International Security

Iran's View of Obama

2009-03-24T07:34:00.000-07:00

March 23, 2009

By George Friedman

U.S. President Barack Obama released a video offering Iran congratulations on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on Friday. Israeli President Shimon Peres also offered his best wishes, referring to “the noble Iranian people.” The joint initiative was received coldly in Tehran, however. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the video did not show that the United States had shifted its hostile attitude toward Iran.

The video is obviously part of Obama’s broader strategy of demonstrating that his administration has shifted U.S. policy, at least to the extent that it is prepared to open discussions with other regimes (with Iran being the hardest and most controversial case). The U.S. strategy is fairly straightforward: Obama is trying to create a new global perception of the United States. Global opinion was that former U.S. President George W. Bush was unwilling to engage with, and listen to, allies or enemies. Obama’s view is that that perception in itself harmed U.S. foreign policy by increasing suspicion of the United States. For Obama, offering New Year’s greetings to Iran is therefore part of a strategy to change the tone of all aspects of U.S. foreign policy.

Getting Peres to offer parallel greetings was undoubtedly intended to demonstrate to the Iranians that the Israelis would not block U.S. initiatives toward Iran. The Israelis probably were willing to go along with the greetings because they don’t expect them to go very far. They also want to show that they were not responsible for their failure, something critical in their relations with the Obama administration.

The Iranian response is also understandable. The United States has made a series of specific demands on Iran, and has worked to impose economic sanctions on Iran when Tehran has not complied. But Iran also has some fairly specific demands of the United States. It might be useful, therefore, to look at the Iranian view of the United States and the world through its eyes.

From the Iranian point of view, the United States has made two fundamental demands of Iran. The first is that Iran halt its military nuclear program. The second, a much broader demand, is that Iran stop engaging in what the United States calls terrorism. This ranges from support for Hezbollah to support for Shiite factions in Iraq. In return, the United States is prepared to call for a suspension of sanctions against Iran.

For Tehran, however, the suspension of sanctions is much too small a price to pay for major strategic concessions. First, the sanctions don’t work very well. Sanctions only work when most powers are prepared to comply with them. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese are prepared to systematically comply with sanctions, so there is little that Iran can afford that it can’t get. Iran’s problem is that it cannot afford much. Its economy is in shambles due more to internal problems than to sanctions. Therefore, in the Iranian point of view, the United States is asking for strategic concessions, yet offering very little in return.

The Nuclear Question
Meanwhile, merely working on a nuclear device — regardless of how close or far Iran really is from having one — provides Iran with a dramatically important strategic lever. The Iranians learned from the North Korean experience that the United States has a nuclear fetish. Having a nuclear program alone was more important to Pyongyang than actually having nuclear weapons. U.S. fears that North Korea might someday have a nuclear device resulted in significant concessions from the United States, Japan and South Korea.

The danger of having such a program is that the United States — or some other country — might attack and destroy the associated facilities. Therefore, the North Koreans created a high level of uncertainty as to just how far along they were on the road to having a nuclear device and as to how urgent the situation was, raising and lowering alarms like a conductor in a symphony. The Iranians are following the same strategy. They are constantly shifting from a conciliatory tone to an aggressive one, keeping the United States and Israel under perpetual psychological pressure. The Iranians are trying to avoid an attack by keeping the intelligence ambiguous. Tehran’s ideal strategy is maintaining maximum ambiguity and anxiety in the West while minimizing the need to strike immedi ately. Actually obtaining a bomb would increase the danger of an attack in the period between a successful test and the deployment of a deliverable device.

What the Iranians get out of this is exactly what the North Koreans got: disproportionate international attention and a lever on other topics, along with something that could be sacrificed in negotiations. They also have a chance of actually developing a deliverable device in the confusion surrounding its progress. If so, Iran would become invasion- and even harassment-proof thanks to its apparent instability and ideology. From Tehran’s perspective, abandoning its nuclear program without substantial concessions, none of which have materialized as yet, would be irrational. And the Iranians expect a large payoff from all this.

Radical Islamists, Iraq and Afghanistan
This brings us to the Hezbollah/Iraq question, which in fact represents two very different issues. Iraq constitutes the greatest potential strategic threat to Iran. This is as ancient as Babylon and Persia, as modern as the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Iran wants guarantees that Iraq will never threaten it, and that U.S. forces in Iraq will never pose a threat to Iran. Tehran does not want promises alone; it wants a recognized degree of control over the Iraqi government, or at least negative control that would allow it to stop Baghdad from doing things Iran doesn’t want. To achieve this, Iran systematically has built its influence among factions i n Iraq, permitting it to block Iraqi policies that Iran regards as dangerous.

The American demand that Iran stop meddling in Iraqi policies strikes the Iranians as if the United States is planning to use the new Baghdad regime to restore the regional balance of power. In fact, that is very much on Washington’s mind. This is completely unacceptable to Iran, although it might benefit the United States and the region. From the Iranian point of view, a fully neutral Iraq — with its neutrality guaranteed by Iranian influence — is the only acceptable outcome. The Iranians regard the American demand that Iran not meddle in Iraq as directly threatening Iranian national security.

There is then the issue of Iranian support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Islamist groups. Between 1979 and 2001, Iran represented the background of the Islamic challenge to the West: The Shia represented radical Islam. When al Qaeda struck, Iran and the Shia lost this place of honor. Now, al Qaeda has faded and Iran wants to reclaim its place. It can do that by supporting Hezbollah, a radical Shiite group that directly challenges Israel, as well as Hamas — a radical Sunni group — thus showing that Iran speaks for all of Islam, a powerful position in an arena that matters a great deal to Iran and the region. Iran’s support for these groups help s it achieve a very important goal at little risk. Meanwhile, the U.S. demand that Iran end this support is not matched by any meaningful counteroffer or by a significant threat.

Moreover, Tehran dislikes the Obama-Petraeus strategy in Afghanistan. That strategy involves talking with the Taliban, a group that Iran has been hostile toward historically. The chance that the United States might install a Taliban-linked government in Afghanistan represents a threat to Iran second only to the threat posed to it by Iraq.

The Iranians see themselves as having been quite helpful to the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as they helped Washington topple both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. In 2001, they offered to let U.S. aircraft land in Iran, and assured Washington of the cooperation of pro-Iranian factions in Afghanistan. In Iraq, they provided intelligence and helped keep the Shiite population relatively passive after the invasion in 2003. But Iranians see Washington as having betrayed implicit understandings that in return for these services, the Iranians would enjoy a degree of influence in both countries. And the U.S. opening to the Taliban is the last straw.

Obama’s Greetings in Context
Iran views Obama’s New Year greetings within this context. To them, Obama has not addressed the core issues between the two countries. In fact, apart from videos, Obama’s position on Iran does not appear different from the Bush position. The Iranian leadership does not see why it should respond more favorably to the Obama administration than it did to the Bush administration. Tehran wants to be very sure that Obama understands that the willingness alone to talk is insufficient; some indications of what is to be discussed and what might be offered are necessary.

Many in the U.S. administration believe that the weak Iranian economy might shape the upcoming Iranian presidential election. Undoubtedly, the U.S. greetings were timed to influence the election. Washington has tried to influence internal Iranian politics for decades, constantly searching for reformist elements. The U.S. hope is that someone might be elected in Iran who is so obsessed with the economy that he would trade away strategic and geopolitical interests in return for some sort of economic aid. There are undoubtedly candidates who would be interested in economic aid, but none who are prepared to trade away strategic interests. Nor could they even if they wanted to. The Iran-Iraq war is burned into the popular Iranian consciousness; any candidate who appeared willing to see a strong Iraq would lose the election. American analysts are constantly confusing an Iranian interest in economic aid with a willingness to abandon core interests. But this hasn’t happened, and isn’t happening now.

This is not to say that the Iranians won’t bargain. Beneath the rhetoric, they are practical to the extreme. Indeed, the rhetoric is part of the bargaining. What is not clear is whether Obama is prepared to bargain. What will he give for the things he wants? Economic aid is not enough for Iran, and in any event, the idea of U.S. economic aid for Iran during a time of recession is a non-starter. Is Obama prepared to offer Iran a dominant voice in Iraq and Afghanistan? How insistent is Obama on the Hezbollah and Hamas issue? What will he give if Iran shuts down its nuclear program? It is not clear that Obama has answers to these questions.

Rebuilding the U.S. public image is a reasonable goal for the first 100 days of a presidency. But soon it will be summer, and the openings Obama has made will have to be walked through, with tough bargaining. In the case of Iran — one of the toughest cases of all — it is hard to see how Washington can give Tehran the things it wants because that would make Iran a major regional power. And it is hard to see how Iran could give away the things the Americans are demanding.

Obama indicated that it would take time for his message to generate a positive response from the Iranians. It is more likely that unless the message starts to take on more substance that pleases the Iranians, the response will remain unchanged. The problem wasn’t Bush or Clinton or Reagan, the problem was the reality of Iran and the United States. Only if a third power frightened the Iranians sufficiently — a third power that also threatened the United States — would U.S.-Iranian interests be brought together. But Russia, at least for now, is working very hard to be friendly with Iran.

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Reagan, Gorbachev and Bush at Governor's Island

2008-12-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

National Security Archive Update, December 8, 2008

Previously Secret Documents from Soviet and U.S. Files
On the 1988 Summit in New York, 20 Years Later

Edited by Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton

For more information contact:
(202) 994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington, DC, December 8, 2008 - Previously secret Soviet documentation shows that Mikhail Gorbachev was prepared for rapid arms control progress leading towards nuclear abolition at the time of his last official meeting with President Reagan, at Governor's Island, New York in December 1988; but President-elect George H. W. Bush, who also attended the meeting, said "he would need a little time to review the issues" and lost at least a year of dramatic arms reductions that were possible had there been a more forthcoming U.S. position.

The new documentation posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org) includes highest-level memos from Gorbachev advisors leading up to Gorbachev's famous speech at the United Nations during the New York visit, notes of Politburo discussions before and after the speech and the Reagan-Bush meeting, CIA estimates before and after the speech showing how surprised American officials had been and how reluctant the new Bush administration was to meet Gorbachev even half-way, and the declassified U.S. transcript of the private meeting between Reagan, Bush and Gorbachev on December 7.

Visit the Web site of the National Security Archive for more information.

http://www.nsarchive.org

Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

2008-12-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

By George Friedman of www.stratfor.com

In an interview published this Sunday in The New York Times, we laid out a potential scenario for the current Indo-Pakistani crisis. We began with an Indian strike on Pakistan, precipitating a withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the Afghan border, resulting in intensified Taliban activity along the border and a deterioration in the U.S. position in Afghanistan, all culminating in an emboldened Iran. The scenario is not unlikely, assuming India chooses to strike.

Our argument that India is likely to strike focused, among other points, on the weakness of the current Indian government and how it is likely to fall under pressure from the opposition and the public if it does not act decisively. An unnamed Turkish diplomat involved in trying to mediate the dispute has argued that saving a government is not a good reason to go to war. That is a good argument, except that in this case, not saving the government is unlikely to prevent a war, either.

If India’s Congress party government were to fall, its replacement would be even more likely to strike at Pakistan. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress’ Hindu nationalist rival, has long charged that Congress is insufficiently aggressive in combating terrorism. The BJP will argue that the Mumbai attack in part resulted from this failing. Therefore, if the Congress government does not strike, and is subsequently forced out or loses India’s upcoming elections, the new government is even more likely to strike.

It is therefore difficult to see a path that avoids Indian retaliation, and thus the emergence of at least a variation on the scenario we laid out. But the problem is not simply political: India must also do something to prevent more Mumbais. This is an issue of Indian national security, and the pressure on India’s government to do something comes from several directions.

Three Indian Views of Pakistan

The question is what an Indian strike against Pakistan, beyond placating domestic public opinion, would achieve. There are three views on this in India.

The first view holds that Pakistani officials aid and abet terrorism — in particular the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), which serves as Pakistan’s main intelligence service. In this view, the terrorist attacks are the work of Pakistani government officials — perhaps not all of the government, but enough officials of sufficient power that the rest of the government cannot block them, and therefore the entire Pakistani government can be held accountable.

The second view holds that terrorist attacks are being carried out by Kashmiri groups that have long been fostered by the ISI but have grown increasingly autonomous since 2002 — and that the Pakistani government has deliberately failed to suppress anti-Indian operations by these groups. In this view, the ISI and related groups are either aware of these activities or willfully ignorant of them, even if ISI is not in direct control. Under this thinking, the ISI and the Pakistanis are responsible by omission, if not by commission.

The third view holds that the Pakistani government is so fragmented and weak that it has essentially lost control of Pakistan to the extent that it cannot suppress these anti-Indian groups. This view says that the army has lost control of the situation to the point where many from within the military-intelligence establishment are running rogue operations, and groups in various parts of the country simply do what they want. If this argument is pushed to its logical conclusion, Pakistan should be regarded as a state on the verge of failure, and an attack by India might precipitate further weakening, freeing radical Islamist groups from what little control there is.

The first two analyses are essentially the same. They posit that Pakistan could stop attacks on India, but chooses not to. The third is the tricky one. It rests on the premise that the Pakistani government (and in this we include the Pakistani army) is placing some restraint on the attackers. Thus, the government’s collapse would make enough difference that India should restrain itself, especially as any Indian attack would so destabilize Pakistan that it would unleash our scenario and worse. In this view, Pakistan’s civilian government has only as much power in these matters as the army is willing to allow.

The argument against attacking Pakistan therefore rests on a very thin layer of analysis. It requires the belief that Pakistan is not responsible for the attacks, that it is nonetheless restraining radical Islamists to some degree, and that an Indian attack would cause even these modest restraints to disappear. Further, it assumes that these restraints, while modest, are substantial enough to make a difference.

There is a debate in India, and in Washington, as to whether this is the case. This is why New Delhi has demanded that Pakistan turn over 20 individuals wanted by India in connection with attacks. The list doesn’t merely include Islamists, but also Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, the former head of the ISI who has long been suspected of close ties with Islamists. (The United States apparently added Gul to the list.) Turning those individuals over would be enormously difficult politically for Pakistan. It would create a direct confrontation between Pakistan’s government and the Pakistani Islamist movement, likely sparking violence in Pakistan. Indeed, turning any Pakistani over to India, regardless of ideology, would create a massive crisis in Pakistan.

The Indian government chose to make this demand precisely because complying with it is enormously difficult for Pakistan. New Delhi is not so much demanding the 20 individuals, but rather that Pakistan take steps that will create conflict in Pakistan. If the Pakistani government is in control of the country, it should be able to weather the storm. If it can’t weather the storm, then the government is not in control of Pakistan. And if it could weather the storm but chooses not to incur the costs, then India can reasonably claim that Pakistan is prepared to export terrorism rather than endure it at home. In either event, the demand reveals things about the Pakistani reality.

The View from Islamabad

Pakistan’s evaluation, of course, is different. Islamabad does not regard itself as failed because it cannot control all radical Islamists or the Taliban. The official explanation is that the Pakistanis are doing the best they can. From the Pakistani point of view, while the Islamists ultimately might represent a threat, the threat to Pakistan and its government that would arise from a direct assault on the Islamists is a great danger not only to Pakistan, but also to the region. It is thus better for all to let the matter rest. The Islamist issue aside, Pakistan sees itself as continuing to govern the country effectively, albeit with substantial social and economic problems (as one might expect). The costs of confronting the Islamists, relative to the benefits, are therefore high.

The Pakistanis see themselves as having several effective counters against an Indian attack. The most important of these is the United States. The very first thing Islamabad said after the Mumbai attack was that a buildup of Indian forces along the Pakistani border would force Pakistan to withdraw 100,000 troops from its Afghan border. Events over the weekend, such as the attack on a NATO convoy, showed the vulnerability of NATO’s supply line across Pakistan to Afghanistan.

The Americans are fighting a difficult holding action against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The United States needs the militant base camps in Pakistan and the militants’ lines of supply cut off, but the Americans lack the force to do this themselves. A withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the Afghan border would pose a direct threat to American forces. Therefore, the Pakistanis expect Washington to intervene on their behalf to prevent an Indian attack. They do not believe a major Indian troop buildup will take place, and if it does, the Pakistanis do not think it will lead to substantial conflict.

There has been some talk of an Indian naval blockade against Pakistan, blocking the approaches to Pakistan’s main port of Karachi. This is an attractive strategy for India, as it plays to New Delhi’s relative naval strength. Again, the Pakistanis do not believe the Indians will do this, given that it would cut off the flow of supplies to American troops in Afghanistan. (Karachi is the main port serving U.S. forces in Afghanistan.) The line of supply in Afghanistan runs through Pakistan, and the Americans, the Pakistanis calculate, do not want anything to threaten that.

From the Pakistani point of view, the only potential military action India could take that would not meet U.S. opposition would be airstrikes. There has been talk that the Indians might launch airstrikes against Islamist training camps and bases in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. In Pakistan’s view, this is not a serious problem. Mounting airstrikes against training camps is harder than it might seem. The only way to achieve anything in such a facility is with area destruction weapons — for instance, using B-52s to drop ordnance over very large areas. The targets are not amenable to strike aircraft, because the payload of such aircraft is too small. It would be tough for the Indians, who don’t have strategic bombers, to hit very much. Numerous camps exist, and the Islamists can afford to lose some. As an attack, it would be more symbolic than effective.

Moreover, if the Indians did kill large numbers of radical Islamists, this would hardly pose a problem to the Pakistani government. It might even solve some of Islamabad’s problems, depending on which analysis you accept. Airstrikes would generate massive support among Pakistanis for their government so long as Islamabad remained defiant of India. Pakistan thus might even welcome Indian airstrikes against Islamist training camps.

Islamabad also views the crisis with India with an eye to the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Any attack by India that might destabilize the Pakistani government opens at least the possibility of a Pakistani nuclear strike or, in the event of state disintegration, of Pakistani nuclear weapons falling into the hands of factional elements. If India presses too hard, New Delhi faces the unknown of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal — unless, of course, the Indians are preparing a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Pakistan, something the Pakistanis find unlikely.

All of this, of course, depends upon two unknowns. First, what is the current status of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal? Is it sufficiently reliable for Pakistan to count on? Second, to what extent do the Americans monitor Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities? Ever since the crisis of 2002, when American fears that Pakistani nuclear weapons could fall into al Qaeda’s hands were high, we have assumed that American calm about Pakistan’s nuclear facilities was based on Washington’s having achieved a level of transparency on their status. This might limit Pakistan’s freedom of action with regard to — and hence ability to rely on — its nuclear arsenal.

Notably, much of Pakistan’s analysis of the situation rests on a core assumption — namely, that the United States will choose to limit Indian options, and just as important, that the Indians would listen to Washington. India does not have the same relationship or dependence on the United States as, for example, Israel does. India historically was allied with the Soviet Union; New Delhi moved into a strategic relationship with the United States only in recent years. There is a commonality of interest between India and the United States, but not a dependency. India would not necessarily be blocked from action simply because the Americans didn’t want it to act.

As for the Americans, Pakistan’s assumption that the United States would want to limit India is unclear. Islamabad’s threat to shift 100,000 troops from the Afghan border will not easily be carried out. Pakistan’s logistical capabilities are limited. Moreover, the American objection to Pakistan’s position is that the vast majority of these troops are not engaged in controlling the border anyway, but are actually carefully staying out of the battle. Given that the Americans feel that the Pakistanis are ineffective in controlling the Afghan-Pakistani border, the shift from virtually to utterly ineffective might not constitute a serious deterioration from the United States’ point of view. Indeed, it might open the door for more aggressive operations on — and over — the Afghan-Pakistani border by American forces, perhaps by troops rapidly transferred from Iraq.

The situation of the port of Karachi is more serious, both in the ground and naval scenarios. The United States needs Karachi; it is not in a position to seize the port and the road system out of Karachi. That is a new war the United States can’t fight. At the same time, the United States has been shifting some of its logistical dependency from Pakistan to Central Asia. But this requires a degree of Russian support, which would cost Washington dearly and take time to activate. In short, India’s closing the port of Karachi by blockade, or Pakistan’s doing so as retaliation for Indian action, would hurt the United States badly.

Supply lines aside, Islamabad should not assume that the United States is eager to ensure that the Pakistani state survives. Pakistan also should not assume that the United States is impressed by the absence or presence of Pakistani troops on the Afghan border. Washington has developed severe doubts about Pakistan’s commitment and effectiveness in the Afghan-Pakistani border region, and therefore about Pakistan’s value as an ally.

Pakistan’s strongest card with the United States is the threat to block the port of Karachi. But here, too, there is a counter to Pakistan: If Pakistan closes Karachi to American shipping, either the Indian or American navy also could close it to Pakistani shipping. Karachi is Pakistan’s main export facility, and Pakistan is heavily dependent on it. If Karachi were blocked, particularly while Pakistan is undergoing a massive financial crisis, Pakistan would face disaster. Karachi is thus a double-edged sword. As long as Pakistan keeps it open to the Americans, India probably won’t block it. But should Pakistan ever close the port in response to U.S. action in the Afghan-Pakistani borderland, then Pakistan should not assume that the port will be available for its own use.

India’s Military Challenge

India faces difficulties in all of its military options. Attacks on training camps sound more effective than they are. Concentrating troops on the border is impressive only if India is prepared for a massive land war, and a naval blockade has multiple complications.

India needs a military option that demonstrates will and capability and decisively hurts the Pakistani government, all without drawing India into a nuclear exchange or costly ground war. And its response must rise above the symbolic.

We have no idea what India is thinking, but one obvious option is airstrikes directed not against training camps, but against key government installations in Islamabad. The Indian air force increasingly has been regarded as professional and capable by American pilots at Red Flag exercises in Nevada. India has modern Russian fighter jets and probably has the capability, with some losses, to penetrate deep into Pakistani territory.

India also has acquired radar and electronic warfare equipment from Israel and might have obtained some early precision-guided munitions from Russia and/or Israel. While this capability is nascent, untested and very limited, it is nonetheless likely to exist in some form.

The Indians might opt for a drawn-out diplomatic process under the theory that all military action is either ineffective or excessively risky. If it chooses the military route, New Delhi could opt for a buildup of ground troops and some limited artillery exchanges and tactical ground attacks. It also could choose airstrikes against training facilities. Each of these military options would achieve the goal of some substantial action, but none would threaten fundamental Pakistani interests. The naval blockade has complexities that could not be managed. That leaves, as a possible scenario, a significant escalation by India against targets in Pakistan’s capital.

The Indians have made it clear that the ISI is their enemy. The ISI has a building, and buildings can be destroyed, along with files and personnel. Such an aerial attack also would serve to shock the Pakistanis by representing a serious escalation. And Pakistan might find retaliation difficult, given the relative strength of its air force. India has few good choices for retaliation, and while this option is not a likely one, it is undoubtedly one that has to be considered.

It seems to us that India can avoid attacks on Pakistan only if Islamabad makes political concessions that it would find difficult to make. The cost to Pakistan of these concessions might well be greater than the benefit of avoiding conflict with India. All of India’s options are either ineffective or dangerous, but inactivity is politically and strategically the least satisfactory route for New Delhi. This circumstance is the most dangerous aspect of the current situation. In our opinion, the relative quiet at present should not be confused with the final outcome, unless Pakistan makes surprising concessions.

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Obama and the Presidential Security Challenge

2008-11-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

Editor’s Note: We have renamed the Terrorism Intelligence Report, which will now be known as the Global Security and Intelligence Report to better reflect its content. We will continue to use this report as a platform to discuss crime, security and counterintelligence topics.

By Fred Burton and Ben West

The U.S. presidential campaign trail presents a host of challenges for the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) protective detail assigned to cover the presidential candidates, something we’ve discussed previously. Major presidential candidates have been afforded USSS protection since the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy at a campaign event. Due to the nature of modern presidential campaigns, the candidates’ schedules are packed with events that often start at breakfast and continue long after dinner. Candidates also hopscotch across the country, often visiting several cities in a day and sometimes visiting multiple venues in the same city.

The Security Challenge of Campaign Season
In the last weeks before the Nov. 4 election, the campaign of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama hit several different cities in one day, meaning that several teams of advance agents were deployed around the country at any given time. For example, on Nov. 3, Obama visited Jacksonville, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Manassas Park, Va. Campaign managers often adjust itineraries on the fly to meet the needs of the campaign.

This tempo constantly forces protection agents into new environments with very little time to plan and implement security measures. Wherever Obama traveled during the campaign, USSS agents would send advance teams to scout airports and motorcade routes, plan security for campaign sites, conduct liaison with local police and keep tabs on any persons of interest during the visit. The advance agents are supplemented by teams of extra agents to help secure sites; dog handlers and explosive ordnance disposal technicians to check for explosive devices; and uniformed officers to help control access to sites, man metal detectors and provide countersniper support.

Due to the nature of political campaigns, once a candidate like Obama lands and safely arrives at an event location, there is frequently tremendous exposure to the public. This is true not just on stage behind a podium but also as the candidate works the crowd, shaking hands, kissing babies and talking to voters. As seen during the May 1972 attempted assassination of George Wallace and the later attempts against presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, it is during these times of close interaction with the public that a VIP is at the highest risk. Would-be assassins can use the crowd for camouflage and quickly get a close shot at the VIP, leaving little time for agents to respond to the threat. Because of this, working the crowd is a difficult task and one protection agents hate. Fortunately for the Obama protective detail, with the election period over they will find themselves in these kinds of situations less frequently.

Finally, there is the issue of the USSS being stretched very thin due to the nature of an election season. The USSS is charged with protecting former presidents and first ladies as well as, of course, the first family and the vice president. But during an election season, the presidential and vice presidential candidates are also assigned a security detail. Due to the perceived threat against Obama, a detail equivalent to a full presidential protection team was assigned to him. Such a high level of protection is unprecedented for a presidential candidate, and it helped stretch the USSS very thin.

Now that the election is over, Obama’s schedule will be greatly simplified, and it will take far less manpower to cover him. Obama will certainly have some travel, but the majority of this time probably will be spent between Chicago and Washington. This will allow the USSS agents protecting him to catch a breather and to establish a more secure, stable perimeter around the president-elect. Sen. John McCain’s protective detail also will be eliminated, freeing up even more bodies. The relative calm of the transition period will end with the January 2009 inauguration ceremony and festivities, the next serious headache the USSS will face.

Past Threats to U.S. Presidents
U.S. presidents always face an array of threats. Four U.S. presidents have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Assassination attempts have frequently occurred, with every president since Richard Nixon having been targeted for assassination, with some threats more credible than others.

The tremendous amount of power and symbolism of the office makes U.S. presidents prime targets for assassination. Obama will be no exception. But in addition to bearing the title of president, Obama also will be the first black president — something that introduces a whole new and more serious threat matrix. Obama uniquely faces a threat from white supremacist groups, some of which believe a black president should be killed.

Two plots to assassinate Obama were broken up during the campaign season, and several more remain under investigation. During his campaign, Obama was the target of a few threats that attracted considerable press coverage but in the end didn’t amount to much. Press portrayals aside, reviewing the facts establishes that these incidents were certainly not viable threats to Obama.

In one instance, authorities announced in late August that three Colorado men had been arrested after police found illegal weapons and methamphetamines on the men. During interrogation, federal agents learned that the group of methamphetamine users had discussed harming Obama. One of the men wore a swastika ring, indicating a possible link to the neo-Nazi movement. In the end, though, the three men were indicted on drugs and weapons charges alone, as the U.S. attorney overseeing the case said the evidence was insufficient to charge the men with conspiring to do bodily harm to a presidential candidate. While the group had discussed the topic, it apparently had made no overt acts in furtherance of an attempt, an element required to bring conspiracy charges.

In another instance, two young men from Tennessee and Arkansas who had conspired to go on a crime spree that would end with an attempt on Obama’s life were arrested Oct. 22. Their scheme was outlandish from the start, and included robbing a gun store, killing 88 blacks and beheading 14 (both significant numbers to the white supremacist movement) and then performing their coup de grace on the presidential candidate while dressed in white tuxedos and top hats. As it was, the two managed only to be scared off by dogs during an attempted home burglary, shoot out a window of a nearby African-American church and draw neo-Nazi symbols on their car in sidewalk chalk. The two had met to discuss their plans on a Web site associated with white supremacists and skinheads. While their plan hardly got off of the ground, the two did show a high level of enthusiasm for their mission that certainly could be replicated within the white supremacist movement.

White Supremacists and an African-American President
The Obama presidency occurs against the unfortunate backdrop of a history of assassinations of prominent African-American leaders in the United States. These have included Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. (Evers’ assassin was a Ku Klux Klan member, while King’s assassin, James Earl Ray, at the very least harbored racist sentiments.)

Broadly, there are three schools of thought among white supremacist groups on how to view Obama’s election.

The first school of thought is that someone should (or will) threaten Obama because of his race since his election has outraged white supremacists. While publicly making such a call is grounds for arrest, plenty of white supremacist blogs and Web message boards talk of the inevitability of an attack on Obama in a very suggestive way. This school of thought believes that such an attack would inflame racial tensions, sparking riots along the lines of those that followed the 1968 King assassination. Such violence would be viewed as positive in this thinking, as open combat between whites and blacks would bring their ideology to the forefront.

The second school, reflecting perhaps the most widely echoed dogma within the white supremacist movement, believes that an Obama presidency benefits their movement since it will serve as a wake-up call to white America. Once Americans of European descent realize how far they have fallen now that a black man has been elected to the most powerful office in the country, goes the argument, they will flock to join white supremacist groups to reassert their power. An Obama presidency, this school argues, is thereby good for the white supremacists since it would swell their membership rolls and give them more influence and publicity. Former Louisiana state representative and Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke supports this line as does fellow white supremacist leader Tom Metzger.

This second school of thought is bolstered by the argument that the other candidates weren’t going to be any better, as they were all under the influence of the even more despised Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG). Adherents of this anti-Semitic conspiracy theory believe that Jews pull the strings behind a puppet U.S. government. Obama, in their opinion, is at least not under the heavy influence of Jewish interests. This line of reasoning is in no way an endorsement of Obama, but more of an instance of them making the best of a situation they see as terrible for whites in the United States.

The third and last school of thought holds that the U.S. government, which is secretly controlled by the ZOG, is plotting to attack Obama itself. This group believes ZOG will blame white supremacists for the killing, which they will use as an excuse to clamp down on white supremacist hate speech as well as gun ownership.

Conspiracies and Lone Wolves
The USSS is much more adept at countering group conspiracies than lone wolf actors. Lone wolves are very, very difficult to uncover, especially if they remain isolated and tell no one of their plans. Groups are much easier to track, as their movements are more noticeable and their operational security weaker, as all members must remain silent to keep the plot clandestine. The money trail is also a dead giveaway for groups, as outside organizations will often fund their operations, helping them buy equipment and supplies in preparation for an attack.

Considering this, white supremacist groups are under very tight surveillance by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies, and scrutiny of their activities will only increase as Obama takes office. As seen in the Tennessee case, online discussions and postings can come back to haunt Internet collaborators. It would be very difficult for even a small group to operate below the radar of not just the USSS but also the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency, all of which will have their proverbial ear to the ground to protect the president — one of the most important national security missions these groups have.

The lone wolf, in the end, poses the most likely threat to Obama, and to any target for that matter. The lone wolf’s ability to act alone, keeping his intentions, activities and whereabouts to himself, makes it very difficult for law enforcement agencies to identify a threat before it is too late. But the lone wolf also must be very smart and have some access to resources such as weapons and vehicles — characteristics severely lacking in the two cases above that targeted Obama.

The real threat emerges when intent and capability are joined. White supremacists have the intent, but so far have not exhibited capability. We would expect federal authorities to uncover many more plots to attack the president that have been hatched by white supremacist ideologues. So long as they remain amateurish like those in Denver and Tennessee, the president remains secure from the white supremacist threat. But if a combination of ideology and ability to act as a lone wolf comes along, the threat level rises.

Given the ties that figures within the white supremacist movement like Duke have with hostile foreign countries such as Russia and Iran, a scenario comes to mind in which a foreign country could secretly fund and train a low-level member or simply a sympathizer of the white supremacist movement to carry out an assassination. Duke has praised Russia’s nationalist movement and has traveled there several times. He also attended a 2006 Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, Iran, where he was in general agreement with the Iranian regime.

Indications of such foreign connections have come up during investigations of past assassinations. Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to obtain Cuban and Soviet visas in Mexico City before he assassinated JFK. Recently, declassifications have tied Oswald to known KGB assassin Valery Kostikov. While these circumstances alone are not enough to conclusively link outside meddling with the JFK assassination, they certainly do raise questions. Additionally, Ray fled to Europe on a fake Canadian passport after killing King. He was arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport two months after the King assassination with large amounts of cash, indicating Ray had outside help in the killing.

Presidential security is a serious national security matter. A successful (or even unsuccessful) attack on a president causes instability in the United States and in the wider world. And given the especially delicate balance that the United States, Russia and countries of the Middle East are striking right now, an attack on the president would destabilize U.S. foreign policy and have a heightened impact on national security. Domestically, the assassination of the country’s first black president would run the risk of devastating race relations — and white supremacist movements see themselves as substantially benefiting from racial strife.

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Obama's Foreign Policy Stance (Open Access)

2008-09-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a four-part report by Stratfor founder and Chief Intelligence Officer George Friedman on the U.S. presidential debate on foreign policy, to be held Sept. 26. Stratfor is a private, nonpartisan intelligence service with no preference for one candidate over the other. We are interested in analyzing and forecasting the geopolitical impact of the election and, with this series, seek to answer two questions: What is the geopolitical landscape that will confront the next president, and what foreign policy proposals would a President McCain or a President Obama bring to bear? For media interviews, e-mail pr@stratfor.com or call 512-744-4309.

By George Friedman

Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for president. His advisers in foreign policy are generally Democrats. Together they carry with them an institutional memory of the Democratic Party’s approach to foreign policy, and are an expression of the complexity and divisions of that approach. Like their Republican counterparts, in many ways they are going to be severely constrained as to what they can do both by the nature of the global landscape and American resources. But to some extent, they will also be constrained and defined by the tradition they come from. Understanding that tradition and Obama’s place is useful in understanding what an Obama presidency would look like in foreign affairs.

The most striking thing about the Democratic tradition is that it presided over the beginnings of the three great conflicts that defined the 20th century: Woodrow Wilson and World War I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and World War II, and Harry S. Truman and the Cold War. (At this level of analysis, we will treat the episodes of the Cold War such as Korea, Vietnam or Grenada as simply subsets of one conflict.) This is most emphatically not to say that had Republicans won the presidency in 1916, 1940 or 1948, U.S. involvement in those wars could have been avoided.

