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291. Child Soldiers: New Evidence, New Advocacy Approaches

Author:
Sara Dye
Publication Date:
08-2007
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In over 30 conflict zones today there are estimated to be upwards of 300,000 children used to support military activities as porters, sentries, sex slaves, spies, and combatants. On June 1, 2007, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) hosted an event on the use, prevention, and reintegration of child soldiers around the world. The event featured experts working in the field, each of whom approached the issue of child soldiers from a different perspective. These differing perspectives underscored the complexities inherent to the child soldier problem, as attempts to curb the use of child soldiers, to prevent their recruitment, and to successfully reintegrate ex-combatants into their communities continue to challenge practitioners and advocates.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, International Relations, and War
Political Geography:
United States

292. A new transatlantic relationship? European responses to US global hegemony

Author:
Trine Flockhart
Publication Date:
07-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The paper addresses the question of how Europe (in NATO and the EU) has responded to changes in US announced and operational strategic and military policy and what the principal factors are for explaining European responses to what is perceived as a new form of American hegemony. The discussion is centered around the question of whether the United States has altered it conception of hegemony from one based on consent to one based on 'a preponderance of force', and therefore to have abandoned the crucial process of consensus building through persuasion, which has formed the foundation for the post-war Euro-Atlantic community. If so, then the problem relates more to the fundamental question of maintaining the security community during significant international change and perceived changes in European and American interests than it does to the specific policy content of American foreign policy. European reactions to the perceived change in American foreign policy have been varied in style and rhetoric, but can be di vided into those that have been concerned with safeguarding the achievements of the post-war era by following the United States wherever it may choose to go, or those who see a need for constructing a different relationship with the United States based on a more independent European foreign policy stance.
Topic:
International Relations and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Europe

293. Some Assembly Required: Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement

Author:
Timothy Carney
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Regional mediators and international facilitators helped the two main opposing forces in Sudan's fifty-year civil war, the National Congress Party (NCP) of the North and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) of the South, to reach a detailed Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) after two-and-a-half years of negotiation, from 2002 to 2005. The United States served as the catalyst for the peace process and then became part of a group of facilitators including the United Kingdom, Norway, and Italy. At different points during negotiations, each of these countries exerted influence on the Sudanese parties. Kenya took the lead in mediating the negotiations under General Lazaro Sumbeiywo. Sudan Vice President Ali Osman Taha, representing the North, and Dr. John Garang, representing the South, spent fifteen months negotiating the final agreement in Naivasha, Kenya. Implementation of the CPA requires continuing good security with minimal fighting, agreement on the boundaries of North and South that affect the distribution of Sudan's oil wealth, completion of midterm elections, and a referendum in the South. Slow implementation of key provisions of the CPA is causing Sudanese to question the political will and even the good faith of the northern government. Failure to provide an immediate peace dividend, lack of competence in managing southern expectations, and corruption have led to public criticism of the southern authorities. Hope is waning that the CPA will pave the way to a modern, united Sudan with a government responsive to all its peoples. The SPLM/A leadership is focusing on developing the South rather than creating a national political movement. The crisis in Darfur has diverted the international community's attention. Implementing the CPA will require sustained international pressure and imagination to help resolve numerous political, economic, and social problems.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Sudan, Norway, and Italy

