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1. Europe Needs a Regional Strategy on Iran

Author:
Cornelius Adebahr
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The rift between Europe and the United States over Iran is deepening. To regain leverage, the Europeans should engage all eight Gulf states in talks about regional security and nonproliferation. The rift between Europe and the United States over Iran is deepening. Two years of U.S. maximum pressure on Tehran have not yielded the results Washington had hoped for, while the Europeans have failed to put up enough resistance for their transatlantic partner to change course. Worse, the U.S. policy threatens to destabilize the broader Persian Gulf, with direct consequences for Europe. To get ahead of the curve and regain leverage, the European Union (EU), its member states, and the United Kingdom have to look beyond their relations with the Islamic Republic and address wider regional security challenges. The United States’ incipient retreat as a security guarantor and Russia’s increased interest in the region make it necessary for Europe to engage beyond its borders. Despite being barely alive, the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran offers a good starting point. The Europeans should regionalize some of the agreement’s basic provisions to include the nuclear newcomers on the Arab side of the Gulf. Doing so would advance a nonproliferation agenda that is aimed not at a single country but at the region’s broader interests. Similarly, the Europeans should engage Iran, Iraq, and the six Arab nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council in talks about regional security. Rather than suggesting an all-encompassing security framework, for which the time is not yet ripe, they should pursue a step-by-step approach aimed at codifying internationally recognized principles at the regional level.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:
Europe, Iran, Middle East, and United States of America

2. Reviving the OSCE: European Security and the Ukraine Crisis

Author:
Stefan Lehne
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
After years at the margins of international diplomacy, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has suddenly regained political relevance because of the Ukraine crisis that began in 2014. The organization turned out to be the most appropriate framework to manage the crisis and prevent further escalation. To continue to play a useful role in resolving this issue and in easing tensions between Russia and the West, the OSCE needs to adjust its way of working and strengthen its toolbox. As the relationship between Russia and the West deteriorated at the end of the 1990s, the OSCE’s role declined. The organization’s arms control regime eroded, its debates on human rights relapsed into ideological confrontation, and its work on promoting economic cooperation never got off the ground. The Ukraine crisis has revived the organization. While political crisis management has been left mainly to a few capitals working with the parties to the conflict, the OSCE’s monitoring mission in Ukraine has become an essential factor of stability. Violence has not stopped, however, and the mission’s work remains hampered by insufficient cooperation from the parties. The OSCE has also assumed an important role in facilitating negotiations on implementing the Minsk agreement, which contains a road map for a political settlement. However, little progress has been made so far. diplo
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, Diplomacy, Human Rights, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

3. The Eastern Partnership—It Is High Time to Start a Real "Partnership"

Author:
Paweł Dariusz Wiśniewski
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The European Union's (EU's) Eastern Partnership, which aims to deepen cooperation between the EU and its Eastern European neighbors, must be modernized. Partner states and the EU have to acknowledge their own failures instead of playing a “blame game” and work together to make the partnership a success. If the Eastern Partnership initiative fails, both sides—along with Russia, whose role is key—will be responsible.
Topic:
Economics, Regional Cooperation, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe

4. Smart Geostrategy for the Eastern Partnership

Author:
Richard Youngs and Kateryna Pishchikova
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The European Union's (EU's) relationship with Eastern Europe and the Caucasus is at a turning point. Russia's increasingly assertive tactics have chipped away at the ties that bind the six Eastern Partnership countries to the EU, and the entire Eastern Partnership is on the verge of unraveling. To rescue its association with its Eastern partners, the EU must deliver more tangible results. Europe can be both geopolitical and committed to reform—but to strike the right balance, the EU must be more strategic.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe

5. Gambit or Endgame? The New State of Arms Control

Author:
Alexei Arbatov
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The pursuit of nuclear arms control has enjoyed something of a renaissance recently, with the signing of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in spring 2010 in Prague. Whether that momentum will dissipate after New START or lead to further nuclear arms control agreements depends on several factors: The new U.S. and Russian nuclear doctrines. While there is always some distance between a state's declared policy and that policy's implementation, both documents show that, behind their more ambitious disarmament rhetoric, the United States and Russia maintain conservative nuclear policies that make radical nuclear disarmament unlikely—to say nothing of a nuclear-weapon-free world. The peculiarities of the recently signed and ratified New START agreement. Among these are the modest cuts stipulated by the treaty relative to its predecessors; the acrimonious ratification debates in both the U.S. and Russian legislatures; and the dim prospects for a follow-on agreement (in sharp contrast to the mood prevailing after past START agreements). The dynamics of obsolescence and modernization of U.S. and Russian strategic offensive forces. The United States should have little problem cutting its forces to get below New START's limits. Russia, however, will have problems, not in reducing its numbers, but in raising them to treaty ceilings, due to their removal of obsolete weapons from service and slow deployment of new systems. Either Russia can negotiate a New START follow-on treaty with even lower ceilings or it can accelerate the development and deployment of new systems. While the former is obviously a more attractive alternative, it would require the United States and Russia to resolve many thorny arms control issues, such as ballistic missile defense, conventional strategic weapons, and tactical nuclear weapons. Ballistic missile defense. President Obama's decision to modify the Bush administration's ballistic missile defense plans in Central Europe opened the way for New START and eased Russian concerns, even if they could never have been allayed entirely. Moscow believes that U.S. ballistic missile defense programs are ultimately designed to degrade Russia's nuclear deterrent, and it is far from clear that U.S. proposals to jointly develop such capabilities with Russia would allay those concerns—or that the idea even makes any sense. Russia's perceptions of U.S. conventional strategic weapons. Russian officials are especially concerned about the U.S. Prompt Global Strike concept and do not trust American assurances that such capabilities are only directed at terrorists and rogue states. There has already been some progress made in dealing with these weapons in negotiations, and future progress on this issue will likely depend on legal agreements and confidence-building measures to scale U.S. capabilities in ways that would threaten Russia's (or China's) strategic deterrent. Joint development of ballistic missile defenses with Russia. This issue could seriously complicate Washington's and Moscow's strategic relations with China and India. Officials on both sides would do well to start small and proceed step-by-step, using incremental successes to build the momentum necessary to work through more difficult issues. Non-strategic—that is, tactical—nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, the United States and Europe relied on tactical nuclear weapons to counterbalance Warsaw Pact superiority in conventional forces in Europe; today, the situation is reversed, with Moscow relying on tactical nuclear weapons as a counterbalance not only to NATO conventional superiority but also to U.S. strategic nuclear superiority and long-range precision-guided weapons. No one now knows which weapons systems should be categorized as non-strategic, and how limits across regions could be accounted for and verified. In addition, reviving the moribund Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty is essential to dealing with the issue of tactical nuclear weapons.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, Washington, and Moscow

6. Protecting Intellectual Property Rights in Chinese Courts: An Analysis of Recent Patent Judgements

Author:
Veron Mei-Ying Hung and Mei Ying Gechlik
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001, the country's commitment to abiding by the global body's rules has captured the attention of businesses and policy makers in the United States. Such attention is likely to grow because the Democrats are expected to use their regained power in Congress to toughen their stance on China trade issues, including intellectual property protection.
Topic:
International Relations and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States, China, Europe, and Asia

7. Summit with Substance: Creating Payoffs in an Unequal Partnership

Author:
Andrew Kuchins
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
U.S. president George W. Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin have an important opportunity at their upcoming meeting to reach key agreements, remove major irritants in U.S.–Russian relations, and initiate a genuine partnership less burdened by Cold War legacies. In Europe last summer and in the United States last November, the two leaders established personal chemistry and trust—but the meetings lacked substance. Although Putin's leadership position will not be made or broken on his foreign policies, this time it will be important for his pro-Western orientation to produce a concrete payoff for Russia. As for President Bush, if the summit fails to produce results, then his vaunted Russia policy will be seen to be drifting. Thus both men require real outcomes such as a signed, legally binding nuclear arms reduction agreement and a new institutional relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Perhaps just as important, however, Putin and Bush each must explain to his own country why this partnership is important and what are its key elements.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, North Atlantic, and Asia