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61. Renewing the Atlantic Partnership

Author:
Lawrence H. Summers, Henry A. Kissinger, and Charles A. Kupchan
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The accomplishments of the Atlantic alliance are remarkable. History records few, if any, alliances that have yielded so many benefits for their members or for the broader international community. After centuries of recurrent conflict, war among the European great powers has become inconceivable. The Cold War has been won; the threat of nuclear war has receded. Freedom has prevailed against totalitarian ideologies. Trade, investment, and travel are more open today than ever before. Progress in raising living standards—in rich and poor countries alike—is unprecedented.
Topic:
International Relations and Security
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

62. Finding America's Voice: A Strategy for Reinvigorating U.S. Public Diplomacy

Author:
Peter G. Peterson, Kathy Bloomgarden, Henry Grunwald, David E. Morey, Shibley Telhami, Jennifer Sieg, and Sharon Herbstman
Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The United States has a growing problem. Public opinion polls echo what is seen in foreign editorials and headlines, legislative debate, and reports of personal and professional meetings. Anti- Americanism is a regular feature of both mass and elite opinion around the world. A poll by the Times of London, taken just before the Iraq war, found respondents split evenly over who posed a greater threat to world peace, U.S. President George W. Bush or then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. At the same time, European antiwar protests drew millions, and several national leaders ran successfully on anti- American platforms. Americans at home and abroad face an increased risk of direct attack from individuals and small groups that now wield more destructive power. The amount of discontent in the world bears a direct relationship to the amount of danger Americans face.
Topic:
International Relations and Diplomacy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Europe

63. Building a Transatlantic Securities Market

Author:
Benn Steil
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
This report aims to jump-start the integration of the US and EU securities markets through a mutual recognition agreement on transatlantic exchange access. Under this agreement, securities exchanges on each side of the Atlantic would be permitted to provide direct electronic access to brokers and institutional investors on the other side, for the purpose of trading listed equities and derivatives based on equities. We argue that this initiative will reduce trading costs, increase investment returns, lower the cost of capital, and increase economic growth on both sides of the Atlantic. The success of such an initiative will, over time, encourage its expansion to cover all forms of debt securities, primary issues, and other national markets.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

64. Sustaining a Revolution: A Policy for Crop Engineering

Author:
David Victor and C. Ford Runge
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Controversy, even fear, of new foods is not new. The tomato was widely regarded as poisonous in the United States and northern Europe as late as the 1830s, due to its relationship to the night-shade family of plants. There was such concern that in 1820, the state of New York banned their consumption. Tomatoes even had their own “Frankenfood” label: “wolf 's peaches.”
Topic:
Development, Environment, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

65. Cultural Contradictions of Post-Communism: Why Liberal Reforms Did Not Succeed in Russia

Author:
Nina Khrushcheva
Publication Date:
05-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
One goal of Russia's economic reforms during the last ten years has been to establish a new class of businessmen and owners of private property—people who could form the foundation for a new model post-Soviet citizen. However, the experience of this post-communist economic “revolution” has turned out to be very different from the original expectations. For as people became disillusioned with communism due to its broken promises, the words “democracy” and “reform” quickly became equally as unbearable to large sectors of the Russian public after 1991. Such disillusion was achieved in less than ten years—a record revolutionary burnout that would be the envy of any anti-Bolshevik.
Topic:
Communism, Democratization, Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, and Soviet Union

66. China, Nuclear Weapons, and Arms Control: A Preliminary Assessment

Author:
Robert A. Manning, Ronald Montaperto, and Brad Roberts
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Historically, U.S. nuclear strategists and arms control experts have paid little attention to the People's Republic of China (PRC). China has not been a major factor in the U.S. nuclear calculus, which has remained centered on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals as the principal framework for arms control and arms reductions. Yet today China is the only one of the five de jure nuclear weapons states qualitatively and quantitatively expanding its nuclear arsenal.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, Europe, and Asia

