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331. Is the G-20 Summit a Step Toward a New Global Economic Order?

Author:
Johannes F. Linn and Colin I. Bradford
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
In November 2008, President George W. Bush convened the first G-20 summit in Washington to address the worst global financial economic crisis since the Great Depression. This summit provided a long-overdue opportunity for a dramatic and lasting change in global governance. This was followed by the election of Barack Obama, who had campaigned on a distinctly different foreign policy platform compared with his Republican rival, Senator John McCain. These two events were no mere coincidence.
Topic:
International Organization, International Trade and Finance, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Washington

332. Made in the U.S.A.: American Military Aid to Israel

Author:
Frida Berrigan
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Enforcement of U.S. law concerning weapons exports and the disbursement of military aid are subject to highly politicized interpretations of concepts like "legitimate self-defense" and "safeguarding internal security." As illustrated by Israel's July 2006 war in Lebanon and its 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Washington has essentially allowed Israel to define "self-defense" however it chooses. This overview of U.S. military aid to Israel, including weapons sales and related support of its domestic military industrial complex, examines in detail the mechanisms through which aid is funneled, the restrictions on aid that do exist, and the uses to which U.S. military aid has been put-particularly in terms of Israel's military operations and its exports abroad. Frida Berrigan is senior program associate of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC.
Topic:
Law
Political Geography:
United States, America, Washington, Israel, and Gaza

333. Settlement Monitor

Author:
Geoffrey Aronson
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
This section covers items-reprinted articles, statistics, and maps-pertaining to Israeli settlement activities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East , and the Golan Heights. Unless otherwise stated, the items have been written by Geoffrey Aronson for this section or drawn from material written by him for Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories (hereinafter Settlement Report), a Washington-based bimonthly newsletter published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace. JPS is grateful to the foundation for permission to draw on its material.
Political Geography:
Washington, Middle East, and Gaza

334. The Default Power

Author:
Josef Joffe
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Every ten years, it is decline time in the United States. In the late 1950s, it was the Sputnik shock, followed by the "missile gap" trumpeted by John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential campaign. A decade later, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger sounded the dirge over bipolarity, predicting a world of five, rather than two, global powers. At the end of the 1970s, Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech invoked "a crisis of confidence" that struck "at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will." A decade later, academics such as the Yale historian Paul Kennedy predicted the ruin of the United States, driven by overextension abroad and profligacy at home. The United States was at risk of "imperial overstretch," Kennedy wrote in 1987, arguing that "the sum total of the United States' global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country's power to defend them all simultaneously." But three years later, Washington dispatched 600,000 soldiers to fight the first Iraq war -- without reinstating the draft or raising taxes. The only price of "overstretch" turned out to be the mild recession of 1991. Declinism took a break in the 1990s. The United States was enjoying a nice run after the suicide of the Soviet Union, and Japan, the economic powerhouse of the 1980s, was stuck in its "lost decade" of stagnation and so no longer stirred U.S. paranoia with its takeover of national treasures such as Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center. The United States had moved into the longest economic expansion in history, which, apart from eight down months in 2001, continued until 2008. "Gloom is the dominant mood in Japan these days," one Asian commentator reported in 1997, whereas "American capitalism is resurgent, confident and brash." That year, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote that "the defining feature of world affairs" was "globalization" and that if "you had to design a country best suited to compete in such a world, [it would be] today's America." He concluded on a triumphant note: "Globalization is us."
Topic:
Globalization
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and Washington

