The end of Apartheid created the need for a new identity in South Africa. The Post-Apartheid regime thus was always clamoring to bring South Africa back to Africa. Under this pursuit, Africanness became the defining feature of the new identity discourse in South Africa. Simultaneous to this, xenophobia against foreigner Africans emerged potently as a counter-discourse to Africanness.
China’s problems demand too much attention, which as hegemonic stability theorists insist, will hinder its emergence.
Tough economic times have presented negotiators globally with new challenges both in business deal-making and conflict resolution. Long-term relationships are becoming cost and time effective as they open the way for future multiple synergies, against short-termed visions or one-sided interests.
Britain and France were influenced by their own special interests, which, for the British, was principally the maintenance of peace, trade and oil; whilst the French interest was one of maintaining a presence in the area. These would provide the framework towards the mandated territories both respectively administered.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not mark the beginnings of a ‘nuclear revolution’ as it is understood. The strategic environment and technological capabilities for a revolution did not exist in 1945 and not until much later.
Almost a century after its birth, IR is still in the process of defining itself. The Great Debates stimulated discussion about the essential characteristics of the discipline, and through these IR theory has undoubtedly advanced in complexity and nuance since its founding, and doubtless will continue to do so.
China and the west view Africa with a different set of eyes. In supporting trade with any and all nations in Africa and around the globe, China by default supports nations that have horrendous human rights track records that do not support democratic institutions. But China’s model of economic aid can be used by African nations to pull millions of people out of poverty. It is nothing more, nothing less.
The necessities of statecraft require some level of secrecy. Reagan abused this and the results were the Iran-Contra scandal. No President has used the office of the Executive in a more regal, imperial and ordained manner than Ronald Reagan. His use and abuse of the institution to pursue his own ideological doctrine raises the fundamental questionn of whether the concept of democracy is a viable one at all.
The American-Russian relationship is best described as going from Cold War to Cold Peace, as articulated by the then Russian President Yeltsin. The 1990s essentially brought about a period in which the US sought to manage the uncertainties that the new world order was presenting.
Because of the deep mutual mistrust from both sides, especially the US concern over China’s military build-up, friction and cooperation will coexist in the development of the China-US naval relationship. Only when political mutual trust reaches a high level, can the military relationship stride forward beyond the stop and go cycle of the last 30 years.
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