from Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue….” That’s right, the three sexiest characters in modern lore, ad men, Steve Jobs disciples and Special Forces bubbas will come together in a unbelievable mashup designed to counter extremist Internet propaganda. Using big data analytics and “crowdsourced” content, terrorists who once shocked the Western world with their slick videos and use of the Internet for radicalization and recruitment will be undermined and countered by new snazzy taglines and inventive technology. Mind blowing tweets and social media posts would lead a communication revolution by which U.S. counterterrorists would undermine terrorist messages and rip the underlying motivations out from under jihadis through the precise and timely delivery of a mind melting emoticon.

http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2016/02/silicon-valley-meets-snake-eaters-state-departments-countermessaging-goes-back-future

Getting Serious about North Africa (Ahmed Charai, FPRI)

A​ growing number of terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe have a North African connection -- yet Washington policymakers continue to pay far less attention to the region than is warranted. ISIS and al-Qaeda, by contrast, regard the area as a primary focus of their strategy. North Africa is becoming a new Afghanistan: in large part, a mosaic of failed and failing states, and fertile territory for radical Islamists to gather recruits, train them, and harden them with continuous combat. Once proficient and confident in the art of war, these terrorists carry out attacks around the world.

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/getting-serious-about-north-africa

The Quiet Frenchman: Why François Hollande is Staying Silent on Brexit (Andrew Glencross, FPRI)

European heads of state and government meet in Brussels 18-19 February 2016 to discuss the terms of a proposed renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU. The UK’s future hangs on these talks. Success or failure in getting a deal will sway the evenly divided and poorly-informed British public in the forthcoming referendum on whether to stay in the EU. But one voice is strangely absent in this debate. On the issue of Britain’s renegotiation and referendum, French President François Hollande is quiet to the point of mutism. This self-imposed silence can only be explained by the inward turn of French politics, which itself reflects a loss of confidence and status within the EU as well as the domestic preoccupation with security. As a result, the French government is content to let other EU leaders take responsibility for responding to Cameron’s demands.

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/quiet-frenchman-why-francois-hollande-staying-silent-brexit

Paradoxes of the Gray Zone (Hal Brands, FPRI)

Gray, it seems, is the new black. The concept of “gray zone” conflict has generated significant attention and controversy recently, within both the U.S. government and the broader strategic studies community. Some analysts have identified gray zone conflict as a new phenomenon that will increasingly characterize, and challenge, the international system in the years to come. Others have argued that the concept is overhyped, ahistorical, and perhaps even meaningless. “The ‘gray wars’ concept lacks even the most basic strategic sense,” writes Adam Elkus. “Beneath the hype is something rather ooh-la-lame rather than ooh-la-la.”

http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/paradoxes-gray-zone