State Sponsorship Research Articles

Voice and silence: Why groups take credit for acts of terror

Terrorism is designed to draw attention to particular issues and causes. Yet, the incidence of credit-taking (announcing one’s responsibility for acts of terror) varies even though anonymity can undermine the clarity of the intended messages. This article offers an explanation of the variation in credit-taking that emphasizes how the competitive context in which groups operate shapes terrorists groups’ need to cultivate support for their activities. Increasing numbers of terrorist organizations make it difficult for the supporters of terrorism to reward the perpetrators of particular attacks with their backing. Since such support is critical to the proper functioning of terrorist organizations, groups use claims of responsibility to distinguish themselves from those that had no hand in the violence. Consequently, variation in the probability of credit-taking fluctuates as a function of the number of active terrorist groups in a given theater of operations. This argument is contrasted with theories that suggest credit-taking is influenced by: the ideological mix of terrorist organizations; the willingness of governments to respond to terrorism using military force; state sponsorship; the depth of communal grievances; and the use of suicide attacks. The results, based on an analysis of transnational terrorism events conducted in the Israeli theater of operations between 1968 and 2004, suggest that competitive context is a consistently strong predictor of credit-taking. By implication, the results point to the utility of counter-terrorism strategies that interfere with the transmission of information between terrorist organizations and their supporters.

African Union’s Intervention in Sudan

IntroductionAfrican Union (AU) since its creation has witnessed large scale violence and conflict in several member countries.1 Although violent conflicts in Africa are not new, they have drawn special attention due to the fact that they are more intense and extensive in scope, highly destructive, as civilian populations were targeted deliberately. It has produced large number of civilian victims, refugees and displaced persons. There have been gross human rights violations in these conflicts. Furthermore, owing to the fragility of African state boundaries, some intra-state conflicts have spilt over the borders and exerted pressure on neighbouring countries. For instance, the war in southern Sudan claimed more than two million lives. Violence in Africa has taken various forms ranging from genocide, as in Rwanda and Darfur beginning from 2003 till date, to interpersonal violence. Besides extremism in brutality, armed conflicts in Africa have also been characterised by warlordism, targeting of vulnerable groups, such as children, women and refugees, using children as soldiers, state sponsorship of violence, and war economies. In such situations a prompt and efficient regional organisation was required. AU as a regional organisation has shown proactiveness to solve violence and conflicts in Africa.Darfur Crisis emerged at the same time that AU was created. Moreover, the negotiations for peace to end two decades of civil war in the south was also reinvigorated. Thus, Sudan has provided an opportunity for AU to solve the crisis and establish itself as a major regional organisation. The African Union (AU) has been admirably engaged in the Darfur Crisis but has proved ineffectual, hindered by poor resources and a weak political will. Since 2004, the African Union's efforts have included the negotiation of a ceasefire, the deployment of a peacekeeping operation, the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), and the mediation of a peace agreement between the belligerents in the Darfur War.This article examines the overall role of the African Union as a negotiator for peace, as a peacekeeper and one that would end the conflicts in Darfur. It also discusses the role of AU as a facilitator of comprehensive peace agreement between the Sudanese Government and the Southern Sudanese Government. African Union since its inception has acted to bring peace and stability in Africa. Such actions have been strongly reinforced by 'African solution for African problems'. It views the Sudanese crisis from this perspective as well. But even after six years of active involvement in Sudan and particularly in Darfur AU has failed to bring sustainable peace, end to the atrocities and human rights violation against the civilians nor has it been able to disarm the 'janjaweed tribal militias'.2Background to Sudanese ProblemsThe Sudanese crisis is unique to the AU. It is the largest country in Africa in terms of area. And since independence it has been suffering from an acute crisis of national identity. In this war of national identity, millions of people have perished and more than 5 millions have been displaced. The Sudanese Government has faced a violent response from the regional rebel groups in the south, east and west. These rebels are at war with the government demanding a share in resources, self autonomy and equal rights as Sudanese.Presently, Sudan has the dubious record of the largest number of internally displaced people in the world. It is the result of civil war in southern Sudan and the Darfur conflict. A peace agreement was concluded to the former cause in 2005. At the same time Darfur conflicts erupted.The Darfur Conflict is one among the many conflicts arising out of the historical grievances of discrimination inflicted by the Government of Sudan. The present crisis emerged in early 2003 when non-Arab rebels from Darfur, frustrated with attacks on their land and convinced that their interests were not being represented in the ongoing peace talks between Khartoum and the southern rebels, launched a guerrilla war on government forces (ICG, 2004, I). …

