Reports
The Network Paradigm of Strategic Public Diplomacy
Feeding the Nuclear Fire
The July 18 joint statement by U.S. President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has attracted a great deal of comment. The focus has been on the possible consequences of U.S. promises to support IndiaÂs nuclear energy program in exchange for India clearly separating its military and civilian nuclear facilities and programs and opening the latter to international inspection.
Why Progressives Must Embrace the Ukrainian Pro-Democracy Movement
Some elements of the American left have committed a grievous error, both morally and strategically, in their failure to enthusiastically support the momentous pro-democracy movement in the Ukraine.
Iraq’s Neoliberal Constitution
Article 25: “The state shall guarantee the reforming of the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector.”
The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing Home the Troops
We believe that our plan to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace offers the best chance of ending the war and helping to repay our huge debt to the people of Iraq and to our returning soldiers, themselves made victims of this war. But we also understand that whatever the plan, it must be based on knowledge.
Knowledge of the staggering costs in lives, in money, in human rights, and so much more of this illegal war. Knowledge that this war has made all of us—the U.S., Iraqis, and the rest of the world—less safe. It is time to share the information, to open the debate and to work towards the common ground that will be required to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace.
Opportunities, Risks, and the Issue of Taiwan
Key Points
Now is the Time to Resist
In his April 2005 FPIF Discussion Paper “Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice (RTPV),” John Humphries describes how a group of clergy and lay people—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—drafted a Call to Resist the War in Iraq, which committed signers thereof to become actively complicit in differing acts of civil disobedience designed to end the illegal U.S. occupation and warfare in Iraq. Humphries describes the RTPV c all as inspired by and modeled after the 1967 Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority, which led to the formation of an organization named RESIST that actively opposed the illegal U.S. war against the South Vietnamese. The model indeed fits, as both calls are grounded in basic ethical principles rather than purely utilitarian concerns: The wars and occupations must be resisted, not because they were and are too costly or might drag on too long but because they were and are morally loathsome.
A Strategy for Ending the Iraq War
“When you’re in the middle of a conflict, you’re trying to find pillars of strength to lean on.”
Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War
This report attempts to look comprehensively at the human, economic, social, security, environmental, and human rights costs of this war and the ensuing occupation. An Iraq Task Force of the Institute for Policy Studies spent several months scouring sources as diverse as professional engineers, economists, non-profits with expertise in Iraq, the United Nations, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, and the most accurate journalistic accounts we could find.
It is our conviction that democracy is strengthened through informed debate. If this report helps stimulate broader debate and discourse in this country and around the world about the costs and legitimacy of the war and occupation in Iraq, then we will consider this report a success.