Changing economic relations are among the most important issues in the future of telecommunications throughout the world. Everywhere, governments and private companies are attentive to profound changes introduced by the processes of privatization, democratization, and development and implementation of new technologies. The future is already upon us, with great speed and often unexpected consequences.
The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
Abstract:
The primary mission of the nuclear weapons laboratories during the Cold War was research, development and testing of nuclear weapons, and that mission largely shaped the laboratories. It is, therefore, difficult to disassociate the future of the laboratories from the future of the nuclear weapons mission. That mission, and the longer term role of nuclear weapons, are changing, and these changes will affect the laboratories and will open opportunities for new directions, including defense conversion. The scope and nature of those opportunities will be defined in the first instance by the evolving nuclear mission.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Industrial Policy, and Nuclear Weapons
The meeting in Alma Ata of the Commission on Radio and Television Policy marked a new and important stage in the collaboration between the United States and the former Soviet Union. I was proud to serve as co-chairman, together with Eduard Sagalaev. The Commission now has been enlarged to include the major television stations of newly independent republics of the former Soviet Union and the head of an organization of independent stations. It is a unique body.
Robert Pastor, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Program at The Carter Center and Executive Secretary of the Council, opened the conference with a reference to Mexican Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz who once said, "A nation without free elections is a nation without a voice, without eyes, and without ears." Pastor noted that the right to free and fair elections is a universal right enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Charter of the Organization of American States. In the spirit of honoring that right, the Council was formed in 1986 to lend support and assistance to the democratization movement in the Americas.
Within a single year, two events unprecedented in the history of the United States shook the nation's confidence in itself as the moral leader of the Free World. In August 1974, the president resigned under a pall of scandal, and eight months later, the United States suffered the humiliation of military defeat as it watched the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam fold the American flag under his arm and flee his post by helicopter.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States, Vietnam, South America, Latin America, Central America, Caribbean, and North America
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. Congress became very concerned about the increasing role played by the President in foreign affairs. On November 7, 1973, and as a mechanism to diminish the power achieved by the Chief Executive in international matters, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution (WPR) over Richard Nixon's veto. The basic aim of the law was to prevent the President from unilaterally introducing the armed forces abroad without congressional authorization. In so doing, Congress sought "to fulfill the intent of the framers of the American Constitution."
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Government
The first meeting of the Commission on Television Policy culminated a project that began with basic research on the impact of television on the electoral process in many countries. From this research, a Working Group developed a document presenting a wide range of options and trade-offs in broadcast practice and rules worldwide. With this reference document, Commissioners from the United States and the independent states from the territory of the former Soviet Union began their discussions at The Carter Center on November 15 and 16, 1991.
Germany's foreign economic policy places enormous weight on formal European institutions. In contrast, Japan has not had an institutionalist orientation in regard to its East Asian neighbors. This paper addresses the question of why Germany and Japan differ so greatly on this issue of regional economi. institutions. It suggests that the differences observed in German and Japanese interests in regard to such arrangements constitute a puzzle if they are examined from the perspective of liberal ideas about the functional bases of international collaboration, or from the viewpoint of realist propositions about hegemony and cooperation and about the impact of polarity on state preferences. The paper also puts forward a realist-inspired analysis (focusing on American power in the post-Cold War era as well as American national strategy in the early years of that conflict) that might help account for the strong German bias in favor of regional economic institutions and the equally pronounced Japanese aversion to date for such arrangements.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Cold War, and International Organization
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Europe, Israel, East Asia, Asia, and Germany
The United States faces a competitiveness crisis. The indicators are abundant. An alarming number of American students and workers do not seem to have the skills needed to succeed in the more demanding jobs of the modern economy. Many American inventions never make it from drawing board to marketplace, or arrive too late - long after aggressive foreign firms have captured customer loyalty. Some American products have been improperly designed or priced too high to compete with top-quality foreign imports. Partly as a result, not enough American companies have penetrated foreign markets with U.S. goods and services.
When one examines all the foreign policy issues likely to face the next U.S. administration, southern Africa, while inherently difficult, may be the most promising of all in terms of actually influencing positive developments and obtaining measurable results in a short time span. Current policies have begun to capitalize on a tentative movement among nations in the region to address certain situations which are prohibiting stabilization. However, with the existence of an international consensus concerning the illegality of the occupation of Namibia and the dehumanization of the policy of apartheid more could be done to advance a multilateral approach toward southern Africa. In short, a real opportunity to bring peace to a troubled region is being missed. Part of the problem is lack of accurate information and understanding of what is happening in the region. Advocacy and passion have often clouded or distorted reality.