The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China (review)

Reviewed by: The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China Xiuyu Wang The People's Peking Man: Popular Science and Human Identity in Twentieth-Century China. By Sigrid Schmalzer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. 368 pp. $85.00 (cloth); $26.00 (paper). Few states disseminated evolutionism more widely and intensively than twentieth-century China did, and, as a result, today party and state sponsorship still enshrines it as the ideological orthodoxy. While it has in the West been subject to ongoing criticism and debate in scientific and religious circles, in China the theory remains largely shielded from public critical scrutiny, scientific or historical. Benjamin Schwartz, in his In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (1964), shows that Darwinist concepts were introduced to the Chinese literati at the turn of the nineteenth century in a social evolutionist guise resulted from a theoretical leap from Darwin's original argument on the survival of the fittest individual biological species to a wider assertion about the survivability of entire societies, conceived as equivalent with collections of species. As popular science serving a political agenda, it was used by reformist literati to remove the obstacle of Confucian conservatism from their pursuit of wealth and power, which were understood to be the source of power of the industrializing West. For the Chinese nationalists in the first half of the twentieth century, as James R. Pusey has argued in his China and Charles Darwin (1983) and Lu Xun and Evolution (1998), the evolutionist theory justified revolutionary measures of central control in the name of national salvation. Sigrid Schmalzer's book extends the coverage across the Nationalist-Communist divide but focuses mostly on the communist period. The primary contributions of the book are Schmalzer's insights into the communist state's institutions, ideological dictate, and political [End Page 356] struggles that buttressed evolutionism's rapid rise to hegemony, although her popular science angle and concern with human identity issues broaden its interest. Although Yen Fu's translation had appeared by 1898 and the Peking Man skullcap was unearthed in 1929, rapid spread of evolutionism did not occur until 1952, half a century after its introduction. History textbooks of the Republican era (1912–1949) rarely mentioned the Peking Man, and evolutionism was only one account of human origin along with Chinese stories of legendary ancestors. In communist Yan'an since 1942, party-sponsored dissemination was attempted among cadres and intellectuals outside the party. Yet, as late as spring 1951, a Christian writer could still publish his observation that scientists did not regard the theory as proven because of the spottiness of the fossil record and difficulties in interpreting what existed (p. 78). Therefore, evolutionism came to dominance after the Communist Party consolidated control of state apparatus in propaganda and education after 1949, with which a nationwide ideological campaign could be launched. Schmalzer observes that much of the campaign's momentum and coordination derived from the institutional linkages formed by scientists and party "thought workers," whose conjoint service in multiple state ministries provided consistency and breadth to dissemination over time (p. 64). Although more thorough documentation on these institutions and personages would strengthen Schmalzer's perceptive observation here, she has shown persuasively that instilling an evolutionary view of human identity was a business of the highest priority for the communist revolution for reasons beyond just propaganda needs during the Korean War. A fundamental prerequisite for a materialist worldview was the destruction of "superstition" and "Christian idealism," which, as Schmalzer explains, accounts for the state's disproportionate attack on Christian creationism since 1949, even though the political influence of the Christian church in 1949 was minimal and its four million members constituted a small minority among the country's five hundred million (p. 75). Moreover, the communist theory of societal change depends on a positing of the "primitive" society, and, if this stage is portrayed as egalitarian but technologically rudimentary, ideological ammunition would be provided to class struggle and socialist reconstruction. Without assuming that disseminators had always systematically thought through these theoretical matters before launching campaigns, the author has made a generally valid case that human origin and identity issues...

Religion and the Chinese state: three crises and a solution

On the surface, religious policy in China may appear contradictory. On the one hand, the state is officially atheist. It has mounted a highly publicised campaign to suppress Falun Gong, and maintains restrictions on Islam, Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity that reveal a profound fear of independent religious organisation. On the other, China insists that it respects religious freedom. The Chinese government proudly supports the staging of certain religious festivals, finances reconstruction of historic temples, and sponsors Chinese Muslims to visit Mecca. In fact, both tendencies are part of a consistent pattern of religious policy that seeks to establish firm political control over religious organisations, while visibly integrating religion into nation-building discourses. This same policy impulse applies to the treatment of both illegal and legal religions. Suppression of groups such as Falun Gong recreates the political theatre of earlier political campaigns, while support for ethnic religions and Christianity also allows the state to interpret religious ideology within a nationalist framework. In this regard, the most overt and successful ideological policy has been the state's sponsorship of Confucianism, which, unlike the other religions mentioned, has no existing organisation to overcome, and can thus be completely moulded to fit political needs.