67. Independent Task Force Report: Reconstructing the Balkans

Author:
Charles A. Kupchan, Morton I. Abramowitz, and Albert Fishlow
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The last of the six Balkan Wars of the twentieth century is over. But it is by no means certain that a durable peace is at hand. After vast death, destruction, and savagery lasting almost a decade can the peoples of the former Yugoslavia live together again in peace? If so, the region will require sustained help and support from the West. The United States and its European partners are in the midst of mustering the necessary resources and political will. There are numerous uncertainties complicating efforts to proceed with the reconstruction of the area. Whatever the international community may proclaim, the borders of Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Croatia could well change. The management of Kosovo's status and its relationship to Serbia is likely to produce serious tensions within the Alliance and between NATO and Russia. What politically will emerge from a beaten and traumatized Serbia no one can predict. Nor is it clear that Montenegro will remain as part of Yugoslavia, particularly if Milosevic continues to rule. An ethically fragile Macedonia has been badly weakened by the war and the inflow of three hundred thousand Kosovar deportees. Albania barely hangs together as a state. Neighboring Rumania and Bulgaria have avoided violence and begun to remake their societies, but they have suffered economically from the wars. The area of reconstruction is small and the population limited; the task at hand certainly is not of the dimensions of restoring post-war Europe. But the problems are daunting. Without security there will be no development. NATO forces will be needed indefinitely to keep the peace in Bosnia and Kosovo. Much more must be done to promote political and economic reform in the region, requiring vision and planning. The states of the region will first need urgent help to stabilize their economies and manage enormous humanitarian problems. They must also be able to envisage a better future, one that holds out the prospect of bringing them into Europe's political and economic mainstream. Realizing that goal will require profound changes in their economies and institutions as well as in their relationships with each other. Faced with these challenges, Western countries and a host of international institutions have begun to address how to foster the broad reconstruction of the area. The EU-sponsored stability pact, adopted in Cologne in June, is the beginning attempt at a multifaceted, coordinated approach to the problem. The G-8 has agreed on a broad program of financial assistance, and the EU has pledged 1.5 billion dollars for aid to Kosovo alone. Numerous follow-up conferences are already planned. Much more work has to be done to give reality and coherence to such efforts. Balkan reconstruction will be a protracted undertaking. It will require extremely difficult commodities – a comprehensive approach and the will, resources, and mechanisms to implement the effort. It is mostly to such a long term approach that this preliminary working paper addresses itself. It does not deal with the immediate requirements of refugee return and humanitarian assistance nor the urgent repair of human and material infrastructure. The World Bank and the IMF in cooperation with many other international organizations and interested countries are coordinating the assessment of needs and costs and have issued preliminary reports. The purpose of this working paper is to provide a broad political approach and to highlight the three key components of a comprehensive, long-term strategy: building security, integrating the region into the European Union, and fostering economic and political reform. For the purposes of this paper, we consider the region to be Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Croatia, and Rumania. This is somewhat arbitrary and these states are at different stages of political and economic development. The problems of Rumania and Bulgaria are quite different than Serbia's and Kosovo's; Croatia is much further advanced than next door Serbia and Bosnia. They all have to be dealt with separately, and no single state should hold back the progress of others in entering Europe. But they also face a collective future and the region will enjoy a lasting peace only if all its states leave the past behind and move decidedly to join the wider community.
Topic:
NATO, Ethnic Conflict, International Cooperation, International Political Economy, and World Bank
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Bosnia, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Balkans, Macedonia, Albania, and Croatia

