What is North Korea up to? Is it trying to undermine the Six-Party Talks in order to force Washington to deal with Pyongyang directly, as some experts claim? Or, as others maintain with equal certainty, is it sending a signal that it is not interested...
"President Obama announced a sweeping new initiative to beef up the nation's defenses against attacks on the nation's increasingly important computer networks, including a plan to put a cyber-security chief in the White House," reported USA Today, along with many others. "Cyber-space is real and...
Here is my new op-ed, published in today's edition of the Washington Jewish Week: Netanyahu faces stark choice Wednesday, May 27, 2009 by Ori Nir Special to WJW Israel's new-old Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a hard choice following his thorny, sour visit to...
While the UN Security Council debates the scope and strength of a new resolution condemning North Korea's May 25, 2009 nuclear test, two main questions have come to the fore: what will China do and can sanctions work? The policy debate over the UN Security...
Read all of "Reaching Out to Touch North Korea: The Sanctions Debate and China" »
IntroductionThe Armed Islamic Group, known by its French acronym, GIA, waged a violent war against Algeria's secular military regime during the 1990s. Though terrorism continues to plague Algerian society, the GIA's role in current violence appears to have abated. The GIA grew out of a...
According to CNN report on May 25, "President Obama castigated the North Korean government Monday for conducting a second nuclear bomb test in defiance of multiple international warnings." Many analysts and experts are not only suprised, they predicted this would be North Korea's next step....
IntroductionAs the United States focuses new attention on the Afghan war front, U.S. policymakers are emphasizing rural development and agricultural reform as keys to long-term stability. Bruce Riedel, who coauthored the Obama administration's review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, says Washington is "going to emphasize wheat" as...
Read all of "Nourishing Afghanistan's Agricultural Sector" »
North Korea did exactly what it said it would do on May 25, 2009, when it conducted a nuclear test as promised in its April 28, 2009, statement in response to UN sanctions imposed on three North Korean firms in accordance with an April 13,...
Read all of "Second Nuclear Test: North Korea Does What It Says" »
The death of Roh Moo-hyun, the 16th president of the Republic of Korea (2003-2008), is a huge shock to South Korea's political world. A human rights lawyer with no college degree, Roh campaigned to revolutionize Korean politics and society by promoting clean politics, fighting corruption,...
Read all of "South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun: An Impossible Idealist" »
During his first week in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order signaling his intent to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010, and another order that called for a top-to-bottom review of U.S. detention policies. The moves brought praise from...
Benjamin Netanyahu is known (and often mocked) for his blunt depiction of how he saw Israel's relationship with the Palestinians in the post-Oslo years of the late 1990's. "If they give, they will receive. If they don't give, they won't receive," Prime Minister Netanyahu said...
Read all of "Netanyahu and Obama: Disagreements in the Oval Office" »
IntroductionInternational talks are intensifying over what policy should follow the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty set to expire in 2012 that established binding reductions of greenhouse gas emissions for thirty-six countries. The Obama administration, in a split with the previous U.S. administration, favors binding emissions cuts...
Read all of "The Debate over Greenhouse Gas Cap-and-Trade" »
"There can be no doubt about the fact that enough nuclear material to build more than twenty nuclear weapons was lost in the transition from the Soviet Union to Russia," wrote Harvard scholar Graham Allison. Russian officials appeared to confirm this assertion. In a...
IntroductionPresident Barack Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress say they are committed to enacting mandates to curb greenhouse gases. In May 2009, the Obama administration announced new standards for auto emissions and mileage aimed at reducing greenhouse gases up to 30 percent by 2016,...
Read all of "Economic Challenges for Climate Change Policy" »
"The Al Qaeda videotape shows a small white dog tied up inside a glass cage," writes famous reporter Peter Bergen for the New Republic. The dog is being killed in a gruesome test. "This experiment almost certainly occurred at the Derunta training camp near the...
Within hours following a April 13, 2009, UNSC presidential statement condemning North Korea's missile launch, the DPRK foreign ministry responded by stating that "six-party talks have lost the meaning of their existence never to recover" and that the "DPRK will never participate in such six-party...
Read all of "North Korean "Never-Never" Land: Prospects for Getting Diplomacy Back on Track" »
Burma and Aung Sang Suu Kyi are once again in the headlines, for all the wrong reasons. We may never really know why some foolish American, identified as John Yettaw from Missouri, put himself and Daw Suu Kyi in jeopardy by intruding uninvited into the...
Read all of "Burma: Focus on the Long Term by Ralph A. Cossa" »
IntroductionMyanmar's repressive military regime faces new scrutiny by the international community and competing calls for sanctions and greater engagement with the regime. In February 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a review of U.S. policy toward Myanmar (which is also known as...
IntroductionEver since China first instituted major economic reforms three decades ago, it has undergone unprecedented social transformations. Economic development and rapid urbanization have spurred massive internal migration, largely from the countryside to towns and cities, by individuals in search of jobs and higher wages. Official...
