International Relations Commons^™

Editor's Note, Padraig O’Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Along with two literary essays, the articles in this issue of the journal address local, national, and international public policy questions. On the literary level, one article discusses whether arguments from an older era over a white writer’s presumption that he can accurately articulate black voices and experiences, itself an unconscious bias, can throw light on racial issues roiling college campuses and other arenas of public discourse today; the second, more mellow and reflective, ponders the incongruities and congruities that surface when the author explores how the meaning of the word home depends on one’s personality as he prepares to …

Internal Displacement In Iraq: Internally Displaced Persons And Disputed Territory, Nancy Riordan

New England Journal of Public Policy

The protracted conflict in Iraq has led to one of the highest internal displacements of people worldwide. With data from the International Organization for Migration’s Displacement Tracking Matrix and other sources, geographic information system methods were applied to investigate the quantitative and spatial characteristics of Iraq’s internally displaced persons (IDPs). Based on this analysis, significant numbers of IDPs were found to be displaced among the disputed territories of northern Iraq. The findings of this analysis, when paired with additional research, poses serious complications not only for the security of Iraq’s IDPs but also for the country. The proliferation of militias …

Foundations Of U.S. Stature And Security In The World, Winston Langley

New England Journal of Public Policy

How may the stature and security of the United States, so passionately a concern for many and so profoundly important to the character and direction of our emerging global society, be pursued responsibly? This question is the burden of this article, in which the author examines and rejects a number of policy options to the challenges he sees Washington now facing. He rejects these policy options because he finds them miscast, incomplete, counterproductive, or representative of symptoms rather than causes. He suggests, instead, how the United States might advance its interests and the global interests and predicts a rather unwelcoming …

War, The United Nations, And Peacekeeping, Robert Weiner, Carlos Andres Aguilera Ariza

New England Journal of Public Policy

While the amount of interstate war in the international system had declined by 2013, since then both intrastate and internationalized intrastate war has increased. In 2015 there are sixteen UN peacekeeping operations around the globe, involving about 130,000 military, police, and civilian personnel. Over the past seventy years, UN peacekeeping operations have evolved from simple buffer forces tasked with observing cease-fires and armistices to complex multidimensional operations in intrastate conflicts, involving peacebuilding in an increasingly dangerous environment.

Editor's Note, Padraig O’Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this edition of the journal several articles address a range of important, and in some cases too often overlooked policy issues, too broad in scope for their conclusions and recommendations to be encapsulated adequately in a brief paragraph. Their diversity, however, highlights a key characteristic of the New England Journal of Public Policy – that of being open to publishing articles that have insightful bearings on how public policy is addressed, not only in the New England states, but throughout the country and in the international community – a community of nations increasingly interdependent with constraints on national sovereignty …

Oil. China And Oil In The Asian Pacific Region: Rising Demand For Oil, Pablo Bustelo

New England Journal of Public Policy

China’s growing demand for oil is significantly changing the international geopolitics of energy, especially in the Asian Pacific region. The recent growth in oil consumption, combined with forecasts of increased oil imports (especially from the Middle East), have led to deep concern among Chinese leaders regarding their country’s energy security. They are responding in a number of different ways. In particular, they are searching for new sources of supply and seeking to control purchases and transport lanes, while boosting national production at any cost. This is already causing tension with the United States and other big oil consumers, such as …

Fueling The Superpowers: Nexus Of Foreign Policy And Energy Security, Jack Blum

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article talks about the oil history and the role government and international politics has played in it.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy that deals with issues of climate change, oil, and water and the interconnection of the three with the future of the planet.

Initially our topic was conceived as “Oil & Water” only. We planned to present the proceedings of an Institute for Global Leadership symposium held at Tufts University in 2005. There was then still a debate about global warming, although the Kyoto Treaty was in place. But without the world’s preeminent manufacturer of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the United States (20 percent of the total emissions with 5 percent …

Oil. The Geopolitics Of Oil And Natural Gas, Alan Larson

New England Journal of Public Policy

Ensuring the reliability of global energy supplies will call for policies that both encourage the use of newer, cleaner energy technologies and address the political challenges posed by the world’s growing demand for oil and natural gas. U.S. policy seeks to encourage expansion and diversification of world energy supplies and to promote the transparency and democratic institutions that help energy-producing countries make the most productive use of their resources.

