Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Looking ahead to the Bush-Putin summit, it is important to address the contrasts between Russia's remarkable economic improvements and its continued political repression and how this dichotomy impacts both sides' expectations.
Business leaders, government officials and military planners fret over China's potential to wreak havoc in the world. These anxieties are based on China's growing power; but the real threats it poses will spring from its weaknesses, not its strengths.
Even during the depths of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union often worked together to halt the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries. Unfortunately, the approaches being pursued by both countries will do nothing to slow Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons, and a new approach and better coordination is desperately needed before it is too late.
The initial goal is to return Iraq’s production to at least 2 million barrels a day, but 2 million barrels a day, earning around $15 billion annually, will not yield a financial surplus to Iraq. Furthermore, the longer term goal is more challenging—to reach and sustain production of 5 million barrels per day (or more).
The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) recently admitted that it was pushing back plans to put up a space-based missile defense test bed to at least 2008. But that does not mean the agency has given up on developing orbiting interceptors for shooting down enemy missiles in their boost-phase, shortly after their launch.
US policymakers should be proud of US-sponsored programs which broaden the range of participation for even limited numbers of people. But those of us engaged with Central Asia should not delude ourselves into believing that through "soft needling" we will get the ruling elites in these countries to modify the core practices at the heart of their regimes.
The China Program invited two distinguished scholars to comment on the potential impact of U.S. political and military ties with Japan and Taiwan on the current Sino-U.S. relationship.
The bilateral relationship has not benefited from the Iraq crisis, and despite common interests like terrorism and proliferation, the U.S.-Russian partnership is likely to remain shallow in the future. The failure of Putin to support the U.S. make it less likely that Bush will spend a lot of his political capital on Russia. Now the question is how much political capital Moscow is ready to invest.
The Pentagon's proposal to sell missiles to Taiwan must rank in a league of most ill-considered policy initiatives by itself. Obviously, the timing for pressuring Taiwan to purchase these systems is awkward. The US should seek all the diplomatic and strategic help it can get from China, and clearly it is no time to slap Beijing in the face.
The most important question now facing the world is the use the Bush Administration will make of its military dominance, especially in the Middle East. The next question is when and in what form resistance to US domination over the Middle East will arise. That there will be resistance is certain.