68. Independent Task Force Report: U.S. Policy Toward Northeastern Europe

Author:
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Council on Foreign Relations, and F. Stephen Larrabee
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The Independent Task Force on U.S. Policy Toward Northeastern Europe sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations was formed to examine the policy challenges confronting the United States in northeastern Europe and recommend measures to advance U.S. interests in the region. The Task Force felt that northeastern Europe deserves special attention for several reasons. First, during the Cold War, northeastern Europe was a strategic backwater and received relatively little attention in U.S. policy. However, since the end of the Cold War, the region has become an important focal point of U.S. policy. The Clinton administration has given northeastern Europe high priority and viewed the region as a laboratory for promoting closer regional cooperation and reknitting Europe—both eastern and western—into a more cohesive economic and political unit. As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright noted in her speech in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July 1997, “Our challenge is to build a fully integrated Europe that includes every European democracy willing to meet its responsibilities. That goal embraces the Baltic nations.” Thus, to some extent, northeastern Europe can be seen as a test case for the Clinton administration's general approach toward post-Cold War Europe. Second, northeastern Europe is also a test case for the administration's policy toward Russia. One of the key elements of the administration's policy has been its effort to reach out to Russia and to include Russia in regional cooperation arrangements in northeastern Europe. This effort has been designed to integrate Russia gradually into a broader European framework as well as to defuse Russian concerns about the integration of the Baltic states into Euro-Atlantic institutions, especially NATO. This policy is seen by the administration as a litmus test of its effort to overcome the old zero-sum Cold War paradigm and demonstrate that greater regional cooperation can bring benefits to all, including Russia. Thus, how well this policy succeeds will have broader implications for the administration's policy toward Russia as a whole. Third, three critical areas of U.S. policy interest—the Baltics, the Nordics, and Russia—intersect in northeastern Europe. Instability in the region would affect all three interests. Moreover, the Baltic region is the one region in Europe where a U.S.-Russian confrontation is still conceivable. Thus, the United States has a strong stake in defusing the potential for conflict in the region and promoting its stable economic and political development. Fourth, the United States faces a number of critical challenges in the region. One of the most important is managing the security aspirations of the Baltic states. The Baltic states are tied to Europe historically and culturally. They share Western values and aspirations. Having thrown off the shackles of communism and Soviet domination, the Baltic states, like their counterparts in Central Europe, want to join Europe and Euro-Atlantic institutions. How the United States seeks to accommodate their security aspirations will be a major test of the U.S. commitment to creating a “Europe whole and free” and its ability to overcome the zero-sum logic of the Cold War. Fifth, the policy challenges in northeastern Europe—particularly those in the Baltic subregion—directly touch on Russia's security interests and have important implications for U.S.-Russian relations. Top Russian officials have reiterated on numerous occasions that Baltic membership in NATO could have serious repercussions for Russia's relations with NATO and the newly established Russia-NATO Council in particular. Although such statements should not necessarily be taken at face value, they highlight the sensitivity of the Baltic issue among the Russian policy elite and ensure that it will remain a highly contentious issue in U.S. relations with Russia. Sixth, the issue of security in northeastern Europe directly affects U.S. relations with the Nordic states, especially Sweden and Finland: the Baltic states are in the Nordic states' strategic backyard. Thus, how the Baltic issue is handled has direct implications for Nordic security—and especially for relations of the Nordic states with Russia. Neither Sweden nor Finland wants to see the Baltic or Nordic region become a gray zone or flash point. At the same time, neither wants to assume the primary responsibility for the security of the Baltic states, which would overburden the capability of either nation. Finally, security issues in northeastern Europe pose important dilemmas for U.S. policy toward NATO. The Baltic issue is the trickiest and most sensitive part of the enlargement puzzle. The Clinton administration has committed itself to helping the Baltic states gain membership in NATO. But many senators have reservations about further enlargement, especially to the Baltic states. So do many of America's NATO allies. Thus, gaining support for Baltic membership could be difficult and will require the administration to build a consensus for its policy both in the U.S. Senate and within the alliance.
Topic:
Cold War and Communism
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Eastern Europe

69. The Future of Transatlantic Relations

Author:
Ted Galen Carpenter, Mark Falcoff, Adrian Karatnycky, Gary C. Hufbauer, Robert D. Blackwill, Leslie H. Gelb, Allen R. Adler, Mario L. Baeza, Philip Peters, Bernard W. Aronson, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Rodolfo O. De La Garza, Daniel W. Fisk, Craig Fuller, M. Farooq Kathwari, Franklin W. Knight, Susan Kaufman Purcell, Peter W. Rodman, Riordan Roett, William D. Rogers, and Alexander F. Watson
Publication Date:
01-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
This report addresses the current state and the future prospects for the transatlantic relationship. The broad challenge the U.S.-European partnership faces in the period ahead is threefold: to persuade others around the world in post-Cold War conditions to abide by internationally accepted norms and patterns of behavior and the rules of the international institutions that embody them; to deal skillfully with the emerging new power centers, of which China and India are the most prominent; and to meet the current serious threats to Western interests, especially in the Middle East, when these threats often seem to ordinary citizens more remote, abstract, and complex than during the Cold War. This daunting effort will clearly require transatlantic policies that involve a delicate and flexible combination of incentives and disincentives applied to these other countries in a highly discriminating manner in widely differing circumstances. Designing and sustaining such policies will be no easy task for Western governments with compelling domestic preoccupations in the full glare of the media spotlight.
Topic:
Security, Cold War, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Middle East

70. Economic Stability and the World Economy

Author:
Gordon Brown
Publication Date:
09-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Only a year ago, an increasingly turbulent and inadequately supervised financial system threatened global instability.Since the height of the financial instability last september, the world has taken rapid and decisive action and the world has started to put in place new long term disciplines to promote greater stability.
Topic:
Economics, International Cooperation, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, America, and Europe