Article alert

July / August 2009

ALERT, a monthly publication of the Information Resource Center at the American Center for Educational Exchange, offers abstracts of current articles in major areas of U.S. domestic or international affairs. Full-text articles are available to you upon request. To request articles, please contact the Information Resource Center by telephone , fax, e-mail ircacee@state.gov, or by mail. To request by mail, please circle the articles you wish to receive, include your name, address, and telephone number and return this list to us.  DISCLAIMER: articles and links to non-U.S. government Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.

The Rule of Law

1.    EXPENSIVE GIFTS  
       Quart, Alissa  
       Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 48, no. 2, July/August 2009
 
Shepard Fairey, famous for his red and blue Obama silkscreen “Hope,” is a proponent of “free culture,” a stance that advocates open sharing of intellectual property.  This “economy of giving” is a hallmark of the new digital reality.  However, the Associated Press (AP) and the photographer who shot the photo Fairey appropriated for his art claim copyright, and the AP sued the artist for copyright infringement.  For many, the debate hinges on whether or not open, participatory culture will destroy useful, traditional journalism institutions.  It also illuminates the vagueness of “fair use” under copyright law.  The author examines the ethics and importance of money and attribution in the emerging dispensation of the “gift economy.”  Currently available online at http://www.cjr.org/feature/expensive_gifts.php?page=1

2.    FDR’S LESSONS FOR OBAMA
       Kennedy, David M.   
       Time, vol. 173, no. 26, July 8, 2009, pp. 26-29

The author, a professor at Stanford University, notes that Barack Obama took office amid circumstances similar to those of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Kennedy writes that the big question is if, like Roosevelt, Obama can seize the moment and come up with solutions.  Roosevelt used the Depression as an opportunity to revolutionize American life for generations to come, realizing the irony that a Depression made achieving those objectives possible.  Kennedy writes that Obama, who similarly faces an economic downturn and massive unemployment, may use his circumstances to bring about health care reform and other programs he considers necessary to improving the public welfare.  Currently available online at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1906802_1906838_1906745,00.html

Economics and Trade

3.    THE DEATH OF MACHO
       Salam, Reihan
       Foreign Policy, July/August 2009, pp. 65-70

The author, a fellow at the New America Foundation, contends that “the era of male dominance is coming to an end.” The current recession is having a disproportionate impact on males -– more than 80 percent of those who have lost jobs since November have been men. Three-fifths of college graduates in the United States are women. People are realizing that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior of the “cult of macho” has proven to be destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world. The U.S. economic stimulus package is investing heavily in education, healthcare, and social services -– all fields dominated by women. How this changing situation unfolds will depend on how men react. They can choose to adapt to the changes or they can resist. Resistance is personified in Russia, which is still adjusting to the fall of Soviet Union, and where a higher percentage of working-age women are employed than in nearly any other country, but at only half the wages previously paid men for the same work. China is also trying to contain the damage caused by the loss of manufacturing jobs and to manage the threat posed by the country’s massive male migrant population. Writes Salam, “the axis of global conflict in this century ... will be gender. We have no precedent for a world after the death of macho. But we can expect the transition to be wrenching, uneven, and possibly very violent.” Currently available online at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/18/the_death_of_macho

4.    THE GENIE’S OUT OF THE BOTTLE
       Phipps, Carter
       EnlightenNext, no. 44, June-August 2009, pp. 54-62

Globalization has come under fire from many quarters as an exploitative economic trend, but Dr. Thomas Barnett, a geopolitical strategist and author, regards globalization as the most unifying, progressive, and liberating force in human history. Barnett looks across the last century -- wars that raged over the Eurasian land mass for the first half of the 20th century are now virtually unthinkable as the bonds of trade, travel, and commerce have grown, he says. The places where violence still disrupts civil society are those largely untouched by globalization, Barnett tells Phipps in an interview. Barnett thinks that the economic and social trends that unfolded in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are playing out again in globalization. He predicts that the progressivism and the enrichment of the middle class that occurred at that time will also be the outcome of globalization.

