Putting Africa's House in Order to Deal with Developmental Challenges

2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 12-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Government ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
White House ◽  
American Military ◽  
Rogue States ◽  
The One ◽  
Abundant Supply

However proud Africans must be to have a person of African descent in the White House, they should have no illusions as to how much President Barack Hussein Obama can do for Africa. Africans must put their own house in order for purposes of dealing successfully with the major challenges facing the continent, the most important of which is that of democratic and developmental governance. Obama's priorities are not necessarily those of Africans. They have to do with the role of the United States as a superpower in a global system in which the American military and business corporations play a hegemonic role. In this context, Africa is relevant to American and Obama's global priorities when its resources are needed to strengthen this role, on the one hand, or its humanitarian crises are likely to affect them in an adverse manner, on the other.What are these global priorities, and how are they likely to affect Africa during Obama's tenure? Following is a brief examination of four major priorities. The first is limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. Operating on the premise that nuclear weapons should be limited to the few countries now possessing them (U.S., Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan), the U.S. government has led an international campaign against the acquisition of nuclear weapons technology by other countries, particularly those deemed hostile to Western interests, such as Iran and North Korea. Since South Africa destroyed the nuclear arsenal of the former apartheid state and Libya gave up its nuclear ambitions, the only relevant issue with respect to Africa's role in the spread of nuclear weapons is the question of who has access to Africa's abundant supply of uranium. Denying access to African uranium to “rogue states” and terrorist organizations is an important foreign policy objective of any American government, including the Obama administration.

scholarly journals The Role of Nuclear Weapons in NATO’s Early Cold War Strategies (1949–1957)

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Petra Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
Atomic Weapons ◽  
The North ◽  
Significant Factors

Since August 1945 atomic weapons have become significant factors in international relations, every state with great ambitions has aspired to get atomic secrets. The primary goal of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) created in 1949 was – possessing the United States’, a nuclear power’s, security guarantee – to deter the Soviet agression. The first strategic documents of the Alliance were written with this very purpose. However, in the 1950s there was a shift in the allied nations’ policies, which influenced NATO’s strategic thinking as well, so in 1957 a real different strategic concept was adopted. Gaining technological superiority became the most important goal, which led to development and intense production of nuclear weapons. This article examines the emerging role of nuclear weapons and the changing strategy of the Alliance between 1949 and 1957.

scholarly journals "But I Didn't Mean To": The Role of Intent in American and Canadian Anti-Preference Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 815
Author(s):  
Clayton Bangsund
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Way

In both the United States and Canada, bankruptcy preferential transfer avoidance provisions are aimed at creating equality of distribution among similarly situated creditors. However, there is a key difference in the way each jurisdiction’s regime treats the notion of intent. An analysis of each regime, using examples, illustrates the way in which Canada’s regime effectually does violence to the distributive equality policy objective, while the US regime adheres to it.

scholarly journals Private Enterprise, International Development, and the Cold War

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 113-145
Author(s):  
Ethan B. Kapstein
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Development ◽  
Foreign Investment ◽  
Private Enterprise ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The U.S

This article sheds light on the role of foreign direct investment as an instrument for economic development and, in turn, for the advancement of U.S. foreign policy goals during the Cold War. From the earliest days of the Cold War, and especially after the U.S.-Soviet competition for influence in the developing world began in the 1950s, the United States sought to promote private enterprise on behalf of U.S. goals. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, U.S. officials believed that foreign investment would suffice to fuel international development, obviating the need for official development assistance. These hopes, however, were largely disappointed. On the one hand, U.S.-based multinational companies preferred to invest in the industrial world; on the other hand, some Third World governments were uninterested in promoting private enterprise rather than state-led development. In part because foreign investment did not meet expectations, the U.S. government ended up elaborating an official foreign aid program instead.

“It's the Politics, Stupid.” Or is Reality more Complex?

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Weimer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Risk Regulation ◽  
The Precautionary Principle ◽  
The One

Reality is complex, and often does not lend itself to generalization or simplifying explanations. Yet at the same time, explaining reality often requires the shaping of notions and concepts of it through generalization and the reduction of complexity. This tension between complexity and particularity on the one hand and generalization and the search for abstracting explanatory patterns on the other is beautifully illustrated by two recently released publications on precaution and risk regulation in the United States and Europe, namely “The Politics of Precaution” by David Vogel1 and “The Reality of Precaution” edited by Jonathan Wiener, Michael Rogers, James Hammitt, and Peter Sand.Both books together can be seen as the latest significant contribution to the ongoing debate on the role of the precautionary principle in risk regulation in a comparative EU-US perspective. Both contributions are significant in that they consolidate the trend towards an empirically informed analysis of the actual practice of the application of precaution in risk regulation.

