Malaysia’s Response to the Cambodian Conflict, 1978-1991

SPHERES OF INTERVENTION: FOREIGN POLICY AND THE COLLAPSE OF LEBANON, 1967-1976 James R. Stocker Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016 (vii + 296 pages, notes, index, illustrations, maps) $45.00 (cloth)Reviewed by Jeffrey G. KaramIn Spheres of Intervention: Foreign Policy and the Collapse of Lebanon, 1967-1976, James R. Stocker reconsiders the role of the United States in Lebanon's path to the civil war that erupted in 1975. Combining declassified documents from the National Archives and various American presidential libraries, as well as some Arabic and French sources, Stocker advances two main arguments. The first is that US policy toward Lebanon was subordinated to strategies toward the Cold War and the broader Middle East; the second is that the US played a role in the process of Lebanese state collapse (4, 5). Both arguments are meant to convince the reader that rather than focus on one set of factors, a proper study of involvement in Lebanon between 1967 and 1976 should incorporate the different domestic, regional, and international factors that shaped policy at the time. Stocker considers Lebanon's slide into mayhem alongside other regional and international events, such as the October War of 1973, the detente between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the various disengagement agreements and disagreements between a number of Arab states and Israel during the 1970s, making his account of the underlying factors that ignited the Lebanese Civil War among the most comprehensive.Spheres of Intervention consists of an introduction, eight chapters, and an epilogue. In the introduction, Stocker discusses interests in Lebanon and surveys existing literature on the causes of the civil war, which include the fragility of Lebanon's political system, foreign meddling in Lebanon's internal affairs, the effects of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and poor socioeconomic development. The first three chapters deal with important junctures between the Arab-Israeli War of 1967 and the Jordanian Civil War of 1970, known as Black September. Chapters four and five focus on the heightened tension and subsequent skirmishes between Palestinian militants and the Lebanese government leading up to the October War of 1973, as well as the state of sociopolitical affairs in Lebanon before the outbreak of the civil war. The last three chapters examine the first two years of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-76) and the intense negotiations between various Arab states, the United States, and Israel to broker temporary peace between the warring factions. More specifically, chapters six and seven demonstrate that Lebanon became a battleground for regional contestation between Syria and Israel, as well as between Syria and different Arab states. The epilogue fast-forwards through Lebanon's civil war and ends with the United States calling on the Lebanese government to implement UN resolutions, particularly regarding the disarmament of Hizballah's armed forces and other militas on Lebanese soil and, in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005, the creation of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.As the product of serious research drawing on multiple sources, Spheres of Intervention is unique in the way it approaches policy and the beginning of Lebanon's civil war. Parts of the book's analysis, however, prompt concerns about the interpretation of sources and linkages (or lack thereof) between important events in the time period covered. The first concern relates to the author's extreme reluctance to connect the dots between the various archival materials. It is understandable that Stocker refrains from making grandiose assertions that cannot be properly substantiated. Nevertheless, the author's analysis of military and financial support to right-wing Christian militias is very limited and troubling. As a matter of fact, Stocker vacillates between implicating the United States in taking sides, particularly by supporting Christian militias in the build-up to the Lebanese Civil War (18, 63-64, 131-32), and dismissing this partisanship by claiming that the United States refrained from actively fueling civil conflict (63-64, 144, 166, 224). …

