Search

Begin New Search Political Geography United States

7491. The Origins and Evolution of the Korean-American Alliance: A Japanese Perspective

Author:
Koji Murata
Publication Date:
08-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
This paper examines the importance of the Korean-American alliance for Japan from a historical perspective. The U.S.-Japan alliance is important for the security of South Korea because it provides logistic support for the U.S. activities on the Korean peninsula. This is obvious if we look into the reasons why the Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation were revised in September 1997. At the same time, the U.S.-ROK alliance is also important for the security of Japan because it functions as a buffer or shield for Japan. Bounded on the north by China and Russia, and only thirty miles from the closest Japanese island, the Korean peninsula is the fulcrum where the major powers' interests in Asia converge. Tokyo is about one hour from Seoul by jet aircraft.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Asia, Tokyo, Korea, and Island

7492. East Asian Urbanization: Patterns, Problems, and Prospects

Author:
Mike Douglass
Publication Date:
07-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Two interwoven processes—urbanization and globalization—circumscribe contemporary social, political, and economic transformations taking place in East Asia. While governments, businesses, and communities are caught up in one of the most intensive and condensed processes of urbanization in world history, the forces propelling much of the expansion of cities and urban networks now operate on an international plane. Urban- oriented investments in production for world markets, global intra-firm commodity trade within transnational corporate networks, and the hyper-circulation of finance capital are fundamental features of what has been summarized as the “local-global” context of development. Urbanization and globalization have become interdependent and mutually reinforcing: the shaping of urban form and the dominant activities within a given city reflect its mode of linkage with globalized circuits of capital; at the same time, these circuits require a structuring of the built environment to create the physical geography of international urban networks needed for real-time decisionmaking on a global scale.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States and Asia

7493. Benefits and Burdens: The Politically Dominated Economics of U.S. Alliances with Japan and Korea

Author:
Charles Wolf and Michele Zanini
Publication Date:
04-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Alliances are organizations between or among independent entities that concert to produce “collective goods” for the mutual benefit of alliance members. The statement applies whether the alliances are between or among countries, corporations, universities, research centers, or other institutions. Of course, the nature of the collective goods, as well as the membership in the collectivity, differs across these cases. That the goods (or benefits) are “collective” means that their availability to one alliance member (or their production by any member) implies their availability to the other members of the alliance.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Defense Policy, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Israel, East Asia, and Korea

7494. The Japan-America Security Alliance: Prospects for the Twenty-First Century

Author:
Daniel Okimoto
Publication Date:
01-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
By almost any criterion of success—be it cost–effectiveness, risk–reward ratio, multiplier effects, or sheer longevity, the Japan America Security Alliance (JASA) stands out as one of the most successful alliances in twentieth century history. For the United States, chief architect of a global network of military relationships, JASA is arguably the most important of its many bilateral alliances. In terms of historic impact, JASA is comparable to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a multilateral alliance that restructured the European security landscape in 1949. For nearly a half–century, JASA and NATO have functioned as the bedrock on which the Cold War security systems of Asia and Europe have been constructed.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, America, Europe, and Asia

7495. South Asia After the Tests

Author:
Marshall Bouton
Publication Date:
07-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
It was recognized at the outset of the workshop that India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests in May 1998 raised a number of questions, both broad and specific. Three broad, but counter-intuitive questions were identified. First, just how much have the tests really changed the international nuclear non-proliferation regime and South Asia's security situation? A case can be made that the two countries' tests do no more than make explicit their nuclear capabilities, which have been fairly confidently known for years if not decades. Second, are there enhanced opportunities for stability and security as a result of the tests? While on the one hand the tests increase risks of conflict resulting from miscalculations and accidents, it is also possible that they will focus the attention of India and Pakistan on reducing tensions between them, and on increasing the security of the region as a whole. The tests might also have the benefit of making external actors such as China more aware of South Asia's security dynamics and the implications of its own policies for the region. Third, how much influence does the international community have on India's and Pakistan's nuclear weapons programs? In the past, India and Pakistan have been strongly resistant to external efforts to influence their security policies, and it is quite likely that this will remain the case despite strong responses to the tests from countries such as the United States.
Topic:
Nationalism and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, China, South Asia, and India

