Stanford University

Does Anti-Americanism Have Consequences for International Security?

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Robert O. Keohane (PhD., Harvard University), James B. Duke Professor of Political Science, has taught at Swarthmore College, Stanford University, Brandeis University, and Harvard University where he was Stanfield Professor of International Peace.

He is the author of After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton University Press, 1984), for which he was awarded the second annual Grawemeyer Award in 1989 for Ideas Improving World Order. He is editor or co-editor of, and contributor to, eleven other books, most recently, Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge 2003), with J.L. Holzgrefe. Between 1974 and 1980 he was editor of the journal, International Organization. He was president of the International Studies Association, 1988-89, and of the American Political Science Association, 1999-2000. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the National Humanities Center. He is on leave from Duke this year, conducting research at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

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Robert Keohane
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Oxford Chancellor Christopher Patten Spoke at Stanford Institute for International Studies

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On April 7, The Rt. Hon. Lord Christopher Patten of Barnes delivered the Spring 2005 Payne Lecture before a large audience in the Bechtel Conference Center.

Lord Patten's address - The Transatlantic Family: Counseling, Mediation, or Divorce - although focused on American-European relations, extended to a myriad of global issues facing the transatlantic partnership. The lecture drew on Patten's exceptional public service experience, notably as the last British Governor of Hong Kong (1992-1997), EU Commissioner for External Relations (1999-2004) and Chancellor of Oxford University (2003-present).

Patten began by rebutting the notion that the U.S. is or should be an imperial power. Speaking about America, Patten observed: "You bucked what some historians going back to Thucydides believed to be almost a dictate of natural law, and refused to translate power into territorial aggrandizement and conquest. There is no real American settlement abroad. Most Americans who live overseas inhabit rich countries, not poor ones. Your universities do not, unlike Milner's Oxford, train an imperial cast of administrators. You don't seize territory though you're concerned about military bases and energy sources." America has pursued the most successful great power strategy since Augustus's Rome, Patten argued, not through imperialism, but by a tri-part policy of building institutions of global governance, persuading Europe to turn its back on xenophobic nationalism, and using American economic power and development assistance to foster market-based prosperity abroad. "That was the world in which I grew up, a world where there was stability, peace and growing prosperity year after year, but there wasn't much gratitude for the superpower."

From the very beginning many Europeans showed ingratitude and demonstrated "a particular European condescension masquerading as sophistication" Patten remarked. France in particular has displayed "petulant ingratitude". Even during the Clinton presidency, he added, there were some rows, though on the whole it was a storm-free relationship. Since 2001 however Americans and Europeans have perceived a growing gap between them on several issues, including the Middle East Peace Process, changes in US policy over North Korea, and abrogation of the ABM Treaty. The Bush administration's position on the Kyoto Protocol, in particular, impacted European public opinion negatively. By the time the Iraq crisis unfolded, Patten asserted, it appeared to confirm for many Europeans that America has turned to unilateralism. Patten emphasized that unlike President Bush who, he argued, won the 2004 Presidential election as a war President, in Britain Tony Blair, if he wins the general elections on May 5th this year, will do so not because of the war but despite it. Patten also expressed the fear that the Iraq experience will make it far more difficult to secure public support for any course of action, which will involve asking the public to put their trust in governments, and in the intelligence community in particular. About the wider Middle East he stated: What is a geostrategic issue for the United States is Europe's backyard.

Turning to what should be done to prevent the fracturing of the Transatlantic Alliance, Patten stressed that a rupture would be bad for Europe, the United States and the world at large "because whether you are talking about matters political or economic, the world is best served when transatlantic relations are in good shape". To prevent the relationship from deteriorating Americans and Europeans should first manage the relationship better. "We shouldn't take one another by surprise", he observed. Europe should also spend more on security, especially on better airlift capacity and special forces. "If we're going to be treated seriously as a partner, we have to be able to punch a little closer to our economic weight from time to time", Patten said; "too often Europeans are reluctant to accept that the maintenance of the international rule of law does sometimes require the use of force", he added. America and Europe should also spend more on development assistance, and the promotion of democracy, the rule of law and good governance. The objective of spreading democracy to the countries of the Arab League is not an impossible one. More broadly, Patten observed that "We need to identify those areas where it's imperative that we work together". Europe is never likely to be a significant contributor to a political settlement in Korea, he argues, but it can play a big role in Africa, the Balkans, in the Middle East, in Iran, and in dealing with Russia. On the latter, Patten was decisive: "If we want peace and stability in Moldova, in the south Caucuses, in the Ukraine, then Russia is going to have to stop creating trouble. It's got to abandon its present attitude to spheres of influence, and this is a point which we should put pretty bluntly, in my judgment, to President Putin. We talk in Europe regularly about a strategic relationship with Russia based on shared values. I have to say I don't see much evidence of the shared values."

The approach to global governance since World War II has been remarkably successful, Patten concluded. Recent surveys about attitudes in international affairs show that the majority of Americans, even after the Iraq war, want Europe to play a larger part in sharing world leadership. Patten expressed hope that that is a challenge Europeans will live up to. Europeans should be America's "super partners", Patten concluded, rather than its "supine followers" or "super snipers".

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Food Security in North Korea: Designing Realistic Possibilities

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Agricultural production in North Korea collapsed between 1990 and 1996, leaving the country dependent on massive international food assistance. The causes of this agricultural decline are primarily found in the policy decisions which guided the development of DPRK farming, and which have not been adequately addressed either by the government or by international aid organizations. It is, however, feasible for the DPRK to produce enough food to satisfy basic domestic needs. A scenario is proposed in which the DPRK could increase food production, using sustainable farming methods. The cost of international assistance to facilitate such a restructuring would be similar to the current cost of food aid, and such assistance would strongly encourage increased technical and economic cooperation between DPRK organizations and their international counterparts.

Randall Ireson coordinates the American Friends Service Committee agriculture assistance program in North Korea. Over the last seven years he has made numerous trips to the DPRK, and accompanied nine agricultural study delegations from the DPRK to the US and other countries. Dr. Ireson has managed or evaluated many rural development projects, mostly in Southeast Asia. He has written extensively on social and development issues in Laos, and also taught sociology at Willamette University. He holds a Ph.D. in Development Sociology from Cornell University.

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Randall Ireson American Friends Service Committee
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Walter H. Shorenstein Forum for Asia Pacific Studies

The Transatlantic Relationship - A View From Germany

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From the outset, the transatlantic relationship has been more than a mere marriage of convenience. It encompasses a community of states, which are committed to common values, ideals and interests. Europe and North America can look back on a common cultural and intellectual history and they are bound together by a cultural affinity.

Transatlantic relations have benefited from the conscious decision made by the US not to withdraw from Europe in 1945, as it had done after the end of the First World War but, rather, to maintain a long-term presence. This injected an element of stability into Western Europe, which made it possible to tackle the European integration project.

Naturally, there are also conflicts of interests and areas of friction within this community of values. The transatlantic community has never been a perfect community of interests. We are each other's cousins, not identical twins.

Current contentious issues are not limited to the military action by the United States against the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Europe and the U.S. also have divergent viewpoints on issues such as climate protection, the death penalty or relations with international organizations. However, leading politicians on both sides of the Atlantic know that it is in everyone's interest to deal responsibly with such differences.

The visit by President Bush to Brussels and to Germany at the start to his second term as American president has helped to refocus the transatlantic relationship.

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Bernd Westphal Consul General Consulate General of Germany in San Francisco
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Geography and the Human Experience

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This unit introduces students to a range of topics and activities that are essential to the study of geography such as map analysis and comparison, migration and perceptions of regions, interactions between humans and the environment and their implications, and urban growth and energy consumption.

Detainee Abuse: A Crisis in International Humanitarian Law

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Scott Horton is a leading authority on international law regarding torture. He led an American Bar Association investigation into standards of treatment for detainees which was published in April 2004. He was a consultant for those representing Guantanamo Bay detainees, advising them on the legal implications of officially sanctioned torture. He contributed to the recent book, "The Torture Papers: the Road to Abu Ghraib."

An attorney and human rights defender, Scott represented Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner and other leaders of the human rights movement in the formerly communist world for more than twenty years. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an advisor to its Center on Preventive Action, the president of the International League for Human Rights, chair of the New York City Bar's Committee on International Law, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University Law School. He has appeared as a commentator on international law issues on BBC's Panorama, ABC's 20/20 and Nightline, the CBS Evening News, NBC Dateline, CNN's Paula Zahn Show, PBS's NOW with Bill Moyers and as a frequent guest on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer.

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Scott Horton Partner Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler.
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Brzezinski Assesses Asia

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Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, delivered the Oksenberg Lecture March 9. Brzezinski asserted that by the year 2020, the "world's five most important countries" likely will be, in the following order, the United States, the European Union, China, Japan and India. The event was presented by the Stanford Institute for International Studies.
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APARC and Stanford University Press launch new publications series

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Rafiq Dossani
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On March 25, 2005, Stanford University Press will publish Prospects for Peace in South Asia, the inaugural book in a new series of "Studies of the Asia-Pacific Research Center." Designed to showcase APARC's cutting-edge research on contemporary Asia, the series will feature the varied work of the Center's faculty and the unique interdisciplinary perspective that informs it. According to Andrew Walder, director of APARC, "We are delighted to begin this series with Stanford University Press, which has a large and distinguished list of books on modern East Asia. It is a perfect way to showcase the best of the scholarly work to come out of APARC." Two more books have recently been added to the series pipeline.

Prospects for Peace in South Asia addresses the largely hostile, often violent relations between India and Pakistan that date from their independence in 1947. The most persistent conflict between the two neighboring countries over Kashmir has defied numerous international attempts at resolution.

The struggle over Kashmir is rooted in national identity, religion, and human rights. It has also influenced the politicization of Pakistan's army, religious radicalism, and nuclearization in both countries. Dossani and Rowen's incisive volume analyzes these forces, their impact on relations between the two countries, and alternative roles the United States might play in resolving the dispute. While acknowledging the risks, the book is optimistic about peace in South Asia. The key argument is that many of the domestic concerns -- such as territorial integrity and civilian-military rapprochement -- that had fueled the conflict have now abated.

"Volatile relations between India and Pakistan reflect issues deeper than territorial ambitions over Kashmir and predate their nuclear capability. That is a key theme of the book. The book is particularly timely: as India turns increasingly vibrant and globally important and Pakistan begins to clear the shadows of its past, policymakers need to understand the issues that will drive relations into the long-term," said Rafiq Dossani, co-editor, senior research scholar at APARC, and director of its South Asia Initiative. The volume's co-editor, Henry S. Rowen, is director emeritus of APARC, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and emeritus professor of Public Policy and Management at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

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