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56351. U.S. Military Bases in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:
John Lindsay-Poland
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
The United States maintains a complex web of military facilities and functions in Latin America and the Caribbean, what the U.S. Southern Command (known as SouthCom) calls its "theater architecture." U.S. military facilities represent tangible commitments to an ineffective supply-side drug war and to underlying policy priorities, including ensuring access to strategic resources, especially oil. Much of this web is being woven through Plan Colombia, a massive, primarily military program to eradicate coca plants and to combat armed groups (mostly leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). In the last five years, new U.S. bases and military access agreements have proliferated in Latin America, constituting a decentralization of the U.S. military presence in the region. This decentralization is Washington's way of maintaining a broad military foothold while accommodating regional leaders' reluctance to host large U.S. military bases or complexes.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States

56352. New Balkan Policy Needed

Author:
Robert D. Greenberg
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
In the first months after the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered Kosovo in June 1999 and the Kosovar Albanian refugees returned to their homes, the minority Serbs and Gypsies became the victims of Albanian revenge attacks. The few Serbs who have remained in Kosovo live in scattered enclaves under the protection of KFOR troops. Nevertheless, sporadic violence has continued to erupt, including the bus bombing in February 2001 killing Serbs heading to a religious event. KFOR has been unable to stop the violence from spilling over Kosovo's borders to Macedonia and to Serbia's Presevo Valley region, which has a sizable ethnic Albanian minority. Meanwhile, Macedonia has closed its border with Kosovo, raising the likelihood of a serious economic crisis in Kosovo that could induce further instability there.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
United States, Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Balkans, and Albania

56353. Palestine and Israel

Author:
Stephen Zunes
Publication Date:
02-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
There is a widespread assumption that resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is extremely complex and that the U.S. has been and still is the best hope for peace. The reality, however, is just the opposite.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, International Law, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

56354. Iraq: 10 Years After Gulf War

Author:
Stephen Zunes
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
Ten years after the Gulf War, U.S. policy toward Iraq continues to suffer from an overreliance on military solutions, an abuse of the United Nations and international law, and a disregard for the human suffering resulting from sanctions. Furthermore, Washington's actions have failed to dislodge Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

56355. Smart Sanctions: Restructuring UN Policy in Iraq

Author:
David Cortright, Alistair Millar, and George A. Lopez
Publication Date:
04-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
This study proposes a narrowly defined and tightly implemented set of smart sanctions focusing on weapons and military-related goods, as an alternative to the current faltering comprehensive sanctions regime. Such a modernized sanctions regime would need to be sustainable over the long term via the support of key UN Security Council members and frontline states. It would remain in effect until such time as Iraq complies fully with the relevant Security Council resolutions and fulfills its disarmament obligations.
Topic:
Security, Peace Studies, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Iraq and Middle East

56356. Fourth Freedom Forum Cosponsors Conference on Averting Nuclear Anarchy

Author:
Joseph Rotblat
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:
On March 31 the Fourth Freedom Forum joined with the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Lawyers Alliance for World Security, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to sponsor a one-day conference at the University of Notre Dame on the crisis in nu;clear arms control and the need for greater efforts to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons. The conference featured a keynote address by Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Joseph Rotblat. Other speakers included Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C.; former ambassador Thomas Graham, MIT research fellow Lisbeth Gronlund, former assistant secretary; of Defense Sarah Sewall, and Forum president David Cortright. Remarks of some of the speakers follow.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
United States

56357. Terrorism: Threat and Responses

Author:
Jean-Louis Bruguière
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Along with the highly developed forms of organized crime, can terrorism be ranked in the category of the tough challenges which the world has to face? This question is worth asking, as too often the perception of that threat is a faint one.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Europe

56358. The European Union as a Security Actor in the Mediterranean

Author:
Fred Tanner and Joanna Schemm
Publication Date:
10-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The publication of the proceedings of the GCSP workshop on the European Union and the Mediterranean is timely in more ways than one. First of all, the sudden emergence of European Security and Defence Policy from 1999 onwards has generated the need to examine the security and defence dimension of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership. The partnership was obviously not established in connection with ESDP in mind – if only because ESDP did not exist yet at the time of the launching of the Barcelona process – but the Barcelona process clearly has security and defence implications and ESDP necessarily has a Mediterranean dimension. Secondly, and more tentatively, the ESDP is likely to increase its focus on the Mediterranean as the wars of succession in the former Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia are progressively brought to a close. Not unnaturally, the conflicts which have worked their way down the length of post-Tito Yugoslavia from Slovenia in June 1991 to Macedonia ten years later, have been the foremost security and defence concern of the members of the European Union. These wars have not yet played themselves out, as events in Macedonia demonstrate; nor is it likely that European forces deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo will be withdrawn anytime soon. By the time the ESDP Rapid Reaction Force is ready in 2003, the European strategic spotlight may well have shifted from the Balkan doorstep to the broader Mediterranean arena. Thirdly, a number of substantial material changes are due to occur within the European Union during the next two to four years. At the military end of the spectrum, we have the 2003 goal for the Rapid Reaction Force, for which a strategic rationale will need to be found above and beyond the important but exceedingly vague statement that it is supposed to fulfil the Petersberg tasks, “including the most demanding” to use official European Council language. In institutional terms, the EU is preparing itself for the rendez-vous of 2004, which may or may not be a constitutional convention. Given the widely recognised need to give greater clarity and accountability to the EU's institutions – and this is a requirement which appears to be shared by Europhiles and Euroskeptics alike – chances are that this will not simply be an inter-governmental conference of the sort which led to the Amsterdam and Nice treaties. And then, of course, we have enlargement, which in EU terms will not only mesh in with the institutional debate, but which will also broaden the cast of players involved in the Euro-Med process. This applies even more to NATO enlargement: with something akin to a “Big Bang” beginning to take shape as NATO's current members prepare for the 2002 Prague Summit, countries such as Romania and Bulgaria will give a greater “Southern” tilt to the Alliance, before joining the European Union at a subsequent stage.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Europe

56359. Macroeconomic Policy and Sustainability

Author:
Jonathan Harris
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
The trend in mainstream economic thought about macroeconomic policy has been towards minimalism. In the optimistic Keynesian phase of the 1960's, it was assumed that both fiscal and monetary policy were effective tools for macroeconomic management. But the influence of monetarist and New Classical critiques has led to a gradual erosion of theoretical support for activist government policy. First fiscal policy fell by the wayside, perceived as too slow and possibly counterproductive in its impacts. Then New Classical and rational expectations critiques suggested that even monetary policy was ineffective. Thus the role of government policy has been reduced to a cautious effort not to make things worse -- in effect a return to an economics of laissez- faire.
Topic:
Development, Economics, International Political Economy, and International Trade and Finance

56360. Dirt is in the Eye of the Beholder: The World Bank Air Pollution Intensities for Mexico

Author:
Kevin Gallagher, Francisco Aguayo, and Ana González
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University
Abstract:
This paper identifies a number of errors and inconsistencies in a series of air pollution intensities for Mexico that were recently created by the World Bank. Because these data are being used to conduct public policy analysis and advice for Mexico and countries at similar levels of development, knowledge of the limits of these data is of utmost importance. In addition to identifying the problems with these data, this paper makes a series of adjustments to offer a corrected dataset. These newly corrected data are available on the World Bank's New Ideas in Pollution Regulation (NIPR) web page.
Topic:
Economics, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Mexico