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2121. Japan Moves toward Sustainable Recovery

Author:
John H. Makin
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Japan's stock market, one of the world's strongest this year, is up about 20 percent since spring. It is doing remarkably well for a country whose nominal GDP is still below its 1997 level. By contrast, the U.S. stock market has been drifting lower all year. The S 500 Index is down about 4 percent in the last five months, even more when the highflying energy sector is excluded. This is the case despite U.S. nominal GDP having grown by a cumulative 46 percent since 1997. Clearly, stock markets are looking ahead and seeing a brighter future for Japan than for the United States.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Israel, and East Asia

2122. Energy Conservation: An Economic Perspective

Author:
Robert W. Hahn
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
With oil and gas prices at record levels, Persian Gulf producers threatened by terrorists, and exploding demand from China likely to strain supplies for years to come, surely it is time for Washington to get serious about energy conservation. Well, yes . . . and no. While most economists (including me) are deeply skeptical about the value of government mandates for energy efficiency, in principle there is a case to be made for using taxes to “internalize” the costs of consumption that are not otherwise reflected in prices. But those costs are lower than you might expect—lower, perhaps, than the taxes currently charged at the pump. Moreover, while oil-security worries are now driving the calls for conservation, a careful look suggests that the neglected costs are actually related to traffic congestion and the threat of global warming. Taxing oil consumption (as opposed to taxing road use or carbon emissions) would hardly get to the roots of these problems.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, Energy Policy, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
China and Washington

2123. The Summit of the Americas: Rescuing the Reform Agenda

Author:
Roger F. Noriega
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The fourth regional Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, Argentina, on November 4–5, will be a test of courage for the region's leaders. Pressured by genuine popular dissatisfaction, they will either commit unequivocally to finish the hard work of creating economic opportunity for the region's 128 million poor, or they will let warmed-over populism undermine the consensus behind free-market reforms and democracy itself. The stakes are high, and the leaders must use the summit process to advance the reform agenda for their peoples' sake. At the summit, President George W. Bush will, no doubt, press his colleagues to reemphasize their commitments to defend democracy and the rule of law, deepen economic reforms, and expand trade as a recipe for sustained, equitable growth. But there is a significant number of Latin leaders who may try to scuttle this work plan and serve up sympathetic rhetoric to cynically court the poor.
Topic:
International Relations, Democratization, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
America, Argentina, and South America

2124. Fighting to Win

Author:
Frederick W. Kagan
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Is retreat from, withdrawal from, or defeat in Iraq inevitable? Almost all opponents of the Bush administration say it is. As Representative John Murtha (D-Pa.) put it in mid-November, when demanding the “immediate redeployment of U.S. troops” consistent with their safety, “The United States cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring the troops home.” This was echoed more recently by Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean: “The idea that we're going to win this war is an idea that, unfortunately, is just plain wrong.” Advocates of withdrawal point to continuing attacks on coalition and Iraqi targets and to the steady, somber flow of U.S. casualties, as well as the increasing fear that our army will break under the strain of prolonged occupation. Administration supporters of course share these concerns, and some seem (privately) to share the view that the war may be unwinnable. Even a few inside the administration may have their doubts. In any case, the administration clearly believes that it has to promise a significant reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq—“conditions permitting”—in 2006. Reports are circulating that preparations for troop reductions have already begun.
Topic:
International Relations and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Middle East

2125. North Korea Triumphs Again in Diplomacy

Author:
Nicholas Eberstadt
Publication Date:
10-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds the North Korean state to be an unremittingly hostile “negotiating partner,” history actually demonstrates that Pyongyang can be a highly obliging interlocutor under certain very specific conditions. All that is necessary to “get to yes” with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is to concede every important point demanded by the North Korean side while sacrificing vital interests of one's own. The mid-September “breakthrough” at the six-party talks in Beijing would appear to conform precisely to this long-established pattern. The vaunted outcome—a long-desired “consensus statement” inked by North Korea and the other five governments engaged in protracted discussions over North Korean denuclearization—is being celebrated by diplomatic sophisticates in Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo, and Washington.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Washington, Beijing, Asia, North Korea, Tokyo, Korea, and Seoul