5.    THE SCIENCE OF ECONOMIC BUBBLES AND BUSTS 
       Stix, Gary  
       Scientific American, July 2009

The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has prompted a reassessment of how financial markets work and how people make decisions about money.  The worldwide financial meltdown has caused a new examination of why markets sometimes become overheated and then come crashing down.  The dot-com blowup and the subsequent housing and credit crises highlight how psychological quirks sometimes trump rationality in investment decision making.  Understanding these behaviors elucidates the genesis of booms and busts.  New models of market dynamics try to protect against financial blowups by mirroring more accurately how markets work.  Meanwhile, more intelligent regulation may gently steer the home buyer or the retirement saver away from bad decisions.  Currently available online at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-science-of-economic-bubbles

6.    TAMED TIGERS, DISTRESSED DRAGON
        Klein, Brian; Cukier, Kenneth
        Foreign Affairs, vol. 88, no. 4, July-August 2009

According to Klein, a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow, and Cukier, a Tokyo correspondent for The Economist, the global economic turmoil has hurt the formerly rapidly expanding Asian economies hardest. “By emphasizing exports, Asian countries simply replaced a reliance on foreign capital with a dependence on foreign demand,” they say. As Americans save more, they will buy less of what Asia produces; pursuing export-led growth distracted Asians from building the institutions necessary for sustainable domestic economies. Those countries that manipulated their currencies “in effect subsidized exporters at the expense of other domestic producers and consumers,” the authors say. Some countries also ignored corruption, inadequate rule of law, and environmental degradation. The success of export-led growth made structural reform even more difficult because of resistance from vested interests; the Asian economies are now ill prepared for the hard decisions needed to cope with a likely persistent difficult economic environment. The authors say they should be restructuring to create domestic demand by promoting human capital -- especially education, improving incomes, and reducing savings. They need to pay workers more money and, most importantly, establish social safety nets. “The lack of basic economic safeguards is the biggest reason why Asians save so much, and reducing those savings would unlock consumption,” the authors say.

7.    UNTANGLING THE RECOVERY
        Brodsky, Robert
        Government Executive, vol. 41, no. 6, June 2009, pp. 24-26, 28, 30

The author believes that government has another chance at proving it can be effective in the present economic climate. In early May 2009, President Obama unveiled his formal fiscal 2010 budget, including a list of 121 cuts to federal programs that added up to a savings of about $17 billion. Then there is the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed less than a month after Obama took office, as an opportunity to prop up a faltering economy, spur long-term investments in energy and in education, and put millions of unemployed Americans back to work. For the nation’s over 2.7 million federal employees, the stimulus plan and the new FY2010 budget represent chances to prove that the government can still operate as an effective management organization. Right now, the most important use of funds are those that are allocated by the Recovery Act to get Americans back to work and to restart a faltering economy. Of this, $60 billion is expected to be spent on federal contracts with another $84 million going to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board that was created to oversee fund disbursement and to manage Recovery.gov, the central government repository for information on the stimulus. Currently available online at http://www.govexec.com/features/0609-01/0609-01s1.htm

Global Issues / Environment

8.    THE CATASTROPHIST
        Kolbert, Elizabeth
        New Yorker, June 29, 2009

James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and prescient climate change scientist is profiled in this article, which explores his activist side. The climatologist predicted global warming thirty years ago with one of the first climate models. Today, based on his recent models and scientific data, he calculates that carbon dioxide emissions have already reached dangerous levels, making immediate action imperative, to prevent large-scale disruption to human society. “This particular problem has become an emergency,” he told the author. It has led him to march on Washington and court arrest at coal plants to make his point, and push for stepped up action from governments.

9.    CIRCULATION BOOST?
       Skowronski, Will
       American Journalism Review, June/July 2009

Some newspapers are turning to easy-to-carry electronic readers as a way to attract and keep subscribers while cutting back on print and delivery costs. The New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post, already available via the Kindle, will pilot editions on a newer version of the device this summer. The papers will offer the subscriptions at a reduced cost to readers out of the home-delivery range who agree to long-term subscriptions. The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News, which have already sharply cut back home delivery to save newsroom jobs, plan to rely on electronic editions even more -- and so far the readers have been receptive to the changes. Newspapers are taking electronic reading devices more seriously now that the technology is making them more user-friendly -- screens are more readable, displays larger and batteries last longer. Currently available online at http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4768

10.    FILM PIRACY, ORGANIZED CRIME, AND TERRORISM
         Treverton, Gregory, Et Al.
         Rand Corporation, March 2009, 182 pp.