294. Burma's Long Road to Democracy

Author:
Priscilla Clapp
Publication Date:
11-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
In August and September 2007, nearly twenty years after the 1988 popular uprising in Burma, public anger at the government's economic policies once again spilled into the country's city streets in the form of mass protests. When tens of thousands of Buddhist monks joined the protests, the military regime reacted with brute force, beating, killing, and jailing thousands of people. Although the Saffron Revolution was put down, the regime still faces serious opposition and unrest. Burma's forty-five years of military rule have seen periodic popular uprisings and lingering ethnic insurgencies, which invariably provoke harsh military responses and thereby serve to perpetuate and strengthen military rule. The recent attack on the monks, however, was ill considered and left Burma's devoutly religious population deeply resentful toward the ruling generals. Despite the widespread resentment against the generals, a successful transition to democracy will have to include the military. Positive change is likely to start with the regime's current (though imperfect) plan for return to military-dominated parliamentary government, and achieving real democracy may take many years. When Than Shwe, the current top general, is replaced, prospects for working with more moderate military leaders may improve. In the end, however, only comprehensive political and economic reform will release the military's grip on the country. Creating the conditions for stable, effective democracy in Burma will require decades of political and economic restructuring and reform, including comprehensive macroeconomic reform, developing a democratic constitution and political culture, reestablishing rule of law, rebuilding government structures at national and state levels, and building adequate health and educational institutions. The international community must give its sustained attention to Burma, continuing to press the regime for dialogue with the forces of democracy, beginning with popular democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and insisting on an inclusive constitutional process. International players should also urge the regime immediately to establish a national commission of experts to begin studying and making recommendation economic restructuring to address the underlying concerns that brought about the Saffron Revolution. Though China is concerned about the Burmese regime's incompetence, it has only limited sway with the generals, who are fiercely anticommunist and nationalistic. Nonetheless, Beijing will cautiously support and contribute to an international effort to bring transition, realizing that Burma will be seen as a test of China's responsibility as a world power. The United States should restrain its tendency to reach simply for more unilateral sanctions whenever it focuses on Burma. Because a transition negotiated with opposition parties is still likely to produce an elected government with heavy military influence, the United States must prepare to engage with an imperfect Burmese democracy and participate fully in reconstruction and reform efforts, which will require easing some existing sanction.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Democratization
Political Geography:
United States, China, Beijing, Burma, and Southeast Asia

295. Chinese Views: Breaking the Stalemate on the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Scott Snyder and Joel Wit
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The second North Korean nuclear crisis, which climaxed with the test of a nuclear device on October 9, 2006, has influenced the views of Chinese specialists. By revealing the status of North Korean nuclear development, Pyongyang's nuclear test was a poke in the eye of Chinese leaders, who had tried privately and publicly to dissuade North Korean leaders from conducting a test. As a result, China has taken stronger measures to get Pyongyang's attention, including a temporary crackdown on North Korea's illicit financial activities. These changes spotlight an ongoing debate within the Chinese academic community over whether North Korea (DPRK) could become a strategic liability rather than a strategic asset. This debate centers on whether it is necessary to set aside China's loyalty to the current North Korean regime in order to maintain good U.S.-China relations and achieve China's objectives of developing its economy and consolidating its regional and global economic and political influence. Or is maintaining North Korea as a strategic buffer still critical to preserving China's influence on the Korean peninsula? An increasingly vocal minority of Chinese specialists is urging starkly tougher measures in response to North Korea's “brazen” act, including reining in the Kim Jong Il regime or promoting alternative leadership in Pyongyang. Although their sympathy and ideological identification with North Korea has waned, many Chinese policy analysts clearly prefer North Korea's peaceful reform to a U.S.- endorsed path of confrontation or regime change. China's policymakers have sought to forestall North Korean nuclear weapons development, but they continue to blame U.S. inflexibility for contributing to heightened regional tensions over North Korea's nuclear program. Chinese analysts fret that economic and political instability inside North Korea could negatively affect China itself. They have shown more concern about the North Korean regime's stability in recent months than at any time since the food crisis in the late 1990s. Chinese policymakers ask how to encourage North Korea's leaders to embark on economic reform without increasing political instability. Discussions with Chinese experts reveal considerable uncertainty about the future of North Korean reform. The possibilities of military confrontation on the Korean peninsula, involving the United States and either a violent regime change or destabilization through North Korea's failure to maintain political control, are equally threatening to China's fundamental objective of promoting regional stability. These prospects have increased following North Korea's nuclear test and the strong reaction from the international community, as shown by UN Security Council Resolution 1718. China's economic rise has given it new financial tools for promoting stability of weak states on its periphery. Expanded financial capacity to provide aid or new investment in North Korea might help it achieve political and economic stabilization. The Chinese might prefer to use the resumption of benefits temporarily withheld as a way of enhancing their leverage by reminding the North of its dependence on Beijing's largesse. Managing the ongoing six-party talks will pose an increasingly difficult diplomatic challenge for China. Chinese diplomats take credit for mediation and shuttle diplomacy, but their accomplishments thus far have been modest. Talks have been fairly useful in stabilizing the situation, but they have also revealed the limits of China's diplomatic influence on both the United States and North Korea. U.S. intransigence is as much an object of frustration to the Chinese as North Korean stubbornness. Chinese analysts clearly have given thought to potential consequences of regime instability. For example, the Chinese military's contingency plans for preventing the spillover of chaos into China and for seizing loose nukes and fissile material imply that Chinese forces would move into North Korean territory. Without effective coordination, simultaneous interventions in the event of unforeseen crisis inside North Korea could lead to direct military conflict among U.S., Chinese, and South Korean military forces. Rather than accept South Korean intervention backed by the United States as a prelude to reunification, Chinese analysts repeatedly emphasize that “the will of the North Korean people must be considered” in the event of instability. If intervention were necessary, China clearly would prefer insertion of an international peacekeeping force under UN auspices. Such a force would establish a representative government, which would then decide whether to negotiate reunification with South Korea.
Topic:
International Relations and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, China, Beijing, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Korea