Patterns in Democratic Foreign Policy
But it does give us a framework for considering persistent patterns of Democratic foreign policy. When we look at the conflicts, four things become apparent.

First, in all three conflicts, Democrats postponed the initiation of direct combat as long as possible. In only one, World War I, did Wilson decide to join the war without prior direct attack. Roosevelt maneuvered near war but did not enter the war until after Pearl Harbor. Truman also maneuvered near war but did not get into direct combat until after the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Indeed, even Wilson chose to go to war to protect free passage on the Atlantic. More important, he sought to prevent Germany from defeating the Russians and the Anglo-French alliance and to stop the subsequent German domination of Europe, which appeared possible. In other words, the Democratic approach to war was reactive. All three presidents reacted to events on the surface, while trying to shape them underneath the surface.

Second, all three wars were built around coalitions. The foundation of the three wars was that other nations were at risk and that the United States used a predisposition to resist (Germany in the first two wars, the Soviet Union in the last) as a framework for involvement. The United States under Democrats did not involve itself in war unilaterally. At the same time, the United States under Democrats made certain that the major burdens were shared by allies. Millions died in World War I, but the United States suffered 100,000 dead. In World War II, the United States suffered 500,000 dead in a war where perhaps 50 million soldiers and civilians died. In the Cold War, U.S. losses in direct combat were less than 100,000 while the losses to Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans and others towered over that toll. The allies had a complex appreciation of the United States. On the one hand, they were grateful for the U.S. presence. On the other hand, they resented the disproportionate amounts of blood and effort shed. Some of the roots of anti-Americanism are to be found in this strategy.

Third, each of these wars ended with a Democratic president attempting to create a system of international institutions designed to limit the recurrence of war without directly transferring sovereignty to those institutions. Wilson championed the League of Nations. Roosevelt the United Nations. Bill Clinton, who presided over most of the post-Cold War world, constantly sought international institutions to validate U.S. actions. Thus, when the United Nations refused to sanction the Kosovo War, he designated NATO as an alternative international organization with the right to approve conflict. Indeed, Clinton championed a range of multilateral organizations during the 1990s, including everything from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and later the World Trade Organization. All these presidents were deeply committed to multinational organizations to define permissible and impermissible actions.

And fourth, there is a focus on Europe in the Democratic view of the world. Roosevelt regarded Germany as the primary threat instead of the Pacific theater in World War II. And in spite of two land wars in Asia during the Cold War, the centerpiece of strategy remained NATO and Europe. The specific details have evolved over the last century, but the Democratic Party — and particularly the Democratic foreign policy establishment — historically has viewed Europe as a permanent interest and partner for the United States.

Thus, the main thrust of the Democratic tradition is deeply steeped in fighting wars, but approaches this task with four things in mind:

Wars should not begin until the last possible moment and ideally should be initiated by the enemy.
Wars must be fought in a coalition with much of the burden borne by partners.
The outcome of wars should be an institutional legal framework to manage the peace, with the United States being the most influential force within this multilateral framework.
Any such framework must be built on a trans-Atlantic relationship.
Democratic Party Fractures
That is one strand of Democratic foreign policy. A second strand emerged in the context of the Vietnam War. That war began under the Kennedy administration and was intensified by Lyndon Baines Johnson, particularly after 1964. The war did not go as expected. As the war progressed, the Democratic Party began to fragment. There were three factions involved in this.

The first faction consisted of foreign policy professionals and politicians who were involved in the early stages of war planning but turned against the war after 1967 when it clearly diverged from plans. The leading political figure of this faction was Robert F. Kennedy, who initially supported the war but eventually turned against it.

The second faction was more definitive. It consisted of people on the left wing of the Democratic Party — and many who went far to the left of the Democrats. This latter group not only turned against the war, it developed a theory of the U.S. role in the war that as a mass movement was unprecedented in the century. The view (it can only be sketched here) maintained that the United States was an inherently imperialist power. Rather than the benign image that Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman had of their actions, this faction reinterpreted American history going back into the 19th century as violent, racist and imperialist (in the most extreme faction’s view). Just as the United States annihilated the Native Americans, the United States was now annihilating the Vietnamese.

A third, more nuanced, faction argued that rather than an attempt to contain Soviet aggression, the Cold War was actually initiated by the United States out of irrational fear of the Soviets and out of imperialist ambitions. They saw the bombing of Hiroshima as a bid to intimidate the Soviet Union rather than an effort to end World War II, and the creation of NATO as having triggered the Cold War.

These three factions thus broke down into Democratic politicians such as RFK and George McGovern (who won the presidential nomination in 1972), radicals in the street who were not really Democrats, and revisionist scholars who for the most part were on the party’s left wing.

Ultimately, the Democratic Party split into two camps. Hubert Humphrey led the first along with Henry Jackson, who rejected the left’s interpretation of the U.S. role in Vietnam and claimed to speak for the Wilson-FDR-Truman strand in Democratic politics. McGovern led the second. His camp largely comprised the party’s left wing, which did not necessarily go as far as the most extreme critics of that tradition but was extremely suspicious of anti-communist ideology, the military and intelligence communities, and increased defense spending. The two camps conducted extended political warfare throughout the 1970s.

The presidency of Jimmy Carter symbolized the tensions. He came to power wanting to move beyond Vietnam, slashing and changing the CIA, controlling defense spending and warning the country of “an excessive fear of Communism.” But following the fall of the Shah of Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he allowed Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security adviser and now an adviser to Obama, to launch a guerrilla war against the Soviets using Islamist insurgents from across the Muslim world in Afghanistan. Carter moved from concern with anti-Communism to coalition warfare against the Soviets by working with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghan resistance fighters.

Carter was dealing with the realities of U.S. geopolitics, but the tensions within the Democratic tradition shaped his responses. During the Clinton administration, these internal tensions subsided to a great degree. In large part this was because there was no major war, and the military action that did occur — as in Haiti and Kosovo — was framed as humanitarian actions rather than as the pursuit of national power. That soothed the anti-war Democrats to a great deal, since their perspective was less pacifistic than suspicious of using war to enhance national power.

The Democrats Since 9/11
Since the Democrats have not held the presidency during the last eight years, judging how they might have responded to events is speculative. Statements made while in opposition are not necessarily predictive of what an administration might do. Nevertheless, Obama’s foreign policy outlook was shaped by the last eight years of Democrats struggling with the U.S.-jihadist war.

The Democrats responded to events of the last eight years as they traditionally do when the United States is attacked directly: The party’s anti-war faction contracted and the old Democratic tradition reasserted itself. This was particularly true of the decision to go to war in Afghanistan. Obviously, the war was a response to an attack and, given the mood of the country after 9/11, was an unassailable decision. But it had another set of characteristics that made it attractive to the Democrats. The military action in Afghanistan was taking place in the context of broad international support and within a coalition forming at all levels, from on the ground in Afghanistan to NATO and the United Nations. Second, U.S. motives did not appear to involve national self-interest, like increasing power or getting oil. It was not a war for national advantage, but a war of national self-defense.

The Democrats were much less comfortable with the Iraq war than they were with Afghanistan. The old splits reappeared, with many Democrats voting for the invasion and others against. There were complex and mixed reasons why each Democrat voted the way they did — some strategic, some purely political, some moral. Under the pressure of voting on the war, the historically fragile Democratic consensus broke apart, not so much in conflict as in disarray. One of the most important reasons for this was the sense of isolation from major European powers — particularly the French and Germans, whom the Democrats regarded as fundamental elements of any coalition. Without those countries, the Democrats regarded the United States as diplomatically isolated.

The intraparty conflict came later. As the war went badly, the anti-war movement in the party re-energized itself. They were joined later by many who had formerly voted for the war but were upset by the human and material cost and by the apparent isolation of the United States and so on. Both factions of the Democratic Party had reasons to oppose the Iraq war even while they supported the Afghan war.

Understanding Obama’s Foreign Policy
It is in light of this distinction that we can begin to understand Obama’s foreign policy. On Aug. 1, Obama said the following: “It is time to turn the page. When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world’s most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.”

Obama’s view of the Iraq war is that it should not have been fought in the first place, and that the current success in the war does not justify it or its cost. In this part, he speaks to the anti-war tradition in the party. He adds that Afghanistan and Pakistan are the correct battlefields, since this is where the attack emanated from. It should be noted that on several occasions Obama has pointed to Pakistan as part of the Afghan problem, and has indicated a willingness to intervene there if needed while demanding Pakistani cooperation. Moreover, Obama emphasizes the need for partnerships — for example, coalition partners — rather than unilateral action in Afghanistan and globally.

Responding to attack rather than pre-emptive attack, coalition warfare and multinational postwar solutions are central to Obama’s policy in the Islamic world. He therefore straddles the divide within the Democratic Party. He opposes the war in Iraq as pre-emptive, unilateral and outside the bounds of international organizations while endorsing the Afghan war and promising to expand it.

Obama’s problem would be applying these principles to the emerging landscape. He shaped his foreign policy preferences when the essential choices remained within the Islamic world — between dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously versus focusing on Afghanistan primarily. After the Russian invasion of Georgia, Obama would face a more complex set of choices between the Islamic world and dealing with the Russian challenge.

Obama’s position on Georgia tracked with traditional Democratic approaches:

“Georgia’s economic recovery is an urgent strategic priority that demands the focused attention of the United States and our allies. That is why Senator Biden and I have called for $1 billion in reconstruction assistance to help the people of Georgia in this time of great trial. I also welcome NATO’s decision to establish a NATO-Georgia Commission and applaud the new French and German initiatives to continue work on these issues within the EU. The Bush administration should call for a U.S.-EU-Georgia summit in September that focuses on strategies for preserving Georgia’s territorial integrity and advancing its economic recovery.”

Obama avoided militaristic rhetoric and focused on multinational approaches to dealing with the problem, particularly via NATO and the European Union. In this and in Afghanistan, he has returned to a Democratic fundamental: the centrality of the U.S.-European relationship. In this sense, it is not accidental that he took a preconvention trip to Europe. It was both natural and a signal to the Democratic foreign policy establishment that he understands the pivotal position of Europe.

This view on multilateralism and NATO is summed up in a critical statement by Obama in a position paper:

“Today it’s become fashionable to disparage the United Nations, the World Bank, and other international organizations. In fact, reform of these bodies is urgently needed if they are to keep pace with the fast-moving threats we face. Such real reform will not come, however, by dismissing the value of these institutions, or by bullying other countries to ratify changes we have drafted in isolation. Real reform will come because we convince others that they too have a stake in change — that such reforms will make their world, and not just ours, more secure.

“Our alliances also require constant management and revision if they are to remain effective and relevant. For example, over the last 15 years, NATO has made tremendous strides in transforming from a Cold War security structure to a dynamic partnership for peace.

“Today, NATO’s challenge in Afghanistan has become a test case, in the words of Dick Lugar, of whether the alliance can ‘overcome the growing discrepancy between NATO’s expanding missions and its lagging capabilities.’”

Obama’s European Problem
The last paragraph represents the key challenge to Obama’s foreign policy, and where his first challenge would come from. Obama wants a coalition with Europe and wants Europe to strengthen itself. But Europe is deeply divided, and averse to increasing its defense spending or substantially increasing its military participation in coalition warfare. Obama’s multilateralism and Europeanism will quickly encounter the realities of Europe.

This would immediately affect his jihadist policy. At this point, Obama’s plan for a 16-month drawdown from Iraq is quite moderate, and the idea of focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan is a continuation of Bush administration policy. But his challenge would be to increase NATO involvement. There is neither the will nor the capability to substantially increase Europe’s NATO participation in Afghanistan.

This problem would be even more difficult in dealing with Russia. Europe has no objection in principle to the Afghan war; it merely lacks the resources to substantially increase its presence there. But in the case of Russia, there is no European consensus. The Germans are dependent on the Russians for energy and do not want to risk that relationship; the French are more vocal but lack military capability, though they have made efforts to increase their commitment to Afghanistan. Obama says he wants to rely on multilateral agencies to address the Russian situation. That is possible diplomatically, but if the Russians press the issue further, as we expect, a stronger response will be needed. NATO will be unlikely to provide that response.

Obama would therefore face the problem of shifting the focus to Afghanistan and the added problem of balancing between an Islamic focus and a Russian focus. This will be a general problem of U.S. diplomacy. But Obama as a Democrat would have a more complex problem. Averse to unilateral actions and focused on Europe, Obama would face his first crisis in dealing with the limited support Europe can provide.

That will pose serious problems in both Afghanistan and Russia, which Obama would have to deal with. There is a hint in his thoughts on this when he says, “And as we strengthen NATO, we should also seek to build new alliances and relationships in other regions important to our interests in the 21st century.” The test would be whether these new coalitions will differ from, and be more effective than, the coalition of the willing.

Obama would face similar issues in dealing with the Iranians. His approach is to create a coalition to confront the Iranians and force them to abandon their nuclear program. He has been clear that he opposes that program, although less clear on other aspects of Iranian foreign policy. But again, his solution is to use a coalition to control Iran. That coalition disintegrated to a large extent after Russia and China both indicated that they had no interest in sanctions.

But the coalition Obama plans to rely on will have to be dramatically revived by unknown means, or an alternative coalition must be created, or the United States will have to deal with Afghanistan and Pakistan unilaterally. This reality places a tremendous strain on the core principles of Democratic foreign policy. To reconcile the tensions, he would have to rapidly come to an understanding with the Europeans in NATO on expanding their military forces. Since reaching out to the Europeans would be among his first steps, his first test would come early.

The Europeans would probably balk, and, if not, they would demand that the United States expand its defense spending as well. Obama has shown no inclination toward doing this. In October 2007, he said the following on defense: “I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems, and I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.”

Russia, Afghanistan and Defense Spending
In this, Obama is reaching toward the anti-war faction in his party, which regards military expenditures with distrust. He focused on advanced war-fighting systems, but did not propose cutting spending on counterinsurgency. But the dilemma is that in dealing with both insurgency and the Russians, Obama would come under pressure to do what he doesn’t want to do — namely, increase U.S. defense spending on advanced systems.

Obama has been portrayed as radical. That is far from the case. He is well within a century-long tradition of the Democratic Party, with an element of loyalty to the anti-war faction. But that element is an undertone to his policy, not its core. The core of his policy would be coalition building and a focus on European allies, as well as the use of multilateral institutions and the avoidance of pre-emptive war. There is nothing radical or even new in these principles. His discomfort with military spending is the only thing that might link him to the party’s left wing.

The problem he would face is the shifting international landscape, which would make it difficult to implement some of his policies. First, the tremendous diversity of international challenges would make holding the defense budget in check difficult. Second, and more important, is the difficulty of coalition building and multilateral action with the Europeans. Obama thus lacks both the force and the coalition to carry out his missions. He therefore would have no choice but to deal with the Russians while confronting the Afghan/Pakistani question even if he withdrew more quickly than he says he would from Iraq.

The make-or-break moment for Obama will come early, when he confronts the Europeans. If he can persuade them to take concerted action, including increased defense spending, then much of his foreign policy rapidly falls into place, even if it is at the price of increasing U.S. defense spending. If the Europeans cannot come together (or be brought together) decisively, however, then he will have to improvise.

Obama would be the first Democrat in this century to take office inheriting a major war. Inheriting an ongoing war is perhaps the most difficult thing for a president to deal with. Its realities are already fixed and the penalties for defeat or compromise already defined. The war in Afghanistan has already been defined by U.S. President George W. Bush’s approach. Rewriting it will be enormously difficult, particularly when rewriting it depends on ending unilateralism and moving toward full coalition warfare when coalition partners are wary.

Obama’s problems are compounded by the fact that he does not only have to deal with an inherited war, but also a resurgent Russia. And he wants to depend on the same coalition for both. That will be enormously challenging for him, testing his diplomatic skills as well as geopolitical realities. As with all presidents, what he plans to do and what he would do are two different things. But it seems to us that his presidency would be defined by whether he can change the course of U.S.-European relations not by accepting European terms but by persuading them to accommodate U.S. interests.

An Obama presidency would not turn on this. There is no evidence that he lacks the ability to shift with reality — that he lacks Machiavellian virtue. But it still will be the first and critical test, one handed to him by the complex tensions of Democratic traditions and by a war he did not start.

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McCain's Foreign Policy Stance

2008-09-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

By George Friedman

John McCain is the Republican candidate for president. This means he is embedded in the Republican tradition. That tradition has two roots, which are somewhat at odds with each other: One root is found in Theodore Roosevelt’s variety of internationalism, and the other in Henry Cabot Lodge’s opposition to the League of Nations. Those roots still exist in the Republican Party. But accommodations to the reality the Democrats created after World War II — and that Eisenhower, Nixon and, to some extent, Reagan followed — have overlain them. In many ways, the Republican tradition of foreign policy is therefore more complex than the Democratic tradition.

Roosevelt and the United States as Great Power
More than any other person, Roosevelt introduced the United States to the idea that it had become a great power. During the Spanish-American War, in which he had enthusiastically participated, the United States took control of the remnants of the Spanish empire. During his presidency a few years later, Roosevelt authorized the first global tour by a U.S. fleet, which was designed to announce the arrival of the United States with authority. The fleet was both impressive and surprising to many great powers, which at the time tended to dismiss the United States.

For Roosevelt, having the United States take its place among the great powers served two purposes. First, it protected American maritime interests. The United States was a major trading power, so control of the seas was a practical imperative. But there was also an element of deep pride — to the point of ideology. Roosevelt saw the emergence of the United States as a validation of the American experiment with democracy and a testament to America as an exceptional country and regime. Realistic protection of national interest joined forces with an ideology of entitlement. The Panama Canal, which was begun in Roosevelt’s administration, served both interests.

The Panama Canal highlights the fact that for Roosevelt — heavily influenced by theories of sea power — the Pacific Ocean was at least as important as the Atlantic. The most important imperial U.S. holding at the time was the Pacific territory of the Philippines, which U.S. policy focused on protecting. Also reflecting Roosevelt’s interest in the Pacific, he brokered the peace treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and increased U.S. interests in China. (Overall, the Democratic Party focused on Europe, while the Republican Party showed a greater interest in Asia.)

The second strand of Republicanism emerged after World War I, when Lodge, a Republican senator, defeated President Woodrow Wilson’s plan for U.S. entry into the League of Nations. Lodge had supported the Spanish-American War and U.S. involvement in World War I, but he opposed league membership because he felt it would compel the United States to undertake obligations it should not commit to. Moreover, he had a deep distrust of the Europeans, whom he believed would drag the United States into another war.

The foundations of Republican foreign policy early in the 20th century therefore consisted of three elements:

A willingness to engage in foreign policy and foreign wars when this serves U.S. interests.
An unwillingness to enter into multilateral organizations or alliances, as this would deprive the United States of the right to act unilaterally and would commit it to fight on behalf of regimes it might have no interest in defending.
A deep suspicion of the diplomacy of European states grounded on a sense that they were too duplicitous and unstable to trust and that treaties with them would result in burdens on — but not benefits for — the United States.
Isolationism
This gave rise to what has been called the “isolationist” strand in the Republican Party, although the term “isolation” is not by itself proper. The isolationists opposed involvement in the diplomacy and politics of Europe. In their view, the U.S. intervention in World War I had achieved little. The Europeans needed to achieve some stable outcome on their own, and the United States did not have the power to impose — or an interest in — that outcome. Underlying this was a belief that, as hostile as the Germans and Soviets were, the French and British were not decidedly better.

Opposition to involvement in a European war did not translate to indifference to the outcome in the Pacific. The isolationists regarded Japan with deep suspicion, and saw China as a potential ally and counterweight to Japan. They were prepared to support the Chinese and even have some military force present, just as they were prepared to garrison the Philippines.

There was a consistent position here. First, adherents of this strand believed that waging war on the mainland of Eurasia, either in China or in Europe, was beyond U.S. means and was dangerous. Second, they believed heavily in sea power, and that control of the sea would protect the United States against aggression and protect U.S. maritime trade. This made them suspicious of other maritime powers, including Japan and the United Kingdom. Third, and last, the isolationists deeply opposed alliances that committed the United States to any involvement in war. They felt that the decision to make war should depend on time and place — not a general commitment. Therefore, the broader any proposed alliance involving the United States, the more vigorously the isolationists opposed it.

Republican foreign policy — a product of the realist and isolationist strands — thus rejected the idea that the United States had a moral responsibility to police the world, while accepting the idea that the United States was morally exceptional. It was prepared to engage in global politics but only when it affected the direct interests of the United States. It regarded the primary interest of the United States to be protecting itself from the wars raging in the world and saw naval supremacy as the means toward that end. It regarded alliances as a potential trap and, in particular, saw the Europeans as dangerous and potentially irresponsible after World War I — and wanted to protect the United States from the consequences of European conflict. In foreign policy, Republicans were realists first, moralists a distant second.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war on the United States in 1941, the realist strand in Republican foreign policy appeared to be replaced with a new strand. World War II, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approach to waging it, created a new reality. Republican isolationists were discredited politically; their realism was seen as a failure to grasp global realities. Moreover, the war was fought within an alliance structure. Parts of that alliance structure were retained, and supplemented grandly, after the war. The United States joined the United Nations, and the means chosen to contain the Soviet Union was an alliance system, with NATO — and hence the Europeans — as the centerpiece.

Moralism vs. Realism
The Republicans were torn between two wings after the war. On the one hand, there was Robert Taft, who spoke for the prewar isolationist foreign policy. On the other hand, there was Eisenhower, who had commanded the European coalition and had an utterly different view of alliances and of the Europeans. In the struggle between Taft and Eisenhower for the nomination in 1952, Eisenhower won decisively. The Republican Party reoriented itself fundamentally, or so it appeared.

The Republicans’ move toward alliances and precommitments was coupled with a shift in moral emphasis. From the unwillingness to take moral responsibility for the world, the Republicans moved toward a moral opposition to the Soviet Union and communism. Both Republicans and Democrats objected morally to the communists. But for the Republicans, moral revulsion justified a sea change in their core foreign policy; anti-communism became a passion that justified changing lesser principles.

Yet the old Republican realism wasn’t quite dead. At root, Eisenhower was never a moralist. His anti-communism represented a strategic fear of the Soviet Union more than a moral crusade. Indeed, the Republican right condemned him for this. As his presidency progressed, the old realism re-emerged, now in the context of alliance systems.

But there was a key difference in Eisenhower’s approach to alliances and multilateral institutions: He supported them when they enabled the United States to achieve its strategic ends; he did not support them as ends in themselves. Whereas Eleanor Roosevelt, for example, saw the United Nations as a way to avoid war, Eisenhower saw it as a forum for pursuing American interests. Eisenhower didn’t doubt the idea of American exceptionalism, but his obsession was with the national interest. Thus, when the right wanted him to be more aggressive and liberate Eastern Europe, he was content to contain the Soviets and leave the Eastern Europeans to deal with their own problems.

The realist version of Republican foreign policy showed itself even more clearly in the Nixon presidency and in Henry Kissinger’s execution of it. The single act that defined this was Nixon’s decision to visit China, meet Mao Zedong, and form what was, in effect, an alliance with Communist China against the Soviet Union. The Vietnam War weakened the United States and strengthened the Soviet Union; China and the United States shared a common interest in containing the Soviet Union. An alliance was in the interests of both Beijing and Washington, and ideology was irrelevant. (The alliance with China also revived the old Republican interest in Asia.)

With that single action, Nixon and Kissinger reaffirmed the principle that U.S. foreign policy was not about moralism — of keeping the peace or fighting communism — but about pursuing the national interest. Alliances might be necessary, but they did not need to have a moral component.

While the Democrats were torn between the traditionalists and the anti-war movement, the Republicans became divided between realists who traced their tradition back to the beginning of the century and moralists whose passionate anti-communism began in earnest after World War II. Balancing the idea of foreign policy as a moral mission fighting evil and the idea of foreign policy as the pursuit of national interest and security defined the fault line within the Republican Party.

Reagan and the Post-Cold War World
Ronald Reagan tried to straddle this fault line. Very much rooted in the moral tradition of his party, he defined the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” At the same time, he recognized that moralism was insufficient. Foreign policy ends had to be coupled with extremely flexible means. Thus, Reagan maintained the relationship with China. He also played a complex game of negotiation, manipulation and intimidation with the Soviets. To fund the Contras — guerrillas fighting the Marxist government of Nicaragua — his administration was prepared to sell weapons to Iran, which at that time was fighting a war with Iraq. In other words, Reagan embedded the anti-communism of the Republicans of the 1950s with the realism of Nixon and Kissinger. To this, he added a hearty disdain for Europe, where in return he was reviled as a cowboy. The antecedents of this distrust of the Europeans, particularly the French, went back to the World War I era.

The collapse of communism left the Republicans with a dilemma. The moral mission was gone; realism was all that was left. This was the dilemma that George H. W. Bush had to deal with. Bush was a realist to the core, yet he seemed incapable of articulating that as a principle. Instead, he announced the “New World Order,” which really was a call for multilateral institutions and the transformation of the anti-communist alliance structure into an all-inclusive family of democratic nations. In short, at the close of the Cold War, the first President Bush adopted the essence of Democratic foreign policy. This helps explain Ross Perot’s run for the presidency and Bush’s loss to Bill Clinton. Perot took away the faction of the Republican Party that retained the traditional aversion to multilateralism — in the form of NAFTA, for example.

It was never clear what form George W. Bush’s foreign policy would have taken without 9/11. After Sept. 11, 2001, Bush tried to re-create Reagan’s foreign policy. Rather than defining the war as a battle against jihadists, he defined it as a battle against terrorism, as if this were the ideological equivalent of communism. He defined an “Axis of Evil” redolent of Reagan’s “Evil Empire.” Within the confines of this moral mission, he attempted to execute a systematic war designed to combat terrorism.

It is important to bear in mind the complexity of George W. Bush’s foreign policy compared to the simplicity of its stated moral mission, which first was defined as fighting terrorism and later as bringing democracy to the Middle East. In the war in Afghanistan, Bush initially sought and received Russian and Iranian assistance. In Iraq, he ultimately reached an agreement with the Sunni insurgents whom he had formerly fought. In between was a complex array of covert operations, alliances and betrayals, and wars large and small throughout the region. Bush faced a far more complex situation than Reagan did — a situation that, in many instances, lacked solutions by available means.

McCain: Moralist or Realist?
Which brings us to McCain and the most important questions he would have to answer in his presidency: To what extent would he adopt an overriding moral mission, and how would he apply available resources to that mission? Would McCain tend toward the Nixon-Kissinger model of a realist Republican president, or to the more moralist Reagan-Bush model?

Though the answers to these questions will not emerge during campaign season, a President McCain would have to answer them almost immediately. For example, in dealing with the Afghan situation, one of the options will be a deal with the Taliban paralleling the U.S. deal with the Iraqi Sunni insurgents. Would McCain be prepared to take this step in the Reagan-Bush tradition, or would he reject it on rigid moral principles? And would McCain be prepared to recognize a sphere of influence for Russia in the former Soviet Union, or would he reject the concept as violating moral principles of national sovereignty and rights?

McCain has said the United States should maintain a presence in Iraq for as long as necessary to stabilize the country, although he clearly believes that, with the situation stabilizing, the drawdown of troops can be more rapid. In discussing Afghanistan, it is clear that he sees the need for more troops. But his real focus is on Pakistan, about which he said in July: “We must strengthen local tribes in the border areas who are willing to fight the foreign terrorists there. We must also empower the new civilian government of Pakistan to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health, and education.”

McCain understands that the key to dealing with Afghanistan lies in Pakistan, and he implies that solving the problem in Pakistan requires forming a closer relationship with tribes in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. What McCain has not said — and what he cannot say for political and strategic reasons — is how far he would go in making agreements with the Pashtun tribes in the area that have been close collaborators with al Qaeda.

A similar question comes up in the context of Russia and its relations with other parts of the former Soviet Union. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Georgia, McCain said, “The implications of Russian actions go beyond their threat to the territorial integrity and independence of a democratic Georgia. Russia is using violence against Georgia, in part, to intimidate other neighbors such as Ukraine for choosing to associate with the West and adhering to Western political and economic values. As such, the fate of Georgia should be of grave concern to Americans and all people who welcomed the end of a divided Europe, and the independence of former Soviet republics. The international response to this crisis will determine how Russia manages its relationships with other neighbors.”

McCain has presented Russia’s actions in moral terms. He also has said international diplomatic action must be taken to deal with Russia, and he has supported NATO expansion. So he has combined a moral approach with a coalition approach built around the Europeans. In short, his public statements draw from moral and multilateral sources. What is not clear is the degree to which he will adhere to realist principles in pursuing these ends. He clearly will not be a Nixon.

Whether he will be like Reagan, or more like George W. Bush — that is, Reagan without Reagan’s craft — or a rigid moralist indifferent to consequences remains in question.

It is difficult to believe McCain would adopt the third option. He takes a strong moral stance, but is capable of calibrating his tactics. This is particularly clear when you consider his position on working with the Europeans. In 1999 — quite a ways back in foreign policy terms — McCain said of NATO, “As we approach the 50th anniversary of NATO, the Atlantic Alliance is in pretty bad shape. Our allies are spending far too little on their own defense to maintain the alliance as an effective military force.”

Since then, Europe’s defense spending has not soared, to say the least. McCain’s August 2008 statement that “NATO’s North Atlantic Council should convene in emergency session to demand a cease-fire and begin discussions on both the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to South Ossetia” must be viewed in this context.

In this statement, McCain called for a NATO peacekeeping force to South Ossetia. A decade before, he was decrying NATO’s lack of military preparedness, which few dispute is still an extremely significant issue.

But remember that presidential campaigns are not where forthright strategic thinking should be expected, and moral goals must be subordinate to the realities of power. While McCain would need to define the mix of moralism and realism in his foreign policy, he made his evaluation of NATO’s weakness clear in 1999. Insofar as he believes this evaluation still holds true, he would not have to face the first issue that Barack Obama likely would — namely, what to do when the Europeans fail to cooperate. McCain already believes that they will not (or cannot).

Instead, McCain would have to answer another question, which ultimately is the same as Obama’s question: Where will the resources come from to keep forces in Iraq, manage the war in Afghanistan, involve Pakistanis in that conflict and contain Russia? In some sense, McCain has created a tougher political position for himself by casting all these issues in a moral light. But, in the Reagan tradition, a moral position has value only if it can be pursued, and pursuing those actions requires both moral commitment and Machiavellian virtue.

Therefore, McCain will be pulled in two directions. First, like Obama, he would not be able to pursue his ends without a substantial budget increase or abandoning one or more theaters of operation. The rubber band just won’t stretch without reinforcements. Second, while those reinforcements are mustered — or in lieu of reinforcements — he will have to execute a complex series of tactical operations. This will involve holding the line in Iraq, creating a political framework for settlement in Afghanistan and scraping enough forces together to provide some pause to the Russians as they pressure their periphery.

McCain’s foreign policy — like Obama’s — would devolve into complex tactics, where the devil is in the details, and the details will require constant attention.

The Global Landscape and the Next President
Ultimately, it is the global landscape that determines a president’s foreign policy choices, and the traditions presidents come from can guide them only so far. Whoever becomes president in January 2009 will face the same landscape and limited choices. The winner will require substantial virtue, and neither candidate should be judged on what he says now, since no one can anticipate either the details the winner will confront or the surprises the world will throw at him.

We can describe the world. We can seek to divine the candidates’ intentions by looking at their political traditions. We can understand the intellectual and moral tensions they face. But in the end, we know no more about the virtue of these two men than anyone else. We do know that, given the current limits of U.S. power and the breadth of U.S. commitments, it will take a very clever and devious president to pursue the national interest, however that is defined.

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The Second Cold War and Corporate Security

2008-09-03T17:30:00.001-07:00

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart

A lot has been written about last month’s conflict between Russia and Georgia, and the continuing tensions in the region. Certainly, there were many important lessons to be gleaned from the conflict relating to the Russian military, Russian foreign policy and the broader geopolitical balance of power.

One facet of the Russian operations in Georgia that has been somewhat overlooked is the intelligence aspect. Clearly, the speed with which the Russian military responded to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia indicates that they were not caught off guard. They knew in advance what the Georgians were planning and had time to prepare their troops for a quick response to the Georgian offensive.

It is important to remember that the Russian operation in Georgia did not happen in a vacuum or without warning. It was a foreseeable outcome of the resurgence of Russian power that began in 1999 when Vladimir Putin came to power, and an outward demonstration of Russia’s increasing assertiveness. One important element of Russia’s ascendancy under Putin has been a resurgence of the Russian intelligence agencies. The excellent intelligence Russia had regarding Georgian intentions in South Ossetia is proof that the Russian intelligence agencies are indeed back in force. But Putin’s rise to power clearly demonstrates that while these intelligence elements may have been weakened, they were never totally gone.

As pressure continues to build between Russia and the West — and as we perhaps slip closer to a second Cold War — it is worth remembering that an actual armed conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact never took place despite military tension and some warfare between proxies. Rather, the Cold War was fought largely with intelligence services. Certainly, the Cold War led to the birth and rapid growth of huge intelligence agencies on both sides of the Iron Curtain. These intelligence agencies will also play a significant role in the current strain between Russia and the West.

The world has changed dramatically since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In this age of globalization, e-commerce and outsourcing, there are many more Western companies with interests in Russia than during the Cold War. This means that an escalation of Cold War-type intelligence activity will have profound effects on multinational corporations.

Historical Context
The time period following the fall of the Soviet Union was catastrophic for Russia — workers went unpaid, social services collapsed and poverty was epidemic. The oligarchs seemingly stole everything that was not nailed down and organized crime groups became extremely powerful. Public corruption, which had been endemic (though somewhat predictable) in the old Soviet system, worsened dramatically. Many Russians were ashamed of what their country had become; others feared it would implode entirely.

Into this chaos came Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet intelligence officer who ascended in Russian politics due in part to his significant connections. But Putin’s rise was also largely aided by his firm handling of the second Chechen war in 1999 and the fact that he offered the Russian people hope that their national greatness could somehow be restored. While Putin left the Russian presidency in May 2008 and is now the prime minister again (as he was in the final months of the Yeltsin presidency), he continues to be immensely powerful and extremely popular. Most Russians believe Putin saved Russia from sure destruction.

