Ralph A. Cossa and Brad Glosserman: It is time for the United Nations to respond to North Korea Dean Baker: on the hidden costs of invading Iraq. War does not come cheap. THE GLOBAL BEAT'S INTERACTIVE REPORTS Why We Are Hated,Nuclear Bunker busters AND Post-Moscow Disarmament

New York University

David Isenberg's critique of Homeland Security and recommendations for improvements
[click on image to go to the executive summary]

THE SEARCH FOR A NUCLEAR WEAPON FOR LIMITED CONFLICTS
Mark Bromley and David Grahame report on the Pentagon's search for a nuclear "bunker buster"

THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL

Rose Gottmoeller:
an interactive assessment of nuclear disarmament after the Moscow Summit,

TWO TERRORISTS DETONATE MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS IN ISRAEL
Despite intense security precautions, Israeli police had no warning of the attack before it took place, Sunday night. Intelligence agencies now see a split within the Fatah movement over continuing to use suicide bombers as an effective strategy.
[ Details of the bombing].
Israel's Shin Bet is now receiving 30 to 40 bomb "alerts" per week. It has succeeded in stopping 90% of the potential attacks, but is still unable to guarantee absolute security.
Ha'aretz, January 3, 2002.
Putting the bombing strategy into perspective.
The total Israeli casualties from terrorist bombs in the roughly two years from September 29, 2000 to November 30, 2002, is 640. Bombings count for only 0.5% of incidents involving Palestinian attacks, but they are responsible for more than half the casualties. Palestinian casualties during the same period were 1,597, including 300 minors. The suicide bombers count on the fact that they are not only able to make most Israelis feel ordinary fear but an intense mixture of horror and revulsion as well.
Avishai Margalit, writing in the New York Review of Books, explores the recent history of terrorism and its impact.
New York Review of Books, January 7, 2003

WHEN THE ATTACK ON IRAQ BEGINS, SOME ISRAELIS FAVOR FORCING PALESTINIANS ACROSS THE BORDER INTO JORDAN
The code word for massive deportation is "transfer." When the U.S. launches its war against Iraq, a growing number of Israelis feel that security considerations will justify driving a large number of Palestinians across the border into Jordan. Ron Ha-Cohen details the current debate.
By Ron Ha-Cohen, Antiwar.com, December 30, 2003

Now that Washington is trying to tread softly in countering North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Pyongyang is pushing its advantage and cautions that any attempt to use economic pressure would lead to war. (with comprehensive links)
BBC January 7, 2002
Two experts on North Korea—Chuck Downs and Kenneth Quinones—discuss strategy options in the current crisis.(With links)
Jim Lehrer News Hour, December 30, 2002

PENTAGON IS KEEPING THE IRAQI OPPOSITION ON THE MARGINS OF INVASION PLANNING
By paying lip service to Iraqi opposition groups, Washington policy planners hope to defuse criticisms that the U.S. is simply making a grab for territory. On the other hand, recently leaked war plans call for U.S. troops to move quickly into Kirkuk and occupy the rich oil fields in the region. The Kurds consider Kirkuk to be their capital, but Turkey, which fears an independence movement from its own Kurds, can be counted on to keep the Iraqi Kurds from attempting to take over the city. Iraqi opposition leaders are divided among themselves about supporting the U.S. effort The Kurds are leery of the imperial ambitions of Washington’s neoconservative hawks, but they are also convinced that dislocating Saddam is next to impossible with out American help.
By Chris Toensing in Foreign Policy in Focus. January 2003.

WHATEVER OTHER MOTIVES EXIST, ADMINISTRATION ADVISERS CAN APPRECIATE THE VALUE OF AN IRAQI OIL BONANZA
Many of the Bush administration’s top advisers have a long history with oil, starting with Dick Cheney, who previously headed Halliburton, a major competitor for the contract to refurbish Saddam’s oil pipelines. Despite exploration elsewhere, the Middle East is the only region that is really capable of satisfying the U.S. appetite for oil which is projected to increase by 30% over the next 20 years. The World Watch Institute’s Michael Renner describes the players and what is at stake in Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2003.
Iraqi oil could change the future of world energy
Iraq's oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia and they are five times those of the U.S. If the U.S. can maintain control over the fields near Kirkuk it would be able to redefine the world market.
Fadhil Chalabi, director of London’s Centre for Global Energy Studies, outlined Iraq’s potential in a comprehensive study in October 2000.
Journal of the Middle East Policy Council, October 2000
But expect more global warming.
Taking over Iraq could spell the end of the U.S. willingness to let OPEC set artificially high energy prices. Cheap oil would provide a boost to the economy, but it would probably also spell the end of efforts at energy conservation, and it can be expected to accelerate global warming.
The RAND Corporation’s James T. Bartis suggests that the administration should think carefully about the implications.
James T. Bartis, RAND, January 6, 2003

