|
- Nuclear Arms in the Developing World,
Andrew Grotto
- The Economic Piece of the Puzzle, Robert
Drumheller
- Talking Turkey, Spencer Boyer and Brian
Katulis
- Regional Strategy for Drug Wars in the
Americas, Stephanie Miller
- Making TSA Work
Better, P.J. Crowley and Lindsey Ross
- Reassessing Foreign Assistance to
Pakistan, Lawrence Korb
- Turkey's Local Elections, Stephen Cook
- Heading off Nuclear Arms Race, P.J.
Crowley
|
|
|
Andrew Grotto, "Nuclear Arms in the Developing World,"
The Guardian
Comment is Free, April 6, 2009
President Barack Obama's speech in
Prague on Sunday is a potential game changer for non-proliferation
diplomacy. By endorsing the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons,
Obama can begin to move international debate about nuclear
proliferation beyond the ideologically charged squabbles of the past to
where it needs to be: changing the perception among many developing
countries, perhaps even most, that nuclear proliferation does not
affect them.
Click here to read the full article.
Robert Drumheller,
"The Economic Piece of the Puzzle," Middle
East Bulletin interview, April 7, 2009
We’ve been engaged in
supporting the development of the economic sector in the West Bank probably since 2005. So, it’s
been about four years or so and during that time period we’ve
worked on a variety of different projects, one of which is currently
operational. That project is the loan guarantee facility, which is a
program that is implemented in a partnership among OPIC, the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) and the Middle
East Investment Initiative, a U.S. non-profit
organization. The program enables OPIC and the PIF to provide partial
guarantees to banks that are operating in the West
Bank to make small business loans to their customer base.
... The primary focus is to support small businesses and to generate
job growth in an area which obviously has a difficult time creating
jobs and is limited by serious mobility restrictions, checkpoints, etc.
Click here to read the full interview.
Spencer Boyer and Brian Katulis, "Talking Turkey,"
Center for American Progress, April 3, 2009
President Barack Obama’s trip to
Europe this week has been a crucial
step in resetting U.S. foreign policy and reviving America’s
image and
power around the world. But the last leg of his trip to Turkey offers
an important chance for the new U.S. administration to restore the
neglected U.S.-Turkish alliance, the title of a report we released in
December.
Click here to
read the full article.
Stephanie Miller, "A Regional Strategy for
Drug Wars in the Americas," Center for American Progress, April 3, 2009
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric
Holder are in Mexico today on the heels of a March 24, 2009,
announcement from the Obama administration of a $700 million border
security strategy. The new initiative will focus U.S. law enforcement
efforts on working with their Mexican counterparts at the border to
reduce illegal flows of weapons and money pouring into Mexico and drugs
coming into the United States. The $700 million has been appropriated
through the Merida Initiative, a $1.6 billion initiative signed by
President George W. Bush in 2008 and expected to last for three years.
Click here to
read the full article.
P.J. Crowley and Lindsey Ross, "How to Make the TSA
(and Airports) Work Better," Center for American Progress, April 2, 2009
While the Department of Homeland
Security may preach risk management,
TSA, its largest operating agency, does not practice it. As a result,
improved security comes with too much wasted effort, at a social and
economic cost that is too high and ultimately unsustainable.
Click here to
read the full article.
Lawrence Korb, "Reassessing Foreign Assistance to
Pakistan," Center for American Progress, April 2, 2009
Without question,
Pakistan is at best a difficult ally that poses some of the most
complex and dangerous challenges to the security of the United States
and the world. Not only is it a nuclear-armed state, but Al Qaeda, the
Afghan Taliban and other militant groups have established safe havens
in its territory from which to conduct terrorist operations in
Afghanistan, and around the world. Pakistan itself faces growing
instability as extremist elements have gained control in the border
regions of the country and are extending their influence into Pakistan
proper, threatening the integrity of a country that already suffers
from widespread poverty, underdevelopment, and a fractious political
establishment.
Click here to
read the full article.
Stephen Cook, "Turkey’s Local Elections:
Erdoğan’s Miscalculation," Middle East Bulletin, April 2, 2009
The results of Turkey’s local
elections were a shock to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his
Justice and Development Party (AKP). Although the party secured almost
39 percent of the vote—16 points better than its closest
competitor—and 42 mayoralties, those numbers represent an eight
percent decline in popular support and a loss of 15 mayoralties. For a
politician of great skill such as Erdoğan, this miscalculation is
compounded by the fact that he called the elections a referendum on his
leadership and his party. ... If the sporadic reports of ballot
irregularities prove to be false or minor, the election results are a
healthy development for Turkey’s democratic
transformation, and one that President Obama should acknowledge in his
speech to the Turkish Grand National Assembly next Monday. ... the
president’s message would be clear. Washington
takes the AKP-initiated political reforms of 2003-2004, which gained Turkey
an invitation to begin EU membership negotiations, seriously.
Backsliding on the party’s commitment to political change is
neither in the interest of Turkey nor that of its
strategic partners
Click here to
read the full article.
Reuters - Senior Fellow P.J. Crowley
says that the administration must place a priority on forestalling
regional arms races in response to Iranian and North Korean nuclear
programs: "If you're seeing an expansion in the reliance on
nuclear weapons, then
it makes it that much more difficult to prevent them from getting into
the wrong hands."
|
|
|
Preventing Waste and
Fraud in Afghanistan and Pakistan Spending
April 13, 2009
12:00 AM - 1:30 PM
The Center
for American Progress and Middle East Progress
at the Center will host a discussion with Stuart Bowen, the Special
Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, to discuss his five years of
experience in providing oversight on billions of dollars of U.S.
taxpayer money devoted to the reconstruction of Iraq. Bowen and
his team produced a series of reports and recently published a
book, Hard
Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience, with important
recommendations on how to avoid waste, fraud, and abuse.
The lessons from Iraq reconstruction efforts are
particularly
relevant today, with the Obama administration unveiling a new strategy
for Afghanistan and Pakistan last month that includes large increases
in development assistance to both countries, as well as a tripling of
nonmilitary aid to Pakistan over the next five years.
Featured Speaker:
Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General
for Iraq Reconstruction
Moderated by:
Brian Katulis,
Senior Fellow, Center for
American Progress
For more information and to RSVP, click here.
Sign
up:
Policy
e-newsletters
The
Progress Report
To
unsubscribe, click here
Support
the Center for American Progress
Comments, questions:
Email
Us
National
Security Policy Weekly
is a product of the Center for American Progress |
|
|
