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Begin New Search Political Geography United States Content Type Policy Brief Publishing Institution The Cato Institute

51. The Great Game, Round 2: Washington's Misguided Support for the Baku-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline

Author:
Stanley Kober
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
One of the top foreign policy priorities of the Clinton administration during the last few years has been strong support for building a pipeline to transport oil from Baku, Azerbaijan, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The administration has argued that this pipeline, bypassing other routes going through Russia and Iran, would be the best way for the economically struggling countries of Central Asia to get their energy exports to market, thereby underpinning their newly won independence. Washington also stresses the supposed benefit of having the pipeline run through the territory of a NATO ally, Turkey.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Washington, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Baku

52. Korean Détente: A Threat to Washington's Anachronistic Military Presence?

Author:
Doug Bandow
Publication Date:
08-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The recent summit meeting between South Korean president Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il raises the prospect that the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula may at last be coming to an end. Although the latest effort at détente could ultimately abort as did similar initiatives in the 1970s and early 1990s, North Korea's dire economic straits probably leave the Stalinist state little choice this time but to open itself to the outside world and seek trade and investment from its prosperous, democratic South Korean rival.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Israel, Asia, South Korea, Latin America, and Korean Peninsula

53. Arrogance of Power Reborn: The Imperial Presidency and Foreign Policy in the Clinton Years

Author:
Gene Healy
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In his classic 1973 book The Imperial Presidency, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned that the American political system was threatened by “a conception of presidential power so spacious and peremptory as to imply a radical transformation of the traditional polity.” America's rise to global dominance and Cold War leadership, Schlesinger explained, had dangerously concentrated power in the presidency, transforming the Framers' energetic but constitutionally constrained chief executive into a sort of elected emperor with virtually unchecked authority in the international arena.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and America

54. Reclaiming Our Schools: Increasing Parental Control of Education through the Universal Education Credit

Author:
Darcy Ann Olsen and Matthew J. Brouillette
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Demand for alternatives to state-run schools has swelled over the past decade, as witnessed by rising poll numbers favoring increased choice and by the creation of new charter schools, voucher programs, education tax credits, homeschools, and private scholarship funds. Despite mounting demand, however, such alternatives reach relatively few students. Charters and vouchers, for instance, serve only 2 percent of school children nationwide.
Topic:
Education
Political Geography:
United States

55. Are We Prepared for Terrorism Using Weapons of Mass Destruction? Government's Half Measures

Author:
Eric R. Taylor
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In 1996 the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act on domestic preparedness for terrorism using weapons of mass destruction. That law directs various departments and agencies of the federal government to make available to state and local governments training and equipment to respond to acts of terrorism involving the use of radiological, biological, and chemical weapons. The program—costing tens of billions of dollars per year—seeks to train local law enforcement, fire, medical, and other emergency response personnel to deal with such an attack against the American public.
Topic:
Security, National Security, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

56. "Edupreneurs": A Survey of For-Profit Education

Author:
Carrie Lips
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Education companies, or “edupreneurs,” are entering the education marketplace in droves with creative, cost efficient products and services for students of all ages. This rapidly expanding industry, which constitutes approximately 10 percent of the $740 billion education market, demonstrates that private enterprises, even when competing against a monopolistic system, can deliver a wide range of affordable high-quality educational services. This study provides a glimpse of the products, services, and innovations that a fully competitive marketplace could generate if the government's stranglehold on education were loosened.
Topic:
Education
Political Geography:
United States

57. Microsoft's Appealing Case

Author:
Alan Reynolds and Robert A. Levy
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's final judgment in the Microsoft case indicates that he has fallen hook, line, and sinker for the government's flawed arguments. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is unlikely to be so accommodating. The Justice Department's case will crumble as a result of procedural errors, flawed fact-finding, wrongheaded legal conclusions, and Jackson's preposterous plan to break up the software company most directly responsible for America's high-tech revolution.
Topic:
Government, Industrial Policy, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and America

58. A Foreign Policy Report Card on the Clinton-Gore Administration

Author:
Jonathan G. Clarke
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The foreign policy record of the Clinton-Gore administration deserves a less than stellar grade. At the end of the Cold War, there was an extraordinary opportunity to build a new relationship with a democratic Russia; restructure U.S. security policy in both Europe and East Asia to reduce America's burdens and risk exposure; and revisit intractable Cold War–era problems, such as the frosty relations with Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea. The administration's performance must be judged within the context of such an unprecedented opportunity for constructive change.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, Israel, East Asia, Asia, North Korea, and Vietnam

59. India as a World Power: Changing Washington's Myopic Policy

Author:
Victor M. Gobarev
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
American interest in and concerns about India rose sharply after that country carried out underground nuclear tests in May 1998. Clinton administration officials belatedly acknowledged that developing a good working relationship with India should be one of America's top foreign policy priorities. President Clinton's visit to South Asia in March 2000 was an important symbolic step.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, America, South Asia, Washington, and India

60. From the Sea: National Missile Defense Is Neither Cheap Nor Easy

Author:
Charles V. Peña
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Sea-based missile defense is being advocated as an alternative to the Clinton administration\'s limited land-based national missile defense (NMD), which is in the early stages of testing. Proponents of sea-based NMD (which is only a concept, not a program) argue that such a system can be deployed more quickly and will be less expensive than the Clinton administration\'s land-based system. Some argue that the Navy Theater Wide (NTW) system—which is being designed to provide midcourse intercept capability against slower, shorter-range theater ballistic missiles—can be upgraded to attack longrange intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in their boost phase (when under powered flight at the beginning of their trajectories). Interestingly enough, advocates of sea-based NMD include not only traditional supporters of missile defense but also people who were previously opposed to missile defense.
Topic:
Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States

