Gaining an understanding of how security operates compels the researcher to question concepts of subjective and objective and replace them with the fact of inter-subjectivity.
The best ally of peace in a period of massive Chinese naval build up in the Pacific is a strong United States that is committed to working with its allies and demonstrating such commitment to China to ensure that China’s maritime rise is peaceful rather than assertive.
Overreaction in the West and the promotion of China as the next scary thing may seem like a relatively low risk option now that the end of the global war on terror is threatening defense/intelligence budgets and prestige. How China is integrated into the greater world system will define the coming century like no other single issue.
Even while the prospects of reconciling Hamas and Fatah’s conflicting visions for the future are dim, Egypt has emerged as the only Middle East mediator trusted by both sides.These achievements represent the efforts of the transitional military regime to lift Egypt’s regional status out of the slump of the Mubarak era.
The 2008 election was not a fluke. The days of Republican advantage on foreign and security affairs are over. The Democrats have learned to talk tougher on defense matters and to appoint Republicans and moderate Democrats to the senior posts. The Democrats now treat military preparedness, including Ronald Reagan’s missile defense, like the Republicans treat Social Security —with the self-preserving respect accorded electrified third rails.
On both ‘sides’ of the war on terror, unrealistic assessments of the possible combined with controversially broad and value-laden conceptions of ‘self-defence’ look a lot like ideological warfare.
The July 2011 attacks in Norway have once again brought the issues surrounding success of far right parties and movements to the fore in Europe, as well as governmental responses to immigration and immigrant integration. Although Anders Breivik attacked members of the Norwegian governing party, his “manifesto” focused on support for multiculturalism and the spread of Islam.
In the age of intensified globalization and migration, societies are increasingly confronted with problems of integration and peaceful coexistence of religiously or otherwise ethnically different groups, particularly of groups identifying themselves with Western traditions on the one hand and the world of Islam on the other. Tolerance is an important element to meet these requirements.
China’s military modernization has been a source of great concern for the United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region. Submarines, unsurprisingly, can be expected to play a significant role in Chinese asymmetric A2/AD strategies.The United States must invest to maintain the superiority of its undersea forces and to relearn and redevelop the core ASW capabilities it lost following the end of the Cold War.
The recent visit of the Chief of the Chinese Army’s General Staff Chen Bingde to Russia underscored the two states willingness to maintain their military contacts despite Russia’s fears of the rapidly growing power of its Eastern neighbor. Both nations wish to preserve trust amidst competing interests. Suspicions on the Russian side will not go away and pose challenges to closer security ties.
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