Foreign Policy in Focus articles from April 2000

Foreign Policy in Focus archives from April 2000

Ozone Depletion & Global Warming.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... People in the United States now spend over $3 billion annually to correct eye cataracts that can result from exposure to ultraviolet B (UV-B) radiation. The insurance industry is spending tens of billions of dollars to help people whose lives...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... U.S. treatment of the Montreal and Kyoto protocols as mutually exclusive environmental treaties not only fails to internalize the new scientific evidence demonstrating the correlation between ozone depletion and global warming but also leads to...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Protection of the ozone layer was one of the hottest environmental issues during the 1992 presidential race. Considering the new scientific evidence showing the negative synergies between global climate change and ozone depletion, these twin...

U.S. Security Challenges in South Asia.(Brief Article)
April 2, 2000... Key Points * India seeks to be a global player and has charted a largely autonomous course since it gained independence. * In the 1980s, Pakistan cultivated and received some U.S. attention as a strategic balance to India and as a...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
April 2, 2000... Key Problems * Nuclear Weapons: The U.S. has limited its post-test punishment of India and Pakistan, seeking instead to manage the threat to U.S. interests posed by these nuclear powers. * Terrorism: Press reports suggest that...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.(Brief Article)
April 2, 2000... Key Recommendations * Nuclear Weapons: The U.S. must lead by example and take concrete steps regarding nuclear arms control if India and Pakistan are to sign the CTBT. * Terrorism: Washington should continue to incorporate South...

Reassessing Tibet Policy.(Brief Article)
April 3, 2000... The flight of the 17th Karmapa Lama from Tibet to India on the eve of the millenium catapulted Tibet back into world headlines. This has created an opportunity for both China and the U.S. to reassess their policies toward Tibet. Tibet's...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.(Brief Article)
April 3, 2000... In 1943, Washington declared that "... the Government of the United States has borne in mind the fact that the Chinese Government has long claimed suzerainty over Tibet... This Government has at no time raised a question regarding... these...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.(Brief Article)
April 3, 2000... The departure of the Karmapa Lama should spur Washington to reevaluate the failures of its ambiguous policy approach. It is time--after a long history of CIA betrayal, congressional grandstanding, and White House pandering to China bashers--for...

War in the Congo.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2000... The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire), one of the largest countries in Africa and potentially one of the richest, has been torn into fragments. By early 2000, some ten different political/military factions were vying for...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2000... The U.S. bears significant responsibility for the conflict in the Congo and therefore has an obligation to participate in its resolution. But other outsiders--both African and non-African--have also contributed to this tragic morass. There is...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.(Brief Article)
April 5, 2000... The Clinton administrations renewed commitment to implementing the 1999 Lusaka Agreement, sending UN peacekeeping troops, and establishing a cease-fire in the DRC is welcome. The Lusaka Agreement and the Security Council resolution to send a UN...

U.S.-China-Taiwan Military Relations.(Brief Article)
April 10, 2000... Despite frequent alarms about the supposed China threat, China is not an emerging superpower. Although it has experienced rapid economic growth, militarily China has been in relative decline since the 1970s. China's high economic growth rate is...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.(Brief Article)
April 10, 2000... Given that Chinese external relations have generally improved, its arms exports have declined, and its military forces have deteriorated during the 1990s, there should be less U.S. fear and criticism of China; nevertheless, there is more of...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.(Brief Article)
April 10, 2000... U.S. public media and some politicians have often tended to exaggerate the threat from China. The U.S. should relate to China with confidence, not with fear. In the two decades since relations were normalized, China has gradually liberalized...

IMF: Case of a Dead Theory Walking.
April 17, 2000... The Asian financial crisis has eased, but its reverberations have enmeshed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in a major legitimacy crisis over its recently assumed mission and its ability to implement it. That new mission--promoting free...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
April 17, 2000... The Bretton Woods Articles of Agreement were shaped by the Keynesian view--widely shared at the time--that unconstrained financial markets are prone to excessive volatility and speculative mispricing of assets, with adverse repercussions on...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
April 17, 2000... Washington has been crusading simultaneously for worldwide free trade and free capital mobility. But the architects of Bretton Woods were right. These two goals conflict in both theory and practice. If economies are unable to directly restrain...

The IMF & Good Governance.
April 19, 2000... Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were created in 1944. Originally the World Bank was charged with spearheading postwar reconstruction, and the IMF was created as the "guardian" of the global economy, promoting...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
April 19, 2000... In August 1997, the IMF released guidelines regarding its role in governance issues. According to then-Managing Director Michel Camdessus, "a much broader range of institutional reforms is needed if countries are to establish and maintain...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
April 19, 2000... Given that the increasing dominance of private financial flows relative to official flows has shifted power and influence toward private sector capital, the role of the IMF has come into question in the last several years. This identity dilemma...

Structural Adjustment Programs & Poverty Reduction Strategy.
April 24, 2000... Since the late 1970s the U.S. has been a principal force in imposing structural adjustment programs (SAPs) on the governments of the global South. Formulated as loan conditions by Northern governments and the international financial...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
April 24, 2000... Few would deny that problems such as budget deficits, high inflation, and inefficient government enterprises require policy reforms. Nor can lenders be expected to extend loans with no assurance of how money will be spent. However, SAPs are...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
April 24, 2000... At the 1999 World Bank/IMF annual meetings, the institutions launched with great fanfare the new poverty reduction initiative. Under this initiative, each country receiving IFI loans prepares a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), which...

WTO Trade & Labor Standards.
April 26, 2000... Throughout the 1990s, both International Labor Organization (ILO) decisionmaking bodies and World Trade Organization (WTO) agenda-setting meetings extensively debated whether and how trade policy should address issues of labor standards. In the...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
April 26, 2000... Developed country support for the U.S. position on a working party in the WTO has varied. Belgium, France, and Norway have consistently proposed similar WTO agendas. Germany under the Christian Democrats has been unhelpful, and the United...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
April 26, 2000... The U.S. proposal to the ministerial conference in Seattle added some refinement to its predecessors. Earlier proposals had focused on the fact that linkages exist and that a working party should address those labor rights now referred to as...