In The News

Preemption an Option for EU

Elise Kissling May 30, 2003
A proposed new EU military doctrine identifies weapons of mass destruction as the major threat to EU security.. The new doctrine, if adopted, could authorize preemptive strikes against potential enemies, much like the "Bush doctrine" formulated by Washington last year. Despite opposing the US-led war on Iraq – which Washington claimed was necessary due to the imminent threat of Saddam...

Poverty Doesn't Create Terrorists

Alan B. Krueger May 29, 2003
In his National Security Strategy issued in November 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush asserted that poverty was one of the factors leading to increased terrorist activities. This article in the New York Times, however, argues that civil liberty is the main factor and that wealth has little to do with terrorist activities. The author cites a study which found that many suicide bombers were from...

An Exodus Grows in Brooklyn

Michael Powell May 28, 2003
By all accounts, life as one knew it is over in New York City's Little Pakistan. Little Pakistan formed as an ethnic residential and business neighborhood of Pakistani immigrants in the early 1960s. In the decades that followed, the neighborhood transformed into a bustling center of Pakistani-ness, adding to the vitality of multicultural New York. As reported in this Washington Post...

Nuclear Confrontations with North Korea

William Perry May 28, 2003
Speaking in a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, William Perry, the former Secretary of Defense of the Clinton administration, said that the Korean Crisis of June 1994 was the only period during the Clinton presidency when the US came close to a major war. That was also the time the US took a diplomatic initiative to peacefully resolve the...

Malay-Muslims Have a Role in Remaking Singapore

Lee Hsien Loong May 27, 2003
In the contemporary moment, no country is immune from the possibility of religious and sectarian violence, and the threat of global terrorism. In this speech to a Malay-Muslim youth organization, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, emphasizes the importance of cultural and religious pluralism, and the critical role of Malay-Muslims in Singapore's continued growth and...

Remake Man

Tad Friend May 26, 2003
In a telling commentary that combines capitalism in Hollywood with the American Dream, a contributor to the New Yorker magazine, Tad Friend, takes the reader through the making of Roy Lee as the "remake king." Lee, a Korean-American, whose parents moved from South Korea to the United States in the late 1960s, has carved out a unique role for himself in Hollywood: It is one that...

The War on Terror Requires Subtler Weapons

Daniel Byman May 26, 2003
As the "war on terrorism" continues, the U.S. and its allies find it increasingly difficult to eradicate terrorist groups. With much of al-Qaeda's senior leadership still alive, and with new sites emerging as potential "training grounds" for terrorists in various corners of the world – Chechnya, Kashmir, the Chinese province of Xinjiang, Indonesia, etc. – it has become...