No First Use: The Next Step for U.S. Nuclear Policy

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Gerson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
The Core ◽  
National Security Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Policy

The release of the Barack Obama administration's much-anticipated Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) concluded an intense, yearlong effort to revamp U.S. nuclear weapons policy to better address modern threats. Despite general agreement that the United States' nuclear policy and posture was in need of overhaul, there were strong disagreements over what kinds of changes should be made. At the core of these debates was the issue of U.S. declaratory policy—the stated role and purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons. Whereas some members of the administration advocated that the United States retain all of the flexibility and options afforded by the policy of calculated ambiguity, others contended that to fulfill President Obama's commitment to “put an end to Cold War thinking” and “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy,” the United States should adopt a more restrictive nuclear policy such as no first use (NFU), perhaps in the form of a declaration that the “sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack. By not adopting NFU, the NPR missed an important opportunity to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy. The traditional case for NFU hinges on the argument that the threat of nuclear first use is unnecessary for deterrence. Yet the continued U.S. option to use nuclear weapons first is not only unnecessary but dangerous. Given the size and accuracy of the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, and given the variation in the nuclear capabilities of current and potential adversaries, the first-use option risks creating instabilities in a severe crisis that increase the chances of accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate nuclear use. In a future crisis with a nuclear-armed state, the fear—whether real or imagined—that the United States might attempt a disarming nuclear first-strike increases the possibility of nuclear escalation.

Clinton Announces New Initiatives to Counter Emergent Terrorist Threats

1999 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-142
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Computer Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rogue States ◽  
The World

We are here to discuss emerging threats to America's security as we reach a new century. How do we respond to the threat of terrorists around the world, turning from bullets and bombs to even more insidious and potent weapons? What if they and the rogue states that sponsor them try to attack the critical computer systems that drive our society? What if they seek to use chemical, biological, even nuclear weapons? The United States must deal with these emerging threats now, so that the instruments of prevention develop at least as rapidly as the instruments of disruption.

scholarly journals Measuring voluntary and policy-induced social distancing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (16) ◽  
pp. e2008814118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youpei Yan ◽  
Amyn A. Malik ◽  
Jude Bayham ◽  
Eli P. Fenichel ◽  
Chandra Couzens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Initial Step ◽  
The United States ◽  
Relative Effect ◽  
Smart Device ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
Voluntary Response ◽  
Voluntary Behavior ◽  
The One ◽  
At Home

Staying home and avoiding unnecessary contact is an important part of the effort to contain COVID-19 and limit deaths. Every state in the United States enacted policies to encourage distancing and some mandated staying home. Understanding how these policies interact with individuals’ voluntary responses to the COVID-19 epidemic is a critical initial step in understanding the role of these nonpharmaceutical interventions in transmission dynamics and assessing policy impacts. We use variation in policy responses along with smart device data that measures the amount of time Americans stayed home to disentangle the extent that observed shifts in staying home behavior are induced by policy. We find evidence that stay-at-home orders and voluntary response to locally reported COVID-19 cases and deaths led to behavioral change. For the median county, which implemented a stay-at-home order with about two cases, we find that the response to stay-at-home orders increased time at home as if the county had experienced 29 additional local cases. However, the relative effect of stay-at-home orders was much greater in select counties. On the one hand, the mandate can be viewed as displacing a voluntary response to this rise in cases. On the other hand, policy accelerated the response, which likely helped reduce spread in the early phase of the pandemic. It is important to be able to attribute the relative role of self-interested behavior or policy mandates to understand the limits and opportunities for relying on voluntary behavior as opposed to imposing stay-at-home orders.

Hidden Island

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-230
Author(s):  
Nicholas Evan Sarantakes
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Air Power ◽  
American Military ◽  
Pacific World ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Military Units ◽  
Political Negotiation

The Pacific world of the early twentieth century, dominated by Europe, Japan, and the United States, is gone. The region’s control by outsiders has been succeeded by increasing economic importance, broader political negotiation, and wider cultural acceptance. Whether considering transoceanic communication, popular understanding of air power, the limits to training a continental Asian army, local uses of food, the role of “special” military units, the understanding of nuclear weapons, or the impact of American military occupation, these essays shed light on the volatile Pacific as a whole. The chapters in War in the American Pacific and East Asia, 1941–1972illustrate how the mid-twentieth-century world set the stage for the Pacific of our own era, offering important waypoints for explaining the transition to the twenty-first century.

Not a Library, but a Large Depot of Loot

2019 ◽  
pp. 170-207
Author(s):  
Kathy Peiss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Government ◽  
American Government ◽  
American Military ◽  
Us Army ◽  
Cultural Reconstruction ◽  
Innovative Methods ◽  
The Us

The discovery of looted books at the end of the war, especially those from Jewish libraries, tested the American military government. Gathering, conserving, and identifying them posed intractable challenges, even as American authorities faced domestic and international pressures over the Jewish books in particular. The Monuments Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) unit of the US Army, known as the Monuments Men, requisitioned Frankfurt’s Rothschild Library and later moved to a warehouse known as the Offenbach Archival Depot to establish operations for book restitution. This required innovative methods of librarianship designed to quickly manage and redistribute disarrayed and damaged volumes. The American government finally authorized Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. to handle the unidentifiable and heirless books, many of which came to the United States. For the Americans, these endangered books generated new understandings of the meaning of book collections, ownership, restitution, and cultural heritage.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Future Research ◽  
International Engagement

This chapter reviews the argument and evidence presented in the body of book, which provides substantial support for the proposed theories on the sources and effectiveness of US nonproliferation policy. It identifies areas for future research, such as the nonproliferation policies of other countries, the mechanisms through which nuclear domino effects occur, and the role of preventive strikes in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. It also discusses the implications of the book’s finding for theory and policy, for example the need for the United States to maintain a credible sanctions policy, continue its international engagement, and work to develop more reliable policies for instituting multilateral sanctions.

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