THE ARAB VIEW: LIBERATION OR OLD-STYLE IMPERIALISM
Writing in Foreign Affairs, Fouad Ajami warns that nothing that Washington can say will convince the Arabs that the invasion of Iraq is anything other than an imperialist power grab that pierces deep into the heart of Arabia. Despite regional mistrust and paranoia, the U.S. can succeed, but to do so it will have to cast aside its traditional hesitancy over nation building, and it will have to settle in for a long-term commitment.
By Fouad Ajami in Foreign Affairs, January-February 2003.

AN INTERACTIVE MAP OF IRAQI NUCLEAR SITES
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace provides details on each of Iraq's nuclear facilities.

[Click on map to go to interactive site]

AND WHAT ABOUT AMERICAN CITIES?
Saddam’s moment of truth now looks inevitable and past history indicates that he is not the kind of man to accept defeat graciously. That makes America a prime target for terrorist attacks, yet despite a great deal of talk the Homeland security program is still not able to guarantee absolute public. The Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon analyzes U.S. vulnerability, and what might be done about it.
Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings, December 31, 2002.

CONCERN IN CHECHNYA OVER GROWING WAHHABI INFLUENCE
The murder of a prominent religious leader has Chechens in Grozny worried about growing influence of the extremist Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia. By some estimates up to 10% of Chechnya is now linked to Wahhabism, and members of the movement are providing guns and equipment to extremists ready to attack Russians.
By Umalt Dudayev, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Grozny, 19 December 2002.

EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG FOR LUKOIL
The Russian oil giant is not having an easy time of it. Banished from Iraq, troubles with key government officials and in Azerbaijan. What comes next?
The Moscow Times, January 6, 2002

GOOD-BYE REPUBLIC, HELLO EMPIRE!

John Quincy Adam’s remarked that if America were to "become dictatress of the world, she would no longer be ruler of her own spirit."Michael Ignatieff’s provocative essay which ran as the cover story in the New York Times magazine on Sunday suggests that America is indeed close to becoming a defacto empire. "Get used to it," says a subhead on the magazine’s cover. The Bush administration’s obsession with launching the U.S. into a war with Iraq may constitute the modern-day equivalent of Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon. The price of involving the U.S. in a war that practically no one else in the world really wants will not come cheap. Ignatieff, who heads the Carr Center at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, points out that "what empires lavish abroad, they cannot spend on good republican government at home: on hospitals, roads or schools" It is clear that after 9/11, the U.S. cannot afford to ignore what is happening in the rest of the world, but Ignatieff steps lightly over the extent to which George Bush’s advisers have made a conscious choice to enhance American power rather than invest in international cooperation that might give the rest of the world—including western Europe-- some voice in deciding its own future. Far from being conservative, the Bush administration has taken an extremely radical position, effectively reversing 50 years of American foreign policy. Where the goal used to be to try to get the world to work together, Washington is now seeking brute power with no visible limits to its use. To his credit, Ignatieff highlights the downside of some of the most egregious abuses. "What empires lavish abroad, they cannot spend on good republican government at home: on hospitals, roads or schools," he observes. And he supplies some chilling statistics. While the U.S. spent 1% on nonmilitary foreign aid during the administration of John F. Kennedy, U.S. nonmilitary foreign aid has dropped to just 0.2% of GDP under the presidency of George. W. Bush. The U.S. has been spending $1 billion a month on military operations in Afghanistan, but only $25 million on actually trying to put the country back together. "It is unsurprising that force projection overseas should awaken resentment among America's enemies," notes Ignatieff. "More troubling is the hostility it arouses among friends." Ignatieff notes that the attack on 9/11 signaled the beginning of a long, bloody struggle to determine who will rule the Islamic world and how it will be ruled. "America can help repress and contain the struggle," concludes Ignatieff,"but even though its own security depends on the outcome, it cannot ultimately control it."
[To read the essay, click here].

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