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6931. Cluster Bombs: the Case for New Controls

Author:
Hugh Beach
Publication Date:
05-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Security Information Service
Abstract:
Cluster Weapons consist of a large number of sub-munitions (“bomblets”) which are dispensed from a metal canister in mid-air and then disperse over a distance of several hundred metres. They are inherently indiscriminate since, once dispensed, the bomblets are un-guided and a threat to military and civilians alike. Bomblets are designed to knock out armoured vehicles but can also kill people to a radius of 30-40 metres.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

6932. Reinvigorating Multilateral Arms Control

Author:
Herbert Wulf and Michael Brzoska
Publication Date:
05-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Security Information Service
Abstract:
Institutionalised or negotiated arms control at the multilateral level within the United Nations system and the bilateral level between the US and Russia fell into a state of crisis in the mid 1990s. Several factors contributed to this crisis. Firstly, with the slow but continuous disintegration of Russia's military apparatus the US emerged as the dominant power in international security relations. It has increasingly come to believe that it can control smaller states by military means and its interest in arms control has waned accordingly. Secondly, traditional arms control has proven too rigid in light of emerging post-Cold War security concerns. Regional and internal conflicts have resulted in more emphasis on UN peacekeeping operations and controlling or eliminating the weapons most commonly used in these wars (such as landmines, small arms and light weapons). When it became clear that it would not be possible to negotiate the landmines ban within traditional arms control institutions, so-called 'friendly states' began to develop new parallel fora. The Ottawa Process, which consisted of fast-track diplomatic negotiations culminating in the signing of the Landmines Convention, is an example of this new type of arms control initiative. Thirdly, the main aim of arms control is no longer stability, whereby states aim to maintain parity and build trust. Instead, the focus has turned to limiting the costs of armaments acquisition and disarmament
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

6933. Journalistic License: Professional Standards in the Print Media's Coverage Media's Coverage of Israel

Author:
Jeff Helmreich
Publication Date:
08-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
On May 15, 2001, the Associated Press circulated an article covering Arafat's Al-Naqba speech, marking the day Palestinians recall the "catastrophe" of the creation of the State of Israel. The article boasted direct quotations of the Palestinian leader's statements. They had been spoken in Cairo, broadcast on Palestinian radio stations, and blared out from loudspeakers into the streets of Nablus and Ramallah and all across Gaza. But something happened to the speech on the way to AP's wire report. By the time it reached the newspapers, entire sentences and clauses had been excluded; moderating words had been added; fiery attacks — like a slur about the United States — had been cleaned out; statements had been condensed, enhanced, or otherwise altered. In short, AP's purported "excerpts" of Arafat's remarks were at best edited, at worst fabricated. Moreover, they served to distort (and significantly soften) the message that passed through Arafat's lips.
Topic:
Security and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, and Gaza

6934. Jerusalem in International Diplomacy: The 2000 Camp David Summit, the Clinton Plan, and Their Aftermath

Author:
Dore Gold
Publication Date:
02-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Since its independence in 1948, and indeed even in prior times, Israel's rights to sovereignty in Jerusalem have been firmly grounded in history and international law. The aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War only reinforced the strength of Israel's claims. Seven years after the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Agreements, Prime Minister Ehud Barak became the first Israeli prime minister to consider re-dividing Jerusalem in response to an American proposal at the July 2000 Camp David Summit. The December 2000 Clinton Plan attempted to codify Barak's possible concessions on Jerusalem. Yet they proved to be insufficient for PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, leading to a breakdown in the peace process and an outburst of Palestinian violence with regional implications. At least the failed Clinton Plan did not bind future Israeli governments or U.S. administrations, leaving open the possibility of new diplomatic alternatives. Only by avoiding premature negotiation over an unbridgeable issue such as Jerusalem can the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians stabilize the volatile situation that has emerged and restore hope that a political process can be resumed in the future.
Topic:
Security, Government, International Law, Religion, and Sovereignty
Political Geography:
United States, America, Middle East, and Israel

6935. The Israel Swing Factor: How the American Jewish Vote Influences U.S. Elections

Author:
Jeffrey S. Helmreich
Publication Date:
01-2001
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
There are two clashing myths on the political power of American Jewry. One claims that the community is too small to affect national elections; Jews make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population. A contrasting view holds that U.S. Jews play a disproportionately large role in national politics thanks to their campaign donations and media influence.
Topic:
Security, Politics, and Religion
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Middle East

6936. Peace and Arms Control on the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Yong-Sup Han
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
South Koreans did not recognize the importance of "the positive peace" until the Kim Dae-jung Administration came to power in 1998. Before then, the concept of "the negative peace" had long been engrained in the minds of South Koreans and Americans. The United States and South Korea have been successful in deterring war up to now. Although North Korea insisted that they should conclude a peace treaty with the United States, their true intent was not to establish "the positive peace" on the Korean peninsula. Herein, the positive peace means that there is neither a war nor a competition, and there is cooperation toward similar or common goals between different states. The Kim Dae-jung Administration began its reconciliation and cooperation policy to create conditions favorable to making positive peace on the Korean peninsula.
Political Geography:
United States, America, South Korea, North Korea, and Korean Peninsula