A major part of Putin’s strategy to regain control over the government, economy, oligarchs and organized crime groups was his program to reorganize and strengthen the Russian intelligence agencies, which had been severely atrophied since the fall of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s, politicians such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin saw a powerful intelligence agency as a potential threat — with good reason. Because of this threat, laws were enacted to fracture and weaken the once-powerful agency. In 1991, the KGB was dismantled after a failed coup against Gorbachev in which some KGB units participated and tanks rolled onto Red Square.

Following additional failed coup attempts, the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), the KGB’s immediate successor, was split into several smaller agencies in 1995 under the perception that it remained too powerful. By creating competition among the smaller intelligence services, higher-ups hoped that additional coup attempts could be avoided. Following this shattering of the FSK, the counterintelligence core of the former KGB and FSK became known as the Federal Security Bureau (FSB). The foreign intelligence portion of the FSK became the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

When Putin came into power, he instituted an ambitious plan to reconstitute the FSB. He has steadily worked to reconsolidate most of the splinter intelligence agencies back under the FSB, correcting much of the inefficiency that existed among the separate agencies and making the new combined agency stronger and more integrated. Moreover, since 1999, Putin has ensured that the FSB receive large funding increases to train, recruit and modernize after years of disregard. Currently, the SVR remains separate from the FSB, but other crucial components such as the Federal Border Service and Federal Guard Service have been reintegrated, as has the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), Russia’s equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency.

Additionally, Putin has tapped many former KGB and current FSB members to fill positions within Russian big business, the Duma and other political posts. Putin’s initial reasoning was that those within the intelligence community thought of Russia the same way he did — as a great state domestically and internationally. Putin also knew that those within the intelligence community would not flinch at his sometimes brutal means of consolidating Russia politically, economically, socially and in other ways. It could be reasonably argued that Russia has become an “intelligence state” under Putin.

Since assuming power, Putin has also worked to strengthen the Russian military and the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. The GRU was undoubtedly very involved in the operation in Georgia, as was the SVR. There are some who suggest that Russian agents of influence may have played a part in convincing Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to attack South Ossetia and spring a trap the Russians had set.

Implications for Business
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, foreign corporations have been very busy in Russia as they scramble for market share, attempt to profit from Russia’s massive natural resources and seek to meet growing demand for consumer products. For these companies, growing Russian nationalism and tension with the West increases both the chance of regulatory and legal hassles and the possibility that Russian intelligence activity might be directed their way. In other words, as tensions rise, so could the risk for Western corporations.

Not all these problems are new. As a young KGB officer, Putin earned his living by stealing technology from the West. And he has since encouraged Russian intelligence agencies to expand their collection programs with the awareness that such information can assist the Russian economy and specifically the revival of the defense sector. While the Russians have an advanced weapons research and development infrastructure, they are very pragmatic. They do not see the need to spend the money to develop a technology from scratch when they can steal or buy it for a fraction of the cost and effort. This pragmatism was clearly demonstrated in their early nuclear weapons program.

Just as Russia’s reinvigorated intelligence collection efforts were gaining steam, the United States was hit by the 9/11 attacks. As a result, domestic intelligence agencies in the United States and many other Western nations focused on the counterterrorism mission and diverted counterintelligence resources to help in that fight. It would take several years for the domestic counterintelligence efforts to get back to their pre-9/11 levels, and like the Chinese, the Russian intelligence services took broad advantage of that window of opportunity to recruit sources and obtain critical information from foreign companies. Additionally, the Russians have gone to great lengths to steal intellectual property from foreign firms operating inside Russia, either by infiltrating their companies with agents or by recruiting employees.

The Russians are not only drawn to companies that produce sophisticated military equipment. Like the Chinese and others, they are interested in collecting information on emerging technology that is not yet classified but has potential military application. These sectors include materials research, nanotechnology, advanced electronics and information technology. Ultimately, however, they will not turn their backs on the opportunity to obtain sophisticated current weapons system data.

Russian collection and recruitment efforts will also not be confined to Russia or the United States. The Russians can gain as much information by recruiting an American businessman in Tokyo, Vienna or Mexico City as they can from one they recruit in New York or Seattle, if they choose their target wisely. The Soviets and Russians have long enjoyed operating out of third countries. During the Cold War, their primary platform for collecting intelligence against the United States was Mexico City, and their preferred platform to collect against European targets was Vienna.

Former KGB officers are also heavily involved in trafficking Russian and Eastern European women for prostitution in Tokyo, Dubai and Miami. These former KGB officers could easily utilize their positions of access to identify potential recruits for friends at their old agency, perhaps for a profit — consider how many former intelligence officers now are working as contractors for U.S. intelligence. The FSB/SVR might not be the KGB in name, but they clearly are the KGB in spirit and will not hesitate to use sexual or other blackmail if that is more effective than money, ideology or ego as a recruiting hook.

For Western companies operating inside Russia, an increase in tensions will, in all likelihood, mean an increased scrutiny of the companies’ activities as well as an increased focus on their expatriate employees in an effort to recruit sources and to locate Western intelligence officers. Like it or not, all intelligence agencies use nonofficial cover to get their officers into hostile countries — and corporate cover is widely used. Indeed, the Russians have long claimed that the United States and other countries have been using businesses and nongovernmental organizations to provide cover to intelligence officers seeking to undermine Russian influence in the former Soviet Union and to operate inside Russia itself.

Nonofficial cover officers (referred to as NOCs in intelligence parlance) are intelligence officers without visible links to their government and therefore not protected by diplomatic immunity. For this reason, NOC operations are somewhat riskier. Harder to identify as intelligence officers, NOCs are frequently assigned to sensitive tasks — those that a host country counterintelligence service would dearly love to learn about.

Keeping this in mind, Russian counterintelligence services will be carefully looking over the business visa applications of Western companies. Surveillance activities on expatriate employees will also likely increase as the Russians work to identify any potential undercover intelligence officers. They will also seek to recruit expatriate and local employees who can act as spotters to identify any potential intelligence officers.

This surveillance of Western businesses may apply to both corporate offices and employees’ residences. Businessmen may be physically surveilled and their residences subjected to technical surveillance and mail/garbage covers. Domestic workers may also be recruited in an effort to collect information on their employers. Known or suspected NOCs will be carefully watched and will likely even be overtly harassed.

So far, we have not heard of the Russians directing this type of aggressive surveillance activity against U.S. companies, or of U.S. companies having problems obtaining visas for their employees. But as the tensions increase between Russia and the United States, and as intelligence operations become increasingly hostile, it is only a matter of time before they do.

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Georgia and Kosovo: A Single Intertwined Crisis

2008-08-26T08:49:00.000-07:00

By George Friedman

The Russo-Georgian war was rooted in broad geopolitical processes. In large part it was simply the result of the cyclical reassertion of Russian power. The Russian empire — czarist and Soviet — expanded to its borders in the 17th and 19th centuries. It collapsed in 1992. The Western powers wanted to make the disintegration permanent. It was inevitable that Russia would, in due course, want to reassert its claims. That it happened in Georgia was simply the result of circumstance.

There is, however, another context within which to view this, the context of Russian perceptions of U.S. and European intentions and of U.S. and European perceptions of Russian capabilities. This context shaped the policies that led to the Russo-Georgian war. And those attitudes can only be understood if we trace the question of Kosovo, because the Russo-Georgian war was forged over the last decade over the Kosovo question.

Yugoslavia broke up into its component republics in the early 1990s. The borders of the republics did not cohere to the distribution of nationalities. Many — Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and so on — found themselves citizens of republics where the majorities were not of their ethnicities and disliked the minorities intensely for historical reasons. Wars were fought between Croatia and Serbia (still calling itself Yugoslavia because Montenegro was part of it), Bosnia and Serbia and Bosnia and Croatia. Other countries in the region became involved as well.

One conflict became particularly brutal. Bosnia had a large area dominated by Serbs. This region wanted to secede from Bosnia and rejoin Serbia. The Bosnians objected and an internal war in Bosnia took place, with the Serbian government involved. This war involved the single greatest bloodletting of the bloody Balkan wars, the mass murder by Serbs of Bosnians.

Here we must pause and define some terms that are very casually thrown around. Genocide is the crime of trying to annihilate an entire people. War crimes are actions that violate the rules of war. If a soldier shoots a prisoner, he has committed a war crime. Then there is a class called “crimes against humanity.” It is intended to denote those crimes that are too vast to be included in normal charges of murder or rape. They may not involve genocide, in that the annihilation of a race or nation is not at stake, but they may also go well beyond war crimes, which are much lesser offenses. The events in Bosnia were reasonably deemed crimes against humanity. They did not constitute genocide and they were more than war crimes.

At the time, the Americans and Europeans did nothing about these crimes, which became an internal political issue as the magnitude of the Serbian crimes became clear. In this context, the Clinton administration helped negotiate the Dayton Accords, which were intended to end the Balkan wars and indeed managed to go quite far in achieving this. The Dayton Accords were built around the principle that there could be no adjustment in the borders of the former Yugoslav republics. Ethnic Serbs would live under Bosnian rule. The principle that existing borders were sacrosanct was embedded in the Dayton Accords.

In the late 1990s, a crisis began to develop in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Over the years, Albanians had moved into the province in a broad migration. By 1997, the province was overwhelmingly Albanian, although it had not only been historically part of Serbia but also its historical foundation. Nevertheless, the Albanians showed significant intentions of moving toward either a separate state or unification with Albania. Serbia moved to resist this, increasing its military forces and indicating an intention to crush the Albanian resistance.

There were many claims that the Serbians were repeating the crimes against humanity that were committed in Bosnia. The Americans and Europeans, burned by Bosnia, were eager to demonstrate their will. Arguing that something between crimes against humanity and genocide was under way — and citing reports that between 10,000 and 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were missing or had been killed — NATO launched a campaign designed to stop the killings. In fact, while some killings had taken place, the claims by NATO of the number already killed were false. NATO might have prevented mass murder in Kosovo. That is not provable. They did not, however, find that mass murder on the order of the numbers claimed had taken place. The war could be defended as a preventive measure, but the atmosphere under which the war was carried out overstated what had happened.

The campaign was carried out without U.N. sanction because of Russian and Chinese opposition. The Russians were particularly opposed, arguing that major crimes were not being committed and that Serbia was an ally of Russia and that the air assault was not warranted by the evidence. The United States and other European powers disregarded the Russian position. Far more important, they established the precedent that U.N. sanction was not needed to launch a war (a precedent used by George W. Bush in Iraq). Rather — and this is the vital point — they argued that NATO support legitimized the war.

This transformed NATO from a military alliance into a quasi-United Nations. What happened in Kosovo was that NATO took on the role of peacemaker, empowered to determine if intervention was necessary, allowed to make the military intervention, and empowered to determine the outcome. Conceptually, NATO was transformed from a military force into a regional multinational grouping with responsibility for maintenance of regional order, even within the borders of states that are not members. If the United Nations wouldn’t support the action, the NATO Council was sufficient.

Since Russia was not a member of NATO, and since Russia denied the urgency of war, and since Russia was overruled, the bombing campaign against Kosovo created a crisis in relations with Russia. The Russians saw the attack as a unilateral attack by an anti-Russian alliance on a Russian ally, without sound justification. Then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin was not prepared to make this into a major confrontation, nor was he in a position to. The Russians did not so much acquiesce as concede they had no options.

The war did not go as well as history records. The bombing campaign did not force capitulation and NATO was not prepared to invade Kosovo. The air campaign continued inconclusively as the West turned to the Russians to negotiate an end. The Russians sent an envoy who negotiated an agreement consisting of three parts. First, the West would halt the bombing campaign. Second, Serbian army forces would withdraw and be replaced by a multinational force including Russian troops. Third, implicit in the agreement, the Russian troops would be there to guarantee Serbian interests and sovereignty.

As soon as the agreement was signed, the Russians rushed troops to the Pristina airport to take up their duties in the multinational force — as they had in the Bosnian peacekeeping force. In part because of deliberate maneuvers and in part because no one took the Russians seriously, the Russians never played the role they believed had been negotiated. They were never seen as part of the peacekeeping operation or as part of the decision-making system over Kosovo. The Russians felt doubly betrayed, first by the war itself, then by the peace arrangements.

The Kosovo war directly effected the fall of Yeltsin and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The faction around Putin saw Yeltsin as an incompetent bungler who allowed Russia to be doubly betrayed. The Russian perception of the war directly led to the massive reversal in Russian policy we see today. The installation of Putin and Russian nationalists from the former KGB had a number of roots. But fundamentally it was rooted in the events in Kosovo. Most of all it was driven by the perception that NATO had now shifted from being a military alliance to seeing itself as a substitute for the United Nations, arbitrating regional politics. Russia had no vote or say in NATO decisions, so NATO’s new role was seen as a direct challenge to Russian interests.

Thus, the ongoing expansion of NATO into the former Soviet Union and the promise to include Ukraine and Georgia into NATO were seen in terms of the Kosovo war. From the Russian point of view, NATO expansion meant a further exclusion of Russia from decision-making, and implied that NATO reserved the right to repeat Kosovo if it felt that human rights or political issues required it. The United Nations was no longer the prime multinational peacekeeping entity. NATO assumed that role in the region and now it was going to expand all around Russia.

Then came Kosovo’s independence. Yugoslavia broke apart into its constituent entities, but the borders of its nations didn’t change. Then, for the first time since World War II, the decision was made to change Serbia’s borders, in opposition to Serbian and Russian wishes, with the authorizing body, in effect, being NATO. It was a decision avidly supported by the Americans.

The initial attempt to resolve Kosovo’s status was the round of negotiations led by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari that officially began in February 2006 but had been in the works since 2005. This round of negotiations was actually started under U.S. urging and closely supervised from Washington. In charge of keeping Ahtisaari’s negotiations running smoothly was Frank G. Wisner, a diplomat during the Clinton administration. Also very important to the U.S. effort was Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, another leftover from the Clinton administration and a specialist in Soviet and Polish affairs.

In the summer of 2007, when it was obvious that the negotiations were going nowhere, the Bush administration decided the talks were over and that it was time for independence. On June 10, 2007, Bush said that the end result of negotiations must be “certain independence.” In July 2007, Daniel Fried said that independence was “inevitable” even if the talks failed. Finally, in September 2007, Condoleezza Rice put it succinctly: “There’s going to be an independent Kosovo. We’re dedicated to that.” Europeans took cues from this line.

How and when independence was brought about was really a European problem. The Americans set the debate and the Europeans implemented it. Among Europeans, the most enthusiastic about Kosovo independence were the British and the French. The British followed the American line while the French were led by their foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who had also served as the U.N. Kosovo administrator. The Germans were more cautiously supportive.

On Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence and was recognized rapidly by a small number of European states and countries allied with the United States. Even before the declaration, the Europeans had created an administrative body to administer Kosovo. The Europeans, through the European Union, micromanaged the date of the declaration.

On May 15, during a conference in Ekaterinburg, the foreign ministers of India, Russia and China made a joint statement regarding Kosovo. It was read by the Russian host minister, Sergei Lavrov, and it said: “In our statement, we recorded our fundamental position that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo contradicts Resolution 1244. Russia, India and China encourage Belgrade and Pristina to resume talks within the framework of international law and hope they reach an agreement on all problems of that Serbian territory.”

The Europeans and Americans rejected this request as they had rejected all Russian arguments on Kosovo. The argument here was that the Kosovo situation was one of a kind because of atrocities that had been committed. The Russians argued that the level of atrocity was unclear and that, in any case, the government that committed them was long gone from Belgrade. More to the point, the Russians let it be clearly known that they would not accept the idea that Kosovo independence was a one-of-a-kind situation and that they would regard it, instead, as a new precedent for all to follow.

The problem was not that the Europeans and the Americans didn’t hear the Russians. The problem was that they simply didn’t believe them — they didn’t take the Russians seriously. They had heard the Russians say things for many years. They did not understand three things. First, that the Russians had reached the end of their rope. Second, that Russian military capability was not what it had been in 1999. Third, and most important, NATO, the Americans and the Europeans did not recognize that they were making political decisions that they could not support militarily.

For the Russians, the transformation of NATO from a military alliance into a regional United Nations was the problem. The West argued that NATO was no longer just a military alliance but a political arbitrator for the region. If NATO does not like Serbian policies in Kosovo, it can — at its option and in opposition to U.N. rulings — intervene. It could intervene in Serbia and it intended to expand deep into the former Soviet Union. NATO thought that because it was now a political arbiter encouraging regimes to reform and not just a war-fighting system, Russian fears would actually be assuaged. To the contrary, it was Russia’s worst nightmare. Compensating for all this was the fact that NATO had neglected its own military power. Now, Russia could do something about it.

At the beginning of this discourse, we explained that the underlying issues behind the Russo-Georgian war went deep into geopolitics and that it could not be understood without understanding Kosovo. It wasn’t everything, but it was the single most significant event behind all of this. The war of 1999 was the framework that created the war of 2008.

The problem for NATO was that it was expanding its political reach and claims while contracting its military muscle. The Russians were expanding their military capability (after 1999 they had no place to go but up) and the West didn’t notice. In 1999, the Americans and Europeans made political decisions backed by military force. In 2008, in Kosovo, they made political decisions without sufficient military force to stop a Russian response. Either they underestimated their adversary or — even more amazingly — they did not see the Russians as adversaries despite absolutely clear statements the Russians had made. No matter what warning the Russians gave, or what the history of the situation was, the West couldn’t take the Russians seriously.

It began in 1999 with war in Kosovo and it ended in 2008 with the independence of Kosovo. When we study the history of the coming period, the war in Kosovo will stand out as a turning point. Whatever the humanitarian justification and the apparent ease of victory, it set the stage for the rise of Putin and the current and future crises.

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The Threat Here - 2008: Setting the Scene

2008-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

By Madeleine Gruen & Frank Hyland

This is the second article in the series by Madeleine Gruen and Frank Hyland, portraying the seriousness of the threat of homegrown terrorism in the United States for readers of The Counterterrorism Blog.

We hasten to say right off the bat that regular readers of CT Blog are already the recipients of a detailed and continuing supply of very useful information on the threat of terrorism here in the United States. We are grateful for our CT Blog colleagues Steven Emerson, Doug Farah, Jeff Imm, Mike Cutler, and on and on. Nothing in this series is intended to supplant their excellent work.

If anything, we hope to draw even more attention to their (and others’) fine efforts in the past and in the future. Our goal is to draw together in this one series the signs of the continuing, emerging threat here so that policy makers and citizens of Main Street US alike will be better able to assess the true threat. As we noted in the introductory article, individual attacks, plots, perpetrators, investigations tend to lose their impact as time passes; the geographic spread of such indicators and incidents also makes it difficult to visualize the progression of the threat of domestic terrorism.

Similarly, our professional lives in Counter Terrorism have shown us clearly that the phenomenon of terrorism knows no boundaries, respects no religion, and the perpetrators regard themselves as the only “innocents.” Terrorism targets everyone indiscriminately regardless of their church, temple, synagogue or mosque. No one religion has cornered the market on violence.
The highest calling within the CT Community is that of providing Timely Terrorist Threat Warning. In viewing the “landscape” of terrorism then, the many professionals who serve you by putting in long hours searching out threats do a good bit of “Threat Ranking.” An important criterion is whether the threatening group has the presence, the level of intention, and the capability to carry out its threat. Certainly a number of groups around the world have expressed great antipathy for the US. Those groups, however, lacking the infrastructure here in the US and the necessary skills, do not have as great an ability to perpetrate an attack here as does Al-Qa’ida (AQ), for example. The other groups, therefore, are on our list, but are ranked lower on our list in terms of the threat they represent to you. It is for that reason that there may seem at first to be a preponderance of groups whose expressed motivation is based in Islam. As we do in an office setting, we present to you the greatest threats, ranked from (in our professional belief) most likely to least likely. The sole basis for their placement on our list that follows is their ability and desire to carry out an attack.

The Groups:

1. Al-Qa’ida & Al-Qa’ida-Inspired Individuals or Groups:

Given the steady torrent of media coverage devoted to groups such as AQ, it may surprise some readers to see an unnamed group or individual at the top of this list. It is here simply because, as we noted above, we are calculating the odds. In that process, we estimate that in a nation of over 300,000,000 people, with continuing relatively unencumbered legal and illegal access to weapons and explosives, and with the demonstrated past actions both here and abroad, the odds are high that someone will see coverage of an incident abroad - Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel - and react. It is this category, by the way, that has caused us to state in the introductory article and repeat above the effect that dispersion in time and place has on the recognition of patterns in the threat. The perpetrators are not necessarily members of a network, often do not know each other, and therefore leave no “tracks” to follow from one to the other. Usama Bin-Laden’s goal in forming an organization known as “The Base” (Al-Qa’ida) has been achieved in large part; that is, that he would see his group metastasize around the globe in the form of groups, cells, and individuals all dedicated to his goals.

Any doubts that remained about the seriousness of AQ’s intentions after 9-11-2001 should have been erased forever by now. It is the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, however, that raised the initial alarms; but the professionals on the case who recognized the attack as part of something much bigger and more enduring were outnumbered by others who viewed the case as a unique matter that could be resolved by a traditional thorough investigation and solid arrests. The primary conspirator in the 1993 attack, Ramzi Yousef, arrived in New York to find an in-place network of like-minded individuals—devotees of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman—who welcomed him, housed him, supported him and carried out the attack on his behalf.

The subsequent investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing introduced the American public to names of individuals who went on to become the highest-ranking AQ operatives. But, with the passing of time and with physical distance, many have forgotten the ideological and operational links within the US. Those same links exist here today.

Hardly a month goes by without reports - including official reports - telling all of us about the arrest of yet another Westerner who has been to an AQ training camp in Pakistan and/or Afghanistan. Added to those are the accounts of those in the UK, for example, of the AQ-inspired native-born men who carried out the attacks on London commuters in July 2005.

As part of this series we will also introduce US-based groups that have no clear-cut physical ties to AQ, but that abide by the same ideological doctrines as AQ and which are unabashed supporters of AQ, such as As-Sabiqun.

2. White Nationalist Groups:

They hate Jews, they believe that non-whites have no soul, and they anticipate with relish a violent revolution against the US Government, even if they have to start it. Many of the groups are armed to the teeth and have plenty of members with military backgrounds who have studied and practiced the intricacies of unconventional warfare. Members and supporters of white nationalism have committed murder and have pulled off major terrorist attacks, such as Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 and injured more than 800 others in Oklahoma City, and Eric Robert Rudolph, whose pipe bombs killed 2 and injured more than 100 others during a celebratory concert at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. White nationalist groups are on our list because of their intentions and potential capabilities; however, historically, their movement has been relatively disorganized, has lacked funding, and its adherents have not been as ideologically committed as they have been committed to a social network and cults of personality. This is an essential difference between the white nationalist movements and the militant Islamist groups. Nevertheless, given what we stated above about numbers of people, access to weapons and explosives and the likelihood of a triggering event, groups such as the National Socialist Movement, Stormfront, and the National Alliance must remain under a watchful eye.

3. Lebanese Hizballah:

A group must have the access to weapons and explosives. They must have the motivation and the requisite skills in order to carry out a successful attack here. Another very important prerequisite, and the one that places Lebanese Hizballah (LH) on the list on this high a rung, is that LH has undoubtedly carried out the pre-attack surveillance necessary not only to carry out at least one attack, but to do it in short order after receiving the “Go” from their masters in Tehran and Beirut. Members of the group have insinuated themselves into many of the major metropolitan areas of the US. Their criminal activities (Please see Doug Farah’s columns on, among other things, cigarette smuggling) provide them far more money than would be needed for an attack. We would be foolish to believe that LH has not already formulated the tactical plans for an eventual attack in the US. Their history in Buenos Aires, alone -- which we will recount - demonstrates conclusively that they belong on the list and on this rung.

4. Palestinian Islamic Jihad:

Originally an offshoot of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) merits a place on the list by virtue of the fact that its so-called Military Wing - the Al-Quds Brigades - has been responsible for countless attacks on Israel from its base in the Gaza Strip, both suicide bombings and the firing of rockets. “Al-Quds,” it should be mentioned, is the Arab alternative to “Jerusalem,” demonstrating the group’s hatred for the current arrangement. Against that backdrop of demonstrated capability and intent, you should be aware that PIJ has had an infrastructure in the US for decades. The quality and depth of that infrastructure was shown clearly following the assassination of PIJ leader Fathi Shqaqi in 1995, when University of South Florida Computer Engineering Professor Ramadan Shallah immediately left Florida, journeyed to the Middle East and assumed the chairmanship of PIJ. As is the case with other groups here in the US, including HAMAS, the Tamil Tigers, PIJ presently devotes the greatest share of its efforts to fund raising. We echo the words of others, though, in saying that the PIJ capability for carrying out attacks has been amply demonstrated.

5. HAMAS:

In the relatively short time span of just 21 years, the group formed by ranking members of the Gaza wing of the Muslim Brotherhood has gone from a pure terrorist organization to a much more highly effective Palestinian movement that is now the Majority Party in the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority. As contrasted with PIJ, which has remained smaller and concentrated virtually solely on armed action against Israel, HAMAS mutated into a political party, opened schools, dispensed funds, provided foodstuffs, operated clinics, and challenged (successfully) the existing powers of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. CT Blog has presented readers over the years with what is likely the single most comprehensive, in-depth coverage of HAMAS’ activities in the US. This is especially true of Steven Emerson’s reporting on the lengthy legal proceedings against the largest HAMAS fund-raising arm-- The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development-- at one time the leading Islamic charity in the US, extracting millions of dollars annually for its chosen “work” back home in Gaza and the West Bank. Even more strident than PIJ, HAMAS regularly and frequently trumpets its raining of rockets and the sending of suicide bombers to Israel. Notwithstanding its emphasis on fund raising here in the US, its diatribes signal its capabilities to carry out attacks here at a time of its choosing.

6. Hizb ut-Tahrir:

Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) is a transnational political Islamist organization that is present in approximately 45 countries, including the United States. In its more than 50 years of existence, HT has not been directly linked to a terrorist attack; its published ideological doctrine and strategy for development specifies non-violent means to reach its objectives, which are identical to AQ’s.

Although HT has not been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US government it is a group that merits a close watch due to its ability to radicalize and propel people along the spectrum of the acceptance of violent extremes. The group does not operate openly under the name Hizb ut-Tahrir in the United States, which makes even the matter of identification of its activities challenging. It is important to raise awareness of the indicators of HT’s presence in the United States so that the communities exposed to the group can make informed decisions about whether or not to open their doors to HT and its particular brand of Islamism. In arriving at that decision, previous HT involvement should raise serious concerns in readers’ minds. The quality and results of HT’s recruitment and indoctrination efforts are perhaps most visible in the number of HT students and members who went on to greater notoriety.

7. Muslim Brotherhood:

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is arguably the most influential of all Islamist groups, and perhaps the most controversial. Nearly every jihadist or political Islamist group that can be named is an offshoot of MB, or even an offshoot of an offshoot of MB. Many scholars have described the MB as a wily outfit that hides behind legitimizing fronts in the US and elsewhere. Although the MB has officially opposed violence as a means of achieving its objective of establishing an Islamic State ruled by Islamic law, its activities and statements have exposed its continued support for violent operations. While some scholars argue that the MB has reinvented itself and is a legitimate political actor that is sincere in its efforts to work cooperatively within democratic political systems to prevent future terrorist attacks, we and others in the CT Community will keep waiting and watching for MB’s actions to match its words.

8. USA General Store:

Finally, there are the terrorist groups that are not believed to have specific aspirations of committing a terrorist attack on US soil but that do exploit market systems, immigrant populations, and spotty national security systems to keep themselves in business, so to speak. Groups such as the Tamil Tigers have long used extortion tactics to extract funds from Tamil communities in the US. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) depends on its network of drug peddlers in the United States to fatten its billfold. It should be remembered that, in addition to attacks inside the US, the threat of attacks on US interests abroad deserve serious consideration because of the thousands of Americans worldwide who staff those facilities.

Foreign conflicts do have a tendency to spill over borders, and targets that are less secure because they are not in the obvious line of fire become more attractive. These groups have bases of support already in place, which makes it easier to conduct pre-operation surveillance, obtain explosives through means that would not necessarily draw the attention of law enforcement, and move operatives in and out of the US through legitimate-looking channels.

For more visit the link below

http://counterterrorismblog.org/mt/pings.cgi/5380

1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired

2008-08-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

Washington, DC, August 20, 2008 - On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-declassified government documents posted today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org) suggest the strikes not only failed to hurt Osama bin Laden but ultimately may have brought al-Qaeda and the Taliban closer politically and ideologically.

A 400-page Sandia National Laboratories report on bin Ladin, compiled in 1999, includes a warning about political damage for the U.S. from bombing two impoverished states without regard for international agreement, since such action "mirror imag[ed] aspects of al-Qaeda's own attacks." A State Department cable argues that although the August missile strikes were designed to provide the Taliban with overwhelming reason to surrender bin Laden, the military action may have sharpened Afghan animosity towards Washington and even strengthened the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance.

Following the August 20 U.S. air attacks, Taliban spokesman Wakil Ahmed told U.S. Department of State officials "If Kandahar could have retaliated with similar strikes against Washington, it would have." Such an attack, although unfeasible at the time, was at least in part actualized by al-Qaeda on 9/11.

Washington, DC, August 20, 2008 - On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-declassified government documents posted today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org) suggest the strikes not only failed to hurt Osama bin Laden but ultimately may have brought al-Qaeda and the Taliban closer politically and ideologically.

A 400-page Sandia National Laboratories report on bin Ladin, compiled in 1999, includes a warning about political damage for the U.S. from bombing two impoverished states without regard for international agreement, since such action "mirror imag[ed] aspects of al-Qaeda's own attacks." A State Department cable argues that although the August missile strikes were designed to provide the Taliban with overwhelming reason to surrender bin Laden, the military action may have sharpened Afghan animosity towards Washington and even strengthened the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance.

Following the August 20 U.S. air attacks, Taliban spokesman Wakil Ahmed told U.S. Department of State officials "If Kandahar could have retaliated with similar strikes against Washington, it would have." Such an attack, although unfeasible at the time, was at least in part actualized by al-Qaeda on 9/11.

Washington, DC, August 20, 2008 - On the tenth anniversary of U.S. cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda in response to deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, newly-declassified government documents posted today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org) suggest the strikes not only failed to hurt Osama bin Laden but ultimately may have brought al-Qaeda and the Taliban closer politically and ideologically.

A 400-page Sandia National Laboratories report on bin Ladin, compiled in 1999, includes a warning about political damage for the U.S. from bombing two impoverished states without regard for international agreement, since such action "mirror imag[ed] aspects of al-Qaeda's own attacks." A State Department cable argues that although the August missile strikes were designed to provide the Taliban with overwhelming reason to surrender bin Laden, the military action may have sharpened Afghan animosity towards Washington and even strengthened the Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance.

Following the August 20 U.S. air attacks, Taliban spokesman Wakil Ahmed told U.S. Department of State officials "If Kandahar could have retaliated with similar strikes against Washington, it would have." Such an attack, although unfeasible at the time, was at least in part actualized by al-Qaeda on 9/11.

Visit the Web site of the National Security Archive for more information about today's posting.

http://www.nsarchive.org

COUNTERTERROSM BLOG

2008-08-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

The Real World Order

2008-08-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

By George Friedman

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush addressed Congress. He spoke in the wake of the end of Communism in Eastern Europe, the weakening of the Soviet Union, and the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. He argued that a New World Order was emerging: “A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor, and today that new world is struggling to be born. A world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”

After every major, systemic war, there is the hope that this will be the war to end all wars. The idea driving it is simple. Wars are usually won by grand coalitions. The idea is that the coalition that won the war by working together will continue to work together to make the peace. Indeed, the idea is that the defeated will join the coalition and work with them to ensure the peace. This was the dream behind the Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the United Nations and, after the Cold War, NATO. The idea was that there would be no major issues that couldn’t be handled by the victors, now joined with the defeated. That was the idea that drove George H. W. Bush as the Cold War was coming to its end.

Those with the dream are always disappointed. The victorious coalition breaks apart. The defeated refuse to play the role assigned to them. New powers emerge that were not part of the coalition. Anyone may have ideals and visions. The reality of the world order is that there are profound divergences of interest in a world where distrust is a natural and reasonable response to reality. In the end, ideals and visions vanish in a new round of geopolitical conflict.

The post-Cold War world, the New World Order, ended with authority on Aug. 8, 2008, when Russia and Georgia went to war. Certainly, this war was not in itself of major significance, and a very good case can be made that the New World Order actually started coming apart on Sept. 11, 2001. But it was on Aug. 8 that a nation-state, Russia, attacked another nation-state, Georgia, out of fear of the intentions of a third nation-state, the United States. This causes us to begin thinking about the Real World Order.

The global system is suffering from two imbalances. First, one nation-state, the United States, remains overwhelmingly powerful, and no combination of powers are in a position to control its behavior. We are aware of all the economic problems besetting the United States, but the reality is that the American economy is larger than the next three economies combined (Japan, Germany and China). The U.S. military controls all the world’s oceans and effectively dominates space. Because of these factors, the United States remains politically powerful — not liked and perhaps not admired, but enormously powerful.

The second imbalance is within the United States itself. Its ground forces and the bulk of its logistical capability are committed to the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States also is threatening on occasion to go to war with Iran, which would tie down most of its air power, and it is facing a destabilizing Pakistan. Therefore, there is this paradox: The United States is so powerful that, in the long run, it has created an imbalance in the global system. In the short run, however, it is so off balance that it has few, if any, military resources to deal with challenges elsewhere. That means that the United States remains the dominant power in the long run but it cannot exercise that power in the short run. This creates a window of opportunity for other countries to act.

The outcome of the Iraq war can be seen emerging. The United States has succeeded in creating the foundations for a political settlement among the main Iraqi factions that will create a relatively stable government. In that sense, U.S. policy has succeeded. But the problem the United States has is the length of time it took to achieve this success. Had it occurred in 2003, the United States would not suffer its current imbalance. But this is 2008, more than five years after the invasion. The United States never expected a war of this duration, nor did it plan for it. In order to fight the war, it had to inject a major portion of its ground fighting capability into it. The length of the war was the problem. U.S. ground forces are either in Iraq, recovering from a tour or preparing for a deployment. What strategic reserves are available are tasked into Afghanistan. Little is left over.

As Iraq pulled in the bulk of available forces, the United States did not shift its foreign policy elsewhere. For example, it remained committed to the expansion of democracy in the former Soviet Union and the expansion of NATO, to include Ukraine and Georgia. From the fall of the former Soviet Union, the United States saw itself as having a dominant role in reshaping post-Soviet social and political orders, including influencing the emergence of democratic institutions and free markets. The United States saw this almost in the same light as it saw the democratization of Germany and Japan after World War II. Having defeated the Soviet Union, it now fell to the United States to reshape the societies of the successor states.

