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A buffet lunch will be available to those who RSVP by 12:00pm, Wednesday, April 21 to Rakhi Patel. In the last three years, partly as the result of the efforts of a burgeoning conservative movement, the issue of human rights in North Korea has attained greater prominence in the statements and policy positions of the U.S. government. The administration connects this shift in emphasis in U.S. policy to its calls for greater moral clarity in foreign policy. At the same time, the administration has clearly enunciated its desire for regime change in North Korea, and the human rights issue has served as a method of cultivating public support for this policy, both domestically and internationally. Toward this end, the administration has revived a Cold War foreign policy approach from the 1970s and 1980s that connected human rights to economic and security issues--exemplified in the Jackson-Vanik amendment linking trade to emigration levels for Soviet Jews and the inclusion of human rights issues in the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The application of this model to North Korea demonstrates a failure to understand the differences between Eastern Europe and East Asia in general and the nature of civil society under Soviet communism and North Korean juche. It also fails to draw any useful lessons from the experience of the European Union and South Korea in dealing with Pyongyang on human rights. The unquestionably dire human rights situation in North Korea--and the character of its government and society--requires a set of policy approaches that need updating from the Cold War period and adaptation to the North Korean and East Asian context. John Feffer's most recent book is North Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories, 2003). He is also the editor of the Foreign Policy in Focus book Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Policy after September 11 (Seven Stories, 2003). His other books include Beyond Detente: Soviet Foreign Policy and U.S. Options (Hill & Wang, 1990) and Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions (South End, 1992). His other edited collections include Living in Hope: People Challenging Globalization (Zed Books, 2002) and (with Richard Caplan) Europe's New Nationalism: States and Minorities in Conflict (Oxford University Press, 1996). His articles have appeared in The American Prospect, The Progressive, Newsday, Asiaweek, Asia Times, TomPaine.com, Salon.com, and elsewhere. He is a former associate editor of World Policy Journal and has worked for the American Friends Service Committee, most recently as an international affairs representative in East Asia. He serves on the advisory committees of FPIF and the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea.

Philippines Conference Room, Encina Hall

Seminars
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America has done more than any other country to change the world. Yet, paradoxically, America is one of the countries least prepared to handle the world that it has changed. America has sprinkled magical stardust into the eyes of billions. It has made them believe that they too can succeed and thrive. Yet the world order remains frozen in time. The multilateral architecture is a fossilization of the 1945 power structure. The world has changed. But its structures have not. Global contradictions are emerging. America should begin to prepare itself for them. Ambassador Mahbubani will explore and discuss these and related ideas drawn from his latest book (forthcoming in 2005). Kishore Mahbubani modestly describes himself as ?a student of philosophy.? Others, less modest, have called him ?an Asian Toynbee, preoccupied with the rise and fall of civilizations? (The Economist) and a ?Max Weber of the new ?Confucian ethic?? (Washington Post). Without question he is one of Asia?s leading public intellectuals. His many publications include the provocatively titled Can Asians Think? (1998). His thirty-year career as a diplomat has included postings in Cambodia, Malaysia, and the United States. He was president of the UN Security Council in January 2001 and May 2002 and a fellow at Harvard University in 1991-92. He holds degrees in philosophy from Dalhousie University (1976) and the University of Singapore (1971). This is the tenth Southeast Asia Forum seminar of the 2003-2004 academic year.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, Encina Hall

Kishore Mahbubani Representative of Singapore to the United Nations
Seminars
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Joffe is a leading European commentator on international affairs. He is a frequent commentator on BBC, National Public Radio and various German radio stations, as well as on German, American, British, and Austrian television.

CISAC Conference Room

Josef Joffe Editor Speaker Die Zeit, Germany
Lectures
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Donald K. Emmerson
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There were worries that the rise of anti-United States sentiment shown by recent public opinion surveys might translate into greater support for Muslim parties whose rhetoric is laced with criticism of the US and its policies. But U.S. experts now feel that this scenario is unlikely. They believe that the election result will be determined more by domestic matters than by foreign affairs and relations with the West.

Below are excerpts from the Straits Times piece. The piece is not reprinted in its entirety due to copyright reasons. Please visit the link below below to read the whole article. "...Said Indonesia specialist Donald K. Emmerson at the Institute for International Studies at California's Stanford University: 'My sense is that the election will be primarily about crime, stability, prices, not about religious issues.' Many Indonesia watchers in the U.S. have been surprised that Islam has not appeared to be a dominant factor in the campaign. Said Dr Emmerson: 'It's quite remarkable that in the Malaysian election religion was very important with respect to the PAS factor, but in Indonesia that is just not the case. And that is a huge relief to the US as it seeks to win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims in the war against terrorism. ..."

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Henry S. Rowen
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APARC's Henry S. Rowen is featured in James Mann's new book for his role in formulating the military strategy that the United States should employ in a war against Iraq. The book details the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rowen war plan -- dubbed "Operation Scorpion" -- which proposed an invasion of Iraq from the west, through the country's empty desert regions toward the Euphrates River.

APARC's Henry S. Rowen is featured in James Mann's new book, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, Viking Penguin: New York, 2004, pp 186-97, for his role in formulating the military strategy that the United States should employ in a war against Iraq. The book details the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rowen war plan -- dubbed "Operation Scorpion" -- which proposed an invasion of Iraq from the west, through the country's empty desert regions toward the Euphrates River.

While campaigning for president in 2000, George W. Bush downplayed his lack of foreign policy experience by emphasizing that he would surround himself with a highly talented and experienced group of political veterans. This core group, consisting of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and Condoleezza Rice, has a long history together dating back 30 years in some cases. Dubbing themselves the Vulcans, they have largely determined the direction and focus of the Bush presidency. In this new book, Mann traces their careers and the development of their ideas in order to understand how and why American foreign policy got to where it is today.

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Henry S. Rowen
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The clearest evidence of the Iran link came in January 1990, when Pakistan's army chief of staff conveyed his threat to arm Iran to a top Pentagon official. Henry S. Rowen, at the time an assistant defense secretary, said Pakistani Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg issued the warning in a face-to-face meeting in Pakistan. "Beg said something like, 'If we don't get adequate support from the U.S., then we may be forced to share nuclear technology with Iran,'" said Rowen, now a professor at Stanford University. Rowen said former President Bush's administration did little to follow up on Beg's warning. "In hindsight, maybe before or after that they did make some transfers," Rowen said. Rowen said he told Beg that Pakistan would be "in deep trouble" if it gave nuclear weapons to Iran. Rowen said he was surprised by the threat because at the time Americans thought Pakistan's secular government dominated by Sunni Muslims wouldn't aid Iran's Shiite Muslim theocracy. "There was no particular reason to think it was a bluff, but on the other hand, we didn't know," Rowen said.

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