Terror‐free investment index screens

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the corporate governance implications of the US terror‐free investment screens, instituted both legislatively and voluntarily, on the operations of non‐US multinational corporations (MNCs) concerning international trade and foreign direct investment with nations designated as “State Sponsors of Terrorism.”Design/methodology/approachAfter a brief introduction to the issue of “terror‐free lists” and investment indexes and divestment screens, the paper summarizes the US Federal and State Laws pertaining to state sponsors of terrorism and their direct impact on international trade and investment transactions. The third section evaluates the success of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indexes and investment screens compared to standard market investment indexes. The fourth section discusses the potential effects of terror‐free stock indexes and divestment (“social”) screens on corporate governance of non‐US corporations. In the final section, the paper offers business policy recommendations concerning international trade and foreign direct investment decisions and the listing of equity stock on the US financial market exchanges, and offer scholarly research questions addressing this issue.FindingsNon‐US MNC managers should recognize, first, the importance of global corporate citizenship and reputation; second, the expansion of terror‐free investing criterion in ESG investment indexes and divestment screens; and third, the growth in the number of state government prohibitions on investing funds with foreign MNCs complicit with terror‐sponsoring states.Originality/valueExploratory in nature, this seminal paper evaluates an issue of emerging importance to non‐US MNC managers and directors concerned with potential political and economic repercussions of their international trade and foreign direct investment decisions.

The United States and Iran: policy challenges and opportunities

Iran / US Political History Modern Iranian Politics Iran, the US, and Middle East Stability Iran: State Sponsor of Terror? Iran and Nuclear Power (or Weapons?) Toward a More Comprehensive US Foreign Policy for Iran

Al Qaeda's Nests of Evil: The Threat of State Sponsored Terrorism

Paper examines the importance and efficacy of state sponsorship to al Qaeda's global operations.

The limits of capital: Transcending the public financer–private producer split in industrial R&D

A near consensus has emerged supporting the public funding of industrial R&D as a solution to a host of market failures. However, the common policy prescription urges government to go no further than minimal ‘market-enhancing’ intervention, largely keeping the state to the role of financer of privately conducted R&D. By focusing on three general issues in the context of industrial R&D – trust, coordination, and motivation – this article develops an argument for a more expansive government role. Two models of state intervention are at the center of the analysis: public production of R&D, and state sponsorship of inter-firm and inter-organizational networks. It is argued that both these models have distinct advantages, as well as weaknesses, in addressing common challenges to industrial R&D production. Informed by the positive experiences of different states that have moved in recent years from high technology industries’ periphery to the center, this article explains how the two models of state intervention address the various problems associated with pure private production. It is concluded that while even advanced countries with well developed markets might find it advantageous to actively intervene in industrial R&D, the two models should especially be considered in cases of economies that suffer from weak market signals, low retention of value-added functions, limited professional capacities, and limited institutional thickness and networks.

What Do Transnational Terrorists Target? Has It Changed? Are We Safer?

This article utilizes Bayesian Poisson changepoint regression models to demonstrate how transnational terrorists adjusted their target choices in response to target hardening. In addition, changes in the collective tastes of terrorists and their sponsorship have played a role in target selection over time. For each of four target types— officials, military, business, and private parties—the authors identify the number of regimes and the probable predictors of the events. Regime changes are tied to the rise of modern transnational terrorism, the deployment of technological barriers, the start of state sponsorship, and the dominance of the fundamentalists. The authors also include two sets of covariates—logistical outcome and victim’s nature—to better explain the dynamics. As other targets have been fortified and terrorists have sought greater carnage, private parties have become the preferred target type. In recent years, terrorists have increasingly favored people over property for all target types. Moreover, authorities have been more successful at stopping attacks against officials and the military, thereby motivating terrorists to attack business targets and private parties.

