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641. Nigeria: Elections and Continuing Challenges

Author:
Robert I. Rotberg
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Nigeria's vital importance for Africa's political development, for U.S. and European interests, and for world order cannot be exaggerated. Nigeria's sheer aggregate numbers—possibly as many as 150 million of the full continent's 800 million—and its proportionate weight in sub-Saharan Africa' s troubled affairs, make the country's continuing evolution from military dictatorship to stable, sustained democracy critical.
Topic:
Democratization and Economics
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Nigeria

642. Nuclear Energy: Balancing Benefits and Risks

Author:
Charles D. Ferguson
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
According to a prevailing belief, humanity confronts two stark risks: catastrophes caused by climate change and annihilation by nuclear war. The conventional wisdom also believes that the former danger appears far more certain than the latter. This assessment has recently led an increasing number of policymakers, pundits, businesspeople, and environmentalists to advocate a major expansion of nuclear energy, which emits very few greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. While acknowledging the connection between nuclear fuel making and nuclear bomb building, nuclear power proponents suggest that nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks are readily manageable. Consequently, some of these advocates favor the use of subsidies to stimulate substantial growth of nuclear power.
Topic:
Security, Energy Policy, Nuclear Weapons, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

643. U.S.-China Relations

Author:
Dennis C. Blair, Carla A. Hills, and Frank Sampson Jannuzi
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
President Richard M. Nixon reached out to the People's Republic of China thirty-five years ago to advance U.S. strategic interests by balancing the Soviet Union and reinforcing the split between two former communist allies. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, briefed the Chinese on Soviet forces arrayed against China and also discussed the Vietnam War and Taiwan. Nixon and Kissinger sought to change the global U.S. stance from confrontation to détente and to extricate the United States from the Vietnam War. Their mission shifted the globe's geopolitical landscape.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, and Vietnam

644. The United States and the WTO Dispute Settlement System

Author:
Robert Z. Lawrence
Publication Date:
03-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The United States likes to think of itself as a nation that abides by its treaties and commitments. Successive U.S. administrations have taken the obligations implied by international agreements seriously: They have opted out of parts of many agreements for fear that compliance would be contrary to U.S. interests, and have refused outright to sign some treaties on the grounds of potential legal exposure. But U.S. behavior toward the World Trade Organization is different; in this case, the United States has been quite willing to accept binding multilateral rules. Yet, the United States has also been repeatedly judged to be in violation of its WTO commitments by the organization's dispute settlement panels, and although some violations could be ascribed to uncertainties about the meaning of the rules, the United States is also guilty of disregarding the rules deliberately. Opinion in Congress sometimes encourages this behavior; legislators are less likely to question the legitimacy of U.S. conduct than to question the WTO's authority to pass judgment over the United States. Moreover, these tensions are likely to escalate if the Doha Round of global trade negotiations breaks down. If the diplomatic route to market access is blocked, trading partners will seek access to U.S. consumers by bringing more cases before the WTO's tribunals. A surge in such cases could increase resentment of the WTO in the United States, weakening America's commitment to its traditional postwar role as the bulwark of the international trading system. This would be unfortunate, because even without changes in the behavior of its trading partners, the rules of the WTO improve the performance of the U.S. economy.
Topic:
International Relations, International Trade and Finance, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States and America

645. Somalia's Future

Author:
Jennifer Cooke and David Henek
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
On January 17, 2007, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in collaboration with the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center, hosted a major conference in Washington, D.C., entitled "Somalia's Future: Options for Diplomacy, Assistance, and Peace Operations." The conference brought together expert observers from Mogadishu, senior U.S. policymakers, representatives from humanitarian assistance organizations, and regional analysts to convey to a U.S. audience the current situation in Somalia and to lay out the challenges facing the United States and the broader international community.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Somalia

646. Bolivia on the Brink

Author:
Eduardo A. Gamarra
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Since gaining independence from Spain in 1825, Bolivia has endured nearly two hundred coups and countercoups. Despite the establishment of comparatively democratic, civilian rule in Bolivia in 1982 through a system of “pacted democracy,” Bolivian leaders still face many of the same difficult problems as they did twenty years ago: deep-seated poverty, social exclusion of the indigenous and mestizo (of mixed racial ancestry) majority, and illegal drug production.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
United States, South America, Spain, and Bolivia

647. Darfur and Beyond: What is Needed to Prevent Mass Atrocities

Author:
Lee Feinstein
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The killing and destruction of national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups is a historical reality. So, too, is the dependable failure of the rest of the world to do much about it. Slow-motion ethnic cleansing in western Sudan is the most recent case of a state supporting mass atrocity and the rest of the world avoiding efforts to end the killing. Preventing and stopping such mass atrocities faces four reinforcing problems.
Topic:
Genocide, Human Rights, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

648. U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course

Author:
Dennis C. Blair
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
President Richard M. Nixon reached out to the People's Republic of China thirty-five years ago to advance U.S. strategic interests by balancing the Soviet Union and reinforcing the split between two former communist allies. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, briefed the Chinese on Soviet forces arrayed against China and also discussed the Vietnam War and Taiwan. Nixon and Kissinger sought to change the global U.S. stance from confrontation to détente and to extricate the United States from the Vietnam War. Their mission shifted the globe's geopolitical landscape.
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Taiwan

649. After the Surge: The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq

Author:
Steven Simon
Publication Date:
09-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
When this Council Special Report (CSR) was first issued in February 2007, the debate over the surge was raging. President George W. Bush had only announced his intention to deploy additional troops. Democrats and Republicans rushed to the barricades either to deplore or to defend it. This report, however, saw the surge as inevitable—since its opponents were powerless to stop it—and, more importantly, as beside the point.
Topic:
Defense Policy and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

650. Living with Hugo: U.S. Policy Toward Hugo Chávez's Venezuela

Author:
Richard Lapper
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The popularity of the new political and economic model being developed in Venezuela has been a consistent source of aggravation for the U.S. government. Since first winning the presidency in December 1998, Hugo Chávez has been able through repeated electoral victories and radical constitutional reform to dominate Venezuela's government and public institutions. Undaunted by stiff U.S. opposition, President Chávez has launched what he calls a Bolivarian revolution, named after Simón Bolívar, a nineteenth-century leader of Latin America's independence wars. Chávez has reasserted the role of the state in the Venezuelan economy and developed extensive social programs to advance an anti- U.S., anti-capitalist crusade. New or newly reinvigorated alliances with established U.S. adversaries have helped internationalize Chávez's aims. Most alarming to those concerned with the health of Venezuelan democracy, Chávez and his allies have concentrated political power in the hands of the executive, curtailed the independence of the judiciary, shown limited tolerance for domestic critics, and openly intervened in the electoral politics of neighboring states.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, South America, and Latin America