Iran

2019 ◽  
pp. 192-216
Author(s):  
Thierry Balzacq ◽  
Wendy Ramadan-Alban
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Normal State ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Abrupt Changes ◽  
Islamic Identity ◽  
Strategic Imperative ◽  
Policy Elites ◽  
Over Time

This chapter argues that Iran’s grand strategy has and is torn between three tensions: the prioritization of an Islamic identity versus attaining economic prosperity the use of an offensive or defensive military strategy and its self-conception as a revolutionary or “normal” state. Historically Iran has striven to reconcile these inherently ambivalent goals through the “principle of equilibrium” (tavãzon). This chapter demonstrates how tavãzon shapes Iran’s grand strategy. While these countervailing forces do account for some continuity in Iran’s strategy over time they can conversely result in abrupt changes in response to systemic shifts. Iran’s current strategic imperative is thus driven by three factors: the jostling internal power struggle between factions the economic imperatives chastened by sanctions and most proximately its hostile relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel. In this context Iranian policy elites have consolidated around a military strategy of asymmetric deterrence.

US grand strategy after the Cold War: Can realism explain it? Should realism guide it?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M Walt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy Elites

This article uses realism to explain past US grand strategy and prescribe what it should be today. Throughout its history, the United States has generally acted as realism depicts. The end of the Cold War reduced the structural constraints that states normally face in anarchy, and a bipartisan coalition of foreign policy elites attempted to use this favorable position to expand the US-led ‘liberal world order’. Their efforts mostly failed, however, and the United States should now return to a more realistic strategy – offshore balancing – that served it well in the past. Washington should rely on local allies to uphold the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East and focus on leading a balancing coalition in Asia. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump lacks the knowledge, competence, and character to pursue this sensible course, and his cavalier approach to foreign policy is likely to damage America’s international position significantly.

Grand Strategy Beyond the West

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-103
Author(s):  
K. M. Fierke
Keyword(s):  
Family Resemblance ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Nonstate Actors ◽  
The West ◽  
Sun Tzu ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
Grand Strategies

This chapter examines two of the most famous grand strategies with origins in Asia, identified with Sun Tzu and Gandhi. On the surface they would appear to be unfit for comparison. While Sun Tzu belongs to a tradition of military strategy, and is now part of the classical canon, Gandhi is identified with the nonviolent strategy of nonstate actors. The intention in examining the two together is to explore a family resemblance in their respective conceptions of grand strategy, even while recognizing that they are very distinct. After setting out some broad contrasts regarding cosmology, ontology, and epistemology, the chapter zooms in on the relevance of these points more specifically for understanding Sun Tzu or Gandhi. It concludes with some reflections on why the contrasts are important in a globalizing world. Both cases highlight the importance, if possible, of achieving objectives without recourse to military force, which, it argues, arises from a relational cosmology, where harmony and diversity coexist, and in which truth is not uniform but multiperspectival.

Saudi Arabia

2019 ◽  
pp. 239-261
Author(s):  
Ghaidaa Hetou
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
National Security ◽  
Political System ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Internal Stability ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Regional Role ◽  
Regional Factors

This chapter evaluates the formulation, implementation, and consistency of Saudi Arabia’s grand strategy since 1979. It examines how internal and regional factors influenced that strategy through the optic of a series of critical regional turning points, often overlain by shifting US debates on the Kingdom’s regional role. The chapter delineates why Saudi elites prioritize certain long-term objectives, how they perceive threats, and why they respond in specific ways. Its guiding conceptual framework is informed by four elements: the Kingdom’s dominant strategic culture, its political system, perception of national security, and regional alliance formations. The chapter demonstrates how the current Saudi establishment’s ability to sustain a grand strategy—primarily a regional role—is closely linked to its economic power, financial solvency, and internal stability.

scholarly journals The Human Organism is a Biophysical–Biopsychological System

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 29-35
Author(s):  
Janos Vincze ◽  
Gabriella Vincze-Tiszay
Keyword(s):  
Normal State ◽  
Dynamic Equilibrium ◽  
Harmonic Oscillation ◽  
Static Equilibrium ◽  
External Stimulus ◽  
Human Organism ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
Original State ◽  
Over Time

Healthy and ill people both try to achieve the required performance and satisfaction of this, but they experience differently their activities accompanied by secondary feelings, their critical attitude and their compliance with social desires. Exceeding these correspondences requires the operation of countermeasures in all people, which at times are barely noticeable because they are embedded in the personality struc­ture or alternately use the entire arsenal of mechanisms. If a biopsychological system responds specifically to an external stimulus, it means that the value of some of its parameters changes and then returns to its original state of ho­meostasis when the response is complete. Parameters charac­terized by static equilibrium and is involved in the response return their values over time to their original value such that its envelope is an exponential (ascending or descending) curve. The parameter that is characterized by a state of dynamic equilibrium and is involved in the response returns to its original value with attenuated harmonic oscillation after its completion. The duration of the return is different for each parameter, and the normal state of homeostasis is determined by the parameter with the slowest finish.

scholarly journals Contemporary Problems of a “Grand Strategy” in the US Foreign Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-39
Author(s):  
S. Kislitsyn
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Leadership ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Expert Community ◽  
Policy Elites

