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A Japanese Coast Guard unit participates in a PSI training exercise. (AP/Itsuo Inouye)
North Korea's recent missile tests (NYT) elicited harsh words from diplomats and alarmist headlines in newspapers. Japan introduced a UN Security Council resolution calling for sanctions, and attention focused on whether China could use its influence to bring Pyongyang to curb its arms program (Reuters). The real concern over North Korea is not its missile stockpile, but its nuclear program. In an interview with Bernard Gwertzman, CFR Fellow Michael Levi explains North Korea's nuclear capability is the "number one danger."
North Korea is not the only state with nuclear ambitions to test its ballistic missile prowess recently. India test-fired a long-range nuclear-capable missile on Sunday, but the launch failed (Stratfor). The test is not expected to upset U.S. support for a deal to share civilian nuclear technology with India. Meanwhile, Iran, whose nuclear program has been the source of much diplomatic chest-beating, is deliberating whether to accept a Western package of incentives and begin direct negotiations. The effectiveness of direct talks is discussed in this Online Debate.
Aside from the India deal, the Bush administration has been pursuing a range of measures to try to keep nuclear materials under tighter wraps. Chief among these is the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), described in this new Backgrounder, which was launched by the Bush administration three years ago. As a Washington Qarterly article explains, the PSI was designed to function in a new era (PDF) in which smugglers of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are aided by improved technologies and expanding global trade.
Among the PSI's most notable successes was the 2003 interception of a shipment of nuclear centrifuge parts from the A.Q. Khan network to Libya. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, headed one of the world's most notorious proliferation operations (The Atlantic), selling nuclear technology to any nation that would buy it, including North Korea and Iran. Though Pakistani officials have declared the Khan case closed, nuclear proliferation expert Leonard Weiss told the House International Relations Committee in May that "at least some parts of the network are definitely still functioning." (PDF)
When confronting regimes with nuclear ambitions, it is comforting to have at least one success story. Shortly following the centrifuge seizure, Libya agreed to abandon all of its WMD programs. On May 15, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the United States would resume normal diplomatic relations with the longtime state sponsor of terrorism. The slow process of welcoming Libya "in from the cold" is described in this Backgrounder.
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In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
In The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Noah Feldman tells the story behind the increasingly popular call for the establishment of the sharia—the law of the traditional Islamic state—in the modern Muslim world.
Complete list of CFR Books.
This report argues that the United States must lead with domestic action on climate change and proposes a U.S. negotiating strategy for a global UN climate agreement that includes commitments from all major economies, while also promoting a less formal Partnership for Climate Cooperation that would focus the world's largest emitters on implementing aggressive emissions reductions.
This Task Force report examines changes in Latin America and in U.S. influence there, while taking account of the region's enduring importance to the United States. The Task Force offers an agenda for U.S. policy toward Latin America and identifies four critical areas that should provide the basis of a new U.S. approach.
About Independent Task Forces at the Council.
After two decades of liberalization, many countries around the world are adopting new restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI) that could retard continued progress. The authors make recommendations for correcting this protectionist drift by proposing guidelines for how countries can better regulate FDI yet still reap its economic benefits.
In this Council Special Report, the authors make a strong case that the Bush administration’s policy of diplomatic isolation of Syria is not serving U.S. interests, and offer informed history and thoughtful analysis of the country and its external behavior.
Complete list of Council Special Reports.
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