Fueling The Superpowers: Russia As A Player In World Energy, Theresa Sabonis-Helf

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article by Theresa Sabonis-Helf is taken from the proceedings of the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2005

Fueling The Superpowers: Potential Hazard For U.S.-China Relations, Travis Tanner

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article by Travis Tanner is taken from the proceedings of the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2005

Oil. Geopolitics Reborn: Oil, Natural Gas, And Other Vital Resources, Michael T. Klare

New England Journal of Public Policy

Competition over vital resources is a potent source of international friction among nations and within states. The result is the increasing interplay of international and internal struggles and the growing militarization of the global energy resource quest.

Water. The Geopolitics Of Water, Paul Michael Wihbey, Ilan Berman

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the great geo-strategic game known as the Middle East, peace politics get much of the press and the attention of policy leaders. On occasion, oil takes center stage but often for the wrong reason (see, e.g., "The End of the Oil Era and the Price of Oil"). What is important to understand is that water is in fact the key strategic resource in the region and if you follow the flow of water, you'll follow the politics and policy machinations that lie at the heart of the Israeli-Syrian dialogue. IASPS Fellow in Strategy Paul Michael Wihbey co-authored an analysis …

Fueling The Superpowers: What Role For Iran?, Hossein Askari

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article by Hossein Askari is taken from the proceedings of the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2005

The War On Terror, Gwyn Prins, Stanley Heginbotham, John Cooley, Steven Van Evera, Jack Blum, Jonathan Schell

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents comments (from the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004) concerning the war on terror; concern on the problem about terrorism; elaboration on the claim that the world is not in a global war on terror; and problems of the use and abuse of the word terrorism.

One Morning In Morocco, Eli Mechanic

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents the journal of an American student studying in Morocco based on his firsthand experiences on how Arabs viewed the Iraq war from January to May 2003. Lesson learned on March 20, 2003 where he felt the anger of Arab people upon seeing an American; Excitement of Arabs upon hearing news about dead Americans; Realization of the Moroccans on the cruelty of the Americans.

We Were Allies Once: Lessons Of D Day, 1944, Nigel Hamilton

New England Journal of Public Policy

Nigel Hamilton swivels the century around the pivot of the massive cooperation and collaboration between the United States and its allies during World War II. In the early years, European and British troops suffered a series of discouraging defeats by the Nazis, and then when the United States entered the war the great collaboration among the allies was instrumental in achieving victory in Europe. This joint effort of nations continued for a time with such institutions as the UN and NATO and other international bodies. The war in Iraq ruptured the alliance. American unilateralism has distinguished most of the debacle …

The Role Of The United Nations In A Unipolar World, Brian Urquart, Michael Glennon

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents comments on issues concerning the role of the United Nations in a unipolar world system. Discussion on the issue concerning the failure of the Security Council to reach unanimity on the occupation of Iraq and the regime change; Views on preventive war; Information on several problems encountered by the UN wherein their actions are considered irrelevant. From the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004.

Rhetoric Or Reality Exporting Democracy To The Middle East, Marina Ottoway, Andrew Hess, Naomi Chazan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Focuses on the promotion of democracy to the Middle East. Capacity of the U.S. to promote democracy in the Middle East; Discussion on the claim that spreading democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is influenced by rhetorical flourish designed to impress American audiences; Assumption that the American brand of democracy is at a high price. From the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004.

The Pulse Of War: Writing A Response, Kevin Bowen, Tony Aiello, Chris Agee, Almira El-Zein, Fred Marchant, Carolyn Forché, Fanny Howe

New England Journal of Public Policy

Introduction and a series of articles and poetry concerning the war on terror being imposed by the U.S., and more.

Writes Kevin Bowen:

One year into the war in Iraq, the ugliness of the undertaking has become more and more inescapable. If anything, the experience has reaffirmed a few simple facts that deserve reiteration. There is no such thing as an easily winnable war. There is no such thing as a humane war. In every war, long after the fighting ends, peace will remain elusive, and memories of suffering will endure through generations.

