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54921. Responses to Prediction and the Middle East Peace Process

Author:
Steven Weber
Publication Date:
02-1997
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The election of Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel threw into flux the Middle East peace process. What in early 1996 seemed to many observers the almost inevitable "working out" of a decades-long conflict that had gradually become unsustainable on all sides, was by late 1996 seen more clearly as part of a contingent unfolding set of events which could drive the region in more than one direction, including backwards toward explicit conflict and even war. This presents unique theoretical, analytic, and policy opportunities.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Middle East

54922. After Hebron: Prospects for the Peace Process

Author:
Zalman Shoval
Publication Date:
03-1997
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
The Hebron agreement is now finally in place. During the months that it took to reach that point, some must have been reminded of what the nineteenth century British Prime Minister Lord Palmerstone once said about the Schleswig-Holstein question: there were only three people who understood it - one of whom was dead, one was in an asylum, and he himself had forgotten it.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Middle East

54923. Saudi Arabia in the 1990s: Stability and Foreign Policy

Author:
Mordechai Abir
Publication Date:
09-1997
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
The stability of Saudi Arabia (and the Persian Gulf as a whole) is crucially important to the world's industrial countries. According to the Gulf Center of Strategic Studies, "oil is expected to account for 38 percent of all the world consumption of energy until 2015, compared to 39 percent in 1993. Increasing world-wide demand for oil, now about 74 million barrels per day, is projected to rise by 2015 to about 110 million" (Gulf Report, London, July 1997). Over 60 percent of the world's proven oil reserves are located in the Persian Gulf, and Saudi Arabia alone controls 25 percent of the total.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Foreign Policy, Economics, Energy Policy, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
Middle East and Saudi Arabia

54924. Demarcating an Israeli-Palestinian Border: Geographic Considerations

Author:
David Newman
Publication Date:
07-1997
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Maps are a very important part of the political process of conflict resolution known as the peace process. Maps are important parts of all territorial conflicts. We often walk around with the idea of a map in our head and think we know what we are talking about, but often we do not.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Peace Studies, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

54925. Turkey Between Secularism and Islamism

Author:
Jacob M. Landau
Publication Date:
02-1997
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
When Mustafa Kamal (Ataturk) founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 (he was its president until his death fifteen years later), he set as his main objective the modernization of the new republic. His preferred means was speedy, intensive secularization and, indeed, every one of his reforms was tied up with disestablishing other Islamic institutions from their hold on Turkey's politics, economics, society, and cultural life.
Topic:
Government, Islam, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

54926. The Northeast Asian Security Setting

Author:
Sheldon W. Simon
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
We may now be experiencing one of those relatively rare periods in world affairs when the structure of the international system does not dominate foreign policies. While the old cold war alliances have not completely disappeared from U.S. security policy, their ability to determine reflexively America's foreign relations on issues from Bosnia in Europe to the Spratly islands in the Pacific has greatly atrophied. For other states, too, domestic considerations and nearby regional concerns take precedence over alliances with remote great powers whose reliability is problematic in this new era. To better understand this unfamiliar international security environment, analysts should concentrate on internally generated alternative national visions of security which, in the aggregate, are creating a new, innovative structure of international politics.
Political Geography:
America, Europe, and Northeast Asia

54927. Changing U.S.-Korean Security Relations

Author:
Edward A. Olsen
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
United States-Korea security relations are experiencing a period of dynamic change that raises serious questions about the way that the relationship will evolve during the 21st Century. A number of well-known factors have provoked this phase. The end of the U.S.-Soviet cold war, North Korea's use of its nuclear card to engage the United States in a broader dialogue, South Korea's pursuit of diverse multilateral approaches to its security to shore up the U.S.-ROK alliance, and the emergence of Chinese and Japanese assertiveness in the regional balance of power, cumulatively have altered the context in which Washington and Seoul conduct their bilateral security relations. Both allies are struggling to come to grips with these new—and sometimes troubling—circumstances.
Political Geography:
United States, South Korea, and Korea

54928. The Viability of U.S. Security Strategy Toward the Korean Peninsula

Author:
William J. Taylor, Jr. and Abraham Kim
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The end of the cold war resulted in a mixed bag of challenges in the Northeast Asia region. The Soviet threat is gone, but the danger of regional instability is not. Lingering conflicts, old rivalries, and security challenges pose an uncertain future for the Asia-Pacific. The U.S. military presence still remains an important stabilizer in the region. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Perry stated: "It is [the U.S. military] presence that the countries of the [Asia-Pacific] region consider a critical variable in the East Asia security equation.... [and] the most important factor in guaranteeing stability and peace."
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, South Korea, and North Korea

54929. North Korea and the United Nations

Author:
Samuel S. Kim
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
On 17 September 1991, the first day of its (46th) annual session, the United Nations General Assembly admitted the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) as the 160th and 161st member states. This historical turnabout was made possible by what had already happened in the Security Council five weeks earlier. Indeed, the 3001st meeting of the Security Council on 8 August 1991 may well be remembered as one of the remarkable events or nonevents in the annals of global high politics in the world organization. Since 1947 the Korean question, in a great variety of contentious manifestations, has proved to be one of the most intractable problems constandy intruding upon wider East-West geopolitical and ideological rivalries in and out of the world organization. Yet, on this day the Security Council devoted only five minutes—between 11:30am and 11:35am EST to be exact—to finally crossing the Rubicon on divided Korea. Without any debate, the Council unanimously adopted the report of the Committee on the Admission of New Members concerning the applications of the two Koreas for admission to membership in the United Nations.
Topic:
United Nations
Political Geography:
North Korea

54930. North Korea's Approaches to the United States and Japan

Author:
B.C. Koh
Publication Date:
01-1997
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
North Korea's approach to the United States is arguably one of the few success stories emanating from Pyongyang. While the story is still unfolding, what has transpired thus far has clearly benefited North Korea in both tangible and intangible ways. By contrast, North Korea's approach to Japan has produced but meager results thus far. Potentially, however, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) stands to profit immensely should its quest for diplomatic normalization with Japan bear fruit.
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and North Korea