Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper will examine the multitude of questions facing the United States as it pursues its role as the only true global power. How, why and when does the United States need allies to achieve its foreign policy goals? What are the costs of going it alone versus the potential costs of not acting because of opposition from partners and allies? How have recent experiences (War on Terrorism, Iraq) affected US international leadership roles and future relations with key partners/allies?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Exploring the past is as interesting as anticipating the future is challenging. The investment provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1992 and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 2007 illustrate this. Contrary to expect

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: US identity as a state is closely linked to its self-imposed responsibility and duty to act upon threats against international security. Howver, US unilateralism and the Iraq war seriously weakened the American global leadership position and deteriorated its relations with Europe. To revitalize or reclaim its leadership position, the Obama Administration would need to flesh out a US foreign policy in which the EU dimension of the transatlantic security community is taken into account. As argued in the paper, the multilateral security cooperation in NATO would also benefit from a strengthening of the bilateral US-EU relationship. Departing from the perspective that discourse is power, because the discourse dictates which statements and actions that are seen as possible and acceptable (and which are not), in his first month of office president Barack Obama already has set new conditions for how America will relate to the rest of the world in the pursuit of its interests.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: During the Cold War over 350,000 foreigners were blacklisted in the U.S. Lookout System as the aliens undesirable to and excludable from the great democracy of America. A testimony of the blacklisted Japanese psychology professor in the U.S., this paper presents a brief review of the America’s enemies since WW II, Communist Russia and rogue states and terrorists after the “9/11.” My documents examine the causes and effects of the exaggerated American enemy images by pointing out three variables representing the unique dissonance of the American democracy abroad and at home. Americans’ strong nationalism and surprising lack of knowledge over the world affairs are discussed while the manufactured enemy images and fears are suggested to have intensified Americans’ nationalistic sentiments and vitiated civil liberties. America might need its enemies to define itself although such practices would bring further crises into the world peace as best symbolized by President Bush’s famous statement, “with us or against us.” The 2008 presidential election, however, brought about some signs challenging the manufactured enemy images. They also appeared to show the weakness of the traditional perspectives on various conflicts based on race, sex and ethnicity but instead uncover the socio-economic based- or class-based perspective for their solutions. In a global community in the early 21st century such a perspective is suggested that gives much weight in the relationship between socio-economic factors and hatred, prejudice, victimization of others abroad (i.e., wars) and at home (i.e., minorities and out-group members).

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: It is now the twenty-fifth anniversary of Michael Doyle’s two-part essay that popularized the democratic peace theory in academic and foreign policy circles. The theory holds that liberal (democratic) regimes, while equally as, if not more, likely to go to war with non-liberal regimes, are pacific in their relations with other liberal democracies. The democratic peace has since become a guiding principle in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. It has also been used to justify current U.S. military operations in Iraq and elsewhere. In this article, we examine recent U.S. torture policy, and argue that the condoning of torture imperils the second key pillar of Doyle’s thesis, which is that liberal regimes must have a “fundamental commitment to basic human rights.” Because all three of the constituent components of the democratic peace—regimes must be republics, they must have a commitment to human rights, and they must be interconnected—are required to be functioning simultaneously for the theory to hold, weakening one pillar affects the entirety of the democratic peace. A policy that condones torture, or participation in torture, may therefore be more pernicious to the safety and security of the Unites States than other, more tangential issues related to such a policy, such as moral authority or policy legitimacy.