335. Copenhagen's Inconvenient Truth

Author:
Michael Levi
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
This December, diplomats from nearly 200 countries will gather in Copenhagen to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time bound wealthy countries to specific cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Most of these emissions come from burning fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- for energy, from deforestation, and from the agricultural sector. They must be cut deeply in the coming decades if the world is to control the risks of dangerous climate change. Most of those devoted to slashing the world's greenhouse gas emissions have placed enormous weight on the Copenhagen conference. Speaking earlier this year about the conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was emphatic: "We must harness the necessary political will to seal the deal on an ambitious new climate agreement in December here in Copenhagen. . . . If we get it wrong we face catastrophic damage to people, to the planet." Hopes are higher than ever for a breakthrough climate deal. For the past eight years, many argued that developing nations reluctant to commit to a new global climate-change deal -- particularly China and India -- were simply hiding behind the United States, whose enthusiastic engagement was all that was needed for a breakthrough. Now the long-awaited shift in U.S. policy has arrived. The Obama administration is taking ambitious steps to limit carbon dioxide emissions at home, and Congress is considering important cap-and-trade and clean-energy legislation. The road to a global treaty that contains the climate problem now appears to be clear. But it is not so simple. The odds of signing a comprehensive treaty in December are vanishingly small. And even reaching such a deal the following year would be an extraordinary challenge, given the domestic political constraints in Washington and in other capitals that make such an agreement difficult to negotiate and ratify. The many government officials and activists seeking to solve the climate problem therefore need to fundamentally rethink their strategy and expectations for the Copenhagen conference.
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
United States and Washington

336. Securing the Information Highway

Author:
Wesley K. Clark and Peter L. Levin
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Cyberwarfare is not an abstract future threat. The United States' electronic defenses are vulnerable and Washington must act quickly to secure computer networks, software, and hardware before it is too late.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States and Washington

337. Manmohan Singh Visits Washington: Sustaining U.S.–Indian Cooperation Amid Differences

Author:
Ashley J. Tellis
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, will come to Washington on November 24, 2009, for the first state visit hosted by President Barack Obama. This event will be widely viewed as evidence of the importance attached to maintaining the upward trajectory in U.S.–Indian relations. By all accounts, the two leaders have already established a good working relationship—something skeptics feared was impossible given the prime minister's warm regard for President George W. Bush and the differences between Bush and Obama on many issues involving India. The global economic crisis, however, appears to have enhanced the personal collaboration between the two leaders, as many of Singh's ideas for stimulating the global revival have been backed by Obama in various forums, including most recently at the Group of Twenty's summit in Pittsburgh.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Climate Change, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, and India

338. Aid, Dutch Disease, and Manufacturing Growth

Author:
Arvind Subramanian and Raghuram G. Rajan
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
We examine the effects of aid on the growth of manufacturing, using a methodology that exploits the variation within countries and across manufacturing sectors, and corrects for possible reverse causality. We find that aid inflows have systematic adverse effects on a country\'s competitiveness, as reflected in the lower relative growth rate of exportable industries. We provide some evidence suggesting that the channel for these effects is the real exchange rate appreciation caused by aid inflows. We conjecture that this may explain, in part, why it is hard to find robust evidence that foreign aid helps countries grow.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Washington

339. The Defense Monitor, Volume XXXVIII - July/August/September 2009

Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
The international Global Zero Commission, a group of political and military leaders from the United States, Russia and other key countries, held an intensive two-day meeting in Washington, D.C. on June 28-29, 2009 - where they presented a practical and comprehensive plan calling for the phased and verified elimination of all nuclear weapons over the next 20 years, and briefed senior Obama administration officials on their recommendations in advance of the July 6-8 Moscow Summit.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Washington, and Moscow

340. Sulaiman Meets Obama as Washington's Lebanese Allies Face Crisis at Home

Author:
David Schenker
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On December 14, Lebanese president Michel Sulaiman is scheduled to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House. It is widely anticipated that during his visit, Sulaiman will request administration support for an increase in U.S. military assistance. Despite concerns that U.S. materiel will leak to Hizballah, Washington will likely agree to augment this funding, given the Lebanese Armed Force's excellent security record with equipment of U.S. origin. The question of U.S. military funding for Lebanon highlights recent developments in Lebanese politics that point to the resurgence of Hizballah -- and its Syrian and Iranian backers -- in Beirut. Although the pro-West March 14 coalition scored an impressive electoral victory in June, six months later, the government that has emerged constitutes a setback for Washington and its Lebanese allies. The scope of the setback -- for both the coalition and the United States -- was recently summarized by Syrian Ambassador to the United States Imad Mustafa, who said, "We love it!... It is exactly the sort of government we think should rule Lebanon."
Topic:
Diplomacy and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Middle East, Arabia, and Lebanon