According to this Rand report released earlier this year, the enormous profits to be made from film piracy have attracted the attention of organized crime worldwide, and to a more limited degree, terrorist groups. Although the researchers found no evidence that terrorists are widely involved with film piracy, they did uncover three cases where film piracy supported terror groups. Criminal penalties for counterfeiting and piracy are relatively light and prosecutions sparce, yet the profits from these crimes can exceed that of drug trafficking. The danger, the authors say, is that more terrorist groups will tap into counterfeiting and piracy to underwrite their operations. Online link to full-text PDF document available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG742/index.html

11.    IS THERE A PLACE FOR NUCLEAR WASTE? 
         Wald, Matthew L.  
         Scientific American, August 2009

Yucca Mountain was supposed to be the answer to the U.S. nuclear waste problem, but after 22 years and $9 billion, that vision is dead.  Now, some say that doing nothing in the near term may be the smartest solution.  The Obama administration has effectively canceled the plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.  Spent fuel will for the foreseeable future continue to be stored on-site at 131 locations around the country.  The end of Yucca means that all options for waste disposal are now in play, including recycling, use in advanced reactors and burial at other sites.  Currently available online at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-there-a-place-for-nuclear-waste

12.    WILL AMERICANS TUNE TO AL JAZEERA?
         Helman, Christopher
         Forbes, July 13, 2009

The Doha, Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network reaches 53 million Arabic language viewers and 140 million English language households in 100 countries. Starting on July 1, Al Jazeera English (AJE) will begin broadcasting in Washington, D.C., its first around-the-clock carriage in the U.S. outside of Toledo, Ohio and Burlington, Vermont. There, it will face a huge marketing hurdle – the perception that it is biased against the United States and Western Europe. The optimists believe the Obama era and an American interest in more global perspectives will reel in viewers, but conservatives say Al Jazeera is anti-American and has connections with al-Qaeda. Not so, according to Tony Burman, managing director of AJE, who says that network is on par with CNN International and BBC World in quality of programming. Furthermore, the government of Qatar, which owns the network, is relatively liberal, no enemy of the United States (it hosts the largest U.S. air base in the region) and allegedly exerts no censorship on the network. Burman believes the biggest hurdle will be to persuade cable companies like Comcast to carry AJE. Currently available online at http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0713/comcast-al-qaeda-will-americans-tune-to-al-jazeera.html

Regional Security

13.    ADVANCES IN MONITORING NUCLEAR WEAPON TESTING
          Richard, Paul G.; Kim, Won-Young
          Scientific American, March 2009

Detecting a test of a nuclear weapon has become so effective and reliable that no nation could expect to get away with secretly exploding a device having military significance. Seismic monitoring can now detect a nuclear explosion with a yield of a kiloton or more anywhere on Earth and, in many places, detection is far more sensitive than that. President Barack Obama is likely to ask the U.S. Senate to reconsider its 1999 vote against the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Treaty opponents have argued that some signatories would cheat by testing explosive nuclear weapons in secret, putting noncheaters at risk, but the objection that secret tests could go undetected is no longer seriously credible. Currently available online at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=advances-in-monitoring-nuclear

14.    AMERICANS’ KNOWLEDGE OF U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ, APRIL
          2004 TO APRIL 2008
          Bennett, Stephen; Flickinger, Richard
          Armed Forces and Society

The authors discuss the American public’s aversion to battle-related military casualties, and note that estimates of military deaths may have influenced public support for past U.S. military efforts. They review the accuracy of estimates for Iraq and three twentieth-century conflicts, finding that the public's estimates were more likely to be on target for Iraq, using five polls from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Gender and age emerge as significant factors that affect what people know about public affairs, as well as education and attention to the news. The authors conclude that the public attitude toward the levels of military deaths in Iraq have direct consequences for opinions about U.S. policies there.