Relations between Germany, the US and NATO today are the core of transatlantic links. After the Cold War and the reunification of Germany, NATO has lost its former importance to Germany which was not a "frontline state" anymore. The EU acquired a greater importance for German politicians applying both for certain political independence and for establishing of a broad partnership with Russia and China. The task of the European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) development has been regarded by Berlin as a necessary component of the NATO's transformation into a “balanced Euro-American alliance”, and the realization of this project as the most important prerequisite for a more independent foreign policy. Germany’s refusal to support the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the first serious crisis in US Germany relations. At the same time, there was no radical break of the deeply rooted Atlanticism tradition in German policy. It was Angela Merkel as a new head of the German government (2005) who managed to smooth largely disagreements in relations with the United States. Atlanticism remains one of the fundamental foreign policy elements for any German government, mostly because Berlin’s hope for deepening of the European integration and transition to the EU CFSP seems unrealistic in the foreseeable future. However, there is still a fundamental basis of disagreements emerged in the transatlantic relationship (reduction of a military threat weakening Berlin’s dependence from Washington, and the growing influence of Germany in the European Union). According to the federal government's opinion, Germany's contribution to the NATO military component should not be in increasing, but in optimizing of military expenses. However, taking into account the incipient signs of the crisis overcoming in the EU, and still a tough situation around Ukraine, it seems that in the medium-term perspective one should expect further enhancing of Germany’s participation in NATO military activities and, therefore, a growth in its military expenses. In Berlin, there is a wide support for the idea of the European army. However, most experts agree that it can be implemented only when the EU develops the Common Foreign and Defense Policy to a certain extent. The US Germany espionage scandals following one after another since 2013 have seriously undermined the traditional German trust to the United States as a reliable partner. However, under the impact of the Ukrainian conflict, the value of military-political dimension of Germany’s transatlantic relations and its dependence on the US and NATO security guarantees increased. At the same time, Washington expects from Berlin as a recognized European leader a more active policy toward Russia and in respect of some other international issues. In the current international political situation, the desire to expand political influence in the world and achieve a greater autonomy claimed by German leaders seems to Berlin only possible in the context of transatlantic relations strengthening and solidarity within the NATO the only military-political organization of the West which is able to ensure the collective defense for its members against the external threats. However, it is important to take into consideration that not only the value of the United States and NATO for Germany, but also the role of Germany in the North Atlantic Alliance as a “representative of European interests” has increased. The role of Germany as a mediator in establishing the West–Russia relations remains equally important.

The World Trade Center Attack remembered as the 9/11 tragedy has awakened the international community, particularly the United States (US) to sharpen its foreign policy in facing security threats coming from 'weak states'. One of the most prominent weak states examples posing a grave threat is the Northern Triangle Countries of Central America (NTCA) which are referred to as Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Hence, this paper will discuss the rationale behind US initiatives in dealing with security threats in El Salvador as one of the NTCA using the weak state concept and national interest concept. It is found that El Salvador corresponds to the elements of a weak state and poses security threats by giving rise to transnational criminal organizations, drug trafficking, and migrant problems. Overcoming those security threats has become a vital US national interest. However, despite decreasing security threats coming from El Salvador and strengthening El Salvador's government capacity is highly correlated, strengthening El Salvador's governance through the providence of aid and assistance is classified as US important national interest.

In the history of modern diplomacy there have been few episodes as tortuous as the attempt to reach a settlement in the Cambodian conflict. For nearly a decade the parties concerned with such a settlement ? not only the various Cambodian factions and their respective superpower backers, but also regional participants such as ASEAN and Japan, and mediators as distant from the scene as Austria and Yugoslavia ? have travelled on a serpentine road of proposals, rejections, and new initiatives. The latest turn of events has been the meetings between Cam bodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk and the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) Prime Minister and concurrently Foreign Minister, Hun Sen, in December 1987 and January 1988 near Paris. The following pages are focused on the march of diplomatic manoeuvres and their underlying motivating forces leading up to these Sihanouk-Hun Sen discussions.