6937. The Role of U.S. Forces in a Unified Korea

Author:
Ralph A. Cossa
Publication Date:
09-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The geopolitical landscape in East Asia has changed dramatically, and one would hope permanently, as a result of last year's sudden and largely unexpected thaw in North-South Korean relations. The appearance of North Korea's formerly reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, in the international spotlight through the much-heralded June 2000 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang and his high-profile meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing and Shanghai and with Russian President Putin in Pyongyang have resulted in a remaking of both the North Korean leader's and his nation's international image. As one senior U.S. official noted at the time, North Korea has gone, almost overnight, from the "hermit kingdom" to the "hyperactive kingdom."
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Shanghai, Beijing, East Asia, North Korea, and Korea

6938. The North Korean War Plan and the Opening Phase of the Korean War: A Documentary Study

Author:
Kwang-Soo Kim
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
No war in modern history is so obscure about its beginning as the Korean War. From the very first day of the war, both the North Korean and the South Korean governments accused the opponent of being guilty of an invasion. In the early morning of June 25, 1950, the North Korean government charged that the South Korean Army had made a surprise attack into its territory by 1-2 km across the 38th parallel at four points, the west of Haeju (Ongjin), the direction of Kumchon (Kaesong), the direction of Chorwon (Yonchon and Pochon), and Yangyang, and announced a counterattack to repulse the attack.1 The South Korean government announced on that day that the North Korean Army had invaded all along the 38th parallel at dawn. Based on the South Korean Army's reports, Ambassador Muccio reported to the U. S. government that the North Korean Army invaded the South by bombarding Ongjin around 4 o'clock in the morning and began to cross the 38th parallel at Ongjin, Kaesung, Chunchon, and the East Coast. In the United Nations, the U. S. government condemned the North Korean government for unlawfully invading South Korea and made a move to admonish North Korea to take back its army.
Political Geography:
United States, South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

6939. The South Korean Military and the Korean War

Author:
Chang-Il Ohn
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
Immediately before the Japanese surrender in the Pacific War (1941-5), there was one Korea, though it had been under Japanese colonial rule for 36 years. The 38th parallel, which the American policymakers hastily picked out as the operational boundary between U.S. and Soviet troops in the Far East at the last stage of the Pacific War, divided one Korea into the two, North and South.1 Soviet troops occupied North Korea, Americans entered the South, and the two sides began military occupation in the two Koreas. The latitude, which Washington policymakers conceived to be a temporary line to halt the further southward advance of Soviet troops and thereby physically eliminate the possibility of Soviet participation in the Japanese occupation, and to facilitate the process of establishing a Korean government "in due course," however, began to embrace new political and military connotations. The two Koreas, even on a temporary basis, thus appeared. The status of and situations in the two Koreas were almost the same at the beginning of the military occupations. In both parts of Korea, people were very poor mainly because of the harsh Japanese mobilization for conducting the Pacific War. There were neither major factories, nor organized indigenous troops, nor influential political groups except the strong popular desire to establish a Korean government right away. Almost every well-informed Korean had a distinctive idea about the future of Korea and the nature of its government. As a result, "too many" political organizations and parties were formed, and, especially, the American military government judged that the Koreans were "too much" politicized. All in all, the situations in the two parts of Korea were almost identical as much as the status of being the occupied. The policies and strategies of the two occupiers—the United States and the Soviet Union—toward Korea, however, were different. Despite the wartime agreement with the United States that Korea should be independent "in due course," which meant that a Korean government should be established after the period of multinational trusteeship, the Soviet Union was not enthusiastic about the idea of multi-tutorship for Korea. Instead, the Soviet authority was busy in communizing the northern half of Korea, trying to make it a stronghold for securing the entire Korean peninsula. The Chief Soviet Delegate, Colonel General T. F. Shtykov, made it clear, at the Joint Commission convened in Seoul on March 20, 1946, that Korea should be "loyal to the Soviet Union, so that it will not become a base for an attack on the Soviet Union" in the future.2 This Soviet position was directly contrary to the primary objective of the United States in Korea, that is, "to prevent Russian domination of Korea."3 Unable to find a compromised solution on Korea through the Joint Commission, the United States internationalized the Korean issue by turning it over to the United Nations. The Soviet Union, however, did not accept the U.N. resolution that a Korean government would be established through holding a general election throughout Korea, and the Soviet authority in North Korea rejected the entry of U.N. representatives. As a result, the two Korean governments were created, one in the South blessed by the United Nations and the other in the North brewed by the Soviet Union, in August and September 1948 respectively.
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Washington, South Korea, North Korea, Soviet Union, and Korea

6940. American Strategy and the Korean Peninsula, 1945-1953

Author:
William Stueck
Publication Date:
03-2001
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
"By strategy," John Lewis Gaddis wrote in his seminal book Strategies of Containment, "I mean quite simply the process by which ends are related to means, intentions to capabilities, objectives to resources."1 My intention here is to employ this definition in examining the American course in Korea from the origin of the war there in the country's division in 1945 to the aftermath of fighting in 1953. My approach is to analyze a series of key US decisions, from the one to divide the peninsula at the 38th parallel in August 1945 to the ones to conclude a military pact with the Republic of Korea and to issue a "greater sanctions" statement immediately following an armistice in July 1953. My argument is that it took a destructive war before US policymakers successfully matched ends and means in Korea in a manner that ensured future stability. Unfortunately, though, that congruence also ensured indefinite division.
Political Geography:
United States, America, Korea, and Korean Peninsula