296. Transatlantic Tensions and European Security

Author:
Mary Elise Sarotte
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of European Studies
Abstract:
Any nuanced assessment of current transatlantic tensions requires an awareness of their historical context. An understanding of the legacy of the Cold War in particular helps to answer the following questions: (1) What are the sources of current US-European tensions? (2) Has the transatlantic connection sustained mortal damage, or can it endure? (3) What changes of attitude and of focus might help the transatlantic relationship in the future? The argument is as follows: The US-European relationship is under assault not just because of recent US military actions but also because of a longer-term shift away from a successful US Cold War grand strategy that still had much to offer the post-Cold War world. However, cause for alarm is limited, because the history of cooperation, the lack of alternative partners, and the very real nature of external threats means that neither the US nor the Europeans have any realistic alternative to cooperation with each other.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

297. American hegemony: A dangerous aspiration?

Author:
James L. Richardson
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
The Bush administration's foreign policies have sparked off a round of new debates on America's power and its international role. At the core of these debates are ideas of empire and hegemony, but these terms are used in many senses and often interchangeably. The paper first distinguishes among these usages and spells out its own concepts. As understood here, a hegemonic power is one that plays a leading role in shaping and maintaining a certain international order, exercising its dominant power in such a way as to win broad acceptance and legitimacy. It is argued that the discussion of hegemony can best be advanced by distinguishing among the various domains of power: military, economic, ideological and political, to follow Michael Mann's breakdown. The US is closest to hegemony in the international economic domain, but in each domain its hegemony is at best partial and qualified. Nonetheless, it remains the preponderant power, with aspirations to hegemony and empire. The benefits of American preponderance are widely acclaimed in the West and infrequently questioned in the international relations discipline, but its dangers merit far greater attention than they normally receive. In particular, beyond the short-term context, the specifically American version of liberal ideology renders the US ill-suited to respond to some of the foreseeable challenges of the twenty-first century. Consequently there is a need for others to engage a great deal more actively than heretofore with the construction of a more viable international order.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Development
Political Geography:
United States and America

298. International Volunteering: Smart Power

Author:
Lex Rieffel and Sarah Zalud
Publication Date:
06-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The face of America that has been welcomed most enthusiastically in the rest of the world for decades has been the face of a volunteer: assisting with disaster relief, building houses for poor families, teaching English to university students, and so much more.
Topic:
International Relations, Education, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
United States

299. Pragmatic Reform of Global Governance: Creating an L20 Summit Forum

Author:
Johannes F. Linn and Colin I. Bradford Jr.
Publication Date:
04-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The global challenges confronting political leaders today—whether the stalemate of global trade negotiations, the threat of Avian flu, the struggle over Iran going nuclear, or the fight against global poverty—cannot be solved by yesterday's institutions. They demand new approaches to global governance that are more inclusive, more representative, and thus more effective. The G8 summit, in particular, is a forum of the eight industrialized countries that were the dominant powers of the mid-twentieth century. By excluding the emerging powers of the twenty-first century, it has become increasingly ineffective, unrepresentative and illegitimate. U.S. global interests are best served by increasing the inclusiveness and effectiveness of the global steering process rather than sticking with the obsolete, overly formalized and unrepresentative G8.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Politics, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
United States

300. Building Automatic Solvency into U.S. Social Security: Insights from Sweden and Germany

Author:
James C. Capretta
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Although Social Security reform appears to be off of the national agenda for now, real funding problems remain for America's popular retirement program that policymakers need to address. The payroll taxes that support Social Security's “pay–as-you-go” system will begin to fall short of outlays in 2017 and will be sufficient to finance only 74 percent of scheduled annual benefits by 2041, when the Social Security trust fund is projected to be exhausted.
Topic:
International Relations and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Germany, and Sweden