Geostrategic position of a country not just creates opportunities in form of bilateral and multilateral collaborations, it may also pose stern long term concerns and spillover effects in terms of insecurity and conflict. Pakistan, if not a classic example, is a typical case of continually high geopolitics of international relations: its geostrategic location had been praised by international players during the cold war regime through financial assistance; it was encouraged to take part during the Russian invasion in Afghanistan in late 70’s; and was compelled to play the role of ‘front line state’ in the war against terrorism, in the aftermath of the 9/ 11 incidence, in 2001. Early attempts of establishing rebel groups based upon ethnic identity to fight in Afghanistan, while launching of ruthless military operations after 9/11 incidence, against same rebel groups who fought in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion, causing either undue leverage to specific ethnic minorities at one point in time or extreme repression at later stage of history. In order to pretest impact of geopolitics of International Relations upon conflict, and if the interplay of geopolitics with ‘ethnic polarization’ affected ‘internal conflict’, several econometric models have been estimated. Along with testing the impact of geopolitical importance and its interplay with ethnic polarization in distressing peace, other important propositions in estimated models include, how ‘external conflict’, ‘institutional efficacies’, and the ‘role of military in politics’, caused adversity of ‘Internal conflict’, in Pakistan. In order to ensure concurrent validity of econometric models, alternative regressands namely ratings of ‘Civil War’ and ‘Internal Conflict’ have been used. Keeping in view ordinal scaling of regressands, cautions in dealing with heteroscedasticity and potentially lagged impact of regressors, Ordered-probit, Ordered Logit, Quantile regression, Robust Regression, and Prais-Winsten models are estimated. Estimated models strongly approved the notion that ‘geopolitics of international relations’ and ‘geopolitics of International Relations’ in interaction with ‘Ethnic polarization’, have had a considerable and statistically significant temporal impact upon ‘internal conflict’ and rating of ‘civil war’, in context of Pakistan. Other significant factors that contributed to adversity of peace are ‘external conflict’, ‘role of military in politics’, ‘illegitimacy of the state actions’/ ‘institutional inefficacies’ and ‘religious polarization’. Keywords: geopolitics of international relations, war against terrorism, internal conflict, ethnic polarization, ordered-probit model, robust regression, Prais-Winsten regression.

Along the Academe‐Policy Frontier: A Tribute to Aileen S.P. Baviera

At the 42nd New York Film Festival in 2004, an enthusiastic audience viewed a selection of propaganda films rarely seen in the USA. The exhibit, ‘Selling Democracy—Welcome Mr. Marshall. Films of th...

Elections have been used as a mechanism to institutionalize a new political order following internal conflict in Cambodia, El Salvador, Angola, Mozambique, Bosnia, and now Liberia. This book analyzes the Liberian transition and the July 1997 elections in order to better understand the relationship between war termination and transitions to democracy and the role post-conflict elections play in promoting both of these goals. The Liberian elections represented the final stage of a seven-year, West African-led peace process. An overwhelming majority voted for former factional leader Charles Taylor in the belief that if Taylor did not win, war would erupt again. The Liberian transition demonstrates that post-conflict elections may play an important role in a process of war termination. In many cases, it may be necessary to move forward with war termination and "imperfect" elections in the short run and pursue goals relating to democratization after the new government has been put in place. This study uses a detailed examination of the difficult Liberian case to highlight the more general challenges of helping countries make the transition from civil conflict and authoritarian rule to peace and democracy. Studies in Foreign Policy

This study aims to comprehensively address the foreign policy cooperation processes shaped at the European Union (EU) level, especially in the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), through the concept of Europeanization. In-depth analysis of the effects of the EU's integration and cooperation processes in the field of foreign policy on the national foreign policies of the member states is of great importance in understanding how this interaction is shaped both at the European and national levels. In this framework, it will be analyzed in detail how the EU's common foreign policy practices, which have been developed to increase its global influence, have harmonized with national interests and how they have sometimes come into conflict with these interests. Thus, it will be revealed how the EU's foreign policy strategies and national foreign policy dynamics interact. In this context, this study aims to examine the challenges faced by the EU in the foreign policy-making process and the historical, theoretical and practical obstacles in solving these challenges within the framework of the concept of Europeanization. It aims to analyze the development of foreign policy cooperation within the EU, especially in the period starting with the Maastricht Treaty, and the balance between the member states' desire to protect their national sovereignty and their efforts to establish a common foreign policy. In doing so, the scope and dimensions of the Europeanization process of national foreign policies in the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy will be discussed and the formation process of the EU foreign policy and the important turning points in this process will be analyzed.