The research examines the main problems of a grand strategy in the US foreign policy. Attention is paid to the conceptual understanding of this term, its historical development, and the current state. The article analyzes the positions of American foreign policy elites and the expert community regarding the problem of the US self-positioning in the outside world. The article consists of three parts. The first analyses the main conceptual provisions of the “grand strategy” as a term. It describes its development from a military term, reflecting the general tactics in interstate confrontation to its comprehensive understanding as a coordination principle of long-term and medium-term goals with short term actions. The second part of the article focuses on the American foreign policy elites, their approaches, as well as public opinion on this issue. It is noted that the ideology of global leadership has become an important component of the establishment's thinking. It largely impedes the development of new foreign policy concepts and, as a result, reformatting the grand strategy. The third part is devoted to the positions of the expert community on the issue of grand strategy. Four main versions are considered: "Offensive", "Selective engagement", "Offshore Balancing", "Zero-sum". The author comes to a conclusion that the US foreign policy mixes several types of strategies at the moment. It is noted that as China strengthens, the United States faces a new competition, which, unlike the Soviet threat, implies not military-political, but economic confrontation. The implementation of the scenario of a "new Cold War" between Washington and Beijing can define the new goals of the grand strategy. At the same time, this also creates an ideological dilemma of recognizing a new challenge, an increasing alternative for American global leadership - the idea of which is still popular among representatives of American foreign policy elites.

scholarly journals Women’s Education In Saudi Arabia

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 111-118
Author(s):  
Nouf Alsuwaida
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Women's Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Women's Higher Education ◽  
Over Time

This paper discusses the historical, political, ideological (value), and government policies of women’s education in Saudi Arabia implicated within teaching and learning, how women’s higher education has changed over time in the realm of Saudi cultural traditions and religious norms. It also highlights the golden era of women's higher education. This paper presets a feminist theoretical framework.

scholarly journals Inspecting Gradual and Abrupt Changes in Emotion Dynamics With the Time-Varying Change Point Autoregressive Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-499
Author(s):  
Casper J. Albers ◽  
Laura F. Bringmann
Keyword(s):  
Negative Affect ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Change Point ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Ar Model ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Abrupt Changes ◽  
Emotion Dynamics ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Abstract. Recent studies have shown that emotion dynamics such as inertia (i.e., autocorrelation) can change over time. Importantly, current methods can only detect either gradual or abrupt changes in inertia. This means that researchers have to choose a priori whether they expect the change in inertia to be gradual or abrupt. This will leave researchers in the dark regarding when and how the change in inertia occurred. Therefore in this article, we use a new model: the time-varying change point autoregressive (TVCP-AR) model. The TVCP-AR model can detect both gradual and abrupt changes in emotion dynamics. More specifically, we show that the inertia of positive affect and negative affect measured in one individual differs qualitatively in how it changes over time. Whereas the inertia of positive affect increased only gradually over time, negative affect changed both in a gradual and abrupt fashion over time. This illustrates the necessity of being able to model both gradual and abrupt changes in order to detect meaningful quantitative and qualitative differences in temporal emotion dynamics.

scholarly journals Item Pool Quality Control in Educational Testing: Change Point Model, Compound Risk, and Sequential Detection

2021 ◽  
pp. 107699862110590
Author(s):  
Yunxiao Chen ◽  
Yi-Hsuan Lee ◽  
Xiaoou Li
Keyword(s):  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Change Point ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Educational Testing ◽  
Sequential Decision ◽  
Point Model ◽  
Test Items ◽  
Abrupt Changes ◽  
Change Point Model ◽  
Over Time

In standardized educational testing, test items are reused in multiple test administrations. To ensure the validity of test scores, the psychometric properties of items should remain unchanged over time. In this article, we consider the sequential monitoring of test items, in particular, the detection of abrupt changes to their psychometric properties, where a change can be caused by, for example, leakage of the item or change of the corresponding curriculum. We propose a statistical framework for the detection of abrupt changes in individual items. This framework consists of (1) a multistream Bayesian change point model describing sequential changes in items, (2) a compound risk function quantifying the risk in sequential decisions, and (3) sequential decision rules that control the compound risk. Throughout the sequential decision process, the proposed decision rule balances the trade-off between two sources of errors, the false detection of prechange items, and the nondetection of postchange items. An item-specific monitoring statistic is proposed based on an item response theory model that eliminates the confounding from the examinee population which changes over time. Sequential decision rules and their theoretical properties are developed under two settings: the oracle setting where the Bayesian change point model is completely known and a more realistic setting where some parameters of the model are unknown. Simulation studies are conducted under settings that mimic real operational tests.

scholarly journals The age of terrorism media: The visual narratives of the Islamic State Group's Dabiq magazine

2019 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahira S Fahmy
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
Strategic Direction ◽  
Global Terrorism ◽  
State Group ◽  
Over Time

Soon after the Islamic State group declared itself to be the new ‘Caliphate’ on June 28, 2014, it launched an official transnational English-language magazine called Dabiq. The magazine, with a global outreach that transcended national and regional boundaries, covered the group's strategic direction, military strategy, and alliances. This research seeks to explain the crucial role its photographs had in framing the group's visual narratives and how these narratives transformed over time. Drawing on recent literature, this work discusses the new trends in terrorism media and incorporates new ways to operationalize and measure framing in the context of visual communication and global terrorism. The work concludes by a discussion of the global implications of the findings and points out limitations and suggestions for future research.

From Mecca to Cairo: Changing Influences on Fatwas in Southeast Asia

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Shiozaki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Complete Transformation ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Muslim Scholars

This chapter demonstrates how exposure to al Azhar led over time to the complete transformation of the methodology adopted by independent ulama and state religious platforms to issue fatwas in Southeast Asia. It examines the mainstreaming of Salafi methodology — inspired by the work of Muhammad Abduh — in place of the taqlīd of the traditional Shafi'i School in Southeast Asia for the issuing of fatwas. A number of factors, including the establishment of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, led to a shift to al Azhar as opposed to Mecca being the base for Southeast Asian Muslim scholars. By comparing Southeast Asia fatwas of the early twentieth century against those issued in the 1970s, the chapter shows how the transition from Mecca to Cairo led to the mainstreaming of Salafi methodology.

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