Asia & the Pacific

25 Items

The European Central Bank building during sunset in Frankfurt, Germany

(AP Photo/Michael Probst, FILE)

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The End of War: How a Robust Marketplace and Liberal Hegemony Are Leading to Perpetual World Peace

| Summer 2019

Liberal market-oriented states are in a natural alliance to preserve and protect a global order that is systematically buttressing states’ embrace of market-oriented norms and values.

Demonstration in Egypt

(AP Photo/Mostafa Darwish)

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Demographic Transition Theory of War: Why Young Societies Are Conflict Prone and Old Societies Are the Most Peaceful

| Winter 2018/19

Many states with young populations are growing old fast. If states with older populations engage in violent conflict less frequently than states with large numbers of young people, the implications for the international order could be significant. 

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

The Top 5 Foreign Policy Lessons of the Past 20 Years

| November 18, 2014

"China's increasingly assertive policies toward its immediate neighborhood shows that Beijing is hardly indifferent to geopolitics, and Russia's assertive defense of what it sees as vital interests in its 'near abroad' (e.g., Ukraine) suggests that somebody in Moscow didn't get the memo about the benign effects of globalization. And regional powers like India, Turkey, and Japan are taking traditional geopolitical concerns more seriously these days. Bottom line: If you thought great-power rivalry was a thing of the past, think again."

An unidentified Bahraini shouts in anger, Feb. 13, 2011, after riot police fired on a demonstration in Karzakan, Bahrain. Protests began in Bahrain as opposition groups blanketed social media sites calling for anti-government protests.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - The Huffington Post

The 'Glocalized' Roots of Religious Politics: Extremism from Below, Not Abroad

September 17, 2011

"What the Arab uprisings revealed is that today's people, in the Arab world assuredly but not only there, desire less a unified ideology around a single leader or leadership that touts triumphalism over some form of evil and more a system of governance that promotes accountability, transparency and protects every individual's needs and interests."

Book - W.W. Norton & Company

God's Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics

    Authors:
  • Daniel Philpott
  • Timothy Samuel Shah
| March 2011

Is religion a force for good or evil in world politics? How much influence does it have? Despite predictions of its decline, religion has resurged in political influence across the globe, helped by the very forces that were supposed to bury it: democracy, globalization, and technology. And despite recent claims that religion is exclusively irrational and violent, its political influence is in fact diverse, sometimes promoting civil war and terrorism but at other times fostering democracy, reconciliation, and peace. Looking across the globe, the authors explain what generates these radically divergent behaviors.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011

| Spring 2011

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

Mujahedeen rebels, holy warriors, are shown as they rest high in the mountains in the Kunar province area in Afghanistan in May 1980.

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Foreign Fighter Phenomenon: Islam and Transnational Militancy

| February 2011

"...[F]oreign fighter mobilizations empower transnational terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, because war volunteering is the principal stepping-stone for individual involvement in more extreme forms of militancy. For example, when Muslims in the West radicalize, they usually do not plot attacks in their home countries right away, but travel to a war zone such as Iraq or Afghanistan first. A majority of al-Qaida operatives began their militant careers as war volunteers, and most transnational jihadi groups today are by-products of foreign fighter mobilizations."

Book - MIT Press Quarterly Journal: International Security

Going Nuclear: Nuclear Proliferation and International Security in the 21st Century

The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most significant challenges to global security in the twenty-first century. Limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials may be the key to preventing a nuclear war or a catastrophic act of nuclear terrorism. Going Nuclear offers conceptual, historical, and analytical perspectives on current problems in controlling nuclear proliferation. It includes essays that examine why countries seek nuclear weapons as well as studies of the nuclear programs of India, Pakistan, and South Africa.