2126. Beware the Arafat Model in Iraq

Author:
Michael Rubin
Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Iraqis gathered around television sets as midnight approached on August 22. They watched as constitutional-drafting committee members and political elites whispered among themselves. When the speaker of the national assembly, Hachim al-Hasani, declared, “We have received a draft of the constitution,” the assembly erupted in applause. “But,” he added, “there are some points that are still outstanding and need to be addressed in the next three days.” Late into the night, politicians and activists continued to meet in the Baghdad homes of the major powerbrokers, grappling with the roles of federalism and Islam in the new Iraq. While U.S. diplomats and Washington advisers continue to facilitate compromise among Iraq's disparate sectarian, ethnic, and political groups, the reality emerging outside Baghdad is directly challenging Iraq's aspirations to constitutionalism. The U.S. government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring outside experts to Baghdad for a period of a few days or a few weeks, but Iraqi powerbrokers dismiss their advice as naive or irrelevant. Massoud Barzani in the Kurdish north and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr in the Shiite south have rejected the experts' academic proposals, and have chosen instead a model perfected by Yasser Arafat, the late chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Topic:
International Relations and Politics
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Washington, Middle East, and Baghdad

2127. Bring Them Home

Author:
Nicholas Eberstadt
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In the nearly six decades since the United Nations approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, more than one constitutional democracy presiding over an ethnically homogeneous populace—governing a nationality, if you will—has been faced with the prospect of a humanitarian crisis afflicting compatriots living beyond its borders. And on more than one occasion, such states have been moved by those same crises to affect the rescue of their countrymen—by welcoming them into the homeland, embracing them as fellow citizens, and permitting them to enjoy the opportunities and benefits of life under secure, constitutional, and democratic rule. The Federal Republic of Germany faced one such crisis in the very earliest days of its existence. That particular humanitarian emergency entailed the plight of the unlucky people who came to be called Vertriebene: ethnic Germans—most of them women and children—who, by no fault of their own, had to flee before the harsh and vindictive specter of Soviet expansion.
Topic:
International Relations, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:
Asia, Soviet Union, and Germany

2128. Neither Fools nor Cowards

Author:
Eliot A. Cohen
Publication Date:
05-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
In an era of budget tightening and frequent foreign missions, both the military and many of our elite civilian universities have increasingly undervalued higher education as part of officer training, yet many soldiers credit their studies as indispensable training for the demands of contemporary warfare.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and Economics

2129. Yemeni President Saleh Comes to Washington

Author:
Simon Henderson and Khairi Abaza
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
The November 10 meeting at the White House between U.S. president George W. Bush and Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh will be the third time the two men have met since the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. Yemen is an oft-forgotten close U.S. ally, arguably as crucial to the success of the war on terror as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or Egypt. The south Arabian country, with its rugged, desert landscape, remains a sanctuary for al-Qaeda operatives. With seacoasts along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Yemen dominates the Bab el-Mandab shipping chokepoint, the route by which oil from the Persian Gulf reaches the Suez Canal and hence the European market. (A French supertanker was badly damaged in an al-Qaeda attack off the Yemeni coast in 2002.)
Topic:
International Relations and Government
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, Washington, Middle East, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt

2130. Supreme Leader Khamenei's Responsibility for Iran's Present Situation

Author:
Mohsen Sazegara
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Mohsen Sazegara, recently a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute and now at Yale University, posted on several Persian-language websites (including gooya.com) a long open letter to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hossein Khamenei. Below are translated extracts from that letter.
Topic:
International Relations, Human Rights, and Religion
Political Geography:
Iran, Washington, and Middle East