15.    A COUNTERTERRORISM STRATEGY FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
          Hoffman, Bruce
          Terrorism & Political Violence, vol. 21, no. 3, July 2009, pp. 359-377

Al-Qaeda is most dangerous when it has a safe haven from which to plant and plot attacks. It has acquired such a haven in Pakistan’s Federal Administered Tribal Areas and its North-West Frontier Province and nearby areas, concludes terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman at Georgetown University. During 2008 al-Qaeda was able to re-group and re-organize in these lawless regions along the Afghan-Pakistan border, once again having a sanctuary in which it can operate, while marshalling its forces to continue its struggle with the U.S. The highest priority for the new administration and U.S. allies is to refocus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hoffman says; part of any counterterrorism strategy must include an understanding that al-Qaeda and its local affiliates cannot be defeated by military means alone. At its basic level, a new strategy requires two major requirements -– a military capability to systematically destroy and weaken enemy capabilities, and the means to break the cycle of terrorist recruitment and effectively counter al-Qaeda’s information operations. Online link to full text available at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a912648440~db=all~jumptype=rss

16.    THE DEPLOYMENT EXPERIENCES OF FT. CARSON’S SOLDIERS IN IRAQ:
          THINKING ABOUT AND TRAINING FOR FULL-SPECTRUM WARFARE
          Scott, Wilbur; Mccone, David; Mastroianni, George
          Armed Forces and Society, vol. 35, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 460-476

The authors argue that the U.S. military is not organized and trained to fight "fourth-generation" wars -– conflicts in which the adversaries are nonstate combatants and where the strategy, tactics, and battlefield are unconventional. U.S. Army and Marine commanders have begun to realize this, as they struggle to deal with a hybrid Iraqi insurgency consisting of assorted “bad guys” in a conflict that will ultimately be resolved through political, rather than military, means. Drawing on a series of interviews, the authors explore how two units from Ft. Carson, Colorado, adjusted to the reality on the ground in Iraq. The authors propose a new combat script model that takes into account the enormous demands placed on combat units operating in a theater such as Iraq.

17.    NOT SO HUDDLED MASSES: MULTICULTURALISM AND FOREIGN POLICY
         Mcconnell, Scott
         World Affairs, vol. 171, no. 4, Spring 2009, pp. 39-50

The author examines the connection between America’s immigration and foreign policy throughout U.S. history. Although Hispanics will make up a quarter of the American population by 2040, this does not guarantee a different foreign policy. Apart from the highly-mobilized Cuban émigré community, Latinos’ foreign-affairs activism remains modest since it is not clear that they have either the resources or the will to influence American foreign policy in a singular way; most new immigrant groups tend to vote Democratic. The author also analyzes the power of ethnic lobbies to exert influence upon U.S. policy. Currently available online at http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2009%20-%20Spring/full-McConnell.html

18.    PIRATES, THEN AND NOW: HOW PIRACY WAS DEFEATED IN THE PAST
         AND CAN BE AGAIN
         Boot, Max
         Foreign Affairs, vol. 88, no. 4, July/August 2009, pp. 94-107

The author examines pirate activity in past centuries to see how nations dealt with the problem, and as a way to consider lessons and tactics that may be applicable now. Boot, who is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that 17th-century governments initially hired private pirate hunters, but later committed more naval assets to the task. From 1650 to 1850 nations took other steps that included convoying merchant ships, chasing pirates on sea and land, blockading and bombing ports used by pirates, and occupying and dismantling pirate lairs. In 2008, he said, less than a half of one percent of the commercial ships passing the Horn of Africa were attacked -– and most of those attempted hijackings were unsuccessful. He notes that some suggest that shipping companies paying ransom to pirates should be denied the right to conduct business in the United States. Boot, meanwhile, advocates using private security firms to patrol alongside vulnerable ships, or, to have armed guards onboard. If past generations succeeded in defeating the Barbary pirates, the Caribbean buccaneers and the marauders of the Red Sea, Boot writes that “surely this generation can defeat the ragtag sea robbers of Somalia” but it will require a robust response by maritime nations.

19.    SPREADING TEMPTATION: PROLIFERATION AND PEACEFUL NUCLEAR
         COOPERATION AGREEMENTS 
         Fuhrmann, Matthew
         International Security, vol. 34, no. 1, Summer 2009, pp. 7-41

Fuhrmann, assistant professor of political science at the University of South Carolina, notes that “proliferation-proof” nuclear assistance does not exist.  Transfer of nuclear technology and know-how for peaceful purposes invariably leads to the development of weapons programs, and countries that have received such assistance are more likely to produce nuclear weapons, especially when facing security threats.  A study of two thousand civilian nuclear cooperation agreements over the past half-century bears this out.  Fuhrmann writes that the link between civilian nuclear cooperation and proliferation is surprisingly broad, and casts doubt on convention wisdom.  He argues that major nuclear suppliers such as the U.S. should reconsider their willingness to assist other countries in peaceful nuclear cooperation.  Available online at http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/project/58/quarterly_journal.html