Of course we knew all this before. …

Truth Under Fire: The War And The Media, Gary S. Messinger

New England Journal of Public Policy

Over the last hundred years, the relationship between war and mass communication has become increasingly elaborate. Governments and private-sector organizations have found more and more ways to use the media in wartime, and the range of available technologies has expanded to include print, film, radio, television, and the Internet. The system that exists today, at the start of the twenty-first century, is the product of many twists and turns over the decades: an accretion of some strategies for wartime use of mass communication and a rejection of others. An understanding of this evolution is a starting point for crafting policies …

Cruel Science: Cia Torture And U.S. Foreign Policy, Alfred W. Mccoy

New England Journal of Public Policy

The roots of the recent Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal lie in CIA torture techniques that have metastasized inside the U.S. intelligence community for the past fifty years. A contradictory U.S. foreign policy marked by both public opposition to torture and secret propagation of its practice has influenced American response to UN treaties, shaped federal anti-torture statutes, and produced a succession of domestic political scandals. After a crash research effort in the 1950s, the CIA developed a revolutionary new paradigm of psychological torture and then, for the next thirty years, disseminated it to allies worldwide. After September 11, the U.S. media …

A Bloody Tradition: Ethnic Cleansing In World War Ii Yugoslavia, Paul Bookbinder

New England Journal of Public Policy

When World War II began, a climate for mass violence already existed. The author examines the history of ethnic cleansing, cultural cleansing, mass murder, and genocide in Yugoslavia – Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hertzegovena, and Kosovo – and finds that the historical atrocities are alive in active memory today. With a new awareness of the consequences of ethnic hatred, people can study their own histories cleansed of myth and nationalist delusions so that wars that unleash ethnic violence can be stopped before these excesses erupt.

Intervening In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Strategy And Its Risks, David Matz

New England Journal of Public Policy

The primary problem in reaching a peaceful arrangement between the Israelis and the Palestinians is that a significant number of people on both sides reject dividing the land between the Mediterranean and Jordan (the two-state solution), and neither local government (not the Israelis nor the Palestinians) can control their own rejectionists. As long as any "solution" assumes that the local governments will be able to confront these rejectionists, that plan will fail. The only way around this is with the use of an international coalition composed, at least, of the United States, the EU, the UN, and Arab countries. The …

The Responsibility To Protect, Romeo Dallaire

New England Journal of Public Policy

From the EPIIC Symposium, Sovereignty & Intervention, at Tufts University in February 2003: Focuses on the responsibility to protect humanity. Experiences during the Rwandan catastrophe; Resolvability of humanitarian catastrophes with security problems; Several ways on how to intervene in the problem.

Genocide: What Do We Want It To Be?, Alan A. Ryan Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

The definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention has been universally accepted, in the statutes of the ad hoc international tribunals and the International Criminal Court, but it conceals a host of ambiguities. Sociologists, political scientists, and others have not devised any legally adequate substitute. This article proposes a non-linear definition of genocide, that is, a definition that takes into account the presence or absence of several factors, rather than one that attempts to generalize the crime of genocide. It disregards the motives or objectives of the perpetrator, sheds the secondary phenomena that often accompany genocide (such as dehumanization of …

The Role Of The Military, General William Nash, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Gwyn Prins

New England Journal of Public Policy

Presents comments (from the EPIIC Symposium at Tufts University, February 2004) on the issue concerning the role of the U.S. military on their citizens; Concern on defining victory in the war on terror; Discussion on the relationship between the political objectives of the U.S. grand strategy and how they employ a military instrument; Views on the role of the military force.

Conflict Resolution, Nation-Building & Constitution-Making., Nicholas Haysom

New England Journal of Public Policy

Most of the current and intractable armed conflicts in the world today are intra-state conflicts in societies divided along the fault lines of race, religion, ethnicity, language, and region. These conflicts are overwhelmingly animated by identity. Even where such conflicts do not take on a violent form, they serve to prevent the emergence of interest-based politics in multi-cultural societies. The political systems in such nation-states -- and their national constitutions -- are required to address the way in which multiple identities can coexist within an inclusive national polity and alongside a national identity. This challenge faces both new democracies and …

Peace-Building In An Inseparable World, Jonathan Moore

New England Journal of Public Policy

Our world is increasingly divided between the haves and the have nots, and the gap between these two is growing. Despite this, with all of its riches, the United States remains disconnected. A poor country in the aftermath of war is a microcosm of the world at large. Given the prodigious problems of the failed and failing nations discussed here -- Afghanistan, Cambodia, East Timor, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Somalia -- the tendency is to deny the enormity of the task and to treat the problem superficially and peremptorily rather than to attack its root causes. The …

Peace Through War? United States And Israeli Strategies, Heribert Adam

New England Journal of Public Policy

Can the lessons learned from South Africa's struggle with apartheid be applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Is a two-state solution in the Middle East a realistic way out of the long-standing dilemma? Or is a common state (what Israelis usually refer to as a "bi-national" state), which might be defined by a high security barrier, a feasible solution? The author investigates the implications of Iraq and 9/11 on progress toward a solution.