ethnic competition

Professor, please don't rely on common and garden concepts such as "ethnic competition", invent a tool that you can realistically deal with the phenomena. I have offered you the concept "SPEE" for that. The Guys/Dolls are right to spot/predict some serious activities on the region of SPEEs. But don't worry, this is not going to cause another Global War, but it will cause a lot of head-ache to States because the concept "state" will dis-integrate and a new realistic conceptual structure will emerge which will eventually pave the ground to a new civilisation.

So, My Dear Professor, don't be shy to introduce this concept of SPEE there, because that will help you to present realiistic scenarios while others mucking around with the pseudo-concept "state" to paint doomsday scenarios;->

Alternatively, leak their argument here;->>

I am not going to wish you good luck Professor! But I wish you cling on realistic concepts to rise up!

Grand Sen~or

You don't like simplistic labellings of the world? Man, is Thomas PM "(Core/Gap)" Barnett going to be maaaad at you!

Ha, ha so true, anon_anon! Prof. Walt is like the anti-Barnett, and a much more interesting read.

You make a lot of sense. But, you cause me to think of a different perspective. Instead of reacting to sources of upheaval, should we focus more on preemptive opportunities for prosperity and growth? What if we continually find collaborative opportunities with others for increased wealth and power? If we can do that, I wonder if the aspiring trouble-makers would be more willing to find areas where their goals coincide with us or whoever?

I guess that is essentially what happened with the Coal and Steal Community that evolved into the EU. However, Pakistan and Somalia or other spots of upheaval operate a little differently from Europe. For example, I have seen reports saying that the Pakistani military operates about 22 billion dollars of businesses. China’ military does that kind of thing too.

Consequently, I strongly suspect that China’s massive foreign “aid” has significant influence over the Pakistani military because I do not doubt that they make person-to-person business deals between the military owned businesses as a way of managing their foreign aid program to Pakistan. They know how to integrate their interests.

I wonder what would happen if we learned how to do that sort of thing in all of the world’s trouble spots? Hummmm----I think I will go research more about China’s foreign aid program. They do foreign aid for fun and profit. I wonder if their aid program actually adds to their national budget?

Bob Spencer

Stephen I always suspected that deep down there was a constructivist in you struggling to get out. Pity you didn't mention the rogue state as another term which was once injected into the discussion of IR , and like the axis of evil tried to frame how we should understand interaction with these states. One more thing, you're characterization of the US as a revisionist power is correct and few involved in the public debate have the integrity to say such.

Nor should we forget that the complex problems we now face in Central Asia are partly the product of centuries of imperial meddling, a legacy that also complicates the West’s relationship with much of the Middle East.

Don't fall into the trap of overly tying Central Asia (particularly the 'Stans) with the Middle East. Most of the similarities they have with the Middle East countries,up to and including the varieties of Islam and Islamist, are only skin deep.

But the right course of action is to evaluate each case separately, both to figure out how serious a threat it poses and to fashion a response that has some chance of working. Above all, we need to take a calm and cool-eyed approach to these challenges, so that we focus on the threats that matter most and on the cases where we have a clear strategy for success.

This is an incredibly crucial point. There are a lot of problems in this world, all of which cry out for American attention and potential involvement, and which become increasingly difficult to resist in an era where video content is almost universal. There are also quite a few scholars, particularly in your field, Dr. Walt, who think the US should be playing some type of "Imperial" role in integrating the Developing World and "failed states" into a stable system. We need to resist their temptation as well.

Above all, we need to avoid escalating problems. That was the real problem with Bush: he had a tendency to take a foreign policy problem, like international terrorism in Afghanistan, and escalate it into some type of giant crusade against not only international terrorism but all Islamic terrorism and radicalism, Islamic fundamentalism, and for democracy in the Islamic World (which they have; witness Indonesia).

By the way, I wish there was more criticism of the "Failed States" argument that is becoming increasingly prevalent in members of the Foreign Policy Community here in the US. Somalia is a "failed state", yet it didn't threaten US security. Same with Liberia, and a number of other interventions. The states that did end up threatening US security, like Afghanistan, were not failed states, since the Taliban controlled the country and exercised some degree of discipline and order, however brutal.

Should we intervene or should we stay out? I would recommend ‘First do no harm’ should become the guiding principal. Humanitarian catastrophes like Somalia would be less common if some forethought was given to the consequences of US actions. It might also have the beneficial side effect of not spawning so many radical regimes when the US’s objective fails. Had the UIC’s creeping stability experiment been aided and encouraged would we now have Al Shabab to deal with, or a relatively stable Islamic state? If Mossadegh had been left alone and the Iranians not have to suffer the oppression of the latter Shah years would Iran be as hostile as it is today?

Today, there are no territorially expansionist and highly risk-acceptant great powers like Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Is this true?
The US has troops stationed all over the globe and has not shown a great deal of restraint in using them, its wallet and covert forces to effect regime change or maintain some dubious ‘friends’ in power when their own people would prefer a change of regime. While not territorial expansion in the Roman or British flag planting sense I would argue this is our time’s version of it. Again it may not be high risk in that the US has no military equal, at present, with whom to go toe-to-toe but again it is generating resentment, enemies and a generalised asymmetric war with attendant global destabilisation (Global War on/of Terror).

Thanks for the link to Jeffrey Gettleman history of the Somali tragedy, which I had missed but is as good a short history on the subject I have read. One thing I would like to add to it is we should do everything we can now to bring stability to Somalia now even if it means dealing with some very unpalatable groups. My great fear is a general conflagration in the Horn in 2011 when the Sudanese constitution mandates the South has the right to vote to secede and Abyei (the oil rich central region) has the right to choose if it wants to be part of the North or South. The Northern block has been acting as if it has given up on the SPLM wanting to remain in the union for a while now and I see no way this will resolve itself peacefully. Darfur will be a side show and with so much tinder in the area there is a real danger to everything between Lake Victoria and the Med.
This area deserves more FP focus than any other area in the world and failure to act now could leave the Horn shedding sparks over the whole of Africa, the ME, the relationship with China and the post Hubbard’s peak oil supply for the rest of the 21st century.

All this talk of axis is disgusting. It was started by the Jewish-Canadian Mr. David Frum, the most despised individual, I am sure, in The United States. It was he, who coined the phrase: "Axis of evil". There is simply no excuse for this. Honest men and women need to uphold certain standards of behaviour. If you actively help the war effort in Iraq, Iran and (NK only included to provide credibility for the other two, which incidentially were Israels two greatest strategic foes) in this way, it can never be forgiven. Whatever you utter for the rest of your life hereafter, will be subjected to the utmost scrutany, and we will look for any signs of dual loyalty.

The same applies to this Scottish historian, Mr. Ferguson. Some of the things he have said has been rather interesting, but this recent publication in Foreign Policy contains some serious missconceptions, one of which, as Mr. Walt rightly observes, is its very title. Most of it should be dismissed, and whatever truth it contains is seriously compromised by the very title, about this non-existing axis.

Being a historian, he looks for clues in the present about something he have seen in the past. But this one about "an axis.." is wide off the mark, and if he had any decent integrity, he would have stayed well clear of any reference to the depised individual, Mr. David Frum.

Kudos to Dr. Walt for making the obvious but too often forgotten point that what is memorable is not the same as what is useful.

Greg Allen
Washington University in Saint Louis