View from the Top

Nine of the world's top international relations scholars weigh in on the Ivory Tower survey.

JAN/FEB 2012

4. Is America safer today than it was before Sept. 11, 2001? Why/why not?

Francis Fukuyama: Yes it is safer, because we have beefed up intelligence and operations against terrorist organizations.  But it was never in as much danger as we thought in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11.

Joseph S. Nye: Safer. We learned some lessons the hard way, but we have taken them to heart and improved our counterterrorism procedures.

Kenneth Waltz: We were safe then, and we are safe now.  No country or combination of countries can threaten us.  Terrorists are an annoyance, not a threat.

John Mearsheimer: The United States is the most secure great power ever, and 9/11 notwithstanding, it has been extremely safe since the Cold War ended.

James Fearon: I would hope at least marginally safer due to all the money spent on vigilance and identifying terrorist plots.  However, there may be more such plots than previously both due to the effects of Al Qaeda's 9/11 attack and the Bush administration's mistakes in responding to it.

Alexander Wendt: I don't know.

Robert Keohane: Yes.  Anti-terrorism measures are costly but have been remarkably effective. This does not mean that the U.S. is perfectly safe - that is impossible in any case.  But the chances of an attack on the "homeland" being successful seem to have fallen.

Martha Finnemore: We may be safer from 9/11-style terrorist attacks, but there are other threats to worry about. Narrow focus on terrorism may prevent us from thinking about security in a more comprehensive way.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: No, Iran is a substantially more important and hostile power in the Middle East; Iraq is becoming a vassal state of Iran; Afghanistan may as well. U.S.-Pakistan relations are dangerously weakened; Latin American policies are less friendly. Relations with Africa are improved and we have been pretty much steady state with Asia and most of Europe.

 SUBJECTS:
 

PAULIO655

5:42 PM ET

January 3, 2012

The End of History

Please visit my blog for an analysis of Fukuyama's famous essay http://irblogger.weebly.com/

 

HECTORGREG11

11:41 AM ET

January 27, 2012

seems pretty clear

The biggest problem is the rise of China. They are a force to be reckoned with and are growing quickly, so now is the time to learn how to deal with them and not create another cold war, that has the potential to heat up. China is scary because they are so unpredictable. They have been kept down for so long. I have a friend who works for sourcing companies and he loves China. He recently sourced silk comforters from China and enjoys the cultures too. I will just keep on keeping on at my job selling austin insurance for the time being.

 

SAVANNAHBOB

7:53 AM ET

February 1, 2012

No, the biggest problem is not China, or the US, or the EU

, but rather it is understanding why we have arrived into this century with these confrontational postures. Just as we have observed in certain social insect populations the tendancy for them to self destroy, human society has the same tendencies. I understand that this observation is politically incorrect, but like it or not , where world society is at this moment in time can not be seen from within a particular culture, as in "the problem is China, or the US, or Pakistan," but must be seen from a space platform outside of any individual society to be understood. What is going on in today's world is the result of predictable human behavior patterns that remain undocumented and are essentually primal . We must, if we are to succeed as a species, begin to understand that we do not have the correct tools to end the need for conflict, and that we are flawed. All the posturing we see today is repeated behavior and once understood as not logical, can be defined as deviant and dealt with so that it will not take us back to the dark ages.