Issues in Australian Foreign Policy January to June 2022

Reviewed by: Chained to History: Slavery and U.S. Foreign Relations to 1865 by Steven J. Brady Ann L. Tucker Chained to History: Slavery and U.S. Foreign Relations to 1865. By Steven J. Brady. (Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 2022. Pp. viii, 232. $39.95, ISBN 978-1-5017-6105-8.) Slavery constituted one of the most critical issues in U.S. domestic politics from the founding through emancipation. In Chained to History: Slavery and U.S. Foreign Relations to 1865, Steven J. Brady follows in the footsteps of historians such as Matthew Karp by positioning slavery as a critical issue shaping U.S. foreign policy as well. Using the records and words of leading American statesmen, Brady argues that slavery influenced American foreign policy goals, actions, successes, and failures from the American Revolution through the Civil War, continually complicating and challenging efforts to advance U.S. interests at home and abroad. Chained to Slavery traces the influence of slavery on American foreign policy through a series of critical events in U.S. history. Brady reveals the key role slavery played in these well-known incidents and highlights the influence of foreign policy considerations on well-known American actions related to slavery. Slavery complicated efforts to resolve ongoing conflict with Britain during the early republic and shaped American reactions to the Haitian Revolution. International disagreements over slavery limited efforts to police the Atlantic slave trade and helped thwart American attempts to promote Black colonization in Africa. Slavery drove American expansionism, despite the risks of harming U.S. relations with European powers, and hindered the [End Page 360] Abraham Lincoln administration’s diplomatic efforts during the Civil War. Throughout these events, slavery and international relations were inextricably intertwined, shaping American actions and historical outcomes. As Brady reveals, a major reason why slavery was so woven into every element of U.S. diplomacy was that leaders frequently equated the promotion and protection of slavery with national interests and even national security. Yet despite this prioritization of slavery, American statesmen continually struggled to define domestic and international legal precedents and obligations regarding the institution, and therefore the obligations of domestic and international parties toward each other. This dynamic shaped decades-long debates with Britain over compensation for the owners of self-emancipated enslaved people and over the British enforcement of the prohibition of the Atlantic slave trade. Further complicating matters, the connection between slavery and foreign policy was not always straightforward, and other concerns often intervened. For example, a desire to promote commerce led the United States to continue trade with Haiti, a nation founded in part by a slave revolt, and the ideas of American unilateralism continually clashed with the defense of slavery’s tendency to draw its proponents into the larger international world. In this analysis, Brady shows how influential American leaders, and their foreign counterparts, were repeatedly snared, thwarted, and redirected by the issue of slavery as they debated and negotiated America’s place in the world. One theme that emerges throughout the book was the particular challenge that the United States’ generally proslavery foreign policy posed to its relationship with abolitionist Great Britain. This tension began with long-lasting conflict over compensation for the owners of enslaved persons who had self-emancipated across British lines during the American Revolution, and it continued with American refusals to acquiesce to British visions for an alliance against the Atlantic slave trade. Throughout the nineteenth century the United States and Great Britain repeatedly found themselves at odds over the issue of slavery. This dynamic was intensified even by seemingly unrelated events, such as the U.S. annexation of Texas (which Britain opposed because it advanced slavery), as well as ongoing fears about British abolitionist influence in Spanish Cuba, and the expansion of British power generally. Brady’s emphasis on the role slavery played in shaping the United States’ relationship with Britain is one of the strengths of the work. The relationship between slavery and foreign relations that Brady depicts was multidirectional, with varied results for American leaders and their goals. Nonetheless, with clear use of evidence and strong organization, Brady compellingly demonstrates that slavery and international relations were inextricably...

Freedom is not free: Examining health equity for racial and ethnic minoritized veterans.

