The Culture & Conflict Review

Review: The Moroccan Perspective on the Western Sahara: Moroccan Flag Officer Shares His View of this Ongoing Conflict

6/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

The conflict over Western Sahara is one that involves the disorderly transference of Spanish colonial rule, ideological differences between Algeria and Morocco, the issue of self-determination, as well as the national obsession by all segments of Moroccan society regarding possession of this territory. It is perhaps the one of the biggest roadblocks hindering the five-nation Arab-Maghreb Union (AMU) from realizing its full potential. No Moroccan leader can waiver on the issue of the Western Sahara and expect to survive politically. Moroccan retired Colonel-Major Bouriyala writes a unique book that looks into the history of the conflict between the Frente Popular de Liberacion de Saguia el-Hamra y Rio de Oro (Polisario), Algeria, Mauritania, and Morocco. His book is entitled, “Al-Sahraa’ Al-Gharbiya Al-Maghribiya min Khilaal Al-Tareekh wal Diplomasia Al-Hasniya (The Moroccan Western Sahara from a Historical and Diplomatic Vantage),” and is published in Arabic by Al-Talib Publishing in Rabat, Morocco in 2002.

Review: Delving into the Realities of Politics and the Army in the Caliphate: The Writings of Omar Farouk Fawzy on the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates

6/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

The long war on terrorism necessitates that we immerse ourselves in books of military significance published in Arabic, as all war is fought in the mind first. These books can range from those written by terrorists, those combating terrorism, to the subject of this essay, the Umayyad Caliphate, a period that came three decades after the death of Prophet Muhammad in 632 CE. Dr. Omar Farouk Fawzy (hereafter referred to as Fawzy) is an Iraqi historian, and among the few Arabs who specialize in the history of the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates. His books form a part of my course as my students and I discuss the obsession Militant Islamists have in re-establishing the Caliphate as a long-term inter-generational objective. This necessitates a closer examination of this institution, beyond the sound bites al-Qaida provides to appeal to segments of the Muslim world.

Radiation as a Cultural Talisman: Nuclear Weapon Testing and American Popular Culture in the Early Cold War

6/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

Radiation was a revolutionary concept to most Americans when they first became aware of the clouds blowing over their heads from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Popular culture in a nuclear age provided a glimpse behind the veil of the atomic future: an Alice in Wonderland venture beyond the present reality and into the radioactive landscape. Radiation became a favorite plot element in popular-culture texts that embodied the complex contradictions of the atomic age. In plot or setting, radiation legitimized breaks in normality. This talismanic quality, of separating normal from supernatural space or time, expressed both aspects of radiation’s physical nature (the invisible ability to transmute one element to another, the ability to affect action at a distance), and aspects of its effect on society (marking a potential end time or a golden era of peace and plenty). As nuclear-weapons tests moved underground in 1963, so too did the heightened public awareness of radiation, and it became less frequently invoked in popular culture.

But the actual dangers were not really gone, just once again imperceptible to the senses. It was a uniquely postmodern world that unfolded every day; at the same time that fallout was killing the sheep of downwind ranchers in Nevada and Utah by the thousands, moviegoers across America could watch aliens, intent on destroying humanity, breeding and raising hordes of giant bugs and reptiles underneath the Nevada desert. Wearing 3-D glasses and striding boldly into the future, Americans seemed as ready to explore this land of tomorrow as they had been to fund its creation with their tax dollars. As Americans got into their cars and headed westward to take the kids to Disneyland, radioactive clouds left Nevada and drifted eastward, seeding the future with monsters and mutants and mystery.

A New Economic Model for Iraq: Future Vision and Market-Oriented State Corporations Foster Liberalization of Oil-Rentier Economies

6/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

Iraq’s loaded experience is a thought-provoking case for better understanding of the potentialities of the oil-rentier developing countries. Over the last six decades, Iraq underwent radical economic and violent political changes. Since 1952, oil revenues play an important role in the country's economic, social, and political development. During the 1950's, 1960's & 1970's, the governments’ utilization of oil revenues, though not always efficient, was promising for building the country’s infrastructure, increasing economic growth, as well as improving the living standards. Significantly, the economic model of the 1970's was characterized by the dominance of the state where the share of public sector in GDP has substantially increased, especially in crude oil and mining extraction industry, petrochemical industry, banking, trade, manufacturing industries, and agriculture. However, since 1980, Iraq has suffered from major devastating three wars and economic decline and costly political events that resulted in the fall of Saddam’s dictatorial regime which followed by more deterioration of the prevailing conditions. In addition to the political and security problems, Iraq at present is facing many difficult socio-economic challenges: the poverty; sluggish real growth; high unemployment; low productivity; low standards of living; and widespread corruption. In a wider geopolitical context and given the lessons learned from recent global financial crises and world economic slowdown, Iraq’s awaited economic model that should benefit from the actual experience of globalization positives and negatives, could also generate far-reaching political and economic impact on the security and prosperity of the unstable strategic Middle East region that is rich in oil and gas.

The Arab Umayyad Muslim Sieges of Constantinople

4/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

The broad and historical significance of the Arab sieges of Constantinople is of incredible importance. It can be ranked as more significant than even the Battle of Tours in 732 A.D. The Byzantine victory over the Arab Muslim forces was the first major defeat that the Arabs had experienced since the Arab explosion onto the world stage almost four decades earlier. Constantinople employed Greek fire during Byzantium’s last stand against the Ottoman Empire in 1453 A.D. However, its power had been completely eclipsed with the more destructive cannons that the Ottoman besiegers introduced to the battlefield. Both the Arab Muslim failures to take Constantinople and the Muslim defeats in southern France by the Franks are considered primary factors that led to the weakness of the Umayyad dynasty and of the Arab caliphate. There is no doubt that the formidable use of Greek fire and the ingenuity of Emperor Leo III were important factors, it should, however, be noted that the inadequate naval preparedness of the Arab Muslims and their failure to secure proper logistics contributed to their failure. According to former librarian at the Middle East Reading Room at the Library of Congress Raymond Ibrahim, the author of the book The Al Qaeda Reader. Since al-Qaida makes use of fragments of Islamic history, it is vital that we understand the details that al-Qaida misses, when they weave their militant Islamist historic narrative. In many ways part of al-Qaida’s art, is their ability to prey upon those with a sense of their own history, and not knowledge of history. Grounding ourselves in early Islamic history allows us to understand if one is seeing an Islamic, Islamist or Violent Islamist narrative, thereby assessing the group or individual’s message.

Announcing Publication of State of Doom: Bernard Brodie, the Bomb and the Birth of the Bipolar World

4/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

Barry Scott Zellen, editor of The Culture and Conflict Review and Director of the Project on Climate and Conflict, has published his eighth monograph, State of Doom: Bernard Brodie, the Bomb and the Birth of the Bipolar World (Continuum, December 15, 2011.)

Rethinking the Unthinkable: Introducing State of Doom

4/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you a fascinating portrait of one of America’s greatest strategic thinkers, State of Doom: Bernard Brodie, the Bomb, and the Birth of the Bipolar World by Barry Scott Zellen. Brodie stands in rare and distinguished company, on par with such great strategic minds as Clausewitz, and even the ancient philosopher of war, Sun Tzu. Like both of these great strategic thinkers, Brodie has a great deal of wisdom to share with future generations, especially, as Zellen chronicles, about the supreme importance of never losing sight of our ultimate objectives in war – nor letting the means that we employ become disproportionate to those ends, which ultimately define war’s very purpose and thus gives it meaning.

Strategic Culture, Civil Military Relations and the Arab Spring

4/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

The Arab Spring is a term coined to express the wave of unrest, uprisings, protests, civil wars, regime changes and economic and political reconciliations in the numerous countries with predominant Moslem populations in North Africa, the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula throughout 2010/2011. Pundits abound in speculation to the cause of such multiple and simultaneous events including the usual conspiracy theories ranging from US involvement to Islamic fundamentalist movements to the “apocalyptic end of the world is near” to the “Facebook Connection”. None of such pundits have considered that no matter the speculative causes the outcome in each country could neither be predicted nor pre-determined. Despite the tendency to group all the countries under the single term Arab Spring there are unique circumstances. Each country has a unique political system and each countries society, leaders and armed forces interact and respond with each other in a unique manner. This paper argues that the different outcome in the different countries has been determined by strategic culture. Colin Gray wrote about strategic culture “That culture referring to modes of thought and action with respect to force,” and “This flows from geography and resources, society and political structure.”

George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis

4/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

John Lewis Gaddis is important to students of the Cold War, and for those interested in understanding how the ideas of America’s grand strategy are formulated. He has written several books on the subject of the Cold War, and his latest is a long overdue extensive biography of George F. Kennan, popularly known as “The Father of Containment.” Kennan did much to provide American leaders with the ideas and language to address moves from the Communist world generally and subsequent Soviet premiers from Joseph Stalin to Mikhail Gorbachev.

City, State and More: Singapore’s Experiment in Contemporary Sovereignty

4/1/2012 12:00:00 AM

Early this winter I met with Singapore’s Peter Ho, who long served as head of Singapore’s civil service before retiring last year and who is one of the city-state’s most eloquent and influential intellectual architects. Our meeting came about as part of my new research project on the endurance and evolution of sovereign cities across history, culminating in Singapore’s extraordinary experiment in contemporary sovereignty - modernizing one of mankind's most ancient of sovereign forms and in so doing helping to redefine what sovereignty means in the contemporary world.