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Nuclear Energy Guide

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Jun. 08 (Special Report) - Concerns over climate change and energy security have spurred countries to reevaluate their energy policies. After decades of decline, nuclear power is increasingly presented as an option to meet growing electricity demands. Global construction of new reactors is on the rise, with some observers predicting a renaissance for nuclear power. Still, there exists an array of obstacles to expansion.

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Fighting India's Maoists Means More Than Guns

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Jayshree Bajoria - Apr. 26 (Interview) - The killing earlier this month (Hindu) of seventy-six government troops by Maoists in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh highlighted the threat from this growing insurgency and the debate over how best to counter it. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called the threat posed by Naxalites, as the Maoists are locally known, the "single biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country." Last year, Indian home minister P. Chidambaram noted Maoists held pockets of influence in twenty of India's twenty-eight states and ordered a major offensive against them.

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The Russian Economic Crisis

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Jeffrey Mankoff - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - Economic distress has weakened Russia’s principal instruments of international influence. Lower energy prices have reduced Moscow’s power in that realm, while the crisis has decreased resources for Russia’s military and for loans to its neighbors, diminishing Moscow’s influence in the former Soviet sphere [which] .... makes Russia less able to challenge the international order and U.S. leadership in particular. The economic crisis thus presents an opportunity to deepen American and European economic ties with Russia and integrate the country more firmly in the international system, something that could, over time, bring Russian and Western interests closer together

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Building a BRIC Foundation

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Apr. 20 () -

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Nuclear Energy Guide

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Apr. 12 (Special Report) - Interactive feature explores the complex opportunities and challenges that nuclear energy poses.

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U.S.-Israel: Time For An 'Honest' Talk

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:34:56 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Mar. 24 -

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Focus on West Bank, Not Negotiating

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Council on Foreign Relations - By Bernard Gwertzman - Mar. 09 (Interview) - ... the Obama administration is putting too much emphasis on "negotiations." He says, "The tragedy here is that this focus on the negotiating table has led the United States to continue, as we did in the Bush administration, to put much too much emphasis on negotiations and too little emphasis on the actual daily work of building a Palestinian state in the West Bank." Abrams says he would like an emphasis on bolstering the legal system and economy in the West Bank, now run by President Mahmoud Abbas.

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Altering Afghanistan's Balance of Power

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Council on Foreign Relations - By Bernard Gwertzman - Feb. 15 (Interview) - Marines along with foreign and Afghan forces began a major offensive in the city of Marja in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province on Saturday, with the goal of regaining control from the Taliban and establishing a government there. CFR national security expert Max Boot, who was in the province in October as the offensive was being planned, says success in Marja will mean being able to extend the area of control in “a kind of spreading ink stain, which is a classic aim of counterinsurgency warfare.” He also says Colombia’s success in controlling its drug trade suggests it’s possible to sharply reduce opium production in Helmand Province.

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The Good and Bad News about Afghan Opium

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Council on Foreign Relations - By George Gavrillis - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - Some rare good news is coming out of Afghanistan these days. Internationally led counternarcotics efforts have gained momentum, opium cultivation is decreasing, and more provinces have gone "poppy free," a term developed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) that indicates provinces where opium growing has ceased or reached negligible levels. But the bad news is that many of Afghanistan's poppy-free provinces remain critical enablers of Afghanistan's opium economy. Though poppy growing may be eliminated, criminal networks in a number of provinces now focus on refining, stockpiling, and transporting opium. A broad range of authoritative international sources indicates these networks are at times aided by Afghan government officials who are little bothered by the Western-led counternarcotics efforts that seek to eradicate opium crops and chase down Taliban smugglers.

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Tragedy and Opportunity for Haiti

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Council on Foreign Relations - By Kara C. McDonald - Jan. 15 (Opinion) - The January 12 earthquake that devastated Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, is the first test of the Obama administration's ability to mount a full-scale international disaster response, and it is no ordinary test. Haiti is the poorest nation in the hemisphere, with abysmal infrastructure, struggling to stabilize even before it was struck by four hurricanes eighteen months ago. Intractable political instability surges at regular intervals into wide-scale violence, and the UN force there, MINUSTAH, had just begun to see progress in stemming corruption and lawlessness.

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Crisis Guide: Climate Change

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Council on Foreign Relations - Dec. 06 (Special Report) - Fashioning an appropriate response to the Earth's changing climate may be the most difficult challenge facing world policymakers in the early twenty-first century.

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An Afghan Path Toward Stability

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Greg Bruno, Clare Lockhart - Sep. 30 (Interview) - U.S. involvement is essential in two areas: bolstering Afghan security forces and helping civilian leaders craft a new type of stability compact based on governance models. But she opposes the international "civilian surge" supported by some policymakers, saying an influx of global workers and projects "leached away" the capability of Afghan civilian institutions built up in past decades.

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U.S. War in Afghanistan

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Sep. 16 (Special Report) - Tracking a war

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Afghan Elections: A Perilous Time

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Bernard Gwertzman - Aug. 17 (Interview) - Ahmed Rashid, a leading expert on Afghanistan, says the August 20 presidential election is "critically important" to achieving political stability in that country. "Political stability needs legitimacy, and a legitimate government is central to that," he says. But he worries that none of candidates will garner the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff election in October.

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Holbrooke's Briefing on Trip to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Brussels, July 2009

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Not Cited - Jul. 29 (Special Report) - Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, gave this press conference on July 29, 2009 following his trip to the region.

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ISPU: Police and Law Enforcement Reform in Pakistan

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:34:06 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Jul. 29 -

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Profile: Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure)

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Jul. 28 (Special Report) - The Indian government has often accused the group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) of terrorist attacks, including the November 2008 deadly assault in Mumbai that killed nearly two hundred people and injured more than three hundred. LeT is among several banned Pakistani militant groups that experts say received backing from Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, to fight in Indian-administered Kashmir. Analysts say the group continues to operate freely inside Pakistan under a different name and has now become a global terrorist organization.

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Parsing Iran's 'Momentous' Internal Drama

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Bernard Gwertzman - Jun. 19 (Interview) - The weight of the world now rests on the shoulders of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. I expect that Khamenei’s people have privately sent signals to him that they’re ready for a bloodbath; they’re prepared to use overwhelming force to crush this; and is he willing to lead the people in the streets to slaughter?

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Realigning Pakistan's Security Forces

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Jayshree Bajoria - Jun. 18 (News Analysis) - Growing militancy inside Pakistan has spotlighted the inability of the country's security forces to fight domestic insurgency. Militants have been expanding their reach: Large swaths of territory in northwestern Pakistan are out of government control; extremist groups across the country are working together; and suicide bombings frequently rock major cities like Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. In May, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani described the fight against terrorism (AP) as a "war of the country's survival." The United States sees Pakistani cooperation to defeating its militants as crucial to winning the war in neighboring Afghanistan. The Obama administration, through its Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, is now focused on strengthening Pakistan's counterinsurgency capabilities, and it is pushing for increased assistance for equipment and training for Pakistani forces. But some analysts say Pakistani authorities, especially in the military, don't see the need to convert to a counterinsurgency force and continue to view India as the country's primary threat. Questions of continuing links between some militant groups and Pakistan's security forces--the army, the Frontier Corps, and the military intelligence agency known as the ISI--remain.

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U.S. Should React Cautiously to Iran’s ‘Stolen Election’

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Bernard Gwertzman - Jun. 15 (Interview) - Gary G. Sick, who worked on Iranian affairs for three U.S. administrations, says the reelection of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amounted to an internal political coup that stole victory from Mir-Hossein Moussavi.

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Obama in Mideast: A Focus on Arab Peace Plan and Reform

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Jun. 03 (Interview) - CFR Middle East expert Steven A. Cook says President Barack Obama's trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt this week will attempt to bring new energy to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and has an opportunity to deliver a message on democracy in the Muslim world.

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Crisis Guide: The Korean Peninsula

Tue, 26 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - May. 26 (Special Report) - The Korean crisis has drawn the region into ongoing multilateral discussions—Six-Party Talks—and tensions over how to handle the Kim Jong-Il regime. In 2003, the nations represented here began holding the Six-Party Talks with the goal of controlling North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. But abrupt policy shifts by the United States, disagreements among the six countries involved, and most of all North Korea's provocative conduct have made progress toward an agreement difficult to sustain.

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“We hate you guys … but there is nothing much we can do”

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Brad Setser - May. 17 (News Analysis) - Private Chinese savers presumably wouldn’t want to buy Treasuries at current rates. But China’s current exchange rate regime compels China to buy dollars when private Chinese investors don’t want them.*** The result: a strange world where China’s government ends up buying an asset that China’s people currently do not want …

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Pakistan's Humanitarian Crisis

Thu, 14 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - By Jayshree Bajoria - May. 14 (Interview) - Pakistan's aggressive military campaign against the Taliban in response to the country's growing militant threat has led hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes in the Swat, Buner, and Lower Dir districts of the North West Frontier Province. The humanitarian community is calling this the largest migration of civilians in the region since the 1947 partition of India that led to the formation of Pakistan. Michael Young, Pakistan representative of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian relief organization, says the situation is deteriorating, with projections of 1.8 million displaced, a number that could significantly rise if the fighting widens or intensifies. Young warns that the displaced populations could themselves become a source of unrest, noting the possible presence of militants within the displaced. "There is inevitably going to be some militant presence or families linked to militants," he says.

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U.S.-Pakistan Relations Timeline

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - May. 11 (Special Report) - U.S. concerns about Soviet expansionism and Pakistan’s desire for security assistance against a perceived threat from India prompt the two countries to sign a mutual defense assistance agreement. Military aid to Pakistan between 1953 and 1961 totals $508 million.

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