Search

Begin New Search Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Council on Foreign Relations

81. U.S. Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Charles L. Pritchard, John H. Tilelli Jr., and Scott A. Snyder
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The Korean peninsula simultaneously offers dramatically contrasting opportunities for and dangers to U.S. interests in Northeast Asia. On the one hand, a democratic and free market–oriented South Korea has developed enhanced military capacity and political clout and an expanded set of shared interests with the United States. This enables more active cooperation with the United States to respond to North Korea's nuclear challenge and promote regional and global stability and prosperity. On the other hand, a secretive and totalitarian North Korea has expanded its capacity to threaten regional and global stability through continued development of fissile materials and missile delivery capabilities, and has directly challenged the global nonproliferation regime and U.S. leadership.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, South Korea, North Korea, Korea, and Phoenix

82. Energy Security An Agenda for Research

Author:
Michael A. Levi
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
U.S. policymakers talk more today about energy security than they have at any time since the energy crises of the 1970s. Yet scholarly understanding of the challenges at the intersection of energy and national security, and of the various policy tools available to address them, is surprisingly weak. On April 12–13, 2010, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) convened a group of thirty-six scholars and practitioners to assess the current state of knowledge about oil, gas, and national security, and to identify those areas where research was most needed. Participants included experts from academia, industry, government, and international institutions, and brought backgrounds in economics, political science, international relations, science, engineering, and law to the discussion.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
United States

83. How Dangerous Is U.S. Government Debt? The Risks of a Sudden Spike in U.S. Interest Rates

Author:
Francis E. Warnock
Publication Date:
06-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In 1961, the Belgian economist Robert Triffin described the dilemma faced by the country at the center of the international monetary system. To supply the world's risk-free asset, the center country must run a current account deficit and in doing so become ever more indebted to foreigners, until the risk-free asset that it issues ceases to be risk free. Precisely because the world is happy to have a dependable asset to hold as a store of value, it will buy so much of that asset that its issuer will become unsustainably burdened. The endgame to Triffin's paradox is a global, wholesale dumping of the center country's securities. No one knows in advance when the tipping point will be reached, but the damage brought about by higher interest rates and slower economic growth will be readily apparent afterward.
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Markets

84. The Challenges of Global Health Governance

Author:
David P. Fidler
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Three crises in 2009 revealed the inadequacy of global health governance. The outbreak of pandemic influenza A (H1N1) found countries scrambling for access to vaccines, an unseemly process that led the World Health Organization to call for a new “global framework” on equitable influenza vaccine access. The global economic crisis damaged efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, most of which involve health problems or address policy areas affecting health. The year ended with the fractious Copenhagen negotiations on global climate change, a problem with fearsome portents for global health.
Topic:
Globalization, Health, Human Welfare, and Governance

85. Controlling the Further Spread of Nuclear Weapons

Author:
Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The replacement for the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START), which presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed in April 2010, marks the first legally binding arms control agreement to be reached in nearly twenty years. At the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in May 2010, where the topic of nu clear disarmament will be discussed, the elimination of nuclear weapons will be viewed as a practical possibility. While this prospect can be easily dismissed as an optimistic or flee ting trend, it should instead be harnessed as a means to bolster international security, or at least not to make matter s worse. This requires both sound insights into what is and is not possible, and in Washington, sensitivity to an increasing number of contentious political views regarding nuclear controls.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

86. State of the Union Address, 2010

Author:
Barack Obama
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
THE PRESIDENT: Madam Speaker, Vice President Biden, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: Our Constitution declares that from time to time, the President shall give to Congress information about the state of our union. For 220 years, our leaders have fulfilled this duty. They've done so during periods of prosperity and tranquility. And they've done so in the midst of war and depression; at moments of great strife and great struggle.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Government, War, Labor Issues, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
United States

87. After Copenhagen Climate Governance and the Road Ahead

Author:
Joshua W. Busby
Publication Date:
08-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Climate change is the most difficult collective action problem the world has ever faced. The activities responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions are central to our modern way of life, and the uncertain effects of climate change will disproportionately fall on future generations that have no say in current decision-making processes. Climate change is also a difficult challenge because it cannot be ad- dressed by governments alone—it depends on coordination with private actors and nongovernmental organizations.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Globalization, and Treaties and Agreements

88. Toward Deeper Reductions in U.S. and Russian Nuclear Weapons

Author:
Micah Zenko
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
President Barack Obama has made reductions in the United States' nuclear arsenal and a decreased reliance on nuclear weapons major foreign policy priorities for his administration. The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), signed in April 2010 by President Obama and Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, represents concrete movement toward these goals—goals that both presidents share. This follow-on accord to the 1991 START Treaty limits the United States and Russia to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear and conventional war - heads, 800 strategic launchers, and 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers. Yet while the New START Treaty represents a substantial decrease from Cold War levels, the United States will retain around 2,000 deployed strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and Russia will maintain approximately 3,500 deployed strategic and tactical nuclear weapons—which together will constitute over 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Russia and United States

89. Internet Governance in an Age of Cyber Insecurity

Author:
Robert K. Knake
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The United States is being outmaneuvered in the international forums that will determine the future of the Internet. Led by Russia and China, nondemocratic regimes are organizing into a united front to promote a vision of the Internet that is tightly controlled by states. That vision is increasingly attractive to many Western nations wrestling with interrelated threats of cybercrime, industrial espionage, and cyber warfare. The United States must actively combat these threats while it works to protect U.S. national interests in the preservation and extension of the Internet as a platform for increased efficiency and economic exchange. Protecting this interest requires far more extensive engagement within Internet governance forums to shape the future of the network in a way that addresses security concerns without resulting in a cure that is worse than the disease.
Topic:
Security, Crime, Science and Technology, and Governance
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and China

90. U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan

Author:
Richard L. Armitage and Samuel R. Berger
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Al-Qaeda's attack on September 11, 2001, was the deadliest terrorist assault on the United States in history. In the hours and days that followed, Americans learned more about the perpetrators and their links to bases and networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Less than a month later, President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom. Much changed nearly overnight as the United States focused military, economic, and diplomatic attention squarely on the region for the first time since the end of the Cold War. In Afghanistan, the Taliban regime—al-Qaeda's sympathetic host—was toppled. In Pakistan, the Pervez Musharraf regime was drafted into Washington's Global War on Terror.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and United States