1. Title: Google's Original X-Man: a Conversation with Sebastian Thrun
Foreign Affairs
Volume 92 Issue 6, Nov 2013
1. Title: Google's Original X-Man: A Conversation With Sebastian Thrun
Authors: Anonymous
Abstract: In an interview, Sebastian Thrun, one of the world's leading experts on robotics and artificial intelligence, talked about his career. He said that he ultimately got into robotics because it was the best way to study intelligence. When you program a robot to be intelligent, you learn a number of things. You become very humble and develop enormous respect for natural intelligence, because even if you work day and night for several years, your robot isn't that smart after all. One of the things that has excited him in working at Google and with Google leadership is thinking about big, audacious problems. So Google entrusted him with the founding of a new group called Google X. Ever since he started working at Google, he has felt he should spend his time on things that really matter when they are successful.
2. Title:A Kinder, Gentler Immigration Policy: Forget Comprehensive Reform-Let the States Compete
Authors: Bhagwati, Jagdish; Rivera-Batiz, Francisco.
Abstract: Ever since Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, in 1986, attempts at a similar comprehensive reform of US immigration policies have failed. Pres Barack Obama was so confident about its prospects that he asked for it in his State of the Union address in February 2013. Now, the US Senate looks poised to offer illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship. The challenges to eliminating illegal immigration are, if anything, greater today than they were in 1986. For one thing, in order to make today's proposals politically feasible, their authors decided to offer illegal immigrants not immediate unconditional amnesty but a protracted process of legalization. The US should stop attempting to eliminate illegal immigrants -- since that will never work -- and focus instead on policies that treat them with humanity. Just like the chimera of legalizing away the stock of illegal immigrants, the notion that the flow of new illegal immigrants can be shut off is also deeply impractical.
3. Title: Left Out: How Europe's Social Democrats Can Fight Back
Authors: Meyer, Henning.
Abstract: When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, social democrats in Europe believed that their moment had finally arrived. After a decade in which European politics had drifted toward the market-friendly policies of the right, the crisis represented an opportunity for the political center left's champions of more effective government regulation and greater social justice to reassert themselves. By the time the financial crisis began, Europe's social democratic parties had already lost momentum. The self-inflicted political wounds of the social democrats have proved so deep that even five years after the financial crisis exposed the flaws of the third way, they have still not figured out how to move past their embrace of neoliberal economic policy and present a coherent political alternative. Redefining social democracy will be a slow process, constrained by the limits of day-to-day politics. But if Europe's social democrats are to have a real shot at winning office and governing successfully, they need to think big.
4. Title: The End of Hypocrisy: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks
Authors: Farrell, Henry; Finnemore, Martha.
Abstract: The US government seems outraged that people are leaking classified materials about its less attractive behavior. Few US officials think of their ability to act hypocritically as a key strategic resource. Indeed, one of the reasons American hypocrisy is so effective is that it stems from sincerity: most US politicians do not recognize just how two-faced their country is. Yet as the US finds itself less able to deny the gaps between its actions and its words, it will face increasingly difficult choices -- and may ultimately be compelled to start practicing what it preaches. The US has gotten away with hypocrisy for some time now. Until very recently, US officials did not talk about their country's offensive capabilities in cyberspace, instead emphasizing their strategies to defend against foreign attacks. The collapse of hypocrisy presents the US with uncomfortable choices. One way or another, its policy and its rhetoric will have to move closer to each other.
5. Title: Biology's Brave New World: The Promise and Perils of the Synbio Revolution
Authors: Garrett, Laurie.
Abstract: Manufacturers, architects, artists, and others are now doing 3-D printing, using computer-generated designs to command devices loaded with plastics, carbon, graphite, and even food materials to construct three-dimensional products. With 4-D printing, manufacturers take the next crucial step: self-assembly or self-replication. What begins as a human idea, hammered out intellectually on a computer, is then sent to a 3-D printer, resulting in a creation capable of making copies of and transforming itself. Governance is focused on the old world of biology, in which scientists observed life from the outside, puzzling over its details and behavior by tinkering with its environment and then watching what happened. But in the new biology world, scientists can now create life themselves and learn about it from the inside. In the last two years, the World Health Organization has held two summits in the hopes of finding a global solution to the Pandora's box opened by the H5N1 experiments.
6. Title: Keeping Science in the Right Hands: Policing the New Biological Frontier
Authors: Noble, Ronald K.
Abstract: Ongoing research and discoveries in the life sciences -- the latest and most promising involving synthetic biology -- have led to extraordinary advances that will benefit society. To reduce the risks associated with the potential abuse of scientific developments, researchers and the policymakers in national governments and international entities responsible for the oversight of such research have to understand how criminals could use these emerging technologies. Through innovations in the field of synthetic biology, scientists can now design and engineer new biological parts, devices, and systems and redesign existing ones for other purposes. The cutting-edge research field of synthetic biology combines elements of multiple scientific and engineering disciplines. It relies on chemically synthesized DNA to construct new biochemical production systems or organisms with novel or enhanced characteristics. In addition, during the last few years, biological agents have increasingly been used in nefarious ways by individuals who did not belong to any specific terrorist or criminal organization.
7. Title: Accepting Austerity: The Right Way to Cut Defense
Authors: Williams, Cindy.
Abstract: On Mar 1, 2013, the US Department of Defense lost $37 billion overnight to sequestration. The cut marked the first wave of a series of planned cutbacks that will shrink future budgets across the federal government by about $1 trillion over nine years. The reductions had been set in motion back in 2011, when a special "super committee" established by the Budget Control Act (BCA) failed to reach a deficit-reduction agreement, triggering automatic cuts designed to punish both parties. For the 2014 fiscal year, the BCA reduces the non-war defense budget by about ten percent compared with the plan the president submitted to Congress in April 2013 -- returning it, in real terms, close to its 2007 level and holding it about there until 2021. What strategy does prove affordable will depend in part on what happens to pay and benefits. Defense planners will face crucial choices about what to jettison, what to keep, and where to add.
8. Title: Defense on a Diet: How Budget Crises Have Improved U.S. Strategy
Authors: Leffler, Melvyn P.
Abstract: The US is now in a period of austerity, and after years of huge increases, the defense budget is set to be scaled back. Even those supporting the cuts stress the need to avoid the supposedly awful consequences of past retrenchments. Contrary to such conventional wisdom, the consequences of past US defense cuts were not bad. In fact, a look at five such periods over the past century -- following World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War -- shows that austerity can be useful in forcing Washington to think strategically, something it rarely does when times are flush. Defense spending will not be slashed but simply decline a bit. Past bouts of austerity have led US officials to recognize that the ultimate source of national security is domestic economic vitality within an open world order -- not US military strength or its wanton use.
9. Title: Preview Cyberwar and Peace: Hacking Can Reduce Real-World Violence
Authors: Rid, Thomas.
Abstract: Cyber warfare seemed fanciful in the early 1990s, and it took more than a decade for members of the US national security establishment to catch on. But once they did, a chorus of voices resounded in the mass media. Yet the hype about everything "cyber" has obscured three basic truths: cyberwar has never happened in the past, it is not occurring in the present, and it is highly unlikely that it will disturb the future. Cyberattacks diminish rather than accentuate political violence by making it easier for states, groups, and individuals to engage in two kinds of aggression that do not rise to the level of war: sabotage and espionage. For a number of reasons, loose talk of cyberwar tends to overhype the offensive potential of cyberattacks and diminish the importance of defenses. To avoid further distorting the issue, the debate over cyberattacks must exit the realm of myth.
10. Title: Why Banking Systems Succeed-and Fail: The Politics Behind Financial Institutions
Authors: Calomiris, Charles W; Haber, Stephen H.
Abstract: People routinely blame politics for outcomes they don't like, often with good reason. Yet conventional wisdom holds that politics is not at fault when it comes to banking crises and that such crises instead result from unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances. This conventional view is deeply misleading. In reality, the same kinds of politics that influence other aspects of society also help explain why some countries, such as the US, suffer repeated banking crises, while others, such as Canada, avoid them altogether. Banking is a complicated subject, and dominant political coalitions exploit that complexity to make it difficult for the majority of voters to understand how banking systems can be manipulated. Those who wish to improve banking systems must begin from a clear sense of how political power is allocated and identify gains for those who have the power to change things for the better.
11. Title: Bridge to Somewhere: Helping U.S. Companies Tap the Global Infrastructure Market
Authors: Fernandez, Jose W.
Abstract: International development has moved beyond charity. International development has reached a new, globally competitive stage, bringing with it enormous strategic and economic implications for the US in the years ahead. By operating abroad, US companies not only contribute to Americans' material well-being; they also represent the US and promote its image overseas. Helping other countries grow by building their roads, ports, and airports boosts US leadership and, in turn, the American brand. But US companies are not taking sufficient advantage of the opportunities offered by the new market for infrastructure. Without significant increases in private-industry initiative and government support, US firms risk falling further behind their foreign competitors, or simply being left out of this boom altogether. For the long-term benefit of the American economy and the US's strategic position, both the public and the private sector in the US must recognize the opportunities at hand.
12. Title: The Devolution of the Seas: The Consequences of Oceanic Destruction
Authors: Sielen, Alan B.
Abstract: Of all the threats looming over the planet today, one of the most alarming is the seemingly inexorable descent of the world's oceans into ecological perdition. Destruction on this level will cost humans dearly in terms of food, jobs, health, and quality of life. It also violates the unspoken promise passed from one generation to the next of a better future. So long as pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification remain concerns only for scientists, however, little will change for the good. Diplomats and national security experts, who understand the potential for conflict in an overheated world, should realize that climate change might soon become a matter of war and peace. Business leaders should understand better than most the direct links between healthy seas and healthy economies. And government officials, who are entrusted with the public's well-being, must surely see the importance of clean air, land, and water.
以下是书评:
13. Title: The Spoils of War: The Horrors and Hopes of 1945
Authors: Hastings, Max.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Year Zero: A History of 1945,” by Ian Buruma.
14. Title: India and Ideology: Why Western Thinkers Struggle With the Subcontinent
Authors: Mishra, Pankaj.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “The Indian Ideology,” by Perry Anderson.
15. Title: In Search of the Real China: Outsiders Still See What They Want to See
Authors: Pomfret, John
Abstract: The article reviews the book “My First Trip to China: Scholars, Diplomats, and Journalists Reflect on Their First Encounters with China,” by Kin-Ming Liu.
16. Title: Border Battle: The Ugly Legacy of the Mexican-American War
Authors: Krauze, Enrique
Abstract: The article reviews the book “A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico,” by Amy S. Greenberg.
17. Title: The Case for International Law: A Response to "The War of Law"
Authors: Koh, Harold Hongju; Doyle, Michael.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “The War of Law,” by Jon Kyl, Douglas Feith, and John Fonte.
18. Title: How to Copy Right: Is Piracy Productive?
Authors: Tepp, Steven; Raustiala, Kal; Sprigman, Christopher.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Fake It Till You Make It,” by Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman.
19. Title: The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World
Authors: Ikenberry, G John
Abstract: The article reviews the book “The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World,” by Lincoln Paine. Knopf.
20. Title: Making Human Rights a Reality
Authors: Ikenberry, G John.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Making Human Rights a Reality,” by Emilie M. Hafner-Burton.
21. Title: Democratic Futures: Revisioning Democracy Promotion
Authors: Ikenberry, G John.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Democratic Futures: Revisioning Democracy Promotion,” by Milja Kurki. Routledge.
22. Title: Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World
Authors: Ikenberry, G John.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World,” by paul collier.
23. Title: Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis
Authors: Ikenberry, G John.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Water, Peace, and War: Confronting the Global Water Crisis,” by Brahma Chellaney.
24. Title: The Electronic Silk Road: How the Web Binds the World Together in Commerce
Authors: Cooper, Richard N.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “The Electronic Silk Road: How the Web Binds the World Together in Commerce,” by Anupam Chander.
25. Title: Balance: The Economics of Great Powers From Ancient Rome to Modern America
Authors: Cooper, Richard N.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Balance: The Economics of Great Powers From Ancient Rome to Modern America,” by Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane.
26. Title: Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights
Authors: Cooper, Richard N.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights,” by John Ruggie.
27. Title: Development Without Aid: The Decline of Development Aid and the Rise of the Diaspora
Authors: Cooper, Richard N.
Abstract: The article reviews the book “Development without Aid: The Decline of Development Aid and the Rise of the Diaspora,” by David A. Phillips.
28. Title: Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq
Authors: Freedman, Lawrence D.
Abstract: The article reviews the books “Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq,” by David Fitzgerald, “Wrong Turn: America's Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency,” by Gian Gentile and “Hearts and Minds: A People's History of Counterinsurgency,” by Hannah Gurman.
29. Title: Moment of Battle: The Twenty Clashes That Changed the World/After Thermopylae: The Oath of Plataea and the End of the Graeco-Persian Wars
Authors: Freedman, Lawrence D.