174 SAISREVIEW continuous American support for German unification and German insistence on remaining a member of NATO indicate the continued validity of this observation. Despite its underlying strength, this relationship is experiencing increasing difficulties. Smyser attributes these difficulties to "the growth of German power, the relative decline ofAmerican power, and the emergence ofthe new Europe and the new world." The present and future of German-American relations are best understood by "an appreciation of the exploding breadth of the relationship." From global economics to reconstructing the East, to non-regional issues, a constantly widening agenda offers the possibility both for greater cooperation and for greater conflict. During the Cold War, the commitments and dependencies arising out of the nuclear relationship between the two countries exacerbated the potential for conflict. An "extraordinary degree of mutual trust" was required, which prompted "ceaseless mutual scrutiny" in the search for reassurance. Smyser does not reflect on whether Europe's impending demilitarization will relax this strain. Concluding his study, Smyser recommends that balanced communication and understanding between the United States and Germany be facilitated through the institutionalization of increased high-level contact. Further, he asserts that principles necessary to guide the relationship should be the focus of such contact. Directing high-level attention towards the relationship is logical given the added weight that a newly-unified Germany will cany in world affairs. Yet the potential threat that such a policy will eclipse other European powers poses a dilemma. As the Germans increasingly infuse their foreign and domestic policies with a European component, it will be appropriate for the United States to structure its relations with Germany in the context of other European institutions as well. American National Interest: Virtue and Power in Foreign Policy. By Karl Von Vorys. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1990. 276pp. $39.95/Hardback. Reviewed by Mark S. Mahaney (SAIS M.A., 1990), Presidential Management Intern with the Department of State. What to make of a book that casually roams from the conceptual underpinnings of strategic deterrence, to the trials and tribulations of historical European security structures, to the social, economic, and political obstacles facing development planners in the Third World? And what to make of an author who can concisely outline the reasons why U.S. military intervention is unlikely to succeed in Latin America, explain how U.S. policy lost contact with domestic political reality during the Vietnam War, and then conclude that the nation needs a small, highly trained, and highly mobile Rapid Deployment Force? Von Vorys declares at the outset that the purpose of his book is "to develop national interest as a pre-policy standard, a standard that by consensus sets the parameters for official policy...[a standard] by which foreign policy can be evaluated." Sound familiar? It should. American foreign policy thinkers from Charles Beard to Walter Lippmann to Hans Morgenthau (to name only a few) BOOK REVIEWS 175 established their reputations through their efforts to wed U.S. foreign policy to a "correct" interpretation of American national interests. How does Von Vorys fare in such exalted company? Answer: the odds were against Von Vorys from the start, but his attempt is interesting and quirkily provocative. What might help explain the quirks of this book—its drift into and out of topics as diverse as SDI, the fundamental tenets of Islam, and foreign aid—is the rather unusual perspective the author brings to the main subject. Von Vorys' previous books focused on communalism in Malaysia and political development in Pakistan. All the more impressive, therefore, is his sharp analysis of the foreign policy challenges confronting U.S. national interests. According to Von Vorys, those challenges come in the following order of importance: those to our vital interests (our national existence); those to our special interests (our friends and allies); and those to our general interests (international order). By carefully setting up this hierarchy, Von Vorys has half the battle behind him. After all, one of the greatest challenges facing our country has always been our unwillingness or our inability to discriminate between those national interests that are truly vital and those that are not. The former sometimes obligate the expenditure of our most precious resources—our...

The research paper deals with the process of development of Ukraine’s foreign information policy in terms of the objectives of protecting its national security. Its scientific periodization is provided: 1st stage (1990-1992) – information support of state-building processes; 2nd stage (1993-1994) – information struggle over the question of “denuclearization” of Ukraine; 3rd stage (1995-1998) – “simulation” policy, information support of the “multivector” policy; 4th stage (1999-2004) - crisis response; 5th stage (2005-2008) – information support of Euro-Atlantic policy, 6th stage (2009-2013) – information support of attempts to transition to a non-aligned policy; 7th stage (2014-2016) – responding to information aggression by the Russian Federation. Generalization of experience of the Ukraine’s foreign information policy allows pointing to the factors of systemic weakness of the Ukraine’s foreign information policy that existed before. In particular, institutional weakness which is due to the weakness of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a center of the formation of the country’s foreign policy; lack of the foreign policy strategy based on national interests; lack of the established baseline that provides a procedure of the foreign information policy; as instruments of influence on the external environment - including favourable country’s foreign policy image and distribution channels of information influence.
 Keywords: Foreign information policy, national security, Ukraine

(2021) Volume 2, Issue 4 Cultural Implications of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC Authors: Dr. Unsa Jamshed Amar Jahangir Anbrin Khawaja Abstract: This study is an attempt to highlight the cultural implication of CPEC on Pak-China relations, how it will align two nations culturally, and what steps were taken by the governments of two states to bring the people closer.