20.    U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY: THE OPEN WINDOW FOR TRANSFORMATION
          Cirincione, Joseph
          Harvard International Review, vol. 31, no. 1, Spring 2009, pp. 42-46

The author, former vice president of National Security and International Policy at the Center of American Progress as well as former director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says that the U.S. has an opportunity to reshape its nuclear policy under the Obama administration. Cirincione says that President Obama needs to be bold in implementing a strategy that would reduce nuclear proliferation and also address the four categories of nuclear threats. Cirincione lists the four most critical threats -- first, the possibility of a terrorist group obtaining a nuclear weapon; second, the chance of “an accidental, unauthorized or intentional” use of a weapon by a nuclear-armed state; third, the emergence of a new armed state; finally, the end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The author says Obama recognizes the interrelation between these threats and has developed his nuclear policy accordingly. Cirincione, however, warns that damage caused by the Bush doctrine demands that Obama act quickly in implementing his policy. Currently available online at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb137/is_1_31/ai_n31876335/

U.S. Society and Values

21.    CHINA’S SECRET WEAPON?
         Debold, Elizabeth
         EnlightenNext, no. 44, June-August 2009, pp. 36-38

The author, a developmental psychologist, notes that much discussion on China and India has centered on which of the two emerging powers will step onto the world stage and forge a new era. Debold notes that many claim it will be India, but her recent involvement in an independent girls’ school for daughters of newly affluent families from across South and East Asia have made her wonder if the reality is more complicated than that. She says that the school has had a recent influx of teenage girls from mainland China, and remarks that “what I saw in one Chinese student after another took my breath away ... they are unlike any I have ever worked with or known.” The Chinese girls, with barely a couple of months’ immersion into an English-speaking environment, despite broken grammar, have been fearless, taking risks, asking questions, making public presentations, jumping into role-playing exercises –- “it’s like watching someone leap off a cliff and begin to soar through the air.” Debold says “this inner liberation ... suggests that this next generation of Chinese may truly give us a run for our money,” and that this spirit may be a more significant determinant than current political or economic conditions.

22.    COWBOYS AND IMMIGRANTS
         Morrow, Lance
         Smithsonian, vol. 40, no. 2, May 2009

Morrow writes that over the course of the past century, the two dueling American archetypes of the cowboy and the immigrant alternatively dominated American politics. Teddy Roosevelt personified the Frontier, while Franklin Roosevelt became the first “Ellis Island” president, and Lyndon Johnson “embodied both the Frontier and Ellis Island -– and tried to enact both, in the Great Society and in Vietnam.” While former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo campaigned in 1984 as “the perfect Ellis Island man,” Ronald Reagan “convinced Americans they were tall in the saddle again,” and the Frontier won “by a landslide.” Barack Obama represents the “repudiation of the Frontier style of [George W.] Bush and Dick Cheney” in what Morrow perceives as a civic as well as generational paradigm shift. Morrow sees these two clashing prototypes in the 21st-century “planetary megacity” that the human race has created. President Obama, Morrow argues, must approach global issues from both conceptual points of view and be willing to shift into the opposite mind-set as the situation dictates. Morrow notes that “Ellis Island” President Franklin Roosevelt found himself confronting history’s wildest frontier on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Currently available online at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Presence-of-Mind-Cowboys-and-Immigrants.html

23.    SPENT
         Etzioni, Amitai
         New Republic, vol. 240, no. 10, June 17, 2009, pp. 20-23

The author, former president of the American Sociological Association, believes that the debate over how to address the economic crisis has overemphasized regulation. Etzioni believes that the real solution to the economic crisis is to downplay consumerism; a shift away from consumer spending would be a dramatic change for U.S. society, which for years has been afflicted at all socioeconomic levels by the compulsion to accumulate “high-status” goods. The author does not expect most people to move away from a consumerist mindset, as societies shift direction gradually, but urges more people to turn the current economic crisis into liberation from the obsession with consumer goods and a rethinking of what it means to live a good life. Currently available online at http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=80661c9c-9c63-4c9e-a293-6888fc845351