Sanctioning Iran: If Only It Were So Simple

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Mark Landler, “U.S. Officials to Continue to Engage Iran,” New York Times, June 13, 2009, p. A14, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/us/politics/14diplo.html?_r=1. 2. Dan Bilefsky, “France and Germany Warn of New Iran Sanctions,” New York Times, August 28, 2009, p. A10, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/world/middleeast/28iht-nukes.html. 3. Najmeh Bozorgmehr, “Refusal to ‘Bargain About Our Sovereign Rights’ Fuels Pessimism,” Financial Times, September 30, 2009, p. 5, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/845724ce-ad58-11de-9caf-00144feabdc0.html. 4. Patrick Clawson, “Iran's Vulnerability to Foreign Economic Pressure,” testimony before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives, July 22, 2009, http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/111/cla072209.pdf. 5. Robert Carswell and Richard J. Davis, “Economic and Financial Pressures,” in American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis, ed. Warren Christopher et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 174. 6. Iran Press News, December 3, 2008. 7. Executive order no. 12957 declared that Iran constituted an extraordinary threat to U.S. security and prohibited U.S. transactions with the Iranian petroleum sector. Its intended purpose was expanded two months later with executive order 12959 that banned nearly all trade and investment with Iran. See Executive Order no. 12957, Code of Federal Regulations, March 17, 1995, http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/eo/12957.pdf and Executive Order no. 12959, Code of Federal Regulations, May 9, 1995, http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/eo/12959.pdf. 8. David Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power (London: Frank Cass, 2001), p. 200. 9. “Europe Takes Steps to Lift its Embargo,” New York Times, January 22, 1981, p. A11. 10. See Vladimir Isachenkov, “Putin: Iran Sanctions Not Needed for Now,” MSNC.com, October 14, 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33312492/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/; Mary Beth Sheridan, “Russia Not Budging on Iran Sanctions,” Washington Post, October 14, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/13/AR2009101300221.html. 11. “Spiegel Interview with Iran's Chief Nuclear Negotiator,” Der Spiegel, September 30, 2009, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,652104,00.html. 12. “Iran to Launch Campaign to Condemn Sanctions on Aviation Industry,” Fars News Agency, December 2, 2008, http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8709120965. 13. “Sanctions on Airline Industry Still Killing People,” Mehr News Agency, July 21, 2009. 14. Mark Landler, “U.S. Is Seeking a Range of Sanctions Against Iran,” New York Times, September 27, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/world/middleeast/28iran.html?hp. 15. See Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliot, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute of International Economics, 2009); Meghan O'Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003). 16. “Statement Number 13 of Mir Husayn Musavi Published,” September 28, 2009, http://mowjcamp.com/article/id/38585 (in Persian). Additional informationNotes on contributorsSuzanne MaloneySuzanne Maloney is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy and formerly served on the policy planning staff of the Department of State

The Tangled Web of Taliban and Associated Movements

Following the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,worldwide attention became focused on the Taliban and al-Qaida forcesin Afghanistan. Prior to the attacks, many people had never heard of the Taliban or their shar'ia-law style of government. Since 2001, manysplinter groups have formed in response to the continual United Statespresence in the region. Today, the term Taliban has been used to envelop several groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Haqqani Network (HQN) and the Tehrik-eNifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi(TNSM). These groups make up the majority of fighters along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Many of these groups have been historicrivals for control of the region, but have since joined a loose alliance in response to United States and Pakistani Government actions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). This article examines the origins and operations of the Pakistani Taliban and associated groups. Particular attention will be given as to how these groups receive funding and support from each other through state sponsors such as Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and non-state sponsors such as al-Qaida and Wahhabi idealists in Saudi Arabia, as well as arms supplies from Iran and potentially China.

Encountering Globalization

The market for professional services is increasingly international but comparisons have not been made between different professions nor on how state policies affect opportunities for mobility. This article considers three professions: engineers, physicians and psychologists and explores the similarities and differences in international labour market demand for occupations. It examines how state policies in four countries, Canada, Finland, France and the UK, aim to promote and control professional labour mobility and migration, and the differences across the three professions. Engineering is an international profession and the extent to which states encourage inward migration differs. Medicine is highly regulated in all four countries but inward migration of physicians varies depending on national policy. Psychologists are less mobile, and the extent of state sponsorship and regulation varies across countries. In all three professions, international organizations are a force encouraging global standards. The conclusion is that state policies reflect state interests and have a strong influence on patterns of mobility.