61. Constitutional Problems with Enforcing the Biological Weapons Convention

Author:
Ronald D. Rotunda
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The 1972 Biological Toxins and Weapons Convention—often called the Biological Weapons Convention, or BWC—requires the signatories to renounce the development, employment, transfer, acquisition, production, and possession of all biological weapons listed in the convention.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation and Government
Political Geography:
United States

62. Arms Control and Missile Defense: Not Mutually Exclusive

Author:
Charles V. Peña
Publication Date:
07-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Traditionally, strategic offensive arms control and ballistic missile defense have been viewed as mutually exclusive. During the Cold War, the general belief was that anti–ballistic missile (ABM) systems would call into question the ability of the superpowers to successfully survive a first nuclear strike and inflict sufficient damage with a second strike. That is, missile defense could allow one superpower to launch a first strike and then use its defenses to intercept a second strike with the other superpower's surviving warheads—thereby undermining deterrence and stability. Furthermore, the thinking was that this situation would result in a dangerous offensive arms race as each side sought to counter the effects of the other's defenses.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

63. Let's Make National Missile Defense Truly "National"

Author:
Ivan Eland
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Not all proposals for deploying a national missile defense live up to their name. Many are for “international” missile defense systems that would also defend U.S. allies and “friends,” even though they are wealthy enough to build their own missile defenses. For example, some policymakers and analysts on both the left and the right advocate sea-based missile defense as a substitute for the Clinton administration's limited land-based system, which is designed to protect only the territory of the United States. Conservatives would like to build a more comprehensive, layered defense consisting of sea- and space-based weapons or land-, sea-, and space-based weapons. George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is clear that he wants a comprehensive defense to defend U.S. allies and seems to favor the latter approach.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States

64. Dubious Anniversary: Kosovo One Year Later

Author:
Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
One year after NATO ended its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, the Clinton administration's Kosovo policy is a conspicuous failure. Kosovo is now the scene of a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by NATO's erstwhile de facto ally, the Kosovo Liberation Army, an organization profoundly inimical to America's interests and professed values. The KLA is also currently fomenting an insurgency elsewhere in Serbia, which promises to destabilize the Balkans even further.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Genocide
Political Geography:
United States, America, Eastern Europe, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Balkans

65. China's Long March to a Market Economy

Author:
Mark A. Groombridge
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The U.S. Congress is in the historic position of being able to help pro-reform leaders in China move their country in a market-oriented direction. A vote to grant China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status will bolster the position of those leaders in Beijing who are attempting to deepen and broaden the scope of China's two-decade experiment with economic reform. Granting PNTR and China's subsequent accession to the World Trade Organization will benefit, not only the United States and the world trading community, but most directly the citizens of China, millions of whom are still mired in abject poverty.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, Beijing, and Asia

66. Green Wars: Making Environmental Degradation a National Security Issue Puts Peace and Security at Risk

Author:
Paul Benjamin
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Since the end of the Cold War, a fundamental shift in national security policy has taken place in the United States. No longer restricting itself to such issues as military alliances, the strategic behavior of other great powers, and nuclear strike capabilities, security policy now tackles environmental degradation, poverty, infectious diseases, drug use, and other problems. Moreover, it increasingly posits them as threats to the national security of the United States.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and Environment
Political Geography:
United States

67. "Isolationism" as the Denial of Intervention: What Foreign Policy Is and Isn't

Author:
Earl C. Ravenal
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The tendency of both the Clinton administration and its Republican opponents to frame foreign policy as a compromise between “global policeman” and “isolationism” misses the point entirely. The real issue is what the United States commits itself to defend—and whether it is actually willing to incur the costs and risks required to fulfill such commitments. Structural changes in the international system already greatly limit the options of U.S. policymakers.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States

68. Ballistic Missile Proliferation: Does the Clinton Administration Understand the Threat?

Author:
Ivan Eland and Timothy M. Beard
Publication Date:
02-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Although the end of the Cold War reduced the likelihood of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers, several smaller rogue states, through their dedicated efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, have emerged as potential threats to U.S. national security. National Intelligence Estimate 95-19 stated that no new missile threats to the United States would develop before 2010. However, given the curious circumstances of the estimate's release and the many analytical faults contained in the document, its results have been questioned.
Topic:
Defense Policy and National Security
Political Geography:
United States

69. Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism?: The Historical Record

Author:
Ivan Eland
Publication Date:
12-1998
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
According to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, terrorism is the most important threat the United States and the world face as the 21st century begins. High-level U.S. officials have acknowledged that terrorists are now more likely to be able to obtain and use nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons than ever before.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

70. Time to Terminate the ESF and the IMF

Author:
Anna J. Schwartz
Publication Date:
08-1998
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund are undemocratic institutions unaccountable for their actions. Their current functions have little to do with their original missions. The ESF is used by the executive branch to circumvent Congress in the provision of foreign aid. Its foreign exchange interventions have, in any event, always been wasteful and ineffective at controlling the relative price of the U.S. dollar. The IMF has also been used to provide massive bailouts in the cases of Mexico in 1995 and of Asian countries since 1997. Defenders of the IMF as an international lender of last resort are misinformed since the IMF does not and cannot serve that purpose. Both institutions should be abolished, not reformed, because they are not needed to resolve currency crises and they preclude superior solutions.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Asia, and Mexico