Through the 1990s, the successor states, particularly Russia, were inert. Undergoing painful internal upheaval — which foreigners saw as reform but which many Russians viewed as a foreign-inspired national catastrophe — Russia could not resist American and European involvement in regional and internal affairs. From the American point of view, the reshaping of the region — from the Kosovo war to the expansion of NATO to the deployment of U.S. Air Force bases to Central Asia — was simply a logical expansion of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a benign attempt to stabilize the region, enhance its prosperity and security and integrate it into the global system.

As Russia regained its balance from the chaos of the 1990s, it began to see the American and European presence in a less benign light. It was not clear to the Russians that the United States was trying to stabilize the region. Rather, it appeared to the Russians that the United States was trying to take advantage of Russian weakness to impose a new politico-military reality in which Russia was to be surrounded with nations controlled by the United States and its military system, NATO. In spite of the promise made by Bill Clinton that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union, the three Baltic states were admitted. The promise was not addressed. NATO was expanded because it could and Russia could do nothing about it.

From the Russian point of view, the strategic break point was Ukraine. When the Orange Revolution came to Ukraine, the American and European impression was that this was a spontaneous democratic rising. The Russian perception was that it was a well-financed CIA operation to foment an anti-Russian and pro-American uprising in Ukraine. When the United States quickly began discussing the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO, the Russians came to the conclusion that the United States intended to surround and crush the Russian Federation. In their view, if NATO expanded into Ukraine, the Western military alliance would place Russia in a strategically untenable position. Russia would be indefensible. The American response was that it had no intention of threatening Russia. The Russian question was returned: Then why are you trying to take control of Ukraine? What other purpose would you have? The United States dismissed these Russian concerns as absurd. The Russians, not regarding them as absurd at all, began planning on the assumption of a hostile United States.

If the United States had intended to break the Russian Federation once and for all, the time for that was in the 1990s, before Yeltsin was replaced by Putin and before 9/11. There was, however, no clear policy on this, because the United States felt it had all the time in the world. Superficially this was true, but only superficially. First, the United States did not understand that the Yeltsin years were a temporary aberration and that a new government intending to stabilize Russia was inevitable. If not Putin, it would have been someone else. Second, the United States did not appreciate that it did not control the international agenda. Sept. 11, 2001, took away American options in the former Soviet Union. No only did it need Russian help in Afghanistan, but it was going to spend the next decade tied up in the Middle East. The United States had lost its room for maneuver and therefore had run out of time.

And now we come to the key point. In spite of diminishing military options outside of the Middle East, the United States did not modify its policy in the former Soviet Union. It continued to aggressively attempt to influence countries in the region, and it became particularly committed to integrating Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, in spite of the fact that both were of overwhelming strategic interest to the Russians. Ukraine dominated Russia’s southwestern flank, without any natural boundaries protecting them. Georgia was seen as a constant irritant in Chechnya as well as a barrier to Russian interests in the Caucasus.

Moving rapidly to consolidate U.S. control over these and other countries in the former Soviet Union made strategic sense. Russia was weak, divided and poorly governed. It could make no response. Continuing this policy in the 2000s, when the Russians were getting stronger, more united and better governed and while U.S. forces were no longer available, made much less sense. The United States continued to irritate the Russians without having, in the short run, the forces needed to act decisively.

The American calculation was that the Russian government would not confront American interests in the region. The Russian calculation was that it could not wait to confront these interests because the United States was concluding the Iraq war and would return to its pre-eminent position in a few short years. Therefore, it made no sense for Russia to wait and it made every sense for Russia to act as quickly as possible.

The Russians were partly influenced in their timing by the success of the American surge in Iraq. If the United States continued its policy and had force to back it up, the Russians would lose their window of opportunity. Moreover, the Russians had an additional lever for use on the Americans: Iran.

The United States had been playing a complex game with Iran for years, threatening to attack while trying to negotiate. The Americans needed the Russians. Sanctions against Iran would have no meaning if the Russians did not participate, and the United States did not want Russia selling advance air defense systems to Iran. (Such systems, which American analysts had warned were quite capable, were not present in Syria on Sept. 6, 2007, when the Israelis struck a nuclear facility there.) As the United States re-evaluates the Russian military, it does not want to be surprised by Russian technology. Therefore, the more aggressive the United States becomes toward Russia, the greater the difficulties it will have in Iran. This further encouraged the Russians to act sooner rather than later.

The Russians have now proven two things. First, contrary to the reality of the 1990s, they can execute a competent military operation. Second, contrary to regional perception, the United States cannot intervene. The Russian message was directed against Ukraine most of all, but the Baltics, Central Asia and Belarus are all listening. The Russians will not act precipitously. They expect all of these countries to adjust their foreign policies away from the United States and toward Russia. They are looking to see if the lesson is absorbed. At first, there will be mighty speeches and resistance. But the reality on the ground is the reality on the ground.

We would expect the Russians to get traction. But if they don’t, the Russians are aware that they are, in the long run, much weaker than the Americans, and that they will retain their regional position of strength only while the United States is off balance in Iraq. If the lesson isn’t absorbed, the Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another.

The other country that is watching and thinking is Iran. Iran had accepted the idea that it had lost the chance to dominate Iraq. It had also accepted the idea that it would have to bargain away its nuclear capability or lose it. The Iranians are now wondering if this is still true and are undoubtedly pinging the Russians about the situation. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can’t do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the United States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see).

One of the interesting concepts of the New World Order was that all serious countries would want to participate in it and that the only threat would come from rogue states and nonstate actors such as North Korea and al Qaeda. Serious analysts argued that conflict between nation-states would not be important in the 21st century. There will certainly be rogue states and nonstate actors, but the 21st century will be no different than any other century. On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.

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Our founder and CEO, Dr. George Friedman, explains the meaning of geopolitics and how "viewing world events through a geopolitical prism" is at the very heart of the intelligence and insight only Stratfor provides.
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Iran and The Bomb: Why It must be Stopped Now Or...

2008-06-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

I find it absurd and indeed very dangerous when some suggests that Iranian claim that it is not seeking nuclear weapons or the notion that a nuclear Iran is not dangerous. Iran’s political and religious leaders continually declare the object of destroying the Jewish State of Israel, and in 2005, Iran’s then new president Ahmadinejad repeated the threat in a public forum. Days earlier, the elegant streets of Tehran were riddled with Missiles on parade, decorated with posters declaring the intention to “wipe Israel off the map.” Iranian links with Shiite militants in Iraq, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are stronger than ever.

With a nuclear shield from Iran these groups could morph into erratic but confident entities which could mean that attacks on the state of Israel will intensify. A capricious situation reminiscent of that of India and Pakistan could emerge, where in 1998 and again in 2001, Pakistan based insurgents thought they were immune from assault due to the perceived nuclear balance of power, which led to a major crisis that came close to a nuclear shoot-out.

I believe Iran presents a grave security challenge to world stability and in particular the livelihood of many Israelis. This is exacerbated by the fact that key players, Israel and Iran have no direct diplomatic relations. India and Pakistan had and do have diplomatic relations and reliable-direct communications, which in my opinion spared the two, the region and potentially, the world a disastrous conflict. Undeniably, Iranian politicians lack any appreciation or even minimal understanding of our (US) and Israel foreign values.

As a student of international security policy, I’m not confused in any way that, Iranian advance toward the development of nuclear weapons will spark regional proliferation involving Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia and further undermine international community’s efforts roll-back proliferation in Central Asia, East Asia and prevention in the rest of the world. These countries, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Saudi Arabia have retained lower-level nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs, which have become more active recently as Iran has intensified its efforts.

Technologically, the current status of Iran's nuclear program includes the development of a nuclear fuel cycle, under an emaciated pretext of civil applications, but moving towards highly enriched uranium production capability that is useful primarily for making nuclear explosives.

Iranian government deceptive behavior is well documented. Several once secret nuclear installations were uncovered and made public, including a so-called pilot enrichment plant at Natanz. The fact is that all these installations and facilities are unambiguous contravention of IAEA requirements under its reporting, verification, and safeguards arrangements.

Iran has also denied access to IAEA inspectors, in violation of the additional protocol and enhanced safeguards agreement which Iran has signed and pledged to abide by, but has not ratified. Iran has been reprimanded in IAEA reports, but the agency had, until last year, avoided a clear judgment which would have triggered the UN Security Council sanctions process, and conceivably lead to Iranian withdrawal from the NPT.

The chance of any diplomatic offensive is slow-but-steadily slipping away. A military confrontation may unfortunately be emerging as the only credible and viable option to stop Tehran from acquiring a nuclear bomb. I urge European, Russian, Asian and African leaders not to be fooled Iranian political.

Iranian nuclear development cannot and MUST not be compared to that of Iraq in 2003 and the controversy that continues, but rather has semblance to that of Tripoli or Pyongyang. In the Iranian case we have unmistakable and detailed evidence of nuclear weapons efforts, not conjecture or extrapolation. The nuclear watch-dog, IAEA, has samples of enriched uranium and other materials. In addition, technically speaking, Iran's nuclear fuel cycle constituents are far more evident than former Saddam Hussein’s Iraq small chemical and biological facilities.

The Thoroughfare to the White House, 2004 Revisited: The Emotional Manipulation of the American Electorate by Presidential Campaigns

2007-08-12T13:16:00.000-07:00

Now that we are in full gear for the 2008 presidential show down, it is disturbing to mention: Many American voters still lack the political sophistication necessary to interpret the underlying messages at the core of political advertising. In this article I will try to illustrate how President Bush and Senator Kerry campaign machines and other activists groups used advertisements to appeal to people’s base emotions.

Emotions are our responses to the world around us, and they are created by the combination of our thoughts, feelings, and actions. What is most important is for each of us to learn that we create our own emotions. Our responses are shaped by our thoughts----by what we tell ourselves. Emotions originate from exposure to specific situations. The nature and the intensity of the emotion are usually related to cognitive activity in the form of the perception of the situation. That thought process or perception results in the experience and/or the expression of a related feeling.

During the 2004 presidential debate Senator Kerry and President Bush methodically employed fear as an emotional tool to attract voters, “President Bush implied that the Junior Senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry’s ‘mixed messages’ on Iraq would only encourage the enemy. Mr. Kerry warned that Mr. Bush’s ‘certainty’ could needlessly extend a bloody occupation. Each side hopes that fear of a future shaped by the opposing candidate will help win over new voters and cement support they already had.

President Bush’s campaign repeatedly used the horrifying footages of 9/11 to invoke fear and anxiety about the possibility of another barbarous assault if Senator Kerry is elected. One ad shows the charred wreckage of the Twin Towers with a flag flying amid the debris. Another ad—and a Spanish-language version of it---use that image as well alongside Firefighters carrying a flag-draped stretcher through the rubble as sirens are heard. Firefighter, are shown in all the ads. “The last few years have tested America in many ways,” reads the script for one of the ads that feature Sept. 11 footage. “Some challenges we’ve seen before. And some were like no other,” the ad continues, showing a flag in front of the ruins of the World Trade Center. “But America rose to the challenge. What sees us through tough times? Freedom, faith, families and sacrifice” (CNN Larry King Live 2004). This was a genius psychological move to appeal to the less rational side of American voters. Emotionally, this ad promotes Bush’s strength as a warm person, and Kerry as not emotionally attuned to the security realities of the time. It also connects President Bush to the 9/11 attacks and his actions right afterward. That is another of his strengths.

An anti-Bush group called RealVoice.org ad featuring the mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. She says tearfully that Bush hasn’t “been honest with us” about the reasons for the war. This portrays the President as insensitive. Emotionally this is quite powerful in that it features a mother torn by her son’s death. The pain of death invites pungent attention; in this case the President was intimately associated with death of innocent young Americans, who were led into a hopeless battlefield initiated by a selfish-dishonest Commander in Chief.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an anti-Kerry organization, spent millions of dollars on ads featuring Vietnam War veterans and their wives talking about what they viewed as Kerry’s unforgivable betrayal of other Viet-Vets stemming from his opposition to the war after he returned from combat. Emotionally, the ad depicted Senator Kerry uncaring, opportunistic and short on patriotism. The Viet War fetches memories of U.S. troops slaughtered by blood-thirst North Viet Communists.

Public statements by both candidates show an effort to make an emotional connection with a section of voters. Often President Bush asserted, “[I]f the United States shows a sign of weakness the world will drift towards tragedy.” This has a perceptual gravity, thus, instilling fear and anxiety in people’s minds. A sign of weakness embedded in America’s reluctance to project its might when her interests challenged. In particular, tragedy is synonymous with violent death and unpleasant events stimulate and will induce an intense sense of hopelessness, consequently the impulse to resist and or reject takes hold. Change for individuals in this emotional state, could invite violent death, and hence a recipe for not entertaining leadership change.

Another trace of emotion appeal is vivid when the President initiated quite prematurely, an amendment to redefine marriage as “a union between a man and woman.” No other issue could match the intensity of emotions from the American public. Gay citizens were outraged, felt a sense of rejection, passivity, powerless and the Senator played dangerously on to their fears. This further energized the so-called religious right turning the electoral process, for the most part into an emotional battlefield.

In short, political ads and campaign rhetoric loaded with emotional appeals is a potent tool in American presidential politics. The appeal quite effectively elicits intensity and anxiety, and consequently overwhelms the cognitive capacity of many ill-and-informed voters.

I would like to keep track of some emotional driven ads in 2008, please feel free to mention them in the comment section of this piece.

U.S. troops navigate fault lines of sect and tribe--‘So many different enemies’ confront Americans in Iraq

2007-08-10T04:55:00.000-07:00

U.S. Army Sgt. Jeff McGee, from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 142nd Infantry Regiment, 56th Brigade Combat Team, gives a hug to local Iraqi girls near Nasiriya, Iraq on July 17, 2005. U.S. Air Force Photo by Staff Sgt. Suzanne M. Day. 050717-F-9629D-089 (Released)

A brief assessment of the former Soviet Union's interest in Northeast Asia

2007-08-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Since the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, the Russian Federation has emerged less European and more Asian country. But, Russia’s national interests in North East Asia are not clearly defined. The country’s top decision-making bodies are still US and Euro-centered and do not pay due attention to the aspects of the Asia-Pacific dimension.

Russia faces the urgent task of reconceptualizing security perceptions in North East Asia and of reformulating security policies. Particularly, economic engagement and cooperation are becoming more important relative to strategic and military developments. If the Russian Far East is to be integrated into the Northeast Asian economy, not only must the region’s market forces be allowed to grow, but institutionalized mechanisms of cooperation must be developed to link the fragile but growing market forces in the Russian Far East to those of the dynamic Northeast Asian countries.

The new Russian state emerged in 1991-92 inherited from Gorbachev era the following mixed legacy: withdrawal from most regional conflicts; narrowed sphere of national interests in Northeast Asia; finalized normalization of relations with China and Republic of Korea; alienation with former ally in North Korea (DPRK); started but unfinished and not very promising dialogue with Japan with no precise vision of further accommodation; nihilist view by Russian democrats of “Communist totalitarian regimes in Asia”, i.e. China, North Korea; emergence of China as most welcome potential partner for conservative political force; dominance of conservatives in formulation of a positive Russian policy towards China; significant increase of value of relations with Republic of Korea and her emergence as one of most important Russian regional partners lack of a concise regional strategy, orientation for bilateral basis to develop Russian contacts in Northeast Asia and low cohesion of her efforts in the region. The ultimate Russian goals and preferences in the Asia-Pacific in general and Northeast Asia in particularly follow into two basic and partially conflicting dimensions; order and stability in regional affairs generally preserving existing status-quo and balance of regional powers, prevention of major radical changes, increase of Russian role and value in preserving the current balance.

Russia’s long for the Asian-Pacific under which she could protect national interests without use of armed forces. Therefore being one of the biggest nations in the Asia-Pacific she is concerned with permanent stability, security and prosperity of the region. The Russian major tasks in ensuring security include: gradual forming an international security system to protect national interests mainly by political and diplomatic means and to create a chance for an active participation in prevention and settlement of regional conflicts; establishing stable defense cooperation and partnership ties with all regional nations, especially with the largest ones exerting decisive influence on the regional situation such as the USA, China and Japan, to pursue common interests in security, stability and reducing tensions in the Asia-Pacific; strengthening the Russian role as one of key factors of regional military and political balance.

However, as recent developments vividly illustrate, (North Korea), Russia is lagging behind China, South and Japan in influencing the political destiny of the region. This suggests that Russia need to do more in bolstering its diplomatic influence in the region

China's main and major goals and interests in East Asia

2007-08-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

In general China main goal is to maintain better relations with its neighbors. For Russia, Japan, and the two Koreas, China’s goal is to simultaneously maintain amicable relations while countering external security threats and destabilizing influences within its borders from minority peoples stirred up by their ethnic conflicts. This stance spills over into such problem areas as China’s claims on Taiwan, Tibet, and the South China’s Sea. While Russia was long perceived as the greatest single threat to China's security, potential threats from the United States, Japan, and Taiwan are top priorities therefore stresses a strong national defense so as to avoid containment by these surrounding countries and to create a diplomatic environment conducive to China's interests. The reunification between Taiwan and the mainland is imperative to the Chinese leadership. It is a matter territorial integrity and national independence, certainly a security issue which China considers to be a top priority. As one Chinese diplomat eloquently put it “the basic policy of the Chinese Government to solve this issue is "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two systems". The great concept of "one country, two systems" has been smoothly applied in Hong Kong.”

A second major priority is pursuing an independent foreign policy as a vehicle for exerting greater leadership and influence in the East Asia. China's goals appear to be to resist superpower domination and outside interference while enhancing its own relations with the developing world so as to create a global political and diplomatic environment advantageous to its interests. In pursuit of these goals, China has toned down its highly ideological emphasis on socialism in favor of a realistic, flexible approach to diplomatic relations. For example recently economic aid is being extended to repressive regimes in Africa (Angola and Zimbabwe).

China seeks to build a constructive strategic partnership with the United States through cooperation to meet international challenges and promote peace and development in the world. Also China's security concerns comes from its neighbors, in particular: the Korean peninsula, and Taiwan .The greatest worry with regard to the Korean peninsula is that chaos and instability there might spill over into the ethnic Korean community living in Chinese territory and disrupt peace in the border regions. Taiwan remains a matter of China's national sovereignty, and thus a matter of particular concern.

China strives to improve foreign relations with its neighbors to create a better security environment for itself at the same time as it continues to build a strong national defense to support its basic strategic goals and to protect its national interests. This approach lies at the heart of a Chinese independent diplomatic policy that rejects interference and attempts at hegemony by other major powers. A strong national defense simultaneously serves to strengthen the government's hand in maintaining stability within its own borders and to expand Chinese influence in the East Asia by modernization of its nuclear and conventional forces, its increased military deployment in the South China Sea.

In conclusion, China’s main goal and national interests can be broadly classified and distributed into three major areas, security, economic and diplomatic in that order. However, as the Cold War experience vividly demonstrates, the East Asian “Giant” will have to adjust her national objectives and interests to cope with the dynamism in this region of the world (East Asia). China also sees a challenging international security environment and is apprehensive about several international security trends. It is particularly concerned about the perceived US "containment” and military “encirclement” of China, US national defense programs, and the potential for Japan to improve her regional force projection capabilities. Taiwan, however, is China's main security focus, and it is the biggest problem, both politically and militarily, in China-US relations. The issues of continuing US arms sales in the region remain problematic for the future.

The Making of Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime, Strength, Shortcomings and its Future

2007-08-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

This analysis is ongoing, thus when time allows I will get all elements of this piece in place, please do check back-Thank You

By Patrick Kluivert Ddiba, B.A International Relations USC 07, MIA International Security Policy Columbia-SIPA 09--------

The nuclear nonproliferation regime includes numerous treaties, expansive multi-lateral and bi-lateral diplomatic agreements, multilateral organizations and domestic agencies, and the domestic laws of participating countries. Since the birth of the nuclear age, U.S. has been vital in developing the regime. Despite almost universal international agreement opposing the further spread of nuclear weapons, several roadblocks have emerged in recent years: India and Pakistan went nuclear weapons in 1998; North Korea turned its back on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003; Libya gave up a clandestine nuclear weapons program in 2004, and Iran has been noncompliance with NPT obligations since 2005. To make matters worse, nuclear-tech black market network run by A.Q. Khan has ignited new debate about how to strengthen the regime, including enhanced export controls and greater restrictions on sensitive technology. Predictably, the extension of civil nuclear cooperation by the United States to India, a non-party to the NPT, has raised questions about what benefits still exist for non-nuclear weapons states that remain within the treaty regime.

Is the Institutionalization of the Six-Party Talks Possible?

2007-08-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

This article represents the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the official opinion of this site. This document is property of Dr. Jaewoo Choo and is not to be reproduced in whole or part without permission of the author: Jaewoo Choo, Ph.D.Professor of Chinese Politics and Foreign PolicyDepartment of Chinese StudiesKyung Hee University1 Seocheon-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 449-701, Republic of Korea(O)+82-31-201-2210, (F)+82-31-204-8113
EAST ASIA, Winter 2005, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 39-58.

During 2003 and 2004, after having successfully hosted two six-party talks and a round of working-group level meetings on the North Korean nuclear crisis, China pushed to institutionalize the talks. Such an initiative coming from China was a shock to the world, since it has long maintained a passive, negative and defensive posture against multilateral cooperative security arrangements. This article declares that China’s idea to utilize the six-party talks as a steppingstone toward a multilateral cooperative security arrangement is premature. It argues that the first priority is to address the failure of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea—what was, then, believed to be the solution for the North Korean nuclear crisis. This article dissects the failure and identifies one critical factor for the viability of any future peaceful resolution—the economic sanctions that the US has placed against North Korea for the past half-century. The author argues that if the issue of sanctions is not addressed, the current six-party talks will not be successful.
Keywords: Six-party talks, institutionalization, economic sanctions, confidence and trust, Geneva Agreed Framework, economic aid and assistance

I. Introduction

Contrary to the way in which the first North Korean nuclear crisis (1993/ 94) was approached and “resolved” with bilateral contacts between the US and the North, when the second one erupted in 2002, a multilateral approach was called for by concerned states—the US, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. China did not immediately view a multilateral approach as viable or appropriate under its policy that “the crisis must be handled by the immediately concerned parties (dangshizhe yuanzi).”1 For some time, despite the international community’s ardent demand on China to exert influence on the North to join multilateral discussions, China unyieldingly remained indifferent to the idea of a multilateral approach until it hosted the so-called “three-way talks” in March 2003 and the six-party talks in August 2003.2 China’s reservation about the idea of a multilateral approach drew much speculative doubt as to whether Beijing had influence on Pyongyang—despite being the North’s sole remaining ally.3 Once it succeeded in hosting the three-way talks and subsequent rounds of the six-party talks, such doubts miraculously disappeared.4

While there is much debate on the purposes behind Beijing’s decision to assume an intermediary role between the world and Pyongyang,5 the question of China’s obsession with the continuity of the talks remains unanswered.6 Ever since successfully hosting the first round of the six-party talks in August 2003, Chinese endeavors have become very explicit. Furthermore, Beijing now envisages the successful inaugural meeting as a gateway to realize the long-sought goal of building a multilateral cooperative security institution in Northeast Asia. It has turned itself into an ardent advocate for institutionalization of the talks. As early as November 2003, long before the second round of the talks (February 2004), the Chinese vice minister of foreign affairs, Dai Bingguo, disclosed his nation’s idea of institutionalizing the talks to his Japanese counterparts during his visit to Tokyo.7

The idea of institutionalization may indeed be very enticing, considering the fact that there is no precedent in which all six regional states would congregate to discuss regional security issues, namely the North Korean nuclear crisis. It cannot, however, be brought about by a mere meeting of states with a simple intention to search for a solution to the crisis. This is probably the reason why the six-party talks have yet to produce any substantial results. In other words, the talks have not been anything but a mere dialogue, in which the participating states only get to check out the positions of others on a sporadic basis.8 Believed to be a self-driven engine due to the shared perception of (negative) externalities that endanger the national security of the parties concerned, the talks are stalemated. As claimed by many pundits, the stalemate may be overcome if and when an operational mechanism is found because it can be instrumental in prioritizing the agenda, facilitating the bargaining process under the rules and norms agreed upon, and allow for the implementation and enforcement of a resulting agreement. This said, institutionalization has so become an alternative. States create international institutions to solve problems that they cannot solve alone.9

In a narrow sense, international institutions can be defined as explicit arrangements, such as treaties and conventions, that regulate behavior.10 Institutional building, however, requires some critical substances, such as norms, rules, regulations, and so on. These substances can be materialized through the so called “bargaining process” among the concerned states. Once this process is completed, norms and rules have to be observed and implemented by a mechanism that is established as a consequence of the process. The format of the institution, however, is not too important as “states use international institutions to further their own goals, and they design institutions accordingly.”11 Whether it will take the form of an anarchic institution or a hierarchic institution, 12 the final design of the six-party institution will be largely subject to how the concerned parties define the answer to the following questions. Who the perpetrator(s) and victim(s)? Is the US’ unwillingness to talk with and make concession to North Korea as responsible for the impasse of the talks as claimed by other members? What are the externalities? Are they symmetric or asymmetric? 13 What is the scope of the problem? Is its orientation going to be issue-specific reciprocity or broad-based linkage? In what sequence will the packaged solution be carried out; and under what conditionality will these benefits and incentives for cooperation materialize?

The aforementioned questions are yet to be answered in critical ways. For example, as the member states of the six-party talks began to witness ever rising divergence in their respective positions with respect to managing the talks and the North Korea issue, the problem of defining perpetrator(s) and victim(s) returned to square one. This made it much more difficult for the member states to coordinate for a consistent policy. The externalities of the six parties may also be perceived in intriguing ways. While all member states may simultaneously perceive themselves as victims of their negative externalities in one way or the other (symmetric externality-North Korea vs. the rest), the states dissatisfied with the process of the talks would have a strong propensity to blame others for the cost that they would have to bear due to the lack of their power to steer the outcome to their favor (asymmetric externality). 14 In the latter case especially, the victims would realize the perpetrators would have no incentives to cooperate unless compensated, whereas in symmetric situations, states that generate externality are dissatisfied with the status quo, and therefore, tend to seek compensation for their actions as victims as well as perpetrators.15

The six-party talks are challenged by both externality situations, and thus, need to blend in features and characteristics of both anarchic and hierarchic institutions if they are to be institutionalized. The latter can be accounted for two reasons: There is neither a hegemonic power that possesses a total and absolute control to influence the outcome of the institutional operation, nor a concrete agreement among the participating states against the perpetrator (in this case, North Korea). For the due process to realize, trust and confidence must be established between the US and North Korea, and as claimed by many in recent years, it is the former who ought to adopt a different strategy in approaching the latter to achieve this end.16 One meaningful step is lifting the economic sanctions that the US has placed on the North since its birth in1948. While it is not easy for the US to adopt benign measures in the political realm, it would be less difficult to do so in the economic arena. This article will address the need and reasons for institutionalization of the six-party talks from the Chinese perspective and historical lessons that we may receive from the failure of the 1994 Agreed Framework and four-party talks. As one of the means to build trust and confidence between the US and North Korea, this article suggests that lifting the economic sanctions that the former has placed on the latter would be effective. Though it would be a daunting task for any US president to confront the US Congress to do so, it would lead the talks toward more positive direction, by which it would allow institutionalization to become a possible and feasible transformation. As long as the US intractably and persistently abides by the principle of hardcore political reciprocity in dealing with North Korea, easing its economic measures against the North could have a related effect of gaining confidence and trust from Pyongyang. Under the assumption that institutionalization is an alternative that could overcome the current stalemate and could be self-driven for solution, this article explores its feasibility by making a theoretical assessment.

II. Why Institutionalize?: China’s Reasons and Lessons from Past
Experiences

As early as November, 2003, according to a Chinese televised report during his visit to Japan, China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, Dai Bingguo, reportedly explained his nation’s vision of institutionalizing the six-party talks.17 China justified its necessity with a few potential advantages that it foresaw in institutionalization. It would be the only way, for instance, to have a gravitating affect on the sustainability of the talks by the actors that have almost zero confidence and trust in one another. A mere dialogue format of negotiation by such actors is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain without disruption or discontinuity, and is susceptible to a subtle breakdown. In addition, an institutionalized mechanism underpinned by the standing multilateral framework will allow for better implementation of whatever solutions the talks produces because all actors would be legally bounded by the norms and rules set by themselves. Furthermore, institutionalization of the talks could possibly lead to the eventual establishment of a security regime based on multilateralism and regionalism in Northeast Asia, where skepticism about such a regime still prevails to date for political, economic and cultural reasons.18

The rising need for nations to cooperate against so-called “transnational concerns” and “nontraditional security threats” also makes this prospect very enticing.19 According to reports, Mr. Dai envisaged institutionalization as a necessary condition to “sustain the momentum of the talks.” With respect to the meaning of institutionalization, China’s interpretation of it is to transform the six-party talks into a regional security dialogue, such as security guarantee dialogue for Northeast Asia (dongheiya anquan baozhang duihua). Given the vision and framework for institutionalization, Mr. Dai went further to explain the mechanism and responsibility of the institutionalized form of the talks. Since the current six-party talks are held on a sporadic basis, Mr. Dai emphasized, it is absolutely necessary to establish the “special small group” to persistently continue talks on practical matters on regular basis. On the organization of the institution, he proposed of setting up a “special small group (tebie xiaozu),” that would comprise of representatives from all six nations and act as a representing office. The group should consist of representatives from all six nations, whose official status should not be lower than vice minister (fubuzhang) or director level (sizhang).20 Under such a scheme, the Chinese vice minister noted, working level personnel within the institution should be all comprised of those at managerial level, at least. Furthermore, to achieve this end, the chairmanship that China has thus far assumed as the host of the talks shall be transferred to, and assumed by, other parties: each nation taking turns for a certain period of time. It would allow the actors to be more respectful to and more responsible with the fate of the talks.

Nonetheless what China envisions in institutionalization does not fully explain the reason as to why the talks need to institutionalize at this particular stage. In other words, it does not sound persuasive to the parties, all of whom lack mutual trust and confidence in one another. Without prior fulfillment of such preconditions, institutionalization of the talks will remain a very unrealistic and unfeasible scheme. 21 Unlike the conventional wisdom, however, it is perhaps for this reason that China is persistently advocating institutionalization. Given the fact that the six parties are all lacking in mutual trust and confidence, institutionalization may be a viable source that would bind them together as a coherent unit and push the talks to continue without interruption or breakdown. Under the circumstances, institutionalization must have some alternatives as to how it is going to overcome the obvious and failed premise.
For this, it requires sound goals and objectives. The goal and purpose of institutionalization of the talks can easily be drafted based on what the international actors around the Korean peninsula have learned from their experience with a similar crisis that first developed almost a decade ago. Institutionalization is absolutely necessary because no one trusts anyone. 22 There is absolutely almost zero confidence in one another among the participating nations of the six-party talks. Apart from the legacy of the Cold War, as claimed by many,23 growing nationalism in the individual state is severely hindering the nations as well as the region to have any opportunity to plant the seed of confidence and trust. Against this background, it may be better for states with no mutual confidence and trust to first build a framework for cooperation in which they can way up to building confidence and trust in one another. The second lesson of their experience is that the framework needs to have a strong commitment from the participating states, regardless of how deep their suspicions of one another’s intentions and actions. This commitment has to be also enforced by some kind of legal action.

In other words, their commitment has to be legally binding, with checks and balances, agreed norms, and regulations at work. Furthermore, states should not, at least in principle, allow their old distrustful perception of other’s intentions and purposes to come into play,24 especially at the inaugural stage of the institutionalization process. Once preoccupation with old images and perceptions has any say in the process or in the outcomes of the process, it could only generate a negative effect on the actors’ commitment. It could also easily led to a meltdown, as previously witnessed in the four-party talks in the late 1990sthat perished with no substantial achievements to match the original goals and purposes.25 The third lesson leads us to the need to establish a supervising and/or governing body for effective implementation of whatever agreement and consensus the talks generate. Without a function, even if a framework is created, already distrustful members of the framework will not sacrifice themselves, nor will they make any kind of commitment to carry out whatever they all agreed, and adopted, as a solution. As long as they perceive one another through a prism of distrust, they will exert themselves only if the others will move first, thereby naturally making any agreement impossible. Such a case was clear in the course of implementation of the Agreed Framework between the United States and North Korea in the following years.26

The fact of the matter is that their failure to observe what they have agreed in the Framework was not due to their lack of will or responsibility, but was rather for their lack of trust as to who is going to first abide by the rules they have set forth in the Framework. In other words, while the US was skeptical of North Korea’s commitment to end its nuclear missile development programtesting, the North was skeptical of the US commitment to improve the bilateral relationship. The US commitment, however, was conditioned on the North’s abiding by the Framework.27 In the end; both states procrastinated on observing their respective duties and responsibilities. As there is no third party witness who could confirm how the Framework was supposed to be carried out, only the two parties know what went wrong with the Framework. In other words, the secretive and discreet nature of the negotiation process of the Framework already involved a high risk for a possible breakdown to begin with, considering the mistrust between the two parties. Thus, in order to prevent such a recurrence with whatever outcome is achieved with the six party talks, a governing body installed with authority to supervise the implementation progress of the solution is necessary. The last, but not least, lesson that could be inferred from the previous dealings between the US and North Korea is that the outcome of any kind of agreement reached with the North would be economically costly. Based on what has been estimated as compensation for the cost of the North’s renouncement of its nuclear ambitions, it could be astronomical. The total economic package would depend on how the rest of the participating nations value the worth of the efforts made by the North in abandoning its nuclear ambitions.

