Foreign Policy in Focus articles from July 2000

Foreign Policy in Focus archives from July 2000

North Korea Reaches Out.
July 1, 2000... After more than fifty years of conflict, the Korean Peninsula is poised for a dramatic breakthrough. The successful June summit between the leaders of North and South Korea is only the latest in a series of diplomatic advances. Over the past...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
July 1, 2000... In many respects, the Clinton administration has broken with cold war traditions in its policy toward North Korea. The decision to create the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to help rebuild the energy capacity of a...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
July 1, 2000... Despite its initially cautious response to the summit, the United States can still move boldly to end the cold war in Asia if it holds to its earlier economic promises and begins to rethink its security position in East Asia. The Clinton...

U.S.-Caribbean Relations.
July 3, 2000... U.S.-Caribbean economic relations since 1950 divide into two periods: 1) the cold war era, when security concerns about communism shaped U.S. policy, and 2) the post-cold war period, when the importance of the Caribbean to U.S. strategic...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
July 3, 2000... The U.S. move to replace preferential trade treatment with tariff reciprocity as the foundation of its Caribbean policy faces the same problems that have bedeviled the CBI from its outset. Efforts to grant NAFTA parity to Caricom and other CBI...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
July 3, 2000... The ongoing U.S.-Caribbean dialogue that began with the 1997 summit has offered Washington an opportunity to address several obstacles to improving relations with the region. U.S. trade policy toward the Caribbean needs to be reconstructed....

The Climate Crisis and Carbon Trading.
July 5, 2000... As the earth's temperature rises faster than at any time in the last 10,000 years, the inaction by the Clinton Administration and the resistance by the U.S. Congress to deal with global climate change is isolating the U.S. diplomatically and...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
July 5, 2000... Domestically, properly designed emissions trading programs can be effective. The U.S. program to reduce acid rain-causing sulfur dioxide emissions has worked relatively well, because it is easy to monitor and enforce. About 80% of U.S. sulfur...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
July 5, 2000... First, industrial countries should switch national subsidies away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy technologies. (A small portion of those subsidies should be retained for low-income fuel assistance as well as for job retraining of...

The Mine Ban Treaty.
July 10, 2000... The signing of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on Their Destruction in Ottawa, Canada, in December 1997, represents a great arms control and human rights triumph. The...

Problems With Current U.S. Policy.
July 10, 2000... U.S. officials insist that there are two major impediments to the U.S. joining the Mine Ban Treaty. The first is Korea, where the Pentagon contends that it must maintain the option to disperse antipersonnel landmines if North Korean troops...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
July 10, 2000... The U.S. refusal to join the Mine Ban Treaty has not prevented most nations of the world from banning a grossly indiscriminate weapon of war. This treaty is already having an enormous impact on curbing the export and use of mines, encouraging...

Okinawa and the U.S. Military in Northeast Asia.
July 12, 2000... Nowhere in East Asia is the U.S. military presence as evident as it is in Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. Okinawa, a small island with a population of 1.2 million, has been occupied by U.S. forces since the end of World War II,...

Problems with Current U.S. Policy.
July 12, 2000... According to a 1998 statement by the Department of Defense (DOD), U.S. bases in Japan and Korea "remain the critical component of U.S. deterrent and rapid response strategy in Asia" that "enables the U.S. to respond more rapidly and flexibly in...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
July 12, 2000... The vast U.S. military infrastructure in Northeast Asia is a remnant of the cold war. But it also supports U.S. economic interests like multinational corporations and banks--the primary forces behind globalization. Those interests were neatly...

G8/G7 and Global Governance.
July 17, 2000... At the center of the current debate of global governance is the G8/G7, a self-constituted forum of the major free-market democracies, whose deliberations and declarations have come to shape key decisions in the management of global political...

Problems with Current U.S. Policy.
July 17, 2000... In the past quarter of a century, other groupings of nations have come and gone, but the G8/G7 has endured. From its origins as an informal meeting of the heads of state of the wealthiest nations, the G8/G7 leaders' summit has become an...

Toward a New Foreign Policy.
July 17, 2000... Global governance lies in shambles, but there is little indication that the world's most powerful political leaders have the inclination or will to reform current institutions or create new ones. Within the multilateral institutions, blame and...