ERITREA–SOMALIA: “State Sponsorship of Terror”

Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural SeriesVolume 46, Issue 5 p. 17961A-17962C ERITREA–SOMALIA: “State Sponsorship of Terror” First published: 22 June 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-825X.2009.02352.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume46, Issue5June 2009Pages 17961A-17962C RelatedInformation

JOURNEYMEN, MIDDLEMEN: TRAVEL, TRANSCULTURE, AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE ORIGINS OF MUSLIM PRINTING

Within a few years of 1820, Muslim-owned printing presses were established under state sponsorship in Iran, Egypt, and India, marking the true beginning of printing in the Islamic world. Printing projects had been initiated before this period—most famously by Ibrahim Müteferrika (1674–1745) in Istanbul—but these were isolated and unsustained ventures. None gathered the joint momentum of state support and technological transfer to compare with what emerged simultaneously in Tabriz, Cairo, and Lucknow. In attempting to understand the common processes behind this “triplet” birth of Muslim printing, this article reconstructs the small circle of individuals whose at times discordant projects collided in creating a sustainable Muslim print tradition in several distinct centers around 1820.

Creating Instability in Dangerous Global Regions: North Korean Proliferation and Support to Terrorism in the Middle East and South Asia

North Korea contributes to instability in the Middle East and South Asia through its proliferation of missiles and other weapons systems used as delivery platforms for chemical (and the production of chemical munitions) or biological weapons, including long-range artillery. Evidence also shows that North Korea has collaborated in the nuclear programs of Syria, Iran, Libya, and Pakistan and has provided weapons and training to terrorist groups in both the Middle East and South Asia (Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers). Given the recent decision by Washington to take Pyongyang off of the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, the recent and ongoing activity by North Korea directly related to proliferation of WMD and the support of terrorist groups could lead to severe foreign policy challenges for the United States and its allies in the future.

Iran: Island of Stability orLand in Turmoil

AbstractIran is a critical state in international relations because of its natural resources, its strategic location, its controversial conservative Islamic regime and its effect on shifting the balance of power in the Middle East. As a result, Iran is facing pressure from all sides. There are currently four possible future scenarios for Iran: the Iranian regime will remain stable; the Iranian regime will become increasingly unstable; the stability of the Iranian regime depends on international action; the Iranian regime will reform itself from within. It is only by improving its image, that the U.S. can positively affect any of these scenarios.Iran has historically been an essential actor in the international arena because ofits strategic location and its position as a major oil producer; Iran is currently the fourth largest producer of crude oil, the third largest holder of proven oil reserves and the second largest holder of natural gas reserves. Today, Iran remains a critical state, not only because of its strategic location and its abundance of natural resources, but also because of its alleged role as a “state sponsor of terror,” its nuclear program, its human rights abuses, its controversial conservative Islamic regime which is at odds with America, and its effect on shifting the balance of power in the Middle East, especially in light of the U.S. removal of the Taliban and Hussein regimes, two of Iran's biggest threats (Stockman, 2004).It is because of a combination of these factors that the Iranian government is feeling much pressure from all angles. Domestically, the Iranian regime is feeling pressure from the Iranian society as the regime is shifting back from a trend towards liberalism as represented by the Khatami government, towards Ahmadinejad's more conservative and traditional regime. Manifestations of this disapproval were seen in the 2007 municipal elections, in which reformers won the plurality of votes (Not Pro‐Prez or Pro‐Reform, 2006).Internationally, Iran has been accused of being a state sponsor of terror and has been labeled by the American government as a member of the “axis of evil,” and as a violator of human rights. Finally, within the regime itself, Ahmadinejad's confrontational foreign policy has caused a split within the conservative block; dividing the pragmatists who want to engage in trade and resume relations with the West, and those who adhere to a strict interpretation of the Islamic Revolution by welcoming confrontation with the West. Furthermore, tensions exist, not only between the reform minded Majlis and the conservative Council of Guardians, but also between the Majlis and the president, who has recently been criticized for his aggressive foreign policy that is isolating Iran from the world.

North Korea and the US State Sponsors of Terrorism List*

On 11 October 2008, the Bush administration removed North Korea from the State Department's list of states that sponsor terrorism. Pyongyang had been on the list since 1988 and was placed there after the November 1987 bombing of Korean Airlines flight 858 over the Andaman Sea. Though North Korea went on the list for terrorist actions, its removal became part of the Six‐Party process to convince Pyongyang to forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions. This article will explore these issues and examine the leverage the terrorism list had on North Korean behavior, how the USA chose to utilize that leverage, and North Korea's response to US efforts. This article argues that the intertwining of the terrorism list with denuclearization gave the USA leverage in the Six‐