Although the estimation of such value may be subjective, the price is certain to be very high. North Korea, for example, is seeking $10 billion from Japan as a compensation for the past wrongdoings during its brutal colonial rule during the first half of the last century, 28 let alone the price for its renunciation of its nuclear ambitions. Additional costs would include economic aid and assistance for the North’s nation building costs, which are too difficult to estimate by any standard. It is particularly so without a similar precedent. Out of such understanding and realization, the US, like China, may have foreseen the necessity for institutionalization of the talks when it mentioned at the World Economic Forum in January 2003, the possible need to expand the number of the talk’s members to ten—although it avoided making a specific reference. On January 25, 2003 the then-US Secretary of the State Colin Powell conveyed such thinking to a representative of then South Korean President elect Roh Moo-hyun’s delegation and currently a Prime Minister of Unification, Jung Dong-young. The message was significant at the time because for the first time it revealed the United States’ potential long-term perspective in its approach to the North Korean problem, namely “5+5.” The US’ thought of expanding the current talks to a group of ten nations that would include additional states such as France, Britain, Australia, and the European Union (EU) bears significant implications for the future course of the talks’ development. First of all, the participation of these states would allow them to gain first hand experience to get a better understanding on the North Korean problem.

Second, they will be a significant part of the peaceful solution of the North’s nuclear problem for their potential to play a substantive role for their highly respected international profile and status in international organizations, which may well be evident when the North Korean bill needs to be cashed.29 Except for China, for instance, all these states of the talks are members of the epistemic community or trust board at international financial institutions.30 They have the authority to decide the North’s accession to international financial and economic institutions, and if a membership is granted, they can also decide whether or not to finance the North’s nation building effort if and when the talks succeed. In addition, the implications of the North’s accession to international financial institutions are twofold. While it would have to be realized with a strict fulfillment of the stipulation that the US will have to eliminate some, if not all, of the economic sanctions and trade embargoes against North Korea, it would lessen the economic and financial burden that the talks’ members would have to endure otherwise.

III. A Viable Way to Build Trust and Confidence: The Lifting of US Sanctions

As suggested in this article, if the six-party talks were to succeed, problems related to North Korea must be dealt with at two levels. Politically related issues, including the current nuclear stand-off and security guarantee of North Korea, shall be left in the hands of the six-party talks members, whereas economic issues with respect to the US’ economic sanctions against the North shall seek a breakthrough at the bilateral level discussions. To date, the US seems to have no intention to deal with these two issues separately. It still unyieldingly insists upon the North to fully comply with its demand for the complete, verifiable, irreversible disarming (CVID) of its nuclear program as a precondition to any further discussion of economic and diplomatic issues and the guarantee of its regime’s survival. The US demand that the North first accept its preconditions only reinforces the standing impasse the talks are currently experiencing, and further reduces any hope for a peaceful solution. In other words, if Washington is to continue to press Pyongyang without any intention to change its stance before the latter’s acceptance of its demands, the consequences of the latter’s failure or rejection would be much more devastating to the regional states’ interests .While there is a growing hope for institutionalization of the six-party talks to become the first formal security regime in the region,31 there is, however, one serious question needs to be dealt with to realize this end—US sanctions against North Korea. The sanctions will otherwise continue to impede the institutionalization process because of their ineffectiveness as a lever in the current predicament of North Korea’s economic survival game. According to an empirical study by Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, sanctions in general will work when the following set of preconditions are met: the goal is relatively modest, thus lessening the importance of multilateral cooperation; the target is economically weak and politically unstable; the sanctioner and its target conduct substantial trade together; the sanctions are imposed quickly and decisively to maximize impact; and the sanctioner avoids high costs to itself.32

In the case of the US and North Korea, none these conditions, except for the second one, are met. Under the circumstances, given the US desire for a peaceful solution of the North Korean nuclear crisis, this article tries to address what it takes in practical terms to turn a standing misfortune (wei) into an opportunity (ji), i.e., an opportunity to peacefully solve the nuclear crisis and to build the first multilateral cooperative security regime in Northeast Asia. The very existence of differences of opinion among the six parties in their approach to the problem indicates not consensus33 but a rift that separates the parties from ever-needed cooperation. A division is already drawn between the US and the rest, 34 albeit Japan’s recent policy initiatives show that it is gradually siding with the US on the stick measures.35 Nonetheless, due to its fear of political and economic consequences from a total collapse of the North, Japan would like to see the crisis solved in a peaceful way.

Given the logic that the states geographically adjacent to North Korea want to avoid dealing with the catastrophic consequences of the collapse of Pyongyang regime, economic sanctions evidently will not draw much cooperation from the regional states. In this sense, there is obviously a limit to the economic leverage of the US against the North. Thus, instead of imposing more embargoes, the US may have to shift its strategies toward developing a policy that would hold out the possibility of engagement, normalization, and more aid, 36 if it is sincere with its wish to see positive outcomes from the six party talks. As most proponents of cooperation and engagement would argue the US needs to develop a “road map” similar to its normalization process with Vietnam, China, and to a certain extent, former Soviet Union. In other words, the US must find a way to share the economic costs that will arise in the due process as well as the result of the six-party talks, provided it is willing to cooperate with other concerned parties in advancing its political demands. It is particularly so because it is not realistic at all for the US to persistently insist on the normalization of the relationship with North Korea as a precondition for its clearance of economic sanctions. The fact of the matter is that the current international political and military configuration around the Korean peninsula will simply not allow it to happen. North Korea does not have the strategic value that China possessed in the ’70s, prompting a dramatic shift in US policy and perceptions that led to the lifting of economic sanctions. North Korea does not have economic strategic value as a potential market, as did Vietnam, which drew American businessmen into lobbying against US economic
sanctions.37 Furthermore, the Libyan model cannot be applied to the North Korean case due to its fundamental differences in the way the immediately concerned nations approach their problem with the North. As long as the six-party talks will be perceived as the only viable means to solve the North’s nuclear crisis, participating nations will have to discard any possibility of secret negotiation as a viable way of seeking solution, despite its success with Libya.38
US interests in the region cannot be preserved by unilateral actions, but require strong and close cooperation with regional actors. The US’ current pursuit of its military realignment plan with allies like Japan and South Korea is still in progress. Any interruption due to the consequences of what they perceive as a result of the US’ lack of willingness to peacefully solve the North Korean problem would act against such interests. Already a sufficient number of South Korean people, for instance, perceive the cause of the second nuclear crisis as instigation coordinated by the US.39 In pursuit of its war on terrorism, the US needs China’s cooperation at least on the regional level. Lack of US support to a peaceful solution of the nuclear crisis would only manifest a growing deviation in both parties’ interest to the extent that it would adversely affect China’s cooperative stance. Should China continue to feel unthreatened by the North’s nuclear ambitions, as many Chinese experts expect, the breakdown of the six-party talks would literally have no effect on its interests as long as the North is not subject to foreign military intervention. 40 In short, to many of the six-party members, the talks themselves are not an issue of their policy to North Korea. In other words, their current and future relations with North Korea are not tied to the success of the talks. In the midst of the ‘crisis,’ the relationship of North Korea with the neighboring states in general, and South Korea and China particularly, has witnessed substantial progress, especially in the economic arena since the turn of the 21st century. The progress is well manifested in the steady rise of their total trade volume, investment, and ever-lasting economic aid. First of all, the total trade volume of North Korea with China and South Korea has made a remarkable recovery, thereby helping the state to survive renewed US sanctions and Japan’s recent initiatives to pass similar bills. By utilizing the so called “mirror statistics” provided by the North Korea’s trading partners, as claimed by Nicholas Eberstadt, they can explain how North Korea has managed to finance state survival.41 They have become instrumental in China’s case. Since its accession to World Trade Organization in 2001, China can no longer rely on traditional ways of trade, including barter and credit-based trade with North Korea, that would otherwise be in violation of the WTO’s most favored nation (MFN) clause.42 Thus, China’s trade statistics with North Korea have been made available by the Chinese customs office on a regular basis, as would be the case with other trading partners. As of the first half of 2004, North Korea’s exports totaled $172 million, an increase of 59.7% compared to the previous year, while its imports stood at $346 million, a rise of 28%.43 Meanwhile, Korea overtook Japan ($270 million) as the North’s second largest trading partner in 2003 when it recorded $434 million in exports. Overall, North Korea’s trade has shown a steady recovery in 2003, reaching $2.3 billion in total volume. Among its top five trading partners, four of them are members of the six-party talks, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia ($115 million) respectively.

Unlike the trade statistics, foreign investment figures are not well compiled for a couple of reasons. One is the sporadic nature of investment, which is often subject to political factors inside and outside of North Korea. In the ’90s, for instance, driven by the launch of Tumen River Area Development Program (TRADP), the Rajin-Sunbong Special Economic Zone initially recorded $700 million worth of contracted investment. However, due to its unfavorable economic environment for both political and economic reasons, the actual investment was limited to $8.8 million.44 The other reason is that the size of many investments is too small to be reflected in the “mirror statistics.” In addition, investment has been often disguised by such terms as “cooperation,” as is the case with inter-Korean economic relations. The South Korean government prefers to dub its economic investments “cooperation” due to the lack of reciprocity in its nature. Furthermore, it was not until 1998 that the North allowed South Korean investment by law. Nonetheless, investment by those who can make them without legal constraints, such as China and South Korea, has been on a steady rise. Since 1999, a South Korean conglomerate Hyundai Asan, for instance, has invested approximately $833 million in such projects as tour of Mount Keumgang, Kaesung Industrial Compound, and similar projects. At the governmental level, the South is due to have invested about $25.1 million in the Compound when completed in 2005. In addition, the ongoing effort to reconnect the interrupted railroads between the two countries is estimated to cost about $33.4 million. Furthermore, the South is in the midst of discussion with its northern counterpart for its potential investment in SOC, which is estimated to be in the range of $111 million. In recent times, China has been active in the pursuit of tapping the North’s market. In 2003, the two countries established a designated company that was authorized to manage the commercial and investment related matters at civilian level. Since then, a Chinese mining company announced it signed a contract to invest about $2.4 billion in Hyesan copper mine for development and production. Furthermore, China has been extensively seeking investment opportunities in service industries such as hotels and residential complex as well as department stores.45

One advantage for Chinese investors is their uninhibited geographical freedom for investment, whereas the Koreans are strictly limited to designated areas. Beginning in 1995, regional states began to provide humanitarian aid and other economic assistance to North Korea as the result of the successive famines and ensuing economic consequences, as well as seeking a solution to the first nuclear crisis.46 To worsen the situation, the collapse of the former Soviet Union, once the largest and most reliable source of aid and assistance to the North, meant desperate need for a replacement. It was, then, when the regional states of Northeast Asia stepped in to join China to help the North Koreans survive malnutrition and mass death-by-hunger inflicted by its chronic food shortages. From June 1995 to June 2003, statistics revealed by the Korean Ministry of Unification state that South Korea’s total accumulated aid and assistance stood at $535 million, which would be later modified to $568 million as of the end of 2002.47 According to the same data, the US has provided $650 million of aid and assistance, while US statistics claim over $1 billion was provided (about 60% of which has taken the form of food aid and about 40 percent in form of energy assistance).48 China49 and Japan, according to the same statistics, have both accumulated a total of $250 million worth of aid and assistance,50 while the EU provided a total of $295 million. If the trend continues, it would mean for the North an annual level of support of $1-1.1 billion of aid and assistance for food, KEDO, and others alike.51

Under the circumstances, the prospects for continued US sanctions against North Korea do not seem bright. The case particularly does not meet the conditions to be effective. There is a set of conditions in which sanctions are regarded to be effective and useful as a tool of influence. First, sanctions will be effective against a target country that has no other available trading partners. Alternate trading partners cannot, therefore, maintain the availability of a market for the target’s exports and may allow the importation of necessary items. Second, sanctions will be more effective against a free market economy than a command one like North Korea where the prices of scarce goods do not necessarily respond to the shortage inflicted by imposed sanctions. Third, sanctions are less likely to be effective if the target country is not dependent on foreign goods that cannot be replaced by domestic industries. Fourth, sanctions are effective unless they do not create large costs to the imposing state. Fifth, the efficacy of sanctions is influenced by circumstances concerning the imposition and enforcement of sanctions.52 Thus, under the circumstances, the United States will have to give serious consideration as to whether it should lift its sanctions against North Korea. This is especially so if it is as serious as it has expressed in recent times about its hope that the six-party talks will continue and be fruitful.53 Removal of sanctions would be a long-term struggle for both the US executive branch and Congress, regardless of party and leadership. This is because of all the labels the US has attached to North Korea. It is an adversary state, an enemy that made the United States bleed in the 1950s. It is a rogue state, a designation it shares with six other states in the world because of their diplomatic behavior. 54

Because it is a communist, Marxist-Leninist state, it is barred from conducting any commercial or economic transaction with the US and from receiving foreign assistance from international financial institutions.55 For its active participation in terrorism, it is liable to further sanction. And last but not least, it is a member of the “axis of evil.”56 Under the circumstances, for the US to remove all these labels it has put on North Korea and to lift sanctions will be like peeling an onion skin, an endless task. Luckily enough, being an “axis of evil” member does not bind North Korea to any type of sanction by the US constitution or law—this particular label is nothing more than diplomatic rhetoric. By contrast, such labels as “rogue state” or “adversarial state” carry much more important implications for the prospect of relations between the United States and North Korea. The relationship is constrained by all and any legal means by the US. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the US has adopted too many sanctions against North Korea. In fact, the first sanction was adopted before the war ended, in 1951.As a sanction against a non-market state, the Trade Framework Extension Act of 1951 was applied to North Korea. That act required the suspension of MFN trade status.57 Ever since then, North Korea has been embargoed with many more types of sanction. First, since it posed a threat to US national security, North Korea was subject to the Trading with the Enemy Act and National Emergencies Act. In the wake of the Korean War, the United States invoked a total embargo on exports to North Korea. Over the years, export controls were restated as the Export

Administration Regulations (EARs). According to this restriction, North Korea was classified as a member of Country Group Z, the most restricted lot.58 In 1989, the EARs were modified to allow the export to North Korea of commercially supplied goods intended to meet basic human needs. Shipment of these goods required validation on a case-by-case basis. In September 1999, former US president Bill Clinton formally announced the removal of most export restrictions applied to North Korea, at least in theory.59 Second, North Korea has long been regarded as a state sponsor or supporter of international terrorism, pursuant to the Export Administration Act of 1979. Third, for being a Marxist-Leninist state, it is subject to the Export- Import Bank Act of 1945, and is further restricted under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. One of the main features of these acts is that the United States is required by law to oppose membership in international financial institutions and refuse financial support to terrorist states, including North Korea. Fourth, pursuant to its label as a rogue state for proliferating weapons of mass destruction, North Korea has been made subject to the Arms Export Control Act, the Export Administration Act of 1979, and the Iran Proliferation Act of 2000. According to the Arms Export Control Act, the United States bans “export, directly or indirectly, of any munitions item, lease or loan, credits, guarantees, or other financial assistance to a terrorist country.” It further “prohibits US individuals from engaging in such trade or support of such a country.”60

For all these legal constraints to be removed and to bring peace to the bilateral relationship between the US and North Korea, the key is obviously in the United States’ hands. If we truly understand the long and winding process for amending a law in US politics, not too many of us can blame Pyongyang for relying on unconventional bargaining tactics for its survival. Whether North Korea knows the US political system well enough to employ such preconditions for its participation in the six-party talks is not clear. However, if we were to look at the other side of the coin, the US may be well aware of the true meanings of the layers it has put on North Korea. Of all the aforementioned sanctions, for instance, there are some surprising, yet convincing and persuasive, argument by some scholars as to why North Korea should be cleared of being labeled as a terrorist state, and the related sanctions. Their rationale relates to the North’s inactive engagement in terrorism in recent times, and in the fact that such labeling is deliberately distorted and misinterpreted. Thus, they argue that at least North Korea should be emancipated from such sanctions.61

If its unwillingness to even considers lifting any of these sanctions is any indicator of its current North Korean policy, it may imply that it feels better off with the status quo than with a peaceful solution to the current crisis. Perhaps Washington feels that dragging out the crisis will eventually xhaust its opponent to the point of surrender. In the meantime, the US would be able to shift
the momentum toward its own side and turn the course to its favor, thereby allowing itself to achieve its domestic and international goals (TMD, WTO, energy and alike), not what other perceive as more important, such as formal peace on the Korean Peninsula built by the consequences of the talks and its subsequent institutionalization.

IV. Feasibility of Institutionalization: A Theoretical Assessment

Despite more than a decade long effort by the Northeast Asian states to build a multilateral security regime based on cooperation and dialogue, the only results have been at the non-governmental, Track II level. Indeed, a number of Track II level meetings, such as CSCAP and NEACD are in operation to date. Nonetheless, the traditional school of (neo-) realism still prevails to hinder regional states from realizing this end. Relative gains theory is still very much at work in their foreign policy thinking due to their lack of confidence and trust caused by historical problems, differences in social and political values and systems, and diverse cultural backgrounds. The eruption of the second North Korean nuclear crisis, caused by the North’s confession in October 2002 of operating a highly enriched uranium (HEU) development program, however, has had a compelling effect on the regional states and the US to come to a consensus on the necessity to approach and solve the matter in multilateral context, thereby successfully launching what is now known as the “six-party talks.” To date, although the talks have been held on only three occasions, interest in their further development and transformation into an institution has already surfaced. The idea of institutionalization of the talks was, ironically enough, first put forward by China, who, in the early stage of the crisis, was indifferent to the idea of dealing with North Korea’s nuclear issue in a multilateral context. Should the institutionalization of the talks come to fruition, it would have much greater implications for multilateral security cooperation paradigm than becoming the first of such kind in Northeast Asia.

First of all, unlike the conventional realist wisdom of prior fulfillment of necessary prerequisites, or post hoc and ad hoc qualifications such as geography, history, perception, domestic politics, confidence and trust, multilateral security cooperation is not impossible with an outbreak of a serious national security threat like development of nuclear weapons, if and when threatened nations all oppose that threat. Under such a predicament, the possibility of such a threat becoming a cause for aggressive war against prevailing defensive technologies is low, 62 thereby naturally refuting the realists’ claim on a state’s preference for relative gains than cooperation in an anarchic world.63 Second, cooperation as self-help is applicable to meet the international challenge of a potential threat if and when that threat is perceived to be for economic gains rather than political. According to Charles L. Glaser in his work of cooperation as self-help, “an adversary will engage in reciprocal restraint only if arms control promises to provide it with greater security than the competitive alternatives.” By the same logic, inducement of an adversary to cooperation is feasible by a state by relying on its own resources, since the state’s “ability to engage in an arms race is a central condition for its adversary’s belief that arms racing is risky, and thus for its willingness to cooperate.”64 Under the circumstances, since the intention of North Korea’s nuclear diplomacy is not oriented toward expansion of influence (hegemony) or territory to maximize security as the offensive realism would dictate, and it is rather geared toward other “important motives in addition to security,”65 its non-security motives like “greed” are more effectively and efficiently managed through cooperation than one or two individual states trying to take up all the economic burden as witnessed in the failure of the subsequent implementation of the Agreed Framework.

Third, lack of confidence and trust induces states to seek a credible line of communication when confronted with an imminent threat and if that threat is primarily motivated by political and economic reasons. It is particularly the case with the North Korean nuclear crisis because the same actors have already experienced an unpleasant precedent, in which lack of trust and confidence literally prevented the Agreed Framework from living up to its expectations. Given lack of trust and confidence among the signatory states of the Framework, the causes for its failure are not certain to date. While the North would blame the US, and vice-versa, for not sufficiently fulfilling the responsibilities laid out in the Framework, such a blame game had only disallowed any progress toward its goal. One lesson certainly stands out: bilateral agreement between the states that do not have trust and confidence in each other never work out. Taking this experience into the second case of the crisis, concerned nations naturally may have realized that there must be a strong witness stance for any type of solution reached by the distrusted parties to be effective. Furthermore, if the nations all assume an objective and unbiased role of self-witnesses for the efficacy of the agreed solution, self-interested benefits are naturally generated from such cooperation, thereby facilitating further cooperation to develop in the form of institution.66 Thus, the Northeast Asian region may now be equipped with right conditions for an inception of multilateral security cooperation institution. As emphasized by several institutionalists, conditional factors “such as the number of major actors in the system and whether military advantage favors offense or defense”67 are clear in the region. In addition, the regional actors are well aware that the relative gains are “unlikely to have much impact on cooperation if the potential absolute gains (i.e., peace and avoiding a nuclear arms race) from cooperation are substantial or in any context involving more than two states.”68 Under the premises, institutionalization of the talks may not all seem too distant, if not timely. As China once stated, institutionalization could play a positive role in sustaining the talks. Furthermore, it could also help it from falling into a sudden and abrupt end, as in the “four-party talks” in the late 1990s. When a solution is found, and will be implemented, institution can also prevent a solution from experiencing another breakdown as the Framework did. In short, to uphold the currently loose, yet fragile, format of multilateralism, institutionalization of the talks may be an alternative.

V. Conclusion

Despite its short existence, but based on the valuable lessons from previous experiences, there is a consensus on the necessities for institutionalization of the current six-party talks emerging among the concerned nations of the North Korean nuclear crisis. The timing of such a call may be debatable as the gap of differences in opinion on the methodology of solution between the two core states, the United States and North Korea, seems to only widen. According to the conventional theory of multilateral cooperation, the current distrust between the two states cannot bring the idea of institutionalization of the talks to fruition. However, as the nations of Northeast Asia has made an unprecedented congregation for security reason, they may have led themselves into a land of opportunity that can be utilized to achieve a much bigger end, establishing an institutionalized multilateral cooperative security system. Regardless of the format of such system, i.e., regime, organization, or institution, an institution that is legally binding with superintendent-like authority over the implementation of what they have adopted as solution would enhance the talks’ efficacy in achieving its goals and purposes. Denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is a long and winding process, by which all the nations involved cannot avoid high economic and political consequences that can only be solved in sufficient and efficient manner via cooperation. The economic price for North Korea’s renunciation of nuclear pursuits is too steep for a nation to bear by itself. Political challenges naturally arise from lack of trust and confidence, which could cause, once again, whatever solution is adopted to fall into the trap of stagnation and stalemate in its implementation.

The success of the above scheme, therefore, lies in the decisions and actions taken by the United States regarding the North’s survival both in political and economic terms. As witnessed at the second round of the six-party talks, regardless of the status of the talks, China, South Korea and Russia expressed their willingness to give a helping hand to the North. Only the
United States and Japan had reservations against such a call, because they are prevented by their laws from providing aid and assistance to North Korea. Under the circumstances, and if the talks are to see any positive consequences, the time has arrived for the US to give some serious thought to the obstacles that prevent it from making an effective deal with the North. This approach is feasible if the US can reemploy its “trust but verify” tactic applied to the Soviet Union during the Reagan era.69 Some may argue that North Korea can free the international community from all the burdens and challenges by following the Libyan model. However, such claim tends to overlook one important and critical factor that differentiates the cases fundamentally. Libya was not a threat to peace and stability of its region as well as those of the neighboring states, nor did it have as much security importance at both the global and regional level as does the North. Furthermore, there is a fundamental difference in the motivation behind the North’s and Libya’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. While the former did so for the sake of national survival, the latter relied on it to achieve its diplomatic end, that is, to gain an upper hand in its struggle against imperialism. Thus, the economic and political toll taken on the immediate neighbors may well be much higher in the former case than the latter’s, thereby forcing the states to adopt a different strategy in their approach to the matter—cooperation in multilateral institutional context.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and critical comments on the earlier draft and the editor’s support. Dr. Choo would also like to thank East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore and its library for their kind support to the completion of the article. He gratefully acknowledges valuable suggestions from Wang Gungwu, Tang Shiping,
Lai Hongyin, and Lam Peng Er.
Notes
1. Kim Ick Do and Lee Dae Woo, Modern Chinese Politics (Busan: Busan University Press, 2003) p.479.
2. Michael Yahuda, “How much has China learned about Interdependence,” in David. S. G. Goodman and Gerald Segal, eds., China Rising: Nationalism and Interdependence (NY: Routledge, 1999)pp. 6-26; Jianwei Wang, “Managing Conflict: Chinese Perspectives on Multilateral Diplomacy and Collective Security,” in Yong Deng and Fei-Ling Wang, eds., In the Eyes of the Dragon: China Views the World, (NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 83; and Sukhee Han, “ARF and China: A Review on Enmeshment of China,” The Korean Journal of International Relations, 42:4, 2002, p.375. China on loose multilateralism, see Zhu Feng, “Guanyu quyuzhuyu yu quanqiuzhuyi (Regionalism and Globalism),” Xiandai guoji guanxi (Contemporary International Relations, pp. 41-46.
3. Yu Bin, “China’s Dilemma in Tackling N. Korea Crisis,” Strait Times, February 18, 2003; John Pompfret and Glenn Kessler, “China’s Reluctance on N. Korea Irks U.S.,” Washington Post, February 4, 2003, Page A20; Joseph Kahn, “To China, North Korea Looks Radioactive,” New York Times, February 2, 2003; Time Plate, “Beijing Worries about U.S. Designs on the Korean Peninsula,”Asia Pacific Media Network, January 27, 2003; Antonaeta Bezlova, “Beijing’s influence on North Korea overstated,” Asia Times, January 11, 2003; Jasper Becker, “China’s influence is limited,” International Herald Tribune, January 10, 2003; and Tom Plate, “Can Chinese diplomacy turn over a new card?” Straits Times, January 4, 2003.
4. Mathew Forney, “Family Feud: China vs. North Korea,” Time, December 23, 2003; John Rudwitch, “China Cranks up Diplomacy over Korean Nuclear Row,” Reuters, July 6, 2003; Antoaneta Bezlova, “China gets tougher with North Korea,” Asia Times, April 10, 2003; and John Pomfret,“China Urges N. Korea Dialogue,” Washington Post, April 4, 2003, page A 16.
5. David Shambaugh, “China and the Korean Peninsula: Playing for the Long Term,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 43-56.
6. “Chaoxian hewenti heren jieling ‘ezhe’ shi zhong dubo? (Why does ‘containing’ North Korea for its nuclear problem make people think it is a gamble?)” Zonglun tianxia (www.people.com.cn/GB/
guoji/24/20021230/898126.html) (accessed on January 12, 2003).
7. “Zhongguo nirang liufanghuitan zhiduhua (China plans to institutionalize six-party talks),” Fenghuangwang(www.pheonixtv.com.cn), November 20, 2003.
8. John Barry Kotch, “Six Party Talks: The Way Forward,” Korea Observer, Vol.36, No.1, Spring 2005, p. 186.
9. Ronald B. Mitchell and Patricia M. Keilbach, “Situation Structure and Institutional Design: Reciprocity, Coercion, and Exchange,” International Organization, Vol.55, No.4, Autumn 2001, p.891.
10. Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, “The Rational Design of International Institutions,” International Organization, Vol.55, No.4, Autumn 2001,
11. Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, “The Rational Design of International Institutions,” op. cit. p. 762 (emphasis added).
12. David Lake, “Beyond Annarch: The Importance of Security Institutions,” International Security, Vol.26, No.1, Summer 2001, pp. 129-160.
13. Ronald B. Mitchell and Patricia M. Keilbach, “Situation Structure and Institutional Design: Reciprocity, Coercion, and Exchange,” op. cit. pp. 819-917.
14. For a detailed account for North Korea’s victimization by externalities, see Zhang Xizhen and Eugene Brown, “Policies toward North Korea: a time for new thinking,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol.9, No.25, 2000, pp. 535-545; and Korean Central News Agency, “US to Blame for Derailing Process of Denuclearisation on Korean Peninsula,” Yaleglobal Online (http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id=1608) 12 May, 2003 (accessed on July 7, 2005).Choo 55
15. Ronald B. Mitchell and Patricia M. Keilbach, Ibid., pp. 892-893.
16. Michael O’Hanlon, “Wanted: A Roadmap for North Korea,” Yaleglobal Online (http://
yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id=5837) (accessed on July 7, 2005); Zhang Xizhen and Eugene Brown, “Policies toward North Korea: a time for new thinking”; John Barry Kotch, “Six Party Talks: The Way Forward.”
17. “Zhongguo nirang liufanghuitan zhiduhua (China plans to institutionalize six-party talks),” Fenghuangwang(www.pheonixtv.com.cn), November 20, 2003.
18. Aaron L. Friedberg, “Ripe for rivalry: Prospects for peace in multipolar Asia,” International Security, Vol.18, No. 3, (Winter 1993/94), pp. 1-56.
19. Jack Pritchard, “Beyond Six-party talks: An opportunity to establish a framework for multilateral cooperation in the North Pacific,” paper presented at NORPAC Hokkaido Conference for North Pacific Issues, October 7, 2004, p. 6.
20. “Spokesmen of MOFA: I hope the six-party talks institutionalized,” Renmin Ribao, February 25, 2004. For a scholastic point of view, please refer to Jiang Xiyuan, “DPRK Nuke Problem and New Framework of Multilateral Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia,” SIIS Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4, November 2003, pp. 24-37; Pang Zhongying, “Building Regional Security System,” China Daily,
March 26, 2004, and “Building a Regional Security Mechanism,” PacNet (Pacific Forum CSIS), No. 13A, April 5, 2004; and Jaewoo Choo, “China’s Plans for a Regional Security Forum,” Asia Times, October 17, 2003.
21. Vitality of confidence and trust to the institutionalization of multilateralism is well depicted in the
following materials: Aaron Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospect for Peace in a Multipolar Asia,” International Security, Vol.18, No.3 (Winter 1993/4), pp. 5-33; Richard K. Betts, “Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United States after the Cold War,” International Security,Vol.18, No.3, pp. 34-77; Charles A. Kupchan, “After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Source of Stable Multipolarity,” International Security, Vol.23, No.2 (Fall 1998), pp. 62-66; Gerald Segal, “East Asia and the Containment of China,” International Security, Vol.20, No.(Spring 1996) pp. 107-135; and Douglas T. Stuart and William Tow, “A US Strategy for the Asia-Pacific: Building a Multipolar Balance-of-System in Asia,” Adelphi Paper No. 229 (London:International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1995).
22. A view tend to agree on this note is particularly shared by Jonathan D. Pollack when he relates one of the causes for the failure of the Agreement Framework to the lack of institutionalism. See Jonathan D. Pollack, “The United States, North Korea, and the End of the Agreed Framework,” Naval War College Review, Vol. VI, No.3, (Summer 2003), pp. 1-34.
23. Andrew Mack, “Security cooperation in Northeast Asia: Problems and prospects,” Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, Summer 1992; Aaron Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospect for Peace in a Multipolar Asia” ; and Richard K. Betts, “Wealth, Power, and Instability: East Asia and the United
States after the Cold War.”
24. A study the negative impact that such perception has had on the inter-Korean relations as well as on
the former ‘four-party talks’ in the late 1990s is well depicted in Jin-Hyun Paik, “Building Peace
Regime on the Korean Peninsula: Analysis and Assessment of Two Korea’s Perspectives on Peace
Regime-Building,” IFANS Review, 3:4 (Seoul: The Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security,
August 1995), pp. 14-15.
25. Past high hopes by the Chinese scholars on the prospect of the four-party talks is well depicted
Ding Shizhuan and Li Qiang, “Chaoxianbandao heping jizhi jiqi qianjing (Prospects for a peace
structure on the Korean peninsula),” Xiandai guoji guanxi(Contemporary International Relations),
April 1999, pp. 42-44.
26. The purpose of this paper is not to rehash the ‘who did not do what’ between the US and North
Korea with respect to the due implementation of the Agreed Framework, and thus will avoid to deal
with the matter here. Many analytical literatures on the North Korea’s failure to fulfill its obligations
and responsibility are easily found. Gregory Elich, “Targeting North Korea,” (http://
www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ELI212A.html) (accessed on December 31, 2002). However, irresponsible
aspect on the US’ part is dealt in a limited number of literatures. Leon V. Sigal, Disarming
Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea (Princeton: Princeton Paperbacks, 1998).
27. Ralph A. Cossa, “Six-party talks: Conditions for Success,” (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/
EK13Dg04.html) (accessed on November 13, 2003).
28. Kyunghyang Shinmun, (http://www.khan.co.kr/news/2000/06/12/20000612001632.html) (accessed
on June 12, 2000).
29. For its Doimoi policy (reform policy), Vietnam, for instance, was able to receive 1.6 billion dollars
in ODA and 2.2 billion US dollars in FDI. Joong Ang Daily, April 24, 2004.
30. There are five executive directors in World Bank, for instance, who are appointed by the members
with the five largest numbers of shares (currently the United States, Japan, Germany, France and
the United Kingdom). The other Executive Directors are elected by the other members. In IFC and
IDA, Executive Directors and Alternates of the Bank serve ex-officio as Executive Directors and
Alternates of IFC and IDA (as long as the country that appoints them, or any one of the countries
that have elected them, is also a member of IFC and IDA). Members of the MlGA Board of
Directors are elected separately. (http://web.worldbank.org/wbsite/external/extaboutus/organization/
bodext/0,contentMDK:50004945~pagePK:64020054~piPK:64020408~
theSitePK:278036,00.html) (accessed on September 25, 2004).
31. Although the idea of institutionalizing the six-party talks may have been first put forward by the
Chinese government, however, theoretical assessment has been actively pursued by American
scholars. Balbina Y. Hwang, for instance, was one of the early advocates on the extension of
multilateral cooperation opportunity to the regional states. Balbina Y. Hwang, “Resolving the North
Korean nuclear crisis,” Executive Memorandum, (Washington DC: The Heritage Foundation, May
8, 2003) No. 875. For others, read, Jack Pritchard, “Beyond Six-party talks.”
32. Kimberly Ann Elliot, “Economic Leverage and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” International
Economics Policy Briefs, Number PB03-3 (Washington DC: Institute for International Economics,
April 2003), p. 3.
33. B.C. Koh, “Six-Party Talks: Round 3,” Policy Forum Only (http://www.nautilus.org/for a/security/
0426A_Koh.html) (accessed on December 20, 2004). For a detailed explanation on the concept of
CVID, read Ralph A. Cossa, “CVID: Does Everyone Agree?” PacNet, No. 20, May 6 2004.
34. Balbina Y. Hwang, “Curtailing North Korea’s Illicit Activities,” Backgrounder No. 1679 (Washington
DC: The Heritage Foundation, August 25, 2003);
35. Mark E. Manyin, “Japan-North Korea Relations: Selected Issues,” CRS Report for Congress
(Washington DC: The Library of Congress, November 26, 2003), p. 4-6.
36. Michael E. O’Hanlon, “A ‘Master Plan’ to deal with North Korea,” Policy Brief #114 (Washington
DC: The Brookings Institution, January 2003), p. 2.
37. Although it was in 1986 when the Vietnamese government adopted a Doimoi(open-door) policy,
the US’ embargo was not lifted till 1994 as a result of the continuous pressure from American
business community who became obsessed with its loosing the competition edge against other
western counterparts’ not only in the Vietnamese domestic market but also in its natural and energy
resource market. See Kelly S. Nelson, “US-Vietnamese Relations,” Asian Affairs, an American
Review, Vol.19, No.1, Spring 1992, pp. 49-60, especially p. 51 and p. 53.
38. Considering the secrecy involved in the talks and negotiations with Britain for nine months, the
Libyan model may be much more applicable and feasible if the standing nuclear crisis is dealt at the
bilateral, instead of multilateral, level like in 1993 and 1994. Some dubbed such an approach as
“reciprocal unilateral measures,” independent action taken by parties to the negotiations to reach
their shared objectives. For details, see James E. Goodby and Donald G. Gross, “The ‘Libya
Model’ Could Help Disarm North Korea, International Herald Tribune, September 3, 2004. An
opposing view is well analyzed in Paul Kerr, “Libya’s Disarmament: A Model for U.S. Policy?”
Arms Control Today, Vol. 34, No. 5 June 2004, pp. 36-38.
39. The latest survey on the issues was rather focused on the Korean college students. The result
revealed that to date 48.9% share the view that the cause of the current North Korean nuclear crisis
is due to the US’ hard line policy, whereas 29.9% see it underlying in the North’s provocative
intention. The survey was conducted by the National Unification Movement Headquarters of the
Young Korean Academy between October 25 and 29, 2004, and was released on November 25,
2004 in Ohmynews of Korea, an online newspaper(www.ohmynews.co.kr) (accessed on December
10, 2004.) Another poll by the South Korean people showed that while 75% think the North has
nuclear weapons, 62% does not see it as a threat. Joong-Ang Daily, September 30, 2004.
40. Such is the case felt by a growing number of foreign scholars with their contacts and interviews
with the Chinese counterparts. However, a much more creditable cause for such an impression can
be attributed on the Chinese ambiguous and subtle explanation of their policy of the nuclear free
Korean peninsula as well as their policy objective for the six-party talks. Nuclear free peninsula is
often referred as a condition of not having nuclear weapons, not of having ambition or development
Choo 57
program. To many Chinese, it has been already realized with the removal of the US nuclear
weapons from South Korea in the early 90s. In addition, the Chinese active pursuit for a multilateral
dialogue on the issue is rather out of their national interests, such as preventing the case from falling
into warfare. On this particular point, see Zhu Feng, “China’s Policy on the North Korean Nuclear
Issue,” China Strategy, Vol. 3 (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, July
20, 2004), pp. 5-10, and Guo Feixiong, “China’s Role and Objectives in the North Korean Nuclear
Crisis,” Ibid., pp. 11-16.
41. Nicholas Eberstadt, “The Persistence of North Korea,” Policy Review, No. 127, Oct/Nov 2004, p.
28.
42. The trade statistics shown in this article is limited to the total figure of ordinary trade - border trade,
processing trade, bonded trade, grant-type aid, and others are excluded. The impact of China’s
accession to WTO on its trade with North Korea is manifested in the dramatic rise of the growth rate
in its ordinary trade: 136% in export and 43.6% in import between 2002 and 2003. While North
Korea’s processing export showed a 99% increase in the same period, its import recorded a
decrease of 5.9%. Border trade between the two also saw a relatively mild increase for North Korea
(47.9%) and China (15.4%). Of the North’s total export to China, 70.4% came from bonded export.
Meanwhile, majority of China’s total export volume (68.7%) was conducted in an ordinary fashion
(trade). See North Korea’s Trade Report 2003 released by KOTRA, (http://www.kotra.or.kr/main/
trade/nk/research/sub10.jsp) (accessed on August 22, 2004).
43. Kwang-il Kim, Sino-North Korean Trade in the First Half 2004, (Seoul: KOTRA, 2004), p. 2.
44. TRADP, Tumen Unpdate, Issue 1, May 1999, p. 10.
45. For more detailed information regarding Chinese economic activities in North Korea, read an
interview article with Professor Xu Jiwen of Jilin University, Shenyang Jinbao, August 16, 2004.
46. Dong Hwi Lee, “US’ Economic Sanctions against North Korea: Chances to Lift and Its Implications,”
Juyo gukje munje bunseok (International Problems Analysis), 1996-25 (July 1996), pp. 4-5.
47. Yonhap News, September 11, 2003. Hyung-joong Park, “A Scenario on Inter-Korean Relations
and North Korean Assistance in Solving the Nuclear Problem Process,” East Asian Review, Winter
2003, pp. 1-17, especially pp. 5-6.
48. Mark E. Manyin, “Assessing US Assistance to North Korea,” American Asian Review, Vol. XXI,
No. 3, Fall 2003, pp. 29-69.
49. In addition, China is estimated to provide 80% of the North Korea’s energy needs. Please refer to
“February 25, 2003 Secretary of State Press Briefing on Board Plane en Route Elmendorf,”
(www.state.gob/secretary/rm/) (accessed on April 24, 2003).
50. According to Eberstadt’s findings, however, China’s implicit aid to North Korea between 1998-
2003 fell from about $340 million to about $270 million, with the total recovering to $340 million
in 2003. See Nicholas Eberstadt, “The Persistence of North Korea,” Ibid., p. 32.
51. Hyung-joong Park, “A Scenario on Inter-Korean Relations and North Korean Assistance in Solving
the Nuclear Problem Process,” p. 17.
52. Paul Vanwagenen, “U.S. Economic Sanctions-Non-traditional Success against North Korea,” Law
and Policy in International Business, Vol.32, No.1, Fall 2000, p. 252.
53. Dong-A Ilbo, January 17, 2005 (accessed on January 19, 2005). Michael O’Hanlon and Mike
Mochizuki, “Toward a Grand Bargain with North Korea,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 26, No
.2, Autumn 2003, p. 12.
54. For study on the concept of rogue state, please refer to Noam Chomsky, “Rogue States,” (http://
www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html) (accessed on August 20, 2004).
55. Diane E. Rennack, “North Korea: Economic Sanctions,” Report for Congress (updated January 24, 2003), (http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL31696.pdf) (accessed on June 23, 2004), p. 1.
56. 2002 State of Union Address by George W. Bush, January 2002.
57. Rennack, “North Korea: Economic Sanctions,” Report for Congress, p. 8.
58. Rennack, Ibid., p. 6.
59. “Clinton relaxes U.S. sanctions against North Korea,” CNN, September 18, 1999 (http://cgi.cnn.com/
ASIANOW/east/9909/17/n.korea.01/) (accessed on September 24, 2004).
60. Rennack, pp. 6-12.
61. Daniel A. Pinston and Phillip C. Saunders, “Seeing North Korea Clearly,” Survival, Vol. 45, No. 3, September 2003, p. 92; and James Miles, “Waiting Out North Korea,” Survival, Vol. 44, No. 3,Summer 2002, p. 42.
62. John J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security, Vol.19, No.3 (Winter 1994/95), pp. 23-25.
63. John J. Mearsheimer particularly shares this view when he states that “states in a realist world …must be motivated primarily by relative gains concerns when considering cooperation,” John J.Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” Ibid., p. 12.
64. Charles L. Glaser, “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help,” International Security, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Winter 1994/5), pp. 58-59.
65. Charles L. Glaser, “Realists as Optimists: Cooperation as Self-Help,” Ibid., p. 55.
66. Robert O. Keohane and Lisa L. Martin, “The Promise of Institutionalist Theory,” International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), p. 42.
67. See David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (NY:Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 323.
68. Duncan Snidal, “Relative Gains and the Pattern of International Cooperation,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 85, No. 3 (September 1991), pp. 701-726.
69. Michael E. O’Hanlon, “A ‘Master Plan’ to deal with North Korea,” Policy Brief #114, p. 3.