Canada has no concerns about US nuclear weapons, even though we have a very large arsenal. Japan, against whom we actually used nuclear weapons, also has no concerns about US nuclear weapons, except for the fact that they help to protect Japan against Russia, China,...
Almost every security and foreign policy analyst in Washington agrees that in order to prevent the increase of extremist threats, there is a need for a comprehensive approach to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as well as toward the individual countries themselves. The U.S. needs to properly...
IntroductionWith overwhelming firepower, Western armies rarely lose in combat to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But in the communications battle, the militants appear to hold the edge. The gap has grown especially wide in the Afghan war zone, analysts say. Using FM transmitters, the Internet, and...
Read all of "Winning the Information War in Afghanistan and Pakistan" »
with John Brandon During its first year in office, the Ma Ying-jeou administration has brought greater stability to the cross-strait relationship and has sought to introduce greater predictability to relations between Taipei and Beijing (and by extension to U.S.-Taiwan relations). From April 24 - 26,...
Read all of "Taiwan's Deteriorating Strategic Position and Cross-Strait Relations" »
There is no country on earth more committed to global nuclear disarmament than Japan. Ever since experiencing first hand the horrors of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese government and people have been steadfast in calling for the total elimination of nuclear weapons...
Read all of "Global Nuclear Disarmament: Too Much, Too Soon? by Ralph A. Cossa" »
What level of government really commits the most resources to protecting the American homeland? Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow Matt Mayer looked at the numbers for 111 state and local jurisdictions in "An Analysis of Federal, State, and Local Homeland Security Budgets" and found that from...
Read all of "Homeland Security Grant Tail Wags State Spending Dog" »
The US Navy canceled the deployment of the USS Dubuque after a sailor was diagnosed with the swine flu. How will the military respond if the new A/H1N1 flu reaches pandemic proportions? Flu season is ending in the northern hemisphere. The new flu will...
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Damascus yesterday. According to reports , while in Syria, Ahmadinejad was scheduled to meet with the heads of ten resident Palestinian terrorist organizations. At a joint press conference on Tuesday May 5th with his guest, Syrian President Bashar Asad, emphasized...
Read all of "Mid-East Cold War Continued: Ahmedinejad and Feltman in Damascus" »
What was once dubbed the new Obama Administration's "AfPak" strategy to stop the emboldened Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is increasingly turning into a frantic effort to find a new "PakAf" strategy to counter a growing extremist threat to the civilian government in Islamabad. In April,...
Read all of "A Strategy Needed for Pakistan and Afghanistan" »
There are at least four potential contradictions that the Obama administration may face as it attempts to carry out the three themes of reassurance of allies, openness to diplomatic engagement, and the strict punishment of proliferation-related actions that have developed as early characteristics of the...
Read all of "Contradictions in the Obama Administration's Policy-in-Formation Toward North Korea" »
Burma and Aung Sang Suu Kyi are once again in the headlines, for all the wrong reasons. We may never really know why some foolish American, identified as John Yettaw from Missouri, put himself and Daw Suu Kyi in jeopardy by intruding uninvited into the...
Read all of "Burma: Time for a New Approach by Ralph A. Cossa" »
It remains to be seen which will have the worst effect--swine flu itself, or the economic shockwaves it is creating. Following the flu's outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level twice in a single week and cases were confirmed in new...
Authors
- Richard Andres
- Benjamin Bahney
- Cheryl Benard
- Bruce Bennett
- Linda Bishai
- Jonah Blank
- Tim Brown
- James Jay Carafano
- Steven R. Charbonneau
- Christopher Chivvis
- Lindsay Clutterbuck
- Sam Cohen
- James L. Cook
- Walton Cook
- Ed Corcoran
- Ralph Cossa
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Rafiq Dossanip
- Charles Dunlap
- Amitai Etzioni
- Gareth Evans
- Nikolas K. Gvosdev
- Larry Hanauer
- Scott Warren Harold
- Brian Michael Jenkins
- David Johnson
- Terrence Kelly
- Michael Krepon
- Stephen Larrabee
- Mackenzie Eaglen
- Jeffrey Martini
- Arthur G. Martirosyan
- Ralph Masi
- Ali Nader
- Aram Nerguizian
- Ori Nir
- Olga Oliker
- Jim Phillips
- Isaac R Porche
- James T. Quinlivan
- Reset Defense Bulletin
- Charles Ries
- RSIS
- Paul Saunders
- David Schenker
- Ghassan Schbley
- Mark Schneider
- Daniel Serwer
- George Smith
- Scott Snyder
- Jon Soltz
- Julie Taylor
- Alexander Thier
- Charles P. Vick
- Rosemary Freitas Williams
- Charles Wolf, Jr.
- Elizabeth Zolotukhina
