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

“Do as I say, not as I do” Nuclear Policy

by | May 27, 2003

The Bush administration has its foreign policy hands full with each nation in its “Axis of Evil.” From the ongoing search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to the appearance of negotiations with North Korea, and the push to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, President Bush is following through with his promise to make certain these “dangerous regimes and terrorists” can not threaten the U.S. with the world’s most destructive weapons.

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United States and Europe Experience Continental Drift

by | May 22, 2003

The distance between the United States and Europe is slowly growing wider–about an inch each year, geologists estimate, due to the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean. Politically, the Atlantic Ocean has been a much less stable barrier between the United States and Europe. The first U.S. president, George Washington, viewed the Atlantic’s vast distance as America’s ultimate protection from the power politics of European monarchs and warned future presidents to avoid entangling alliances. Following World War II, U.S. leaders such as President Harry S. Truman and Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson saw Europe and America as part of the same region, the compact North Atlantic, giving rise to the NATO and the Marshall Plan. Most recently, in the diplomacy prior to the Iraq war, a new rift developed between the United States and its European allies, culminating in U.S. recriminations against France and Germany, members of “Old Europe,” effectively blocking any UN authorization for the U.S.- and U.K.-led war. Now that the war is over, how much distance is there between the United States and Europe?

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Time to Question the U.S. Role In Saudi Arabia

by | May 20, 2003

The terrorist bombings that struck Saudi Arabia on May 12th have raised a number of serious questions regarding American security interests in the Middle East. First of all, the attacks underscore the concern expressed by many independent strategic analysts that the United States has been squandering its intelligence and military resources toward Iraq–which had nothing to do with al Qaeda and posed no direct danger to the United States–and not toward al Qaeda itself, which is the real threat.

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Council on Foreign Relations Urges Bush Administration to Commit Seriously to Diplomacy with North Korea

by | May 20, 2003

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush should commit itself seriously to resolving the nuclear impasse with North Korea if only to line up support from regional states if stronger measures are needed, according to a new report by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). “The United States has not persuaded its regional partners that it is serious about negotiations, making efforts to secure their approval for a significantly tougher position difficult if not impossible,” according to the blue-ribbon CFR task force that issued the report, Meeting the North Korean Nuclear Challenge. “If negotiations fail or should U.S. intelligence confirm that North Korea has reprocessed spent fuel (for building nuclear weapons), it is uncertain whether our partners would be willing to put significantly greater pressure on North Korea,” the report continued, calling the current situation a “genuine crisis.”

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Eyes on Different Prizes

by | May 12, 2003

Roh Moo-hyun is coming to Washington with a public and a private message. Publicly, the South Korean president will affirm his government’s desire to strengthen its relationship with the United States and bring a peaceful end to the nuclear crisis with North Korea. The private message, which won’t appear in any newspaper headlines, will be: “Mr. Bush, please don’t screw things up for us.”

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U.S. and India–A Dangerous Alliance

by | May 6, 2003

In the wake of the Iraq War, growing tensions with Iran, and a possible confrontation with North Korea, it would be easy to miss the formation of yet another Washington think tank. But the freshly minted U.S.-India Institute for Strategic Policy is an organization to watch and one that may help reveal the next target of American power: containing China.

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Sharon is Coming to India

by | May 1, 2003

Close on the heels of Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra’s call for an India-U.S.-Israel strategic alliance, comes the confirmation that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be visiting India in the next few weeks. Some observers in New Delhi consider Mishra’s call, made at the annual dinner of the American Jewish Committee, as a curtain raiser for the Sharon visit. What they seem to ignore is that the India-U.S.-Israel strategic alliance has moved beyond last call to center stage and that the plan for Sharon’s visit is some 15 months old.

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Staying Serious: Answers to the Warniks

by | May 1, 2003

On the eve of the war in Iraq, Pete Du Pont published an essay in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Getting Serious: Questions for the Peaceniks.” Du Pont posed six “familiar” questions “we ought to be asking the peace protesters.” Although Du Pont’s tone is depreciatory and cynical, the challenge to peace advocacy that the questions convey merits serious response, especially in light of the neoconservative exultancy that the disposition of the Iraq war has elicited.

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