Few impressed by Roh’s diplomacy

2007-08-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Asian Times article by Dr. Jaewoo Choo.

Homeland Security Technology Systems

2007-01-28T15:51:00.000-08:00

Without state of the art technology it is highly unlikely that America and her allies will be able to defend their citizenry from barbarism and hate promoted by islamic extremists.

Combating Terrorism

2007-01-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

The United States and our partners continue to pursue a significantly degraded but still dangerous al-Qaida network. Yet the enemy we face today in the War on Terror is not the same enemy we faced on September 11. Our effective counterterrorist efforts, in part, have forced the terrorists to evolve and modify their ways of doing business. Our understanding of the enemy has evolved as well. Today, the principal terrorist enemy confronting the United States is a transnational movement of extremist organizations, networks, and individuals – and their state and non-state supporters – which have in common that they exploit Islam and use terrorism for ideological ends.

The Internet and Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy:

2006-08-01T12:13:00.000-07:00

Abstract

Like the Cold War era, the world once again finds itself at the threshold of destruction. In the aftermath of 9/11, and the rapid proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), reliable and current data on these weapons is imperative. This essay will argue that with the inherent fluidity of weapons of mass destruction, together with “globalization,” traditional mediums of information are impaired, inadequate, and ill fitted to deliver accurate and current intelligence. Timely, the World Wide Web has emerged as a viable alternative to supply a consistent and wide-ranging mode of accumulating, analyzing and swiftly disseminating information regarding WMD. Although many sites lack credibility and depth, there is a vast amount of useful material. Many sites are devoted to chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, offering comprehensive reporting and access, with convenience powered by high-tech digital tools like video clips.

Due to recent international security developments, the world is again at the cross road of destruction. Rapid horizontal and vertical proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is a grave situation with unacceptable ramifications. As events of 9/11 illuminate, there is a growing security concern that terrorists could employ WMD to intimidate those opposed to radical Islamic destiny. The increased possibilities of WMD attack call for better ways of accessing, analyzing and sharing pertinent information. Contrary to the intelligence community’s emphasis on secrecy, the Web facilitates instant access to an assortment of information; timely, the Internet concurrently educates the public and undermines the proliferation of these weapons. The Web integrates traditional texts format into readily retrievable instruments by utilizing digital technological systems with amazing results. Security experts, as well as others in the field, will find the Web critical in routine execution of their duties. Although there are flaws in the cyber-information age, prospects are that the failings are essentially insignificant in the broader opportunities presented by the Internet. While I concede that reliable sites are rare, and many not comprehensive enough, online organizations have outshined conventional sources. This can be attributed to inherent multi cyber-functions; multi media options, accessibility, currency, and reliability, which lack in other long-established sources.

WMD are the most awesome tool of death ever invented by overly ambitious man. Naturally, one would anticipate a profuse amount of web sites on the subject with more than adequate data to satisfy the thirst of various users. Unfortunately, after countless searches on Yahoo! and Google it was clear that although staggering quantities of WMD are in hands of rogue states and dynamic amount of related sites exists, one is short of finding any terrific sites. Robert Burnett of the University of Karlstand and P. David Marshall of Northeastern University agree, “The web produces a massive surplus of content that may not actually be useable as information” (23), and many of these sites lack the fundamental facets of usable sites.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) is a typical example, for it provides good information but lacks any meaningful substance for the average user, international relations students or other interested persons. For example data is presented, organized and described in professional jargons for nonprofessionals to appreciate; but the site supplies no information on evacuation plans and other emergency procedures. Many articles have serious credibility issues because authors are not clearly identified by credentials, but by name and often with no contact information. The interesting piece by Wu Anne, “The Dance over North Korean Nukes” (NTI), is just one example. This undermines and raises questions about the validity and reliability of information housed on the site. Fielden remarked on the shortcomings of Web that “a certain amount of skepticism is appropriate in examining Internet resources…it never hurts to examine a researcher’s motive and perspective critically” (38-39). Therefore, despite useful resources, this site has some a few minor flaws.

However, NTI is professionally designed and easy to navigate. Its main page explains the mission as “working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons” (NTI). To the right of the homepage users can explore the site extensively; the “[r] research library and [l] earn more” (NTI) are gateway to massive concentrations of data. To maintain its credibility the site provides documentation, “reference information” (NTI), and offers several active links to different sections that have sponsorship information and the organization’s history. The “Working for a safer world” (NTI) area dedicates a detailed account of the chronology of these weapons, along with the organization’s contributors around the world (see fig. 1). A link located at the top of the homepage entitled, “search country information” (NTI), provides users with current information on all WMD proliferating states. Individual links are active at any time for curious consumers, for an example the section “[o]ther resources” has policy and intelligence materials like “[t]he CIA report on technology acquisition” (NTI) which catalogue advanced weapon systems. In general, the links as well as a “search site” area contain contact and other relevant information; phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses and donation offers. However, although this site is remarkable, it lacks practical information of importance to average users; nonetheless, if multi-media applications are fully utilized this problem could be solved by using visually appealing and straight forward video images.

Upon a closer look at the site, I feel there a several usability problems, which limit the site’s goals; many of the links to other sites have no active way back to the NTI (see fig. 2). Also, data is not precise enough: useful information is hard to locate, for one would have to shift through often-irrelevant databases and hyper-links to get to appropriate resources. Consequently, despite a good collection of information on WMD, the site would attract only limited numbers of users. This evokes the “[s] scholar’s workstation model,” a method in research that relies exclusively on virtual access to reliable information (Fielden 39-40). To prevail over the shortcomings of the workstation model, Fielden accentuates the necessity for “[t]echnological training” to avoid any obstacles and discover useful Internet information (40). Fielden’s suggestion seems to be unreasonable on individuals seeking occasional but precise emergency updates on WMD. Nonetheless, in the case of NTI, this is not practical as there are no resources allocated to public education. Although one of the largest and most resourceful sites on the web related to chemical, biological and nuclear arsenals, it lags far behind the Monterey Institute of International Studies, to which we now turn.

Fortunately the next site boasts substantial usability. The Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) maintains the same level of authority and information accuracy as NTI, however, the MIIS site furnishes current developments on all WMD and international security policy in a multimedia layout that is superior to any non-web resources. Each link directs the consumer to detailed images and scientific information, thus simplifying the complex process of nuclear, biological and chemical development, which is further supplemented with video images showing the devastation of these weapons. Mary Sellen, Assistant Director for User Services at the University of New York, Albany, maintains that “works that have the ability to be interactive with words and media and disseminated rapidly to any location at any time have the possibility to significantly enhancing the meaning of information and enhancing interactive learning” (118). For example the new book “The Four Faces of Terrorism” by Charles Ferguson is available online and can be accessed anytime, any where in world. Individuals with questions can email the author and contributors directly regarding the assertion that “substandard security at nuclear facilities in Europe, Central Asia, Russia, and Pakistan increases the risk of terrorists seizing highly enriched uranium to make crude, but devastating, nuclear explosives” (MIIS).

This widens the scope of users from just nuclear experts to foreign policy analysts and counter-proliferation regimes like the International Atomic and Energy Agency that act as global nuclear watchdogs; all of which can share this information instantly with great details and accuracy. MIIS maintains an undisputable authority on the subject of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the U.S. Congress depends on the site for analysis and updates. For example, Congress in 2004 asked the organization to offer an assessment of WMD security risks, in response to which Charles Ferguson for MIIS recounted, “that the challenge of securing commercial radioactive sources around the world is difficult, but manageable. [And if the recommendations are] implemented, could significantly reduce this component of the dirty bomb threat over the next five years” (MIIS 2003). Burnett and Marshall maintains that “[t]he Web performs different functions in our culture than previous information sources” (33), and in this instance the Internet has the ability to establish a public and private “information network” (32)

Moreover, the site is well organized, with activities clearly outlined as “communication and education, Russia/New Independent States, Biological, Regional and United States” (MIIS). Accessing this information is effortless; users are guided by links (see fig. 2) to areas of interest (e.g., “loose nukes”) (MIIS). The front page of the site meticulously defines its purpose as immediate and long term goals: it is “concerned that the threat from nuclear weapons had fallen off most people’s radar screens after the cold war…to strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use and preventing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons” (MIIS) (see fig. 3). Fielden noted that “various kinds of information that depend on currency–for example statistics…are often well served in an internet environment” (34). The site is particularly accessible to federal and local employees charged with funneling alerts to the necessary agencies, a task that would be very difficult in absence of the Internet. Along these lines, Mary K. Sellen convincingly contends that “the web allows for such efficiency and dissemination of information” (119); for the site boasts a number of books and articles dedicated to WMD, but there are also numerous means of and formats for accessing resources (e.g., pfd, html, video clips etc.). Burnett and Marshall rightly observe that “[the] Web is a combination of cable, phones lines” (36), which make interaction and communication faster and more reliable than ever before.

In addition, Web-based data is quite diverse in contrast to tangible sources because online materials come in a variety of forms, news articles, educational materials and electronic to mention but a few. Various tools that enhance the quality and quantity of the information supplement these resources. As Sellen reminds users, the web offers more choices to consumers, “new models of communication enhance the delivery of information and provide support services within the same electronic medium” (123). By using the “topic menu” on the MIIS site the user is re-directed to specific and quite frankly non-abstract collections of prosperous data. Indeed, as Sellen prophetically put it, “the internet and the World Wide Web are going to change the 21st century” (125). Since its inception the MIIS has changed the entire field of security policy by providing updated and integrated data on the qualitative and qualitative dimensions of weapon systems. For instance, the article on “International Proliferation in the 21st Century” provides rich insights on weapons processing, delivery systems, and a chronology of arms trade and technology transfer by developed to less developed nations.

Furthermore, the MIIS stands tall at the helm of “networking” with no viable rival to its muster of useful information. The site offers interactive and multimedia selections at the “WMD411”section, where individuals can instantly watch live such recent security developments as “India warns Pakistan over Kashmir” and “South Korean seeking nuclear technology” (MIIS). In particular the 2005 “newslink” has in-depth state by state analysis (e.g., “North Korean and Iran nuclear developments”) that brings experts up to-date on a spectrum of issues related to nuclear weapons in a multi-media driven system employing video images and animated simulations. A chronological assortment of these weapons is impressive; a PowerPoint driven photo gallery that is ironically “attractive” accomplishes this. With unbiased coverage and diversity of experts, it draws respect from all international security regimes and major political actors. British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a 2004 weekly television address cited the MIIS as “the world’s most trusted WMD tracking enterprise” (MIIS). Mary Sellen, a staunch proponent of information distribution, coined the term “multimedia literacy,” to explain the evolving meaning literacy, that the Internet has replace tangible forms (117). Sellen argues further, “[m]ultimedia technologies of the web allows these authors to create works that combine text, graphics arts and interactivity to tell the story” (118). These new electronic databases will extend data distribution with unrivaled speed and efficiency (117).

While undisputable that this Website’s boast superior WMD related data, there are notable imperfections. Users searching the web for WMD news would naturally go to the main MIIS website; however few ended up at the “nuclear terrorism” which is the immediate concern to most users. It seem individual users are required to have substantial knowledge of the site (e.g., site map and key words). Even when patient consumers master the Website, it’s quite frustrating to adequately access such data through the MIIS homepage; there is no direct links to this page (nuclear terrorism). Consequently, gaining initial access to “nuclear terrorism” (MIIS) literature is challenging. Nevertheless, individuals should not despair as Fieldman reminds us that, “[a] neat, linear line towards success is rare and that the actual process of extending one’s understanding through the locating and digesting of resource material is a worthy journey, even when results are minimal” (30). To wholly appreciate the complex process of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, the scope of this inquiry must be extended to include narrowly designed sites as the Federation of American Scientist.

Weapons of mass destruction has been the focus of the Federation of American Scientist’s (FAS) since its founding in 1945 by scientists concerned about control of the awesome new technology they had helped create. It is also the oldest organization devoted to curbing the worldwide arms race. Fielden, a librarian at UC Berkley argues that, “several advantages of the internet over other mediums for research are its wide range access and retrieval” (32), FAS utilize Web “networks” to painless help interested individuals to locate the subject of their choice. This site focus on describing the scientific processes of making chemical, biological and chemical weapons to users in a straight-forward, and easy to understand fashion: “Ebola [biological weapon] exists naturally in primate populations…and occasionally spread to humans through contact with these animals” (FAS). Effects of these weapons are eloquently discussed with simplicity and clarity which is unrivaled by traditional sources. A vivid example is the description of anthrax which is done quite plainly by suggesting that “Inhalation anthrax is the most serious [of various forms]—mild respiratory symptoms develop into sever systems, breathing difficulties, shock, and eventually death if not treated. Symptoms normally appear within a week of exposure, but may not appear for 2 month” (FAS).

By clicking on the “nuclear weapons” link, one can promptly access resources on a number of subjects and explanations for clarification on the “[n]uclear weapons in the 21st century” (FAS). For example, there various issues are addressed under the sub-topic the “dirty bombs,” “proliferation,” “next generation of nuclear weapons” and “bunker busters.”(FAS). Because it’s important to keep updated on the trends of these weapons; the site displays information cautioning people to be aware of the new threat of “radiological bombs” (FAS) which are more accessible to terrorist groups and likely to be used. It is doubtful that this information could be readily available even in voluminous libraries. To gather this kind of current information would require a full-time research job for month in the library, going through multiple levels of administrative clearance.

The FAS exemplifies the competence of the global access to collection of information as well as an instrument of transmission. For the FAS is “dedicated to ending the worldwide arms race by training and education individuals” (FAS), bring the message close to users. Robert Burnett of the University of Karlstand and David Marshall of Northeastern University reasons that “[a]s a communications technology, the web provides the possibility for every large audiences, but also interpersonal, group and one-to-one forms of communication” (36). Indeed the FAS educate people on many issues, for example, “by training firefighters to deal with terror attacks reminiscent of the fire that destroyed Madrid's 32-story Windsor building Feb. 13 2005, as well as bring technological advances to first-responders in different part of the world” (FAS). In addition, the FAS Learning Federation (LF) project focuses on research and development of Technology-Enabled Learning Systems (TELS) that can make learning more engaging, effective and accessible. It’s Learning Science and Technology R&D Roadmap lays out benchmarks for how education technology can revolutionize how experts can teach and learn within a decade. First responders, military medics and others can learn faster and better with TELS. Federation of American scientist help institutions and citizens acquire cutting edge technology on WMD in the convenience of their offices or homes respectively, thus making this site irreplaceable tool for scintific research on weapons of mass destruction.

Unlike the sites presented thus far, the FAS is strictly an American organization. All doctors are citizens and graduates of the United States, and U.S schools respectively, thus creating a credibility problem for what is largely scientific work. (See fig. 4). Fielden believes this is a serious issue when he was addressing the issue of authority; rhetorically he probed “[w]hat makes for reliable information? A primary concern is trust. Are the persons who created the information accurate and honest?” (37). Other than being all American association, the site has no links to international organization or regimes dealing proliferation like the United Nations, the only links available are US military command and control. Therefore, in terms of trust the FAS trail the other WMD related Websites as the NTI and MIIS. Nonetheless, the site boasts unmatched expertise in weapon systems technology.

Like the FAS, the Ploughshare’s Fund (PF) supports the cessation of the nuclear arms race around the world. However, this site gives grants that are related exclusively to peace and security issues. The fund was started in the mid eighties—approximately 22 years ago—and has given grants totaling more than $40 million dollars. This diversity of services is a recent phenomenon due to the emergence of the Internet, this will certainly be impractical without what Burnett and Marshall correctly conceptualized as “the network society and the web” (41). To provide such benefits an extended system of monitoring is vital of which the internet has reliably facilitated, to quote Burnett and Marshal “the network society has developed from movements of information for the needs of large scale interconnected organization to operate” (42). Actually, the PF is the largest grant making foundation in the United States (see fig. 5). Some of the projects that have been funded by the fund include: “the international campaign to ban landmines, the public campaigns to compel governments to not support the development of usable nuclear weapons, in addition to a campaign that would ask governments to take their nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, the work of physicist David Albright in getting Brazil and Argentina to back off their pursuit of nuclear weapons, the organization of various civil society organizations whose whole purpose is to monitor the governments’ adherence to biological treaty, in the absence of an official regime; the creation of seismic monitoring equipment in the former Soviet Union to determine whether nuclear testing was taking place, and finally establishing a code of conduct among Western countries—European countries—that prevents the sale of arms to countries that are led by dictators or human rights abusers” (PF).

Still, the grants that this organization offer are not only limited to the prevention of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons but also extended to conventional weapons such as surface to surface missiles, and others that could potentially be launched from space (e.g., air-plane based rockets). Furthermore, the fund also allocated to those projects that are concerned with conflict prevention, an example is the PF logistical support to India-Pakistan conflict over territory. The fund is extremely important to the whole discussion of nuclear arms prevention, as it has had an effect on changing the policy in the United States monies being given targeted countries. The PF leadership mantains that, “funds have been awarded to numerous Middle Eastern nations” (PF). To be sure, libraries don’t issues grants or funds, therefore, as sociologists David Marshall Robert Burnett eloquently stated that “the prevalence of web is merging global cultures into a network society” this is a new phenomenon, which is responsible for the increased capabilities of organizing, and increasing “traffic and trade beyond goods into the movement of information its self”(35). In particular the ability of the PF to provide money to advance its mission is revolutionary; traditionally information was static, limited in accessibility and scope. Practically speaking, if all these websites can coordinate their efforts it will serve as a valuable resource during times of emergency. Of course, there are a number of agencies that become involved during a national crisis such as the Red Cross, but the nexus between Internet-based organizations and emergency agencies is a powerful possibility.

Although the PF is a brilliant site, it has minor problems which could shrink the users attraction to it in future. Sellen makes a case for use of media tools on education websites, maintaining that “visual and aural concepts have the potential to change the concept of static word literacy into multimedia literacy” (117). Unfortunately, the PF site extensively lacking in moderns cyber tools which are seductively potent for users. By cling on to traditional text form, the PF is ironically undermining its ability to attract and retain information consumers. Specially, photos and other multi-media options are not utilized. The fact that this site is 21st a century phenomenon, it’s logically unsustainable to explain why streaming radio; video and audio supplements are not applied to engage user. Today information that lack dramatic punctuations in form of graphics, video and other interactive tools is bound to appeal only those who routinely seek WMD information. In general, it’s fair to conclude that PF is wonderful resource for individuals constrained by various reasons to utilize the library or other traditional resources, but there is a systematic neglect of opportunities to expand the data base. With such a lukewarm application of multi-media products, users will find it less interesting and experienced users are surely destined to seek better sites, ironically at this will happen at the expense of valuable information.

The Nonproliferation and Disbarment Fund (NDF) is a security arm of the U.S. Department of State. It is “sharply focused fund to permit rapid response to unanticipated or unusually difficult, high priority requirements or opportunities to halt the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons” (NDF). Most importantly, the site supplements it’s primary goals by funding other projects which include: “destroy or neutralize existing WMD, their delivery systems and limiting the spread of advanced conventional weapons and their delivery systems” (NDF). The credibility of the site is solid due to it’s close association and supervision by the State Department, and also it has vital information right on the main page. For instance the top most section displays information on the (see fig. 6) “establishment”, “fund control”, “goals & objectives”, “legal authority”, “management restrictions” and “proposal process” (NDF). As librarian Ned Fielden held the internet has the ability to merge massive volumes of data more effectively than text books, for one to be able to visualize the above options will require opening numbers of pages, back and forth. Such diversity of information is rare if ever present in traditional mediums on this subject.

Important to mention, the NDF is a home to vital information on homeland security. As the events of 9/11 remind us, the world is not short of individuals determined to kill those opposed to extremist religious views. The site does a fabulous job by organizing information by “project category” that offers insight on the broader perspective of the activities in which the organization is involved. Second, the “tracker,” is a software system that helps one process weapon trade control applications easily and efficiently. Tracker's automated tools replace cumbersome, non-automated methods of processing trade control information, making it possible to keep track of thousands of cases. With this software users no longer need to maintain stacks of paper applications that are forwarded to different people for review and approval. This technology acts as a central location for inputting, processing, tracking, reviewing, and deciding license applications. For more information, the user is politely invited “please link www.TrackerNet.org” (NDF).

Perhaps the most effective feature of this site is the “related link” icon, this lead users to all Executive Branches of the U.S government related WMD. As Ned Fielden articulates that online “[m]any resources can be reached from your own computer” (32), one doesn’t need to a trip top this federal departments to access information as was the case. This website guide users to applicable resource on WMD. Imperative to mention, the site also offers updates on U.S efforts on elimination weapons of mass destruction and it effectively use videos and other tools. For instance a “defenselink” guide users to live department of defense simulations about nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. The web is a practical resource, mixing various methods, (e.g., written, recorded, and direct images from spy-planes) to enhance the communication. In particular the NDF’s “photo essays” and “TV” reports on WMD illustrate the immediate and long-term consequences of a nuclear or chemical explosion. Users can see first-hand the survival tactics. This latter advantage is instructive, text books lack both the dramatic and practical effect of the web. Although websites likes this are rare, they supply critical information on an extremely important aspect of domestic security.

However, information on this site like the PF, is questionable, because of the government is viewed as excessively entangled in the operational and program priorities, hence raising doubts about the sites objectivity and independent in gathering and disseminating information. As Fielden timely argued, “A certain amount of skepticism is appropriate in examining Internet resources…it never hurts to examine a researcher’s motives and perspective critically” (38-39). NPF relies heavily on domestic intelligence information and solely on the U.S government for funds. The site was created by the U.S. government to promote American proliferation priorities, thus making it practically impossible for independent efforts. Many of the editorials can be traced to U.S. Defense and State Departments, or other U.S intelligence organs, with only updates available are from the Defense Department homepage. It would appear that U.S. government purposefully set up the website to promote its foreign and domestic security agenda with little or no input from other nations affected or threatened by biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

Overall, these sites are integral and important sites because they also can serve as a valuable resource during times of emergency. Burnett and Marshall argue, “[t]he technical innovation of the Internet [is] it permits the Web to have multiple users…” (36).These sites could effectively use the internet for collaboration of their efforts. Of course, there are a number of agencies that become involved during a national crisis. For example, FEMA, the Red Cross, and a number or agencies made it their mission to aid the victims of September 11, 2001. However, theses websites, if they shared information, could also be valuable stores of information regarding the number of casualties, the amount of food needed to care for individuals affected by a disaster, locating loved ones, etc. The point is that these sites, especially the ones that are sources for funds, can aid in these types of disasters. They can be more helpful than government agencies because they are not bound by the restrictions that deal with local, state, and government municipalities. The bureaucracy of government is such that certain agencies handle particular crimes within particular precincts or regions.

In addition, because FEMA is a federal program the response time to people with pressing needs during an emergency can be held up by policy; instead, if localities had access to these websites the time between asking for assistance and receiving assistance can be cut in half because these agencies are none government funded agencies and do not require wading through protocol to help those people in need of assistance. These sites are reputable sites that are operated by organizations that have existed for decades and have devoted themselves to the prevention of WMD. For this reason, it is important for the governments, the federal and the local, to use these sites in their own operation to help prevent national catastrophes such as the one that occurred almost four years ago and to aid those people in need if catastrophe wreaks havoc on the nation again.

Although the World Wide Web bestows instant access to resources across the world, the lack of a centralized WMD website is disturbing given the destructive nature of these weapons. Without educating the citizenry and politicians, progressive efforts towards a WMD free world and familiarity of the consequences would be hopeless. The web is an amazing apparatus that can easily disperse a wide range of information on a subject traditionally reserved for policy experts. Time has come for political leaders to seize the opportunities presented by the web, to devise a comprehensive and centralized WMD website of unassailable sort. Exclusive of constant innovations in technology and the rise of the of the World Wide Web, imperative issues like nuclear, biological and chemical weapons proliferation in the world would not be given adequate attention.

Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Internet and the Security Policy

2006-08-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Rationale

As a student of International Relations, it is evident that the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is the sole most threatening security predicament since the demise of the “Evil Empire” in1989. In 1994, President Clinton in response to WMD intelligence issued Executive Order number 12938, declared a national emergency citing an “extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States”(EX.O no.12938). Recently the increase in terror attacks and proliferation of WMD by rogue states like Iran calls for non-traditional alternatives to obtaining, analyzing and disseminating WMD related intelligence. Despite the international effort before 9/11 and thereafter, effective WMD regimes have been painfully slow because of information fragmentation. Therefore, as Robert Burnett and P. David Marshall of Northeastern University, elegantly suggest, “[i]nformation and networks” (23) is the prudent recourse. This paper will thus investigate the extent to which the World Wide Web can mitigate the flaws in international security and WMD in particular.

Methodology

In conducting this research project I am relying on five Web-based organizations. These sites range from educational and governmental to nongovernmental. Cyber search engines Yahoo! and Google were the primary tools used to arrive at these sites, for they have vast volumes of all dimensions on WMD proliferation. Using “weapons of mass destruction” as a key word I was introduced to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons literature unknown before and indeed remotely present in formalized traditional sources like textbooks. Specific information is available on WMD development and acquisition, delivery process, and policy specifics. By clicking on the site search engines I sifted through multiple levels of data options, all organized by subject. Important still, I was able to initiate inter-site searches, for instance the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) has a “search site links” option with tools directing users to other biological, chemical and nuclear sites (e.g., Nuclear Threat Initiative). In particular the MIIS is equipped with a multi-level option to almost any relevant Website.

Annotated Bibliography

Federation of America Scientists. 4 Feb. 2005 http://www.fas.org/static/about.jsp.
The Federation of American Scientists is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization founded in 1945 by a group of atomic scientists. Founders were members of the infamous Manhattan Project, creators of the atom bomb. Its primary goal is “to end the worldwide arms race and avoid the use of nuclear weapons for any purpose.” The site puts forward a comprehensive historical inquiry into the evolution of nuclear weapons with advanced delivery systems, including the intercontinental ballistic missiles and surface-to-surface cruise missiles. Furthermore, the “WMD Watch” area of the site offers the latest news on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, policy initiatives and defense spending. Moreover, the site’s navigation tools are user friendly, conveniently located and active.

Monterey Institute of International Studies, 1989. 2 Feb. 2005 http://www.cns.miis.edu/
The Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) is located in Monterey, California and has offices in Washington, DC to maximize access to international policy makers and other security experts that flock into the US national capitol. The area “About Us” on the site gives a clear history of organization. It was established by Dr. William Potter in 1998 with a small group of students with daunting task but noble mission “to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by training the next generation of nonproliferation specialists and disseminating timely information and analysis.” In addition, MIIS is the largest nongovernmental organization in the United States devoted exclusively to research and training on nonproliferation. There are five extensive programs, each with area expertise, and it offers a variety of information ranging from raw intelligence data to publications. Conveniently, information is generated by one of the specialized programs (e.g., chemical weapons). More still, the site offers peer reviewed publications on virtually any WMD related subject. Overall, the site is instructive and unique in contrast to any other on weapons of mass destruction.

Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund. 1 April. 1994. 13 Feb. 2005 .
The Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund (NDF) was established pursuant to section 504 of the FREEDOM Support Act enacted on October 24, 1992. Its objectives include halting the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, delivery systems, and related sensitive materials by offering funds. Funds are offered to neutralize the existing weapons of mass destruction, delivery systems, and limit the spread of advanced conventional weapons and their delivery systems. Moreover, this site is run by a highly credible organization that supplements US diplomatic efforts to halt the spread WMD. The NDF works closely with the US Department of State, and it is well structured; for instance, the option “Project Category” lists news by date and alphabetically for easy access. Furthermore, by a simple click on the “Project Category” this initiates a process internal access with in project categories that catalog a particular aspect on WMD (e.g., the amount of stockpiles and procurement information). In short, the NDF is the only federally funded site for the purpose of reducing and providing intelligence on the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Nuclear Threat Initiative. 20 January. 2001. 2 Feb 2005 .
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) based in Washington, DC is a non-profit organization founded by Mr. Ted Turner and Senator Sam Nunn in January 2001. Its mission is “to strengthen global security by reducing the risk of use and preventing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.” Furthermore, NTI seeks to raise public awareness, serve as a catalyst for new thinking and take direct action to reduce these threats. The site is engaged in model programs to inspire private and governmental efforts toward threat reduction by offering services in communication and education in Russia, the New Independent States, and the United States. The “Web Highlight,” “Newswire,” “Press Room,” and “Search me tutorials” links introduce users to an independent news service produced by the National Journal Group. The “Online Library” contains briefing papers and in-depth analysis on key issues. The site’s most valuable features include the extensive studies of weapons of mass destruction, and inter-site information networking.

Ploughshare Funds. 9 Nov. 1984. 2 Feb 2005 http://www.ploughshares.org/about_us.php?a=1&b=0&c.=0.The Ploughshares Fund (PF) is a public grant making foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction and conflicts that could lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). PF is based out of San Francisco. The site specializes in giving start-up funds to promising new efforts aimed at reducing the possibility of a WMD holocaust. It also funds public campaigns to compel governments to oppose the development of a new generation of “usable” nuclear weapons and to take their nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. In addition, resources are awarded to networks of civil society organizations that are monitoring governments’ adherence to the biological weapons treaty, in the absence of any official verification regime. Recently, monies were allocated for installation of seismic monitoring equipment in Russia that proved that a ban on nuclear testing could indeed be verified. An annual report on all weapon systems is a prominent feature which highlights the proliferation status of WMD-seeking states.

MILITARY FORCE AS A FOREIGN POLICY INSTRUMENT TO ARREST HUMANITARIAN CRISIS: WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES CLAIM TO RESOR

2006-08-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

"So many people throughout the world look to the United States for a lead on the most crucial issues that face our planet and indeed the lives of our grandchildren. “Truly the burden of the world rests on your shoulders," Prince Charles, November 3, 2005

“The contracting parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in times of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.” UN Genocide Convention- Article 1. 1948.

“If the horrors of the holocaust taught us anything, it is the high cost of remaining silent and paralyzed in the face of genocide.” Governor Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential campaign.

“…in 1994, Rwanda experienced the most intensive slaughter in this blood-filled century…the international community must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy…” President Clinton, Kigali, March 1998.

INTRODUCTION

The world has seen several momentous events that may appropriately be described as rearranging the structure of international relationships and essentially creating a new world order demanding visionary ideas to promote peace and ensure stability. For instance, the defeat of Germany in the First World War led Woodrow Wilson to call for the creation of a League of Nations in which “power would yield to morality, and force of arms to the dictates of public opinion” (Nye1993, pp. 82-3). Likewise as World War II ended it was clear that new-sprung national relationships were forming. As it became evident that the Allies would defeat the Axis powers, Winston Churchill pressed his American allies to focus on the eastern front power vacuum created by retreating German troops. The results, had the Americans heeded Churchill’s vision, may have been substantially different power arrangements and relationships among states. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War might also be viewed as a colossal change. As a result of the collapse, the United States dominates all aspects of global power – military, economic, diplomatic and some believe – cultural. In what may be viewed as a new world order where the structure of international relationships are being rearranged the United States, as the world’s dominant power, is faced with a huge challenge on a scale similar to what it faced at the end of the World Wars.

This essay will focus on one aspect of the United States’ power in the post-Cold War era: humanitarian interventions and the use of force. The paper is structured as follows, introduction, and rationale of the study, theory and assumptions, definition of concepts, challenges, research design, basis for military, that is; international law, national interests and moral, the application of the Just War concepts to humanitarian interventions and controversies involved in its application, and how the world has changed to oblige regression from the tradition concept of sovereignty.

RATIONALE

As a student of Foreign Policy and International Security Studies, I feel “pumped up” when someone mentions intervention, this is the core of my academic interest---because it involves tough but vital choices. However, military intervention and the issues involved required further academic inquiry, for their serious ideological, national and international law complications involved when an independent state decide unilaterally or multilaterally decide to violate the territorial and political integrity of another sovereign. The study will try to make sense of contradictory concepts that divide policymakers in the United States. Public and international organizations also agree that human rights are universal; at least those enshrined in the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (Donnelly 2005 pp. 1-2), however, controversy arise in practical application of these rights. At this point, I would outline the theoretical basis of this paper.

Theory and Assumptions

The nature of international politics is characterized by absence of a strong, authoritative and legitimate central government; therefore a hegemony power is obligated to uphold the highest moral standards for all global citizens, not only as a moral imperative, but also as a prudent course of action to solidify her position in the system. The hegemonic power has not only a moral obligation, but also a legal responsibility to employ non-violent and violent measure to restore order and arrest a humanitarian catastrophe. The small, powerless, and helpless nations clearly have no means to intervene. The critical responsibility of a hegemonic state is also grounded in the natural law and international law. The “just war” principles outlined by Augustine in the fourth century provide an appropriate framework to analyze whether the use of force to prevent certain human tragedies is just. Using the just war framework as a guide, the United States should not hesitate to employ its military power and influence to discourage, prevent, or resolve humanitarian crises—Rwanda, Somalia and Kosovo just to mention but a few. Values, however universal in principle, will always require muscles and self-interest to enforce.

Research Design

In this section I will outline how this project is actualized. The main variable will be the United States as the sole super power. Instruments will include examination of historical publications, text books and online sources on humanitarian, international law and the state as an independent political entity. Procedures are going to primarily include comparative analysis of competing arguments in favor of and against US military to restore respect for human rights. In general I will rely on qualitative methods. I will show the relationships that the combination of moral considerations, position of United States as the sole super power, US national interest and international law all together, are powerful forces to prompt US forceful (military) humanitarian intervention consistent with international norms enshrined in the Just War Principle, UN Genocide Convention- Article 1. 1948 and the
Operationization of Concepts

The concepts below are not universal; therefore, I will use them in the context of the definitions provided in this essay.

Humanitarian Intervention

This term refers to the use of international military force to stop the massive abuse of human rights in another state (Wheeler 2000, pp51). Such action might be taken unilaterally by a single state without international approval or by a single state or alliance of states with official international sanction from a multi-lateral organisation such as the United Nations. In his important analysis of humanitarian intervention, Nicholas Wheeler examines six instances of sufficiently grave and extensive human rights abuse to qualify for humanitarian intervention. Three of these are from the Cold War era: India’s intervention into Bangladesh in 1971; Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia in 1979, and Tanzania’s intervention in Uganda in 1979. Five of them are from the “new world order” of the 1990s: the UN intervention into Northern Iraq in 1991; the US and UN intervention in Somalia in 1992; the appalling lack of intervention in Rwanda in 1994, and the UN and NATO’s interventions in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999 (Wheeler 2000). There is a consensus that intervention refers to external actions that influence the domestic affairs of another sovereign state. This could take different forms, speeches, broadcasts, economic aid, military advisers, supporting opposition, blockade, limited military action or military invasion (Nye 1999, pp. 23).

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme authority over a geographic region, group of people, or oneself. Sovereignty over a nation is generally vested in a government or other political agency, though there are cases where it is held by an individual. A monarch who rules a sovereign country can also be referred to as the sovereign of that country. The concept of sovereignty also pertains to a government possessing full control over its own affairs within a territorial or geographical area or limit.

For the purposes of this research, note that sovereignty comes with it responsibilities. That is, if you take your life in your own hands you also take upon yourself to act responsibly and with integrity in regards to your own life, your family, your community, your fellow human beings and the planet as a whole. If you fail, Kant eloquently counsel, when we act in a way that we would want without contradiction everyone else to act, then it is a “universal law,” which no government has the right to deny (Kaplan 2002, pp.111). There are moral standards which transcends state boundaries. In the Declaration of Independence: rights that are indisputable because, like the Founders, we wish them without contradiction to be universal (Kaplan 2002, pp. 113). While different moral value systems may coexist, there has never been and there is no and should never be, a universal right to slaughter the innocent human beings. Kant shows that even in the so-called “independent state era,” there are still universal principles worth struggling for-something we know only too well because of the Holocaust (Kaplan 2002, pp.113 & Kant 1785; 1784-1795). Let there be no illusion; sovereignty is not a moral imperative, life is and human life calls for utmost protection and respect, in short, the very principle that distinguish us humans from beasts and savages. Ever since Cicero, statesmen have proclaimed moral principles of a human community that no dictator has the right to annual (Grant 1960, pp. 168).

Hegemony

Let me specify what I mean by hegemony. In discussions of IR theory it tends to have two meanings: one has to do with the distribution of power in a system. Not merely military force, but also technical and financial strength. The other meaning is the dominance of a particular idea or set of assumptions, such as economic liberalism and globalization. I certainly use the term hegemony primarily in the first sense. It is the material condition that enables one great power, or a group of powers, or the great powers in a system acting collectively, to bring such great pressures and inducements to bear that most other states lose some of their freedom of action de facto, though not de jure (Keohane 1980, pp. 296-305 & O'Brien & Armand 2002). I formerly thought of hegemony as that area of the spectrum between multiple absolute independences and a single world government that allows dominant powers to influence the external policies of other states, but not, or only marginally their domestic policies. Now I realize how much the hegemony of the West and especially the U.S. also aims to modify the internal behavior of other states and communities (Keohane 1980, pp. 296-305 & O'Brien & Armand 2002). We will, and should, intervene whenever our national interests intersect with international law and moral considerations.

The Challenge – Recklessness or Visionary Leadership

In urging caution with respect to the use of military force in Bosnia, Secretary of State Madeline Albright chided then Joint Chief’s Chairman Colin Powell by asserting, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”(Chapman1997). The discourse characterizes a fundamental crossroads in approaches to American national security strategy and foreign policy. Her question is frustrating for its apparently foolhardy, almost immature failure to comprehend what it means to use force. The question reminds one of Mark Twain’s quip that to “someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” (Chapman 1997).On the other hand, the question presents a bold and direct challenge. While perhaps not as poetic, it seems to embody a certain JFK resonance. The challenge implicitly recognizes the primacy of American power and a refusal to shrink from the challenges of the world.

The ability of the United States to justify forceful involvement in humanitarian crises has been suspect. The tragedy in Somalia and, most recently Kosovo, come to mind. Consequently, isolationists call for a “survivalist foreign policy” in which a fortified fence is built around America and we retreat behind it (Harris 1999). There is an impulse by many Americans to withdraw from the world, squander our advantages, alienate our friends, diminish our credibility, betray our values, and discredit our example (Harris 1999).

The just war framework would certainly assist in establishing moral certainty and build confidence in U.S. involvement aimed at stemming human catastrophes. The paradox, however, is that in many cases forceful means are necessary to stem human suffering. Many balance of power realists and virtually every isolationist take a narrow view of what constitutes American interests and scoff at challenges such as that posed by Albright. Many argue that before any American lives are risked in a crisis a specific, clear, and definable “interest” is essential.

Narrowly defined interests that limit the ability of the United States to engage the world community could seriously impact the lives of future generations of Americans. The foremost crisis in a new century is that the United States will refuse to lead. One aspect of leadership in the new millennium will be how humanitarian crises are handled. By applying just war principles to proposed forceful interventions to relieve human suffering, the United States will have established the foundation for the moral correctness of its actions. Confident in the moral correctness of a particular future intervention the United States not only will relieve suffering and prevent tragedies, but it also advances its interests and establishes its leadership by actively engaging the world. As one of the great world powers, it is essential that the United States cultivate international cooperation, partnerships, and alliances, build coalitions, and with respect to humanitarian threats and crises – work to “liberalize” worldwide human rights.

Just War Tradition

Broadly, the elements of just war are usually divided into two categories; jus ad bellum – that which is just or right to engage in or resort to war, and jus in bello – that which is just or right within war (Deforrest 1997, pp. 7).While both are relevant in any analysis of the moral and ethical dilemmas of war, the intent of this essay is to focus on whether forceful humanitarian interventions are justified under jus ad bellum.

The central tenets of jus ad bellum consist of three key elements: 1) whether there is a just cause with regard to the use of force, 2) whether the use of force is mandated by a competent authority, and 3) whether force is used with the right intention. If all of these elements are met, then traditionally a nation is morally justified in prosecuting a war.

The notion of “just cause” developed out of the tradition that conquests were morally objectionable. St Augustine maintained that use of force was justified to defend the nation or take back what an unjust aggressor has taken from the nation or its allies. It is essentially a cause that is born out of some measurable or identifiable conduct by another. The concept was further expanded by Thomas Aquinas to justify punishing evildoers or transgressors. In essence, a just cause exists if a basic, fundamental value is “threatened, that is higher on a public good hierarchy than the disvalues involved in taking military action” (LaCroix 1988, pp. 147).

The concept of “competent authority” relates to the evaluation of military force by a legitimate government. If an illegal or unrecognized authority within a nation made a decision to go to war, then the decision would not be just since it would violate basic principles related to the governing of that society (Coll, et al. eds. 1995, pp. 8). The rationale is that only governments, as representatives of the people can determine the morality of engaging in war. The concept has been blurred, as the legitimacy of a ruling body is often difficult to ascertain. Non governmental organizations, guerilla movements (e.g., Irish Republican Army), and alliances (e.g., NATO) are but a few examples of bodies claiming authority and legitimacy in the use of force. The modern test to determine if authority exists to prosecute a war focuses on the ability to limit the use of force and assesses the “depth and breadth of popular support this authority possess” (Johnson 1984, pp. 24)

Finally, the concept of “right intention” has broadly been interpreted to mean – as outlined by Aquinas and Augustine, “the advancement of good or the avoidance of evil” (Kaplan 2002, pp. 109&130). While just cause deals with an objective situation and how it is ethically evaluated, the right intention concept is related to a state of mind and motives. The decision to go to war must be essentially protective. As Augustine pointed out, the goal of war is to obtain a just and durable peace (Johnson 1984 and Kaplan 2002, pp-109&130).

Humanitarian Interventions and the Application of Just War Concepts

While the just war framework has been used as a moral compass in armed conflicts and wars among nations it is equally applicable in the realm of humanitarian interventions involving the use of force. First, in any humanitarian intervention the underlying issue is one of morals and ethics. While “morals and ethics” are certainly, loaded terms, fundamentally the issue in a humanitarian crisis is one of right versus wrong. Similarly, the ultimate goal of a just war assessment is to determine whether it is right or wrong to use force. One might argue that morals and ethics are based on a sliding scale of perceptions and popular norms and thus, just war principles lose credibility and relevance. Some argue that because of the shifting nature of morals and ethics, just war traditions serve no useful purpose other than to justify the actions of each belligerent in a conflict.

The problem with these arguments is the history of warfare details horrific examples of the consequences of a failure to analyze actions using the just war framework. The desire for quick, decisive victories in many wars led to virtually unlimited forms of warfare – including the use of gas in the World War I, offensive strategic bombing aimed at “the will of the German, Japanese, and British people” and the obliteration of population centers in World War II, the use of the atomic bomb, and indiscriminate uses of other tools of death. Unlimited war is an abomination to the just war tradition. While “morals and ethics” are indeed shaped and developed based on the experiences and perceptions of society, they nevertheless serve to limit and restrain the use of force. The shifting nature of morals and ethics should not be used as an excuse for dismissing the just war concepts. Instead, it is precisely because of the mortality of morals and ethics as well as the changing character and conduct of war that, before a state commits a force in an effort to resolve a conflict (i.e., any type of conflict or forceful operation other than war), the just war balancing criteria be considered as a restraining mechanism.

As the character and conduct of warfare has changed through the centuries since Aquinas and Augustine so to have theories related to just war. Due to the fact that the nature of warfare is constantly being altered, or that traditional “wars” have become more difficult to define does not change the broad underlying moral and ethical questions concerning the use of force. The fact is that debates pertaining to humanitarian interventions are inescapably ethical and thus, would benefit from a rigorous analysis using the just war framework.

Moreover, the introduction of arms to a conflict or other crisis could produce unexpected and undesired results. For instance, a war that assumes “its own momentum” as alluded to by Clausewitz is no longer focused on political objectives or desired results (Clausewitz & Howard and Peter 1976). The just war principles attempt to keep war objectives focused. They force analysis of the justness of a pursued cause or end state and thus seek to keep the war machine on its tracks. They are likewise essential to restrain force, as necessary, in a humanitarian crisis.

The focused and limited use of force, elemental to a just war analysis, is likewise fundamental to any humanitarian intervention demanding a military presence. Implicit in the just war framework is a requirement for an assessment of whether armed conflict is a last resort, the likely degree of success produced by an armed conflict, and the proportionality of the military means in accomplishing objectives. The just war framework attempts to limit war and thus limit suffering. The objective is a “just and durable peace.” Similarly, the broad goal in a humanitarian crisis is to alleviate human suffering and achieve a peace comparable to that contemplated by Augustine.

Finally, the just war framework may appropriately be applied to forceful humanitarian interventions because, while sovereignty is still the basic “organizing principle of political power, political philosophy, and political science,” there are larger global issues and problems that transcend parochial sovereignty concerns. They include environmental issues, international security problems, and concerns related to information technology (Smith 1995). Moreover, and significantly for purposes of this essay, the creep of international laws into the realm of state affairs is largely a byproduct of failures by states to follow the guidelines of just war theories in conducting affairs (Smith 1995) The crises in Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo are an example. At the same time it is clear that a nation has a right to be free from interference in its internal affairs.

There are several possibilities for resolving sovereignty and “competent authority” issues related to forceful humanitarian interventions. The possibilities include codifying just war principles, strengthening and clarifying international laws, and possibly creating a body of small nations that would assess the nature of humanitarian crises and authorize interventions (Smith 1995). However, pending a more permanent resolution of the sovereignty issues, the just war tradition remains flexible and adaptive. The “depth and breadth” of an intervening nation or entity’s popular support applies to decisions regarding war as much as it does to decisions regarding forceful humanitarian interventions.

The situation in Kosovo provides an opportunity to assess the appropriateness and applicability of the just war tradition to a humanitarian crisis. The intervention by NATO to stop major human rights violations, ethnically motivated murders, and the possibility of ethnic cleansing certainly presented a just cause. And, given this underlying cause the expressed NATO intent of deterring ethnic cleansing was also proper. Many argue that NATO – traditionally a defensive alliance, was not a competent authority to decide whether to intervene in a nation’s sovereign affairs. However, use of force by NATO arguably represented the collective will of the people of several nations and thus it was, in fact, a competent body under the just war
framework.

The issue with regard to Kosovo is that while on the surface the intervention appears to be wholly supportable under the just war tradition, there does not appear to be a plan in place to produce what Augustine referred to as a “just and durable peace” which is the ultimate goal of any use of force (Kaplan 2002). It is the bedrock of what makes certain war is just. Many believe the U.S.-led NATO forces were hugely effective and successful in its application of military power. Yet, the crisis seems far from being resolved. Instead of trumpeting Milosevic’s military defeat the just war tradition would have seemingly call for U.S. engagement through diplomacy, partnering with Europeans as well as the Russians, involvement of U.N. peacekeeping forces which would be protected from both Serbian and Kosavar forces by NATO or U.N. troops, and, with respect to the war crime indictments against Milosevic, consideration of plea bargaining.

What Prompt U.S. Action?

Clearly, this analysis supports the conclusion that the just war framework is a proper tool for evaluating the appropriateness and correctness of forceful interventions in humanitarian causes. Given the availability of this moral compass the question remains what will prompt involvement in, and resolution of, humanitarian emergencies. The United States seems disjointed and confused in articulating a coherent policy of what will prompt it to act. The military being asked to “do more with less,” the denial of increased spending on foreign aid and State Department operations and failure to resolve payments of United States debts to the U.N. illustrate the confusion.

The incoherent policies and an apparent trend toward isolationism may have served to contribute indirectly to the alarming number of armed conflicts in the world. The numbers alone should prompt action. From January 1990 through December 1996 the world saw 96 armed conflicts, while in 2004 alone the world absorbed 19 major conflicts (SIPRI Yearbook 2005). A conservative estimate of the death toll in these wars is around 5.5 million people over 75 percent of those were civilians (Smith 1995). Certainly, as President Clinton stated, the United States cannot become involved in every problem we care about. On the other hand, with the just war framework as a guide, the timing as Ms. Albright recognized has never been better to engage the world by preventing or resolving humanitarian tragedies that we can do something about. By doing so the United States promotes its interest in expanding democratic principles and bolstering economic prosperity thereby enhancing our overall security.

First, the United States should, and must act with force, if necessary, whenever another nation or some other entity denies fundamental unchanging and universally accepted rights of man (Rice 1995, pp. 24). The denial of fundamental and universally unchanging rights demands the same kind of attention that a nation would devote toward the pursuit of a vital national interest. These are rights that belong to man, not because he is a citizen of a particular state, but rather because he is a human being. Such rights transcend nations, cultures, and religion. Certainly the atrocities committed by the Nazis represented a denial of fundamental and universal rights of Jews and many others. The elimination of a particular ethnic race (e.g., in Rwanda) might be another. Actions or inaction, with respect to this category of human rights affect the moral credibility and leadership of the United States as a world power.

In addition, humanitarian crises provide an opportunity for United States to not only alleviate suffering but to promote its values. Such crises may present cost effective means of pursuing other national interests. New weapons technology, air power, precision guided munitions as well as advances in information collection and distribution systems permit a cost effective employment of limited and proportional force, at least when measured against human resources. The employment of such force to ameliorate and possibly prevent human suffering is consistent with just war principles. As a quid pro quo for such actions the United States should seek to foster closer ties, promote the enlargement of democracy, and enhance the stability of the state or region.

Important still, the United States should act because it won the Cold War. Consequently, activism in world affairs -- particularly to avert and possibly resolve a humanitarian crisis, is appropriate. The absence of Cold War politics should be viewed as a super highway to a new world order. Certainly the former Secretary of State perceived the dominance of U.S. power; particularly military power. She realized that the Cold War precepts, which resulted in a Cold War victory, no longer work and are not relevant in the current international environment. As the sole super power the timing is right to engage the world, cultivate partnerships and alliances, and promote our values. Promoting our values may mean using force to prevent humanitarian catastrophes. And given the absence of Cold War politics the United States has much more latitude to act, to influence actions, and thereby promote vital, important, or other third tier interests. The United States should aggressively undertake action to prevent certain humanitarian catastrophes consistent with the “just war” tradition. Ms. Albright’s challenge – as tempered by the above analysis related to just war, ought to be embraced.

In a final analysis, its from this background that I thus propose, that, a responsible foreign policy requires that the U.S. never capitulate to gross human rights violations, U.S. troops should have been patrolling not only in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, but also in Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kashmir, Rwanda, Burundi, Northeastern Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and many other places. The U.S. as a universal superpower must behave like so, else a global constabulary force would be necessary with unwanted ramifications.

U.N. Council: 'Shock' Over Lebanon Deaths

2006-07-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

This is absurd, why the UN Security council has not explictly expressed "Shock" over the killing of innocent civilians and the relentless firing of rockets-which have practically held Jewish citizens hostage by Hezbollah? Is the UN fair?

A MILESTONE IN CONGO AS CITIZENS PREPARE TO CAST THEIR FIRST EVER DEMOCRATIC BALLOT>MORE INFOR CLICK HERE

2006-07-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Inside the Rogue State of Syria Click here for more

2006-07-28T08:56:00.000-07:00

Who is this IDIOT? KIM Jong il >click here for more information

2006-07-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Israel vows to avoid Hezbollah trap in Lebanon

2006-07-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

"Israel is going to do it at our own pace, at our own time, to make sure that when we go in, we go in carefully, and that we don't walk into their booby-traps," Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said. "We want to stop the rocket fire, but we also want to make sure that Hezbollah will not be there afterward."

Is it ripe for US and her allies to launch a preventative strike on Damascus and Tehran? How should such attack be carried out?

2006-07-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

FBI Most Wanted Criminals -Click here to help

2006-07-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Million Dollar Question Click here for more on UBL

2006-07-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

Where is the front line of the global war on terrorism?

Keep comments short readers!

Israel Determined to Smoke Out the Hezs'

2006-07-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

"Hezbollah must not in the future be what it has been in the past," Peretz said. "This may take time and it may take more force. We have both in plenty."

"We will not agree for Hezbollah flags again to fly in our faces on the northern border," he said.

Iranian Volunteers Set Off for Lebanon Click here for more

2006-07-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

One volunteer was quoted saying"We are just the first wave of Islamic warriors from Iran," said Amir Jalilinejad, chairman of the Student Justice Movement, a nongovernment group that helped recruit the fighters. "More will come from here and other Muslim nations around the world. Hezbollah needs our help."

How do we solve the Middle East Crisis?

2006-07-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

For weeks the IDF has been engaged in a furious strikes on Hezbollah bases in Southern Lebanon. Despite the intense battle, the IDF and Hezbollah seem be committed to another several weeks of fighting. Ironic the incident that bigan as a rescue mission to bring back two Israel soldiers---has caused more death and suffering and the kidnapped soldiers are still missing.

Talks of some diplomatic solution have been heard and gone, today in Rome-participants agreed to disagree. In the foreseeable future there is no way out. The United States stands firm with her ally Israel, on the other side, the European, Asian and African countries prefer some form of cease fire to allow some diplomatic track to take hold.

Both these diplomatic strategies have drawbacks, first, the United States hopes in a few weeks the Jewish state will be able to defeat Hezbollah, thus making possible for the proposed international force to take over its responsibilties. In theory, the US strategy looks good, however, it is possible that the conflict will take longer than anticipated by both US and IDF. God forbid--is this happens our troops could be drawn into this conflict help defeat Hezbollah or to lead the so-called multi-national force. Consequently, the Arab streets will be hijacked by extremist eager to show Western ruthlessness and bias in dealing with Arabs and muslims in particular.

The other strategy promoted by the UN and other countries call for a cease-fire before any long term solutions could be worked out. The problem with this approach is that the Jewish state and the US both are opposed to such a design as nothing but a ploy to prolong and weaken international attention on Hezbollah. If this strategy succeeds however, the innocent victims of war could be reduced and the demage inflicted on Lebanese social and economic infrustructure stopped. Yet in the long-run, the Hezbollah threat would not be decisively reduced by this plan, a prelude to another confrotation.

Overall, the US-Israel plan has better prospects for peace and long-time benefits. The other alternative, is important temporarily to halting fighting, but leaves serious issues unresolved.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

We need to give the IDF's sufficient but limited opportunity to destory the Hezbollah. In the meantime, the UN and the rest of the world should be resolving issues associated with organizing the peace enfocement force. The force to be effective would need to disarm-forcefully if necessary the remaining pockets of terrorist, supervise shipments entering Lebanon thru Syria and other areas, train and empower Lebanese forces for future border patrol responsibilties and engage combat ready games to all possible contigencies.

Diplomatically, the terrorist threat posed by Iran and Syria need to be addressed promptly at the UN and other bilateral arragements (mainly be EU. Ideally, several instruments must be utilized, for example sanction and threat of military force.

In short, the problem possed by Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations in the region represent a global confrotation between the West and Islamic radicalism. Therefore, we can only arrest this trend if the world led by the West, Allies and moderate Arab governments come together, as a single--coherent bloc determined to vaquish and bankrupt terrorist-rogue-network states such as Iran and Syria.

U.N. observers' deaths fuel diplomatic tension: Question of the Moment

2006-07-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

Was Secretary General's statement calling the strike by IDF on the UN observers outpost in Southern Lebanon, killing four UN soldiers "apparently delibarate" hasty and irresponsible or appropriate?

ROME CONFERENCE ON LEBANON

2006-07-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

Leaders and representatives of countries around the world are meeting in Rome to discuss how to bring an end to the conflict in Lebanon and ease the humanitarian crisis. Pressure is on to achieve a swift cease-fire, but disagreements are expected as the U.S. pushes for a longer term solution to conflict in the Middle East.

The conference gathers members of the "Lebanon Core Group," which consists of nations and organizations that want to help with the Middle East country's reconstruction and economic, political and social reforms.

Its members include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the World Bank, the European Union, Egypt, France, Russia, Britain, the United States, the United Nations and Italy. Spain, Germany and Turkey were also to attend.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Israel is not represented.

The meeting is jointly chaired by Rice and Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema.
The agenda is to discuss how to end the current hostilities between Lebanon and Israel and finding a solution to the conflict. The humanitarian situation in the Lebanon will also be discussed alongside the situation in Cyprus, which is struggling to cope with the influx of evacuees. The death of four U.N. military observers in an Israeli attack is also likely to be on the agenda.

Possible soulutions, Arab and some European leaders are expected to push for an immediate cease-fire followed by the deployment of an international force. Pressure for a swift halt to hostilities has increased following the deadly bombing by Israel of a U.N. observation post.

According to The Associated Press, EU foreign and security affairs chief Javier Solana is expected to propose that a rapid reaction force be established, ideally be built around French, German and Spanish troops, supplemented by forces from Turkey, the Netherlands, Canada and Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Rome Conference produce no Agreement on Mideast Cease-Fire

2006-07-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

Talks involving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and counterparts from other countries bogged down Wednesday in apparent disagreement over what kind of cease-fire would be urged to end the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting.

Rice, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema joined Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora at a news conference. D'Alema said the participants agreed to work "immediately" for a cease-fire and Annan said any solution to the Mideast crisis should involve Iran and Syria.

Rice said the United States favors urgently ending the Israeli-Hezbollah fighting but that there cannot be a return to a status quo of political uncertainty and instability in Lebanon.

"There is much work to do and everyone has a role to play," Rice said.

A diplomat involved with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing negotiations, said international leaders were struggling to reach agreement on a statement about the violence between Israel and the Hezbollah militia.

Saniora gave an impassioned speech before the news conference that prodded the international leaders to continue working, the source said. The diplomat said the sticking point is language about the terms under which fighting would end.

The source insisted on anonymity because discussions on a conference resolution were still ongoing.

Almost every nation attending the conference in Rome has pressed Rice to call for an immediate end to the fighting on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

But Rice stood her ground in two days of diplomacy in Lebanon and Israel and the West Bank. Rather than a quick fix, she has repeatedly said the region needs enduring solutions, and other U.S. officials have raised doubts about an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah fighters in the south of Lebanon.

The Rome meeting of European and moderate Arab officials was to discuss the fighting sparked by the July 12 Hezbollah abduction of two Israeli soldiers. Rice attended a morning meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema before the international conference was set to begin.

When asked if she planned to announce an international force for Lebanon, Rice smiled and wouldn't comment.

In a statement at the start of the conference, Annan called for an immediate cessation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, calling for Hezbollah to stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers" and for Israel to end all bombing, blockades and ground operations.

He said "a key stipulation for such a halt in fighting would be that the parties must not, I repeat, must not take advantage of such a pause to conduct offense operations, redeploy or resupply."

And he said an international force will be vital to keeping peace.

Support Israel Petition -click here to participate

2006-07-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

Israel is facing a crisis. We need to be sure that world leaders recognize Israel's right to exist within safe and secure borders, work to return Israel's kidnapped soldiers and pressure Hezbollah to stop their attacks on Israel.

This petition with your comments will be sent to the United Nations:
To: The Honorable Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

In light of the violence affecting the people of Israel and Lebanon, we respectfully ask that you join us in clearly and immediately reaffirming the right of Israel to defend its citizens and ensure its security in the face of relentless attacks, killings and kidnappings by Hezbollah.

We urge you to do everything in your power to help secure the release of Israel's abducted soldiers and to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which requires establishing Lebanon's sovereignty and the authority of its government throughout the country; the disbanding and disarmament of all militias; and the deployment of the Lebanese army along the border with Israel.

Thank you for your attention.

Quote of the day

2006-07-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

“It is urgent... but the framework is clearly to do this in a way that will help the Lebanese government exercise sovereignty over all of its territory.”

Rice urges ‘urgent and enduring’ Mideast peace

2006-07-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

RAMALLAH, West Bank Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a frenetic set of meetings amid Israeli-Hezbollah fighting, declared Tuesday the United States wants an “urgent and enduring” peace where problems are solved without war.

She also Rice said, “We need to get to a sustainable peace, there must be a way for people to reconcile their differences.”

Earlier, meeting in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, she said the time has come for a new Middle East. “I have no doubt there are those who wish to strangle a democratic and sovereign Lebanon in its crib,” Rice said. “We, of course, also urgently want to end the violence.”

At this point, a multi-national force is the sole altanative to this abyss the Middle East finds itself in, and the resultant consequences.

Question of The Week: The Mideast Conflict

2006-07-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

What role should the United States play? Should UN or EU provide the International Peacekeeping force to supervise and if necessary engage Islamic terrorist in Southern Lebanon?

Please keep you answers short-thank you.

Hezbollah negotiator rejects peace proposal

2006-07-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

Condi Rice was greeted with skeptism!

An official close to parliament speaker Nabih Berri said his talks with Rice failed to “reach an agreement because Rice insisted on one full package to end the fighting.”

The package included a cease-fire, simultaneous with the deployment of the Lebanese army and an international force in south Lebanon and the removal of Hezbollah weapons from a buffer zone extending 30 kilometers from the Israeli border, said the official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

THE CHIEF DIPLOMAT IN THE MAKING

2006-07-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

Dr. Condoleezza Rice became the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, on January 22, 2001.

In June 1999, she completed a six year tenure as Stanford University 's Provost, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students.

As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors -- the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

At Stanford, she was a member of the Center for International Security and Arms Control from 1981-1986 (currently the Center for International Security And Cooperation), a Senior Fellow of the Institute for International Studies, and a Fellow (by courtesy) of the Hoover Institution. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995) with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984). She also has written numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign and defense policy, and has addressed audiences in settings ranging from the U.S. Ambassador's Residence in Moscow to the Commonwealth Club to the 1992 and 2000 Republican National Conventions.

