Nuclear arms control is often considered not worth the effort now that the Cold War is over. But the nuclear threat is anything but over. Several thousand strategic nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert in U.S. and Russian arsenals; many more are insecurely stored. Moscow and Washington must pursue innovative reduction efforts.
Minxin Pei participated in a Frontline online roundtable discussion, "Democracy, Sooner or Later?" assessing the prospects for democracy in China.
CIA Director George Tenet offered a dramatic redefinition of the proliferation problem in testimony to Congress February 11, 2003. Over the past two years, administration officials have discarded major elements of the global non-proliferation regime, rejected negotiated solutions and engagement and ignored major developments in North Korea and Iran. Now as former critical situations turn into crises, Tenet warns that the non-proliferation regime is in trouble. Here is Tenet's new explanation of why.
The immediate question left hanging at the end of Colin L. Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council was: What next? Given his explanation of the problem with Iraq, immediate war is not the only answer. Is there an alternative that can both command enthusiastic international support and effectively disarm Saddam Hussein? The answer is yes, and it involves a plan for truly coercive inspections. In the following piece, Carnegie President Jessica Mathews lays out an alternative scenario to disarm Saddam Hussein. This analysis is taken from her article, "Is There a Better Way to Go?" which appeared in the Febraury 9, 2003 <i>Washington Post</i> Outlook Section.
Europe sees the U.S. as high-handed, unilateralist, and unnecessarily belligerent; the U.S. sees Europe as spent, unserious and weak. The anger and mistrust on both sides are hardening into incomprehension.
State-sponsored terror persists because the international community is either silent in the face of it, or restricts its condemnations to actions that are of little or no consequence to the offending party.
While it is not certain that North Korea would negotiate away their nuclear programs and fully abide by any agreement, such a resolution was and remains a possibility. By refusing to aggressively pursue a negotiated approach, the Bush administration has essentially green-lighted North Korea's nuclear program and may be encouraging the North to take even more drastic steps in the future.
Russia has overwhelming reasons to join the World Trade Organization early. For Russia, the timing of its accession is more important than the exact conditions. The later Russia joins, the more cumbersome the demands will be and the greater the social cost.
Bush and his foreign team certainly have their hands full. Yet, they cannot allow past victories to slip away while pursuing new ones. A return of dictatorship in Russia, a country armed with thousands of nuclear weapons, would present a much greater threat than the current set of tyrants now threatening U.S. security.
It may be time to admit that there will never in fact be a common European foreign and security policy. Long before the crisis over Iraq erupted, momentum towards the creation of such a policy was quietly ebbing away.