7496. Digital Broadcasting and the Public Interest

Author:
Amy Korzick Garmer, Anthony Corrado, Angela Campbell, Henry Geller, Tracy Westen, Charles Firestone, Robert Corn-Revere, Monroe E. Price, Forrest P. Chisman, Andrew Graham, Steven S. Wildman, D. Karen Frazer, and Andrew L. Shapiro
Publication Date:
12-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
In January, 1998, the Aspen Institute's Communications and Society Program convened the first in a series of meetings to examine the public interest in the United States' communications system. With funding provided by the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation, the Program hosted the initial session of the Aspen Institute Working Group on Digital Broadcasting and the Public Interest on January 25–27, 1998, at the Institute's Wye River Conference Center. The conference brought together twenty-three legal scholars, lawyers, economists, and policy advocates, representing a variety of experiences and perspectives, to consider two issues: (1) the theoretical and legal bases for the imposition of public interest obligations on those using the electromagnetic spectrum for broadcasting purposes, and (2) other public interest implications of the move to digital broadcasting. It is the hope of the Working Group that the ideas generated at this and subsequent meetings will add to the ongoing public dialogue on broadcasting and the public interest, and will prove useful to the ongoing debate over the public interest responsibilities that should accompany broadcasters' receipt of new digital television licenses.
Topic:
Economics, Government, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

7497. U.S. Commercial Diplomacy

Author:
Raymond J. Albright, S. Robbin Johnson, David J. Rothkopf, Christopher B. Johnstone, and Gary C. Hufbauer
Publication Date:
05-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In the larger scheme of U.S. trade, government financing agencies do not loom as large as fiscal and monetary policies, dollar exchange rates, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Yet, the acronym financial agencies—the Export–Import Bank (Ex–Im), Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and Trade Development Agency (TDA) —are prominent in the current debates of what is needed to keep American exports competitive, especially in the most dynamic areas of U.S. trade growth—Asia and Latin America.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States, Latin America, and North America

7498. U.S.-European Economic Relations And World Trade

Author:
Robert D. Blackwill and Kristin Archick
Publication Date:
04-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Much debate exists over the likely effects of U.S.-European economic relations on the future viability of an invigorated transatlantic partnership. Some of those who perceive largely positive dynamics between the two sides of the Atlantic in trade and investment assert that the U.S.-European commercial relationship will serve importantly to undergird the Western Alliance in the period ahead, contributing to further deepening of political and security cooperation. Others, however, argue that in light of the end of the Soviet threat and the quickening pace of globalization, transatlantic competition and diverging economic priorities are likely to threaten increasingly the cohesion and unity of the Atlantic Alliance. This paper first explores indicators that signal the continuation of a robust trade and investment relationship across the Atlantic, then discusses possible challenges to maintaining close commercial ties between the United States and the European Union (EU), continues with a survey of policy prescriptions offered by various experts to manage the economic aspects of the partnership, and finally returns to the question of the effects on broad U.S.-European cooperation of transatlantic economic interaction.
Topic:
International Political Economy
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

7499. The United States, Europe, and Asia

Author:
Robert D. Blackwill and Kristin Archick
Publication Date:
04-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Despite Asia's recent currency troubles, most strategists and economic experts believe that in the period ahead Asia will continue to be one of the most dynamic regions of the globe and pose one of the biggest strategic challenges for the West. The United States and Europe are already closely intertwined with East Asia economically, and the region's future potential for economic development remains extraordinary. As Asia's global economic weight increases, its political influence on the world stage will likely do the same. Similarly, as the West's economic interdependence with East Asia grows, any breach of the peace in the region will importantly affect the United States and Western Europe.
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Asia

7500. The United States, Europe, and the New Security Threats

Author:
Robert D. Blackwill and Kristin Archick
Publication Date:
06-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Transnational challenges, which range from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to environmental problems to migration, have been receiving greater attention in foreign policymaking circles on both sides of the Atlantic since the end of the Cold War. Some strategists assert that many of these issues represent new threats to the security of the nation-state and to the stability of the international community. The globalization of financial markets, the spread of advanced technologies, and the rapid diffusion of information have combined to produce an increasingly interdependent world and call into question the significance of geopolitical boundaries. Cyberterrorism renders important information systems vulnerable. International organized crime and its attendant money laundering weakens the stability of global finances. Precisely because these new threats cross territorial borders, they also blur the dividing line between foreign and domestic policy. Civil strife within the territory of one state, for example, may become internationalized if it produces refugee flows into another.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States