From 1989 through March 1991, the period of German reunification and the final days of the Soviet Union, she served in the Bush Administration as Director, and then Senior Director, of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council, and a Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, she served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -- Integrated Training in the Military.

She was a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the University of Notre Dame, the International Advisory Council of J.P. Morgan and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. She was a Founding Board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California and was Vice President of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula . In addition, her past board service has encompassed such organizations as Transamerica Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the Carnegie Corporation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Rand Corporation, the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies, the Mid-Peninsula Urban Coalition and KQED, public broadcasting for San Francisco.

Born November 14, 1954 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master's from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Morehouse College in 1991, the University of Alabama in 1994, the University of Notre Dame in 1995, the National Defense University in 2002, the Mississippi College School of Law in 2003, the University of Louisville and Michigan State University in 2004. She resides in Washington, D.C.

Rice holds surprise talks with Lebanese premier

2006-07-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

KIM Jong il has secret 'wife'

2006-07-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

There is no official information available about the marital history of the 64-year-old leader of the highly secretive government, but Kim is widely believed to have been married three times. His last wife, Ko Yong Hi, reportedly died of cancer in 2004.

Since then, Kim has been living with Kim Ok, who had served as his personal secretary since the 1980s, Yonhap reported, citing South Korean government officials it didn't further identify.

Kim Ok, 42, "virtually acts as North Korea's first lady" and frequently accompanies the North Korean leader on his visits to military bases and in meetings with visiting foreign dignitaries, Yonhap said.

She also traveled with Kim Jong Il on a secretive trip to China in January, when she was received by Chinese officials as Kim's wife, the report said. Kim Ok also met with Chinese President Hu Jintao, it said.

It is not known whether Kim Ok and the North Korean leader have any children, Yonhap said.

Kim Jong Il is known to have three sons -- one from his second wife and two from his third. North Korean experts say Kim's 25-year-old son Kim Jong Chul is most likely to become the North's next leader.

His eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, is said to have fallen out of favor after embarrassing his father in 2001 when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

SOMALIA

2006-07-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

Geography
Somalia, situated in the Horn of Africa, lies along the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It is bounded by Djibouti in the northwest, Ethiopia in the west, and Kenya in the southwest. In area it is slightly smaller than Texas. Generally arid and barren, Somalia has two chief rivers, the Shebelle and the Juba.

Government
Between Jan. 1991 and Aug. 2000, Somalia had no working government. A fragile parliamentary government was formed in 2000, but it expired in 2003 without establishing control of the country. In 2004, a new transitional Parliament was instituted and elected a president.

History
From the 7th to the 10th century, Arab and Persian trading posts were established along the coast of present-day Somalia. Nomadic tribes occupied the interior, occasionally pushing into Ethiopian territory. In the 16th century, Turkish rule extended to the northern coast, and the Sultans of Zanzibar gained control in the south.

After British occupation of Aden in 1839, the Somali coast became its source of food. The French established a coal-mining station in 1862 at the site of Djibouti, and the Italians planted a settlement in Eritrea. Egypt, which for a time claimed Turkish rights in the area, was succeeded by Britain. By 1920, a British and an Italian protectorate occupied what is now Somalia. The British ruled the entire area after 1941, with Italy returning in 1950 to serve as United Nations trustee for its former territory.

By 1960, Britain and Italy granted independence to their respective sectors, enabling the two to join as the Republic of Somalia on July 1, 1960. Somalia broke diplomatic relations with Britain in 1963 when the British granted the Somali-populated Northern Frontier District of Kenya to the Republic of Kenya.

On Oct. 15, 1969, President Abdi Rashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated and the army seized power. Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre, as president of a renamed Somali Democratic Republic, leaned heavily toward the USSR. In 1977, Somalia openly backed rebels in the easternmost area of Ethiopia, the Ogaden Desert, which had been seized by Ethiopia at the turn of the century. Somalia acknowledged defeat in an eight-month war against the Ethiopians that year, having lost much of its 32,000-man army and most of its tanks and planes. President Siad Barre fled the country in late Jan. 1991. His departure left Somalia in the hands of a number of clan-based guerrilla groups, none of which trusted each other.

Africa's worst drought of the century occurred in 1992, and, coupled with the devastation of civil war, Somalia was plunged into a severe famine that killed 300,000. U.S. troops were sent in to protect the delivery of food in Dec. 1992, and in May 1993 the UN took control of the relief efforts from the U.S. The warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid ambushed UN troops and dragged American bodies through the streets, causing an about-face in U.S. willingness to involve itself in the fate of this lawless country. The last of the U.S. troops departed in late March, leaving 19,000 UN troops behind.

Since 1991 Somalia has been engulfed in anarchy. Years of peace negotiations between the various factions were fruitless, and warlords and militias ruled over individual swaths of land. In 1991, a breakaway nation, the Somaliland Republic, proclaimed its independence. Since then several warlords have set up their own ministates in Puntland and Jubaland. Although internationally unrecognized, these states have been peaceful and stable.

In Aug. 2000, a Parliament convened in nearby Djibouti and elected Somalia's first government in nearly a decade. After its first year in office, the government still controlled only 10% of the country, and in Aug. 2003, its mandate expired. In Oct. 2002, new talks to establish a government began; in Aug. 2004 a 275-member transitional Parliament was inaugurated for a five-year term. Parliament selected a national president in September, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the president of the breakaway region of Puntland. The new government, however, spent its first year operating out of Kenya—Somalia remained too violent and unstable to enter—eventually settling in the provincial town of Baidoa.

In May 2006, the country's worst outbreak of violence in 10 years occurred, with Islamist militias battling rival warlords. On June 6, an Islamist militia seized control of the capital, Mogadishu, and established control in much of the south. This was a setback for the Bush administration's controversial policy in the country—as part of its war on terror, the U.S. is widely thought to have covertly backed various warlords against the Islamists, despite the warlords' perpetuation of violence and mayhem throughout the country. The U.S. is concerned that the lawless and chaotic nation will become an al-Qaeda breeding ground, but its support of the now-defeated warlords has deepened the U.S. unpopularity in the country. Although one leader of the Islamists, Sharif Ahmed, has indicated his desire for good relations with the West, another emerging leader, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, is considered a hardliner who wants to turn Somalia into an Islamist state ruled by sharia law. The sheik is barred from entering the U.S. because of his ties to terrorist groups. Somalia's transitional government, led by President Abdullahi Yusuf and situated in Baidoa, remains intact, and has the support of neighboring Ethiopia, which has clashed in the past with Somalia's Islamists. The international community has urged negotiations between the Islamists and the transitional government.

Somalia - Somalia , country (2005 est. pop. 8,591,000), 246,200 sq mi (637,657 sq km), extreme E Africa. It ...
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Atlas: Somalia - Facts on Somalia: flags, maps, geography, history, statistics, disasters current events, and international relations.
Somalia: Bibliography - Bibliography See R. L. Hess, Italian Colonialism in Somalia (1966); D. D. Laitin and S. S. Samatar, ...
Somalia: History - History Early and Colonial Periods Between the 7th and 10th cent., immigrant Muslim Arabs and ...

If necessary, strike and destroy North Korean missile Dammie

2006-07-22T09:22:00.000-07:00

Former defense secretary William J. Perry and assistant secretary Ashton B. Carter advise that if North Korea persists in its test launch preparations of an intercontinental ballistic missile, the United States should immediately make clear its intention to strike and destroy the missile before it can be launched. The op-ed sparked debate in Washington and in the media.

Originally appeared in Wasington Post, June 22, 2006

West divided over Israel-Lebanon crisis and More

2006-07-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

As the Israeli air campaign against Lebanon entered its eighth day on Thursday, the US and the EU continued to grapple for an adequate response with increased concern about civilian suffering in the region.

On Wednesday, Israeli air strikes killed more than 50 people across Lebanon. Israeli military officials also said they had bombed a bunker sheltering Hizbollah leaders, though Hizbollah said none of its members were killed in the operation.

On Thursday, Israel urged Lebanese residents in the country's south to evacuate before more strikes. Also on Thursday, Israeli forces battled Hizbollah forces on the Lebanese side of the border, suffering an unknown number of casualties, news agencies reported. Israeli forces crossed in an attempt to push back Hizbollah, which has been firing rockets into northern Israel. Hizbollah fired more than 100 rockets into northern Israel on Wednesday alone, hitting Haifa and Nazareth and killing two Israeli-Arab boys, news agencies reported.

The fighting between Israel and Lebanon erupted nine days ago after a Hizbollah raid in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two others abducted. After the clash Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned that the battle had only just begun.

In an interview with Paris-based France Inter radio on Thursday, Lebanon’s President Emile Lahoud demanded an immediate ceasefire and called Israel’s offensive a “massacre.”

In a further development, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said Israeli and Hizbollah leaders could face war crimes charges if it is proven that they have deliberately targeted civilians.

A Wednesday editorial on the online version of The Economist expressed concern that Israel, if it failed to achieve its aim in the current air campaign, might once again have to “commit serious numbers of ground forces [and] risks getting bogged down in southern Lebanon.”

Has Israel “fallen for a Hizbollah trap?” the editorial asks. Unclear about Hizbollah’s exact intentions in the present conflict, the editorial speculates that Hizbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers to provoke a forceful Israeli response to “drag Israel into a war on two fronts, perhaps with the backing of Syria and Iran [which would both] benefit from chaos and instability in the region.” This line of thinking has also been seen in the Israeli media, with some speculating that the Hizbollah border raid was also meant to steal the limelight from Hamas' recent success in attacking an Israeli outpost near the Gaza Strip.

A divided EU
According to the Associated Press, EU member states fear that continued Israeli bombardment would strengthen the hand of Islamists and terrorist groups using the imagery of civilian casualties in Lebanon as a propaganda tool.

In the meantime, the EU has called Israel’s action a “disproportionate” use of force and has demanded an immediate ceasefire. EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana repeated this call during a visit to Israel on Wednesday.

French President Jacques Chirac urged both Hizbollah and Israel to stop the hostilities. France, which currently holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and has historic ties with Lebanon, has issued a proposal for a binding UNSC resolution to bring the fighting to a halt.

Equally worried about further escalation of the conflict is Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who indirectly criticized Israel’s action by lamenting “the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon.” On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held out the possibility of contributing Russian troops if the UNSC was to establish a security force in southern Lebanon.

The British newspaper The Guardian heavily criticized the weak and divided EU position in a Tuesday editorial: “Europe’s position […] matters because it aspires to play a role on the world stage, because the Middle East is its own backyard and because the area’s quarrels can explode on our streets and trains.”

“European citizens, want to know that the EU is not just watching helplessly and letting the US dictate vital decisions as fateful, bloody and epoch-making events unfold,” the editorial continued.

Both Europe and the US have so far failed to agree on a decisive policy to bring the fighting to a halt.

The question of a UN defense force
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan Tuesday called for the deployment of a multinational force to Lebanon - an idea that the US and Israel have so far opposed.

US skepticism is grounded in the fact that the 2000-strong UN peacekeeping force that is already stationed in southern Lebanon has failed to prevent the positioning of thousands of rockets by Hizbollah militants. Similarly, UNSC Resolution 1559, which calls for the complete disarming of Hizbollah, has failed to achieve its objective.

Moreover, the US, which has consistently affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hizbollah attacks, wants to give Israel more time to expel Hizbollah from the region. “A cease-fire [a prerequisite for the deployment of UN forces] that would leave intact a terrorist infrastructure is unacceptable,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Former intelligence analyst with the US State Department and Defense Department Anthony Cordesman explained during an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the effective deployment of a UN peacekeeping force would require the active support of the Lebanese government and military, as well as the cooperation of the Shi'ite population in southern Lebanon.

Similarly pessimistic about the rapid deployment of a UN force in Lebanon is former German oreign minister and Middle East expert Joschka Fischer, who told the German newspaper Die Zeit that “another Blue Helmet mandate will make little sense. Only a robust mandate could perhaps achieve something positive.” Fischer stressed the importance of Washington's role in solving the conflict. He called the failure of the “Middle East Quartet” (US, EU, UN and Russia) to effectively address the conflict “a tragedy.”

Meanwhile, Italy has backed the British proposal for a UN peacekeeping force, but some have questioned its motivation. In a commentary published in the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Stefano Folli speculated that newly elected Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has domestic political objectives in mind. By supporting a UN intervention, Prodi seeks to win over the mainly anti-Israel radical left within his ruling coalition, Folli opined. “These groups see the United Nations as retribution meted out to Israel, which is paradoxical indeed, because intervention by the Blue Helmets was something else in Blair’s scheme of things: an international shouldering of responsibility for disarming the Hizbollah.”

By catering to his far-left allies, Folli speculates, Prodi seeks to gain the left’s support for a funding renewal for Italy's military mission in Afghanistan, which the radical left has so far opposed. The Italian parliament will vote on the funding request on 25 July. “Israel would be the great collective excuse for fostering a compromise on the left over the mission in Kabul. A strange, but not surprising arabesque,” the editorial concluded.

Lamenting US weakness
William Kristol, writing in the neo-conservative US magazine Weekly Standard, does not see the crisis in Lebanon as a local war requiring a local solution. Rather, he depicts the conflict as part of a global struggle between Islam and “liberal democratic civilization.”

“What’s happening in the Middle East, then, isn’t just another chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. What’s happening is an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West.”

Kristol called upon the US government to focus less on Hamas and Hizbollah and more “on their paymasters and real commanders - Syria and Iran." The United States needs to forcefully reassert its power in the region and “pursue […] regime change in Syria and Iran,” even considering “a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

The US has stood aside for too long, making itself appear weak in the eyes of its Islamist enemies, Kristol said.

On the liberal spectrum of the US foreign policy debate, weakness is lamented in diplomatic rather than military terms. John Judis noted in the New Republic Online that Arab-Israeli crises always tended to inflame when “the United States has been either unable or unwilling to play an aggressive role as a mediator,” and added that “most [conflicts] have only abated after the United States has finally thrown itself into the middle of them.” Before the Six Day War, for example, the US was too bogged down in Vietnam to help prevent Egypt’s provocation from escalating.

At the same time, Judis noted, “the greatest progress in Arab-Israeli relations occurred during the Carter and Clinton administrations when American policymakers were most clearly concentrating on the conflict.”

Judis blamed the current Bush administration for its hands-off approach toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. “[Bush’s] principal means of seeking peace in the region were based on a neoconservative fantasy about the road to Jerusalem passing through Baghdad […] and on the assumption that Palestinian elections would result in a moderate alternative to the late Yasir Arafat," Judis argued. When these strategies proved to be unsuccessful and Hamas won the Palestinian elections, the US stood by helplessly, which, according to Judis, precipitated the current crisis.

But some disagree as to how much leverage the US has over the conflict.

Oxford scholar Timothy Garton Ash does not believe Washington could effect much change. “Welcome to the world’s new multipolar disorder,” he wrote in the commentary pages of The Guardian. “The unipolar moment of apparently unchallengeable American supremacy” is over Ash predicted, noting that the emerging new multipolarity is defined by the rise of other states - such as China, India and Russia - and the growing power of non-state actors, including terrorist groups. These groups are aided by technological developments that allow them to inflict considerable harm to powerful states despite their being a small and weak minority.

“The net effect of these very disparate trends is to reduce the relative power of established western states, above all of the US," Ash wrote, noting that changes in the geopolitical power structure have historically brought about new waves of violence. “Be careful what you wish for,” Ash warned. “You might even find yourself nostalgic for the bad old days of American supremacy.”

International Security

2006-07-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

International Security publishes lucid, well-documented essays on all aspects of the control and use of force. Its articles cover contemporary policy issues, and probe historical and theoretical questions behind them. Essays in International Security have defined the debate on American national security policy and have set the agenda for scholarship on international security affairs

Israeli troops take control of border village

2006-07-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

From the Israeli side of the border, Israeli troops were seen heading into Maroun al-Ras and were fighting with some Hezbollah militants. At one point, a half-ton bomb hit a Hezbollah outpost near Maroun al-Ras.

How Kim Jong-il Obtained U.S. Visa in 1997

2006-07-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and two other North Koreans obtained U.S. entry visas using fake Eastern European passports in 1997, the February edition of the Monthly Chosun reports.
The magazine, published Tuesday, said that several months after the visas were issued, U.S. intelligence officials realized that the photos on the ledger were those of Kim Jong-il, a secretary by the name Park, and Kim’s mistress Chung Il-son. Investigations revealed that Park and Chung went in and out of the U.S. several times. It was not clear why Kim wanted a visa.

The monthly also reported that Ko Yong-suk, the sister of Kim Jong-il's recently deceased wife Ko Young-hee, defected to the United States in May 1998 with her husband, a man in his late 40s identified only as Park, through the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland. Ko tipped off U.S. officials that Kim was investing in the New York stock market. Kim's investments were subsequently frozen.

SYRIA NATIONAL SECURITY DOCTRINE AND CONCERNS

2006-07-20T07:13:00.000-07:00

Under Assad, Syria has sought to be a leading Arab and regional power, capable of controlling or influencing Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinians. Syria seeks to participate in every issue in the region and to further policies that substantiate its claim to an effective regional role. In pursuing these objectives, Syria is striving for regional hegemony--a goal that ultimately is likely to be beyond Syria's capabilities and resources. In fact, according to various analysts, Syria's pursuit of this goal will undermine its precarious stability.

Syria also has striven to lead the Arab resistance to Israel and to oppose, both militarily and politically, the path leading to diplomatic recognition of Israel's legitimacy, to which Egypt agreed through the Camp David Accords (see Foreign Policy , ch. 4). In pursuit of its goals, the Syrian regime formulated the doctrine of "strategic parity" with Israel, which involved upgrading the country's military capability and materiel to give it an edge in a future confrontation.

Regionally, Syria was intent on achieving a number of military and political objectives. These included the reconquest of the Golan Heights (in early 1987 it had deployed a force of about six divisions in the Damascus-Golan Heights region), and opposition to the establishment of an Israeli-dominated "security zone" (manned largely by the Christian forces of the pro-Israel South Lebanon Army) in southern Lebanon. Syria also sought to control Lebanese affairs and to restrict the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) military forces in Lebanon, without formally annexing territory or having to maintain a large military presence there.

As part of its national security doctrine, Syria has sought to expand ts relationship with the Soviet Union, as embodied in the 1980 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. Specifically, Syria endeavored to formalize the relationship with a "strategic cooperation" agreement comparable to the treaty between the United States and Israel.

Syria also employed terrorism in pursuit of its security objectives. In the mid-1980s, Syria was accused--primarily by the United States and the United Kingdom--of playing an active role in international terrorist activities through sponsorship of Palestinian, Lebanese, and other Arab terrorist groups. Furthermore, Syria had been directly implicated in a series of terrorist attacks on American, West European, Israeli, Jewish, Palestinian, Jordanian, and Turkish targets outside the Middle East.

IRAN: Country Profile

2006-07-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

GEOGRAPHY
Size: Land area of about 1,648,000 square kilometers; sovereignty claimed over territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles.

Topography: Large Central Plateau surrounded on three sides by rugged mountain ranges. Highest peak Mount Damavand, approximately 5,600 meters; Caspian Sea about 27 meters below sea level.

SOCIETY
Population: Preliminary results of October 1986 census listed total population as 48,181,463, including approximately 2.6 million refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq. Population grew at rate of 3.6 percent per annum between 1976 and 1986. Government figures showed 50 percent of population under fifteen years of age in 1986.

Education: School system consists of five years of primary (begun at seven years of age), three years of middle school, and four years of high school education. High school has three cycles: academic, science and mathematics, and vocational technical. Government announced 11.5 million students in above school system in academic year 1986-87; percentage of school age population in school not published. Postrevolution decrease in university enrollments, particularly percentage of women students, which declined from 40 percent in prerevolutionary period to 10 percent in 1984. Number of students abroad also declined.

Health: Iranian Medical Association reported 12,300 doctors in 1986; 38,000 additional doctors needed to provide population with minimally adequate health care. Most medical personnel located in large cities. High infant mortality rate. Gastrointestinal, parasitic, and respiratory diseases other chief causes of mortality.

Languages: Persian official language and native tongue of over half the population. Spoken as a second language by majority of the remainder. Other Indo-European languages, such as Kirmanji (the collective term in Iran for the dialects spoken by Kurds), as well as Turkic languages and Arabic also important.

Religion: Shia Islam official religion with at least 90 percent adherence. Also approximately 8 percent Sunni Muslims and smaller numbers of Bahais, Armenian and Assyrian Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians.

NORTH KOREA NUKE OPTION: Library of Congress

2006-07-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

In the early 1990s, there was growing international concern that North Korea was seeking to produce nuclear weapons. In 1991, despite North Korea's repeated denials of a nuclear weapons program, United States policy experts generally agreed that P'yongyang was engaged in a nuclear weapons program. The debate has centered on when, rather than whether, North Korea will have a nuclear capability. Estimates range from 1993 to several years later.

North Korean nuclear-related activities began in 1955, when representatives of the Academy of Sciences participated in an East European conference on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In 1956 North Korea signed two agreements with the Soviet Union covering joint nuclear research. In 1959 additional agreements on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy were signed with the Soviet Union and China. The 1959 Soviet agreement apparently included setting up a nuclear research facility under the Academy of Sciences near Yngbyn and developing a nuclear-related curriculum at Kim Il Sung University. Chinese and Soviet assistance with training of nuclear scientists and technicians, although not continuous, is the major source of North Korean nuclear expertise. In the 1980s, P'yongyang had a rather eclectic if low-key web of nuclear connections that included Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and the former Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany). North Korea also is believed to have nuclearrelated connections with Egypt, Iran, Libya, Romania, and Syria.

The Yngbyn center was established in early 1962 at Yong Dong on the Kuryong River, approximately 100 kilometers north of Pyngyang and southwest of the city of Yngbyn. Construction began in 1965 on a Soviet-supplied two-kilowatt nuclear research reactor (IRT2000) that is believed to have become operational in 1967. The reactor was brought under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA--see Glossary) controls in July 1977 and was modified over time to increase its power to approximately eight kilowatts.

During the mid-1970s, North Korea began expanding its nuclear infrastructure. In 1980 construction began on an indigenously designed, graphite-moderated, gas-cooled thirty-megawatt reactor, which probably is primarily for plutonium production. The use of graphite and natural uranium allowed North Korea to avoid foreign involvement and constraints. The reactor apparently became operational in 1987, but its existence has not been formally acknowledged by North Korea.

According to many sources, United States satellites detected additional nuclear-related facilities under construction in the Yngbyn area during 1989. When completed, the facilities will give North Korea the complete nuclear fuel cycle needed for weapons production. These facilities consist of a high explosives testing site, a reprocessing facility, a third reactor in the fifty-megawatt to 200-megawatt range, and associated support facilities. According to sources, construction began on a third reactor in 1984-85 and on a reprocessing facility in 1988-89; the former is scheduled to be operational by the end of 1992 but was not on-line as of mid-1993, and the latter perhaps a little later. Neither the thirty-megawatt reactor nor the third reactor are said to be connected to a power grid for power generation. In 1990 these reports were substantiated by satellite photography read by Japanese scientists. According to South Korean sources, if all the facilities come online, North Korea will be capable of producing enough plutonium for two to four twenty-kiloton nuclear weapons a year. The facilities, however, are contaminated and not operational.

P'yongyang signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in July 1985 but delayed signing the IAEA Full Scope Safeguards Agreement. The IAEA granted an eighteen-month extension of the usual eighteen months necessary to administer and sign such agreements. North Korea agreed in principle to the agreement in July 1991, but delayed signing until January 30, 1992; implementation was not to take place until after ratification of the agreement. In a series of agreements with South Korea at the end of 1991, North Korea agreed to set up a Joint Nuclear Control Committee (JNCC) to ensure that there are no nuclear weapons in either country. The committee will develop procedures for additional inspections to encompass facilities normally outside IAEA jurisdiction, such as military facilities.

BOMBS AND TEARS

2006-07-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

Lebanese PM denounces Israel's 'savage war machine', I think the PM need to negotiate with the terrorist out of this dilemma.

IDF: Hezbollah leaders' bunker hit

2006-07-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

The conflict so far has caused "immeasurable loss" in Lebanon, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Wednesday. He again called for a cease-fire and denounced Israel as a "savage war machine" responsible for more than 300 deaths in Lebanon.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/19/mideast/index.html

Israeli tanks roll toward Lebanon near Avivim

2006-07-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

Is this the genesis and end of Hezbollalism?

Question of the day

2006-07-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

Is it time for Israel to send ground troops into Lebanon?

Question of the day

2006-07-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Should the US launch a preemptive surgical strike against Tehran-Iran Nuclear Installations? When and how, if so?

Please respect other forum contributors' views.

The Genesis of the Nuclear Age

2006-07-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

According to Global Security and the Nuclear Weapons Technology Militarily Critical Technologies List (MCTL) Part II: Weapons of Mass Destruction Technologies, the following information was documented about Nuclear weapons.

Since their introduction in 1945, nuclear explosives have been the most feared of the weapons of mass destruction, in part because of their ability to cause enormous instantaneous devastation and of the persistent effects of the radiation they emit, unseen and undetectable by unaided human senses. The Manhattan Project cost the United States $2 billion in 1945 spending power and required the combined efforts of a continent-spanning industrial enterprise and a pool of scientists, many of whom had already been awarded the Nobel Prize and many more who would go on to become Nobel Laureates. This array of talent was needed in 1942 if there were to be any hope of completing a weapon during the Second World War. Because nuclear fission was discovered in Germany, which remained the home of many brilliant scientists, the United States perceived itself to be in a race to build an atomic bomb.

When the Manhattan Project began far less than a microgram of plutonium had been made throughout the world, and plutonium chemistry could only be guessed at; the numbers of neutrons released on average in U-235 and Pu-239 fissions were unknown; the fission cross sections (probabilities that an interaction would occur) were equally unknown, as was the neutron absorption cross section of carbon. Although talented people are essential to the success of any nuclear weapons program, the fundamental physics, chemistry, and engineering involved are widely understood; no basic research is required to construct a nuclear weapon. Therefore, a nuclear weapons project begun in 1996 does not require the brilliant scientists who were needed for the Manhattan Project.

For many decades the Manhattan Project provided the paradigm against which any potential proliferator’s efforts would be measured. Fifty years after the Trinity explosion, it has been recognized that the Manhattan Project is just one of a spectrum of approaches to the acquisition of a nuclear capability. At the low end of the scale, a nation may find a way to obtain a complete working nuclear bomb from a willing or unwilling supplier; at the other end, it may elect to construct a complete nuclear infrastructure including the mining of uranium, the enrichment of uranium metal in the fissile isotope U-235, the production and extraction of plutonium, the production of tritium, and the separation of deuterium and 6 Li to build thermonuclear weapons. At an intermediate level, the Republic of South Africa constructed six quite simple nuclear devices for a total project cost of less than $1 billion (1980’s purchasing power) using no more than 400 people and indigenous technology.

Fissile materials can produce energy by nuclear fission, either in nuclear reactors or in nuclear weapons. A country choosing to join the nuclear weapons community must acquire the necessary weapons (fissile) material (U-235 U or Pu-239). It is generally recognized that the acquisition of fissile material in sufficient quantity is the most formidable obstacle to the production of nuclear weapons. Fissile material production consumes the vast majority of the technical, industrial, and financial resources required to produce nuclear weapons. For example, production of fissile materials —- highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium —- accounted for more than 80 percent of the $1.9 billion (1945 dollars) spent on the Manhattan Project.

Some analysts believe that the difficulties of enriching uranium are offset by the simpler weapon designs which enriched uranium allows. In the United States, HEU is considered less expensive to use in a weapon than plutonium. Operation of a reactor to produce plutonium requires the extraction and purification of uranium and, in some cases, at least modest enrichment. Given international safeguards on reactors using enriched uranium obtained from another nation or heavy water moderated reactors, a proliferant may be forced in any case to construct an enrichment facility. The choice is likely to be determined by the indigenous availability of uranium and the national surplus (or shortage) of electricity.

Acquisition of a militarily significant nuclear capability involves, however, more than simply the purchase or construction of a single nuclear device or weapon. It requires attention to issues of safety and handling of the weapons, reliability and predictability of entire systems, efficient use of scarce and valuable special nuclear material (SNM) (plutonium and enriched uranium), chains of custody and procedures for authorizing the use of the weapons, and the careful training of the military personnel who will deliver weapons to their targets.

In contrast, a nuclear device used for terrorism need not be constructed to survive a complex stockpile-to-target sequence, need not have a predictable and reliable yield, and need not be efficient in its use of nuclear material. Although major acts of terrorism are often rehearsed and the terrorists trained for the operation, the level of training probably is not remotely comparable to that necessary in a military establishment entrusted with the nuclear mission.

The United States has developed a complex and sophisticated system to ensure that nuclear weapons are used only on the orders of the President or his delegated representative. Some elements of the custodial system are the “two-man rule,” which requires that no person be left alone with a weapon; permissive action links (PALs), coded locks which prevent detonation of the weapon unless the correct combination is entered; and careful psychological testing of personnel charged with the custody or eventual use of nuclear weapons. In addition, U.S. nuclear weapons must be certified as “one point safe,” which means that there is less than a one-in-a-million chance of a nuclear yield greater than the equivalent of four pounds of TNT resulting from an accident in which the high explosive in the device is detonated at the point most likely to cause a nuclear yield.

It is believed to be unlikely that a new proliferator would insist upon one point safety as an inherent part of pit design; the United States did not until the late 1950’s, relying instead upon other means to prevent detonation (e.g., a component of Little Boy was not inserted until after the Enola Gay had departed Tinian for Hiroshima). It is also unlikely that a new actor in the nuclear world would insist upon fitting PALs to every (or to any) nuclear weapon; the United States did not equip its submarine-launched strategic ballistic missiles with PALs until, at the earliest, 1996, and the very first U.S. PALs were not introduced until the mid-1950’s, when American weapons were stationed at foreign bases where the possibility of theft or misuse was thought to be real.

Nonetheless, any possessor of nuclear weapons will take care that they are not used by unauthorized personnel and can be employed on the orders of duly constituted authority. Even -— or, perhaps, especially -— a dictator such as Saddam Hussein will insist upon a fairly sophisticated nuclear chain of command, if only to ensure that his weapons cannot be used by a revolutionary movement. It is also quite likely that even the newest proliferator would handle his weapons with care and seek to build some kind of safety devices and a reliable SAFF system into the units. On the basis of experience, one might expect to observe significant nuclear planning activity and the evolution of situation-specific nuclear doctrine on the part of a new proliferator who would have to allocate carefully the “family jewels.” The development of a nuclear strategy might be visible in the professional military literature of the proliferator.

Signatures
Every stage of nuclear weapon development, from material production to deployment, can generate signatures that provide some indication of a weapon program’s existence or status, although only a few of them point fairly unambiguously to a nuclear weapon program. The difficulty of producing fissile materials limits the rate at which a country could field nuclear weapons. If only a very small number of weapons were at hand, they might be reserved for strategic rather than battlefield use, thus reducing the need to conduct military exercises that anticipated combat in a nuclear environment. Furthermore, the weapons might be stored unassembled and their components kept at various locations. They might also be kept under the control of a small military or quasi-military unit outside of the regular military forces. It might be very difficult to detect a nuclear force still in its infancy solely by relying only on observable changes in deployment, storage facilities, or military operations. Materials production of nuclear weapons would still provide the greatest opportunities for detecting such a program.

Nippon Need US Support to Vote on UN Sanctions Against North Korea

2006-07-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

As usual, the UN is not articulating its position on North Korean Nuclear and Missile programs.

However, our major ally Japan is pushing the United Nations Security Council to time a vote on a resolution about North Korea's missile tests to coincide with the start of the Group of Eight summit of leading industrialized countries.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso mentioned it is time for the United Nations Security Council to vote on a resolution concerning North Korea's July 5 missile tests.

Aso notes that Japan wants the issue resolved by the end of the day in New York. That is shortly before the Group of Eight leaders convene in Russia for their annual summit.

I have done some research on the nuclear club members (informal and formal). (See below).

US
Russia
United Kingdom
France China
Israel
India Pakistan North Korea
Weapons

Stockpile
10,640
16,000
200
350
?400
200
110-150 75
~13

Deliverable
6,390
3,242
200
350
~325
200
110
75
~13

ICBM

Number
500
497
24

Warheads
1,320
1,770
24

Type
MM II : 0
MM III: 500
MX PK : 12
SS-18: 148
SS-19: 35
SS-24: 36
SS-25: 300
SS-27: 40
DF-5: 24

IRBM, MRBM

Number 100
100
70
100
100

Warheads
100
100
+50
65
8

Type DF-3 : 40
DF-4 : 12
DF-21: 48 Jericho 1 : 50
Jericho 2 : 50
Prithvi : 70
Agni : 20
Shaheen-I : 34
Shaheen-II : 15
Ghauri : 50
ND-1 : 100

SLBM

Number 360
192
58
64
12
24

Warheads
2,880
672
~200
384
12
24

Bush to press Israel to curb civilian casualties

2006-07-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

President Bush stand firm on what he sees as a ploy by Islamisists to intimidate our ally. He called for restrait---that is fantastically brilliant-Mr. President!!!! Europeans and ironically, Germany condemned Israel--Europe could not protect the Jews against Hitler and they have shown during the G-8 meeting in Russia that, Europeans are far than ever to correctly understand important events with grave ramifications--what a shame!!

Israel destroys Hezbollah headquarters

2006-07-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

Today a number of media networks reported Israeli air strikes, one destroyed a main Hezbollah office in Beirut’s southern suburb as Israel tightened its seal on Lebanon going into the weekend. As I've said all along, the conflict can only be diffused if Syria and Iran suddenly decide to became responsible members of the civilized world. In the meantime, Israeli forces will continue there offensive deep into Beirut and Iran and Syria should be worried right now-they're potential targets this weeked and thereafter.

Israel attacks, after Hezbollah lobs rockets

2006-07-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

The Middle East is again the center of world focus as the leaders of the elite economic giants meet in Russia in coming days. The two front war, threatening two other fronts with Damascus and Tehran is a mojor cause of concern. Today, violence spill into major parts of Labanon-leavind dozen civilians deat and according to CNN report about 10 Israel citizen. In a meantime, Israeli figher jets launched an assault on the main highway between Beirut and the Syrian capital of Damascus.