Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Reports

Just Nuclear Disarmament

by | Jun 29, 2007

Some said Kim Jong Il was crazy. Others declared that he was canny. When the North Korean leader pushed his country through the door of the nuclear club in October 2006 with the explosion of a nuclear device of unknown size and technical capability, he certainly shook up the international community. Observers feared that the explosion would trigger a new arms race in East Asia. Japan could turn its plutonium stockpile and nuclear know-how into an arsenal in as little as six months. South Korea and Taiwan would follow suit, and China would enlarge its rather small supply of strategic weaponry. The regime established by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in the late 1960s, which discouraged but didn’t entirely prevent new entrants to the nuclear club, would be dead—and Kim Jong Il’s fingerprints would be all over the murder weapon.

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Just Security

by , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Jun 19, 2007

Current U.S. foreign policy is unjust and breeds insecurity for all. In seeking an alternative, we should not revive the failed policies of the past. Instead, we should chart a new relationship between the United States and the world.

This alternative foreign policy framework tells five different stories about our common future and the five principal challenges we face: climate change, global poverty, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and military conflict. We address five different sets of core misconceptions and offer five interconnected prescriptions for change. We then offer a Just Security budget that would cut roughly $213 billion from the president’s current defense budget request and yet make the United States safer and more secure. The concluding chapter puts the challenges facing the United States in a larger historical context and offers an integrated Just Security program.

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A Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY 2008

by , | Apr 26, 2007

As Congress works to balance the budget and find a solution to the Iraq crisis it must also focus on a different kind of budget balancing. Our country needs a rebalanced its security budget, one that strengthens a different kind of overall U.S. presence in the world. This budget would emphasize working with international partners to resolve conflicts and tackle looming human security problems like climate change; preventing the spread of nuclear materials by means other than regime change; and addressing the root causes of terrorism, while protecting the homeland against it. The rhetoric of these intentions must be underwritten by the resources to make them real. The overall priorities set by a Unified Security Budget must both symbolically and substantially guide the United States toward a new, more balanced foreign policy.

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How the Peace Movement Can Win

How the Peace Movement Can Win

by , | Apr 25, 2007

The peace movement is a very important part of American life. Much like the labor movement, the racial justice movement, and the women’s movement, the peace movement is comprised of an array of organizations and millions of supporters. It maintains a visible public presence through meetings, demonstrations, vigils, leaflets, letters to the editor, newspaper ads, art, music, lobbying, and occasional civil disobedience actions. In addition, it inspires the loyalty of prominent cultural figures, intellectuals, and politicians. And many of its key goals—for example, ending the war in Iraq, fostering international cooperation, and securing nuclear disarmament—have broad popular support.

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China in Africa: It’s (Still) the Governance, Stupid

by , | Mar 9, 2007

Deep inside the tropical forest of Gabon, 500 miles from the coast, China is going where no other investors dare. A Chinese consortium, led by the China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation, has won the contract to develop Gabon’s massive Belinga iron ore deposit. In return for purchasing the entire output, Chinese operators will build not only the extractive infrastructure at Belinga but a hydro-electric dam to power it, a railway to the coast, and a deepwater port north of the capital, Libreville, for exporting the ore.

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FPIF’s First Decade: A Bold Collaboration and Vision

by | Dec 20, 2006

While some analysts predicted that the fall of the Soviet Union would bring “the end of history” it was clear by the mid-1990s that this was not the case. Military conflicts flared across the globe. The rise of the global economy highlighted the inequities between states. History, at least as it related to pitched battles over ideas and power, had not come to an end. The question soon arose, what role should the U.S. have in shaping the post-Cold War era as the dominant superpower, both economically and militarily?

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The Horrors of "Extraordinary Rendition"

by , | Oct 18, 2006

Editors Note: Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who is barred from entering the United States, delivered his acceptance speech for the Letelier-Moffitt International Human Rights Award in a pre-recorded videotape. This is a transcript of his speech, which was viewed at the award ceremony hosted by the Institute for Policy Studies on Oct. 18, 2006 in Washington, DC.

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