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7261. Iran — Protest Aftermath

Author:
Oxford Analytica
Publication Date:
07-1999
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Analytica
Abstract:
Despite last week's crackdown on pro-reform demonstrations, there is still considerable momentum behind President Mohamed Khatami's political liberalisation drive. While the democratisation movement may have suffered a short-term setback and is likely to encounter further opposition from right-wing clerics, Khatami's reform coalition remains in place and is still likely to be buoyed by next year's parliamentary election results. Nonetheless, the president needs quickly to reassert his commitment to change in the run-up to the election.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Iran and Middle East

7262. Denmark and the Northern Dimension

Author:
Bertel Heurlin
Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
This country study consists of three parts. First some introductory observations aiming at placing the Northern dimension concept in a broader context. Secondly, a description of the Danish participation in Baltic sea- activities and programs. Thirdly, an overview of the official Danish position.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Europe

7263. The International System of the 21st Century

Author:
Bertel Heurlin
Publication Date:
08-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
In 1969, 30 years ago, a large portion of the earth's population had to revise their conception of the world. Pictures of Earth as seen from the moon taken by American astronauts made a considerable impression. The pictures portrayed a very beautiful planet - shining, inviting, sunny, fertile, full of life and beauty. This was Spaceship Earth, a spaceship apparently characterised more by nature than by culture. The spaceship Earth appears hospitable and yet vulnerable. It faces space, communicating. It is a spaceship the population of which lives on the outside in stead of within.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Foreign Policy, and International Cooperation

7264. States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World

Author:
Colin Kahl
Publication Date:
04-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
Abstract:
Since the early 1990s, the National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States has identified civil strife in developing countries as an important threat to American interests and pointed to demographic and environmental pressures as potential sources of these conflicts. As the Clinton administration's 1996 NSS notes, “America's security imperatives... have fundamentally changed. The central security challenge of the past half century—the threat of communist expansion—is gone. The dangers we face today are more diverse... [L]arge-scale environmental degradation, exacerbated by rapid population growth, threatens to undermine political stability in many countries and regions.”President Clinton echoed these sentiments in a speech before the United Nations on June 26, 1997, declaring that efforts to preserve the planet's natural resources were “crucial not only for the quality of our individual environments and health, but also to maintain stability and peace within nations and among them.” Similar concerns have been voiced outside Washington. In 1991, for example, then NATO secretary general Manfred Worner argued that “[t]he immense conflict potential building up in the Third World, characterized by growing wealth differentials, an exploding demography, climate shifts and the prospect for environmental disaster, combined with the resource conflicts of the future, cannot be left out of our security calculations...”And, in an influential and particularly apocalyptic article entitled “The Coming Anarchy,” Robert Kaplan went so far as to suggest that the environment was “the national-security issue of the early twenty-first century. The political and strategic impact of surging population, spreading disease, deforestation and soil erosion, water depletion, air pollution, and, possibly, rising sea levels in critical, overcrowded regions... will be the core foreign-policy challenge from which most others will ultimately emanate...”
Topic:
Security, Economics, Environment, International Political Economy, and Third World
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Washington

7265. Economic Strategy for South Eastern Europe

Publication Date:
11-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
The international community has produced a plethora of projects, proposals and initiatives for South Eastern Europe. In spite of this, the region still lacks a viable, result-oriented economic strategy, which understands and addresses the fundamental economic needs of the region. In response to this need the EastWest Institute, in close co-operation with the Business Advisory Council of the Southeast European Co-operative Initiative, launched a small Task Force on Economic Strategy for South Eastern Europe. The Task Force included fourteen leading business executives and economic experts from the region with first-hand knowledge of the economic and business environment on the ground. Over the course of a series of meetings, which analysed country and regional data and discussed various policy options, the Task Force produced this report. Its intention is to focus the attention of all those who want to help the Balkans, including their political leaders, on the real causes of conflict, poverty, and isolation in the region. Its recommendations offer guidelines for embarking on what we believe is the right path of reform and development. Very often the policies applied in the Balkans, both by the international community and the domestic politicians, reflect an agenda that was not internalised by the "subjects" of reform, i.e. the people living in the region. We believe that the focus of our report on developing the human capital of the region and creating employment opportunities in an integrated regional market will gather strong internal support for a more stable and prosperous Balkans.
Topic:
Security, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Eastern Europe, Balkans, and Maryland

7266. EastWest Challenges: Energy and Security in the Caucasus and Central Asia

Publication Date:
05-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
The newly independent states of the region – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in the south Caucasus and Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkemistan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia – face the challenges of transition to full statehood and pluralist market economies while negotiating the presence of large oil and gas reserves. The complex relationship between external and internal challenges continues to unfold.
Topic:
Security, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, and Georgia

7267. EARLY RESPONSES TO EARLY CONFLICT WARNINGS IN THE CAUCASUS

Publication Date:
03-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
Over the past decade the South Caucasus region has faced bloody internal conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and to a lesser extent South Ossetia. It continues to display potential for instability as Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia exhibit the combined characteristics of war-torn societies and countries in transition. Given the geostrategic importance of the Caucasus and the strong interests of regional and international powers—particularly in the potential energy output—renewed armed confrontations would have serious economic, political and security implications across national borders. Moreover, spill-over into other volatile zones could bring about the open intervention of powerful neighbors, such as Iran, Iraq, Russia and Turkey, and could threaten larger peace and security arrangements.
Topic:
Security, Economics, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Russia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Asia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Abkhazia

7268. Russia's Shrinking Role in the South

Publication Date:
03-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
The perception that the disintegration of the Soviet Union constituted a major challenge to Russia's security is of a political and psychological, rather than an economic nature. The countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia—Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan—are neither an irreplaceable resource base for the Russian economy nor the only available market for its non-competitive products. Any efforts to see it otherwise will induce the region to strengthen its economic and military security with the help of outside powers as a buffer against Russia's ambitions for greater control.
Topic:
Security and Economics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Kazakhstan, Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Soviet Union, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Angola

7269. The Never-Ending Iraqi Crisis

Author:
Bjørn Moller
Publication Date:
03-1999
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
There is little doubt that Iraq was in blatant violation of the 1991 ceasefire agreement in general and of the famous “mother of all resolutions”, UNSCR 687 (3 April 1991) in particular, in which the extent and modalities of the disarmament of the defeated aggressor were detailed: The Security Council..... 8. Decides that Iraq shall unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of: a) all chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; b) all ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres... 34. Decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such further steps as may be required for the implementation of this resolution and to secure peace and security in the area.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Law, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

7270. India and Pakistan’s Fissile Material and Nuclear Weapons Inventory, end of 1998

Author:
David Albright
Publication Date:
10-1999
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
Estimating the size of India and Pakistan’s inventory of separated weapon-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) has become more difficult following their nuclear tests in May, 1998. Both countries treat these numbers as highly classified, partly because such estimates provide a direct indication of the number of nuclear weapons they possess. In the case of Pakistan, what can be surmised is that it has resumed full-scale production of HEU, following a declared moratorium on such production since 1991. Abdul Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s uranium enrichment program, announced soon after the Pakistani tests that his country had never stopped making HEU. Although his comment has been greeted skeptically, it indicates that Pakistan may have resumed making weapon-grade uranium well before its tests in May, 1998.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, Weapons, Uranium, and Plutonium
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and India