September 2010

, just as it did in 1894 and 1932. Three hundred years ago both India and China, by world standards, were heavyweight economies. But even at their zenith they never considered going to war, as the Europeans regularly did. Neither do they today, even though one school of Indian strategists argue with no real evidence that China is India’s enemy number one, not Pakistan. They say that India had to develop a nuclear arsenal not because of a possible Pakistani threat but because of China. Nevertheless, it is true that China has been raising its defence spending, especially on its navy (but from a very low base) – in sharp contrast to the days of Deng Xiaoping, the great economic reformer, who put China on its present high growth capitalist projectory, at the same time sharply cut defence spending. China is active abroad – in Africa it has become its...

September 14, 2010 Chaiwat Satha-Anand In the corner of a Sunday comic strip titled “Pastor Jones goes to New York”, there is a small character saying “ Your fifteen minutes are up reverend.” (Bangkok Post, September 12, 2010) That may be true about Terry Jones’ personal fame since a month ago no one this side of the globe has heard about him or his tiny Protestant church in Gainesville, Florida, nor his 2010 book: Islam is of the Devil. But when he announced the “International Burn a Koran Day” from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. to be held on September 11, world attention descended upon him. Outcry against his proposed act from religious leaders around the world notwithstanding, world leaders from President Obama, to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon to David Howell Petraeus, a former professor of international relations, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton, and now the commander of...

Denmark, like many traditional allies of the United States, will have to rethink and reorient its foreign and security policies away from dependence upon the United States. For countries that have held the United States as their role model and authority in security affairs – and as a sort of protective father figure – the rapid demise of the United States as a responsible and respected super power is so shocking that it is likely to be denied. The regime of George W. Bush represents a very dangerous combination of historically overwhelming physical power, intellectual poverty, and decreasing legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world. Responsible powers, big or small, look in vain to Washington for leadership or vision. They must begin to learn to stand on their own feet. At the end of the old cold war, a wealth of new possibilities arose to create a...

Sepember 6, 2010 Jonathan Power On Sunday Turkey will go to the polls to vote in a referendum. If passed it will give more legal rights to individuals, it will clip the power of the military and, most important, make possible an overhaul of the constitutional court and senior judiciary which have frequently blocked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s liberal initiatives. To win this closely fought referendum Erdogan must gather the support of the Kurds in the south east of the country. The Kurds are first in line to want to see reform of the military and a court system that often hit them below the belt during the “dirty war” of the 1990s. Last week Erdogan payed a visit to Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish neighbourhood. He promised to tear down the city prison once notorious for its torture. But over the last five years the government...