OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.05.006
Anthony Celso
{"title":"Iran’s Proxy War Strategy","authors":"Anthony Celso","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.05.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2024.05.006","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article analyzes Iran’s Shia Imamate project that shapes its proxy war strategy. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) indirect surrogate warfare doctrine is discussed in three stages. First, the historical forces behind Tehran’s proxy war approach and ideological factors that drive it are analyzed. Second, the historical execution of its militia strategy is examined; and third, the consequences of the Iranian-Hezbollah military entrenchment in Syria and its impact on the October 2023 Gaza War are assessed. The author concludes that Iran and its Shia proxies are poorly positioned to sustain a regional war against Israel to save Hamas.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 3","pages":"Pages 416-437"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141424239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.011
Nasir Mehmood, Julian Spencer-Churchill
{"title":"Pakistan-US Friendship: An Enduring Geo-Political Relationship","authors":"Nasir Mehmood, Julian Spencer-Churchill","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite the growing salience of the Pakistan-China and US-Indian alliances, Pakistan-US relations continue to be a valuable enhancement both to stability and to Washington’s influence in South Asia. The United States contributes to Pakistan’s national security, just as Pakistan reciprocates in those areas where the U.S.-Indian relationship has its limitations. Pakistan also helps play a stabilizing effect on the US-China rivalry, despite Islamabad’s close association with Beijing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 4","pages":"Pages 677-690"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142326327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.005
John A. Mauk
{"title":"Managing Vital US National Interests: Improving the Security Policy-Making Process","authors":"John A. Mauk","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this security environment, focused, pragmatic national security policy is as important as ever in US history. Clearly articulated priorities among national security interests, and achievable objectives to protect them, are the compelling security imperatives to focus both government and defense industrial base effort. The unsettling reality is the National Security Council (NSC), and the associated security policy-making system, routinely fails at this critically important mission.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 4","pages":"Pages 568-588"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142326789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.007
Thomas F. Lynch III
{"title":"Cyberspace: Great Power Competition in a Fragmenting Domain","authors":"Thomas F. Lynch III","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article explains how the cyber domain today largely replicates the patterns of devolution and fragmentation observed in the electromagnetic spectrum (EM) and aviation domains more than a century ago. Both remained fragmented under duress of heightened Great Power rivalries and tensions coinciding with World War I and World War II. Relevant history demonstrates that once fragmented under Great Power duress, global domains with obvious incentives for pursuing mutual gains remain fragmented—often until after a severe clash of Great Power militaries. The ongoing cyber domain fragmentation under the pressure of increasing Great Power stress is destined to persist and will render moot legal and diplomatic efforts to constrain risky strategic cyber competition between them. Successful American strategic competition in cyberspace below the threshold of armed conflict requires all national instruments of cyber power—including military ones—be utilized in persistent and assertive strategic cyber-campaigning against Russian and Chinese cyber campaigns that aim for strategically significant erosion of western relative power and cohesion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 4","pages":"Pages 607-623"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142326791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.002
Charles A. Ray
{"title":"The United States’ Position in Africa: On Solid Ground or Shifting Sand?","authors":"Charles A. Ray","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>After decades of benign neglect, followed by a four-year period of outright disdain, the United States finally announced on August 8, 2022, a policy towards the continent of Africa that seemed to herald an era of treating the countries of Africa with respect and dignity, and acknowledging African agency in our bilateral and multilateral dealings. The question is whether the countries of Africa take this newly announced attitude seriously and will they act accordingly. Is the US position in Africa on a solid foundation, or are we witnessing a shift in global alliances with this significant portion of the global south moving closer to those who are not our friends? The large number of African countries abstaining on the United Nations votes calling for a Russian pullout from Ukraine or condemning Russia for the invasion have exposed cracks in African solidarity with the so-called West. But is this a new phenomenon, or an indication of the way things have always been?</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 2","pages":"Pages 169-189"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140160712","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.011
Jakub Grygiel
{"title":"Three Illusions of US Foreign Policy","authors":"Jakub Grygiel","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.011","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The United States, and more broadly, the West, is prone to be surprised. We are surprised by China’s pursuit of hegemony through economic and military means; by Russia’s engaging in the largest conventional war in Europe since 1945; by the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. We think that economic sanctions will fundamentally alter the calculus of our enemies—even deter a potential attack—and we are puzzled when they do not. The recent streak of surprises is not a fluke of history, an unlucky combination of events. This article contends that our surprise is due to a series of illusions that characterize our foreign policy vision. These illusions stem from a mistaken series of assumptions about the causes of political order and about the drivers of political behavior.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 2","pages":"Pages 328-347"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140160784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.006
Mohammed Soliman, Nikolas K. Gvosdev
{"title":"Make Africa Atlantic Again","authors":"Mohammed Soliman, Nikolas K. Gvosdev","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2024.02.006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 2","pages":"Pages 254-258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140160844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.05.008
Joel R. Hillison, Christopher Hickey
{"title":"NATO at 75 Years: A Guide to the Past and a Roadmap for the Future","authors":"Joel R. Hillison, Christopher Hickey","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.05.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2024.05.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reaches its 75<sup>th-</sup> year anniversary, it is important to reflect on the past, examine the present, and to imagine the future of the alliance. NATO has had periodic self-reflections in the past, including the influential 1967 Harmel Report. Importantly, the report laid out the rationale for a dual-track NATO policy that would retain a strong deterrence posture while moving toward a détente with the Soviet Union and later toward cooperation with Russia. While Russia’s war against Ukraine rages, it is impossible to return to a more cooperative relationship with Russia. Yet, NATO’s history demonstrates that conflict with Russia is not inevitable. In any case, only a strong NATO can prevent that conflict and provide stability to the transatlantic region.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 3","pages":"Pages 470-490"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141424284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
OrbisPub Date : 2024-01-01DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.008
Taehwa Hong
{"title":"Challenges in Washington’s Ideological Foreign Policy","authors":"Taehwa Hong","doi":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.orbis.2024.09.008","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In an era defined by intense competition with China and Russia, Washington faces a crucial challenge: how to reconcile its ideological commitments with the pragmatic needs of global geopolitics. This article argues for forming pragmatic coalitions that include illiberal regimes, noting that key geopolitical partners in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East are often less than ideal from a liberal democratic perspective. However, deterring revisionist challenges will remain an utmost priority for the United States, and achieving it would likely require diplomatic flexibility.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":45433,"journal":{"name":"Orbis","volume":"68 4","pages":"Pages 624-645"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142326792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}