Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Beijing provides critical energy and food aid to Pyongyang. Indeed, without Beijing's economic support, conditions in North Korea are likely to deteriorate dramatically. Logically, China ought to be the country the US should court actively to increase the diplomatic pressure on North Korea and reduce the tensions over Pyongyang's dangerous nuclear programmes.
Since September 11, discussions of political Islam have been distorted by the tendency to identify political Islam with Osama bin Laden, his associates, and organizations involved in violent actions in places such as Chechnya, Kashmir, Algeria, and Egypt. In reality, such violent, militant groups constitute only a small minority among political Islamists.
On October 16, 2002, the Bush Administration announced that, in meetings earlier this month, North Korea admitted that it has a uranium enrichment program. With this announcement came very few details about this newly-disclosed program. Statements from the administration, alongside reports from the media, have allowed us to piece together some of the missing details. Still, significant information about this program remains unknown. The implications of North Korea's disclosure depend on the details of the program, ranging from its origins and level of development to the regime's willingness to close it down.
Moves by North Korea to restart its nuclear reactor program and by Iran to build advanced nuclear facilities to produce weapons-grade materials, threaten to blow the lid off long-standing nonproliferation efforts. The developments show that the approach being pursued by the current administration for preventing the spread of nuclear arms has failed and needs immediate adjustment.
Highly distinguished contributors from both East and West examine the complicated and multi-faceted process of NATO and EU enlargement in the context of the changed global situation since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
The U.S. faces two contradictory imperatives in the war on terror: on the one hand, it tempts the U.S. to put aside its democratic scruples and seek closer ties with autocracies throughout the Middle East and Asia. On the other hand, the U.S. has increasingly come to believe that it is precisely the lack of democracy in many of these countries that helps breed Islamic extremism.
During the 1990s, international democracy promotion efforts led to the establishment of numerous regimes that cannot be easily classified as either authoritarian or democratic - semi-authoritarian regimes. These regimes pose a considerable challenge to U.S. policy makers because the superficial stability of semi-authoritarian regimes usually masks severe problems that could lead to future crises.
The whole world is closely paying attention to what the US is doing in Afghanistan, because this is the first experience of a war on terrorism. When the military presence will end is difficult to say. But whatever happens, if we cannot demonstrate to other countries that we are able to finish what we started, than the other countries will think that the US is lacking in diligence and resolve.
For the first time in U.S. history, a president will deploy a major weapon system without knowing whether it will work or not. Exempting the missile defense program from required weapons procurement rules, President Bush will rush to deploy interceptor rockets in Alaska without any operational tests and after failing almost half of their preliminary development tests, including the last one. With every missile defense program behind schedule and over budget, all available evidence indicates that the Alaska system cannot work. Whether one is for or against this program, everyone should be troubled by the way the president is proceeding.
The U.S. administration has convinced most journalists and world leaders that it will soon attack Iraq. The rhetoric is escalating and so are military movements. There are now 60,000 U.S. troops on the border of Iraq and 45,000 more could fly in with short notice to marry up with pre-positioned equipment. Leaked plans detail a ferocious, short war to isolate, then topple Saddam Hussein. Arab leaders publicly oppose a war, but news reports indicate their quiet support. President George Bush seems ready to let loose the dogs of war at any moment. Which is precisely why he will not have to.
North Korea’s decision to restart its plutonium production reactors creates an immediate crisis for the United States and its allies in the region. This event threatens to recreate the tense standoff that nearly led to war on the Korean peninsula in 1994. This dangerous decision by North Korea seems a transparent move designed to bring the United States back to the negotiating table and resume a direct dialogue with Washington. Although the Bush administration is unlikely to see this move as an opportunity to engage the North Koreans, the United States should move quickly to negotiate with Pyongyang to secure a total ban on North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.
The seizure and subsequent release of North Korean scud missiles bound for Yemen on the high seas is a dramatic development, but the export of missiles from North Korea to Yemen should come as no surprise. North Korea has sold Yemen Scud missiles before, and the U.S. imposed sanctions against North Korea for such commerce just this past August. Despite U.S. concerns, however, there is nothing illegal about the sale of such missiles by North Korea. Neither North Korea nor Yemen has signed any international treaties or bilateral agreements to prohibit such trade. In fact, no international treaty banning missiles sales exists and many countries, including the United States, sell both short and long range ballistic missiles. Lastly, it is not clear that selling ballistic missiles to Yemen is a threat to US security or that of states in the region.