FOREIGN RELATIONS
Year:2020 | Volume:12 | Issue:1 (45)|Papers Count:6

Despite great progress in theorizing on the causes of war during the second half of the 20th century, our understanding of international conflicts remains at an elementary level. However, Power Cycle Theory, compared to other related approaches, has raised hopes for a clear and methodical causal explanation. This theory puts decision-making about wars in the context of the rise and decline of the relative power of states and tests the effect of long-term nonlinear changes or critical points in the relative power of a state on its tendency toward large-scale wars experimentally. The question is whether there is a significant correlation between the occurrence of these critical points on the power cycle and the occurrence of war between the great powers? The research hypothesis is that the probability of a major war is higher in critical periods than it is otherwise, because of sudden shock caused by the changes in the balance of power and the role and dominance of uncertainty, as well as misunderstanding and miscalculation among the statesmen. In this study, the statement will be tested. The relative capabilities of the great powers have been assessed using the updated data from the “ Correlates of War Project” (COW) during the interval 1816-2012. Moreover, the timing of critical points on each countries power cycle is compared with the occurrence of war between the major powers. The findings support the hypothesis that war is more likely to occur during critical periods than it is during normal periods.

However, what is considered in these explanations are the beginning of Chinese developmentalism, in fact, the end of a long-term process in the evolution of the Chinese mentality. In other words, the emergence of a developmentalist attitude in China should not be separated from the historical context and the process of its development, and it should be attributed only to the 1970s and some institutional reforms or Deng Xiaoping personal traits. Inspired by Thomas Kuhn's scientific revolutions and the introduction of the concept of " attitude paradigm", and by process exploration, this article examines the characteristics and developments of the Chinese collective attitude and mentality, especially Chinese leaders, over the past two centuries and shows that developmentalist leaders' approach of China in the late 1970s actually originated from a change in the attitude paradigm that has its roots in the developments of the nineteenth century. This shift in the mental and attitude paradigm, first manifested among intellectuals and then among Chinese nationalist leaders in the first half of the twentieth century, created a kind of developmental mentality among the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, although in Mao and Under the influence of the prevailing ideological atmosphere, there was no way to succeed, but in the late 1970s, following the emergence of domestic and external opportunities and the displacement of elites, it became possible to succeed.

Following the official announcement of the first cases of the COVID-19 virus in China on late December 2019, it outbreak rapidly to most parts of the world and putting the world in a state of emergency. Different governments have reacted differently to this crisis. It is noteworthy that variables such as the type of political regime, the structure of government and the capacity of governments have not necessarily a direct and decisive relationship with countries' response to this crisis. For example, the number of mortality in developed and democratic countries such as the United States, Spain, Britain and Italy has been much higher than some developing countries. The key question of this paper is that "What is the reason for the different behavior of different countries in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic? " The hypothesis of this article is that "in times of crisis, the most important factor in determining the reaction of countries is political leadership and different ways of sense making. " This article judges this hypothesis with using the CIP leadership model and dividing leadership and sense making into charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic, and case studies of India, the United States, and Germany, the authors, while proving and confirming the article hypothesis, have concluded that pragmatic leadership is more effective in recent crisis.

Turkey with knowledge about the possible future development of water resources and political upcoming conflicts, the massive dam construction project has been implemented since 1970, According to evaluations, is the world's fifth dam construction plan. The implementation of this project has negative effects on the ecosystem of Turkey's neighboring countries such as Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and has been carried out in accordance with international conventions without regarding the water rights of other countries. For this reason, this article seeks to answer the question, what threats can the GAP project create to the region and the Islamic Republic of Iran? The hypothesis of the article is influenced by the theoretical framework of the Copenhagen School, which shows that the continuation of this situation will engages Islamic Republic of Iran and the West Asian region with environmental threats, which according to the new definitions of security and threat, will lead to political and security problems. In this research, by examining the dimensions of the Dam construction project in Turkey and its consequences for Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, and Syria, it is proposed to refer to international conventions in the field of international waterways and also to regulate regional legal and political actions Against to this project, managed this critical situation. The method used in this research is descriptive-explanatory based on library resources.

The hegemony of the discourse of political Islamism after 2003, sectarian strife and the rise of ISIS in 2014 have been factors that have underestimated the impact of Iraqi-Arab nationalism on the new Iraqi political arena. But Iraqi-Arab nationalism has long root in modern Iraqi history and until 2003, in the form of various models, was the dominant discourse in the political arena. The effects of this political discourse have been evident since the occupation of Iraq. This influence can be seen in the victory of some secular and religious nationalist political forces in the elections, the political speech of the political leaders and their efforts to balance Iraq's relations with other countries. The present article not only deals with the two main nationalist discourses in the history of modern Iraq, but also discusses the important role of this ideology after 2003. It seems, according to the ineffectiveness of political parties dominating the political scene in these two decades and the numerous challenges facing stable and democratic governance in this country, the resort to nationalist discourse and its role in political mobilization will increase in the future.

Nowadays, terrorism still poses the greatest threat to international peace and security. After going through anarchist, nationalist, neo-left(Ya neo-socialist? ) waves, it is now posing a new form of terrorism. modern terrorism with features such as using network, being subjective and non-territoriality is far more dangerous than earlier waves of terrorism. Therefore, understanding the evolution in the concept of terrorism and the nature of the new terrorism constitute the main objective of the present study. This article tries to answer this question that what differentiates this wave of terrorism from the other waves? And that this terrorism is the reaction to what? The hypotheses provided for answering this question is that this wave of terrorism has far more extensive dimensions than other waves of terrorism as a response to the postmodern empire order.