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US intelligence reform |
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The 9/11 Commission Report contains a valuable assessment of what went wrong before the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Some of its recommendations as to how to remedy deficiencies in the US security system are problematic, however. One, the creation of a new national intelligence director, does little to answer the shortfalls that the Commission so ably identified. This recommendation, especially if extended by an overzealous Congress, risks diverting attention and resources from better streamlined and targeted measures that would produce more substantive improvements in the ability of the United States to wage an effective global campaign against terrorism.
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South Korea’s nuclear experiments |
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In August and September 2004, South Korean officials revealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency prior experiments with enriched uranium and plutonium, the alternative fissile material options for developing nuclear weapons. The disclosure of these activities provoked sharp international criticism and fresh concerns about the integrity of Seoul’s non-proliferation commitments. It has also prompted renewed debate about the effectiveness of international safeguards for discovering covert nuclear weapons development, and further complicated efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear programme.
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Syria and Lebanon |
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Syria’s discomfort, which blends a sense of encirclement and of isolation, has not left Lebanon unaffected. Damascus is now clinging more jealously to a core possession in an otherwise depleted inventory of assets. Syria may instinctively recognise that its control of Lebanon is likely to prove more enduring if it takes on an outwardly friendlier and more distanced form. But its patience with the proprieties of the Lebanese political process has in practice been reduced by a more urgent sense of strategic squeeze.
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Japan’s new defence posture |
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The inevitable corollary of the Japan Self Defense Force’s newly expanded regional and global role is that it is for the first time acquiring significant power-projection capabilities. These new capabilities serve as a further challenge to post-war constitutional restrictions, and will open up a range of options for the use of Japan’s military power independently, within multilateral frameworks, and especially within the context of the US–Japan bilateral alliance.
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New tremors in the Balkans |
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Given their preoccupation with numerous other security flashpoints around the world, the last thing both European and American policymakers need now is another bout of instability in the Balkans. But all the signs point to a string of new and time-consuming political crises in Kosovo, Serbia & Montenegro and Macedonia. While there is no threat of armed conflict for the time being, these various crises will have to be tackled quickly and resolutely, especially in the cases of Kosovo and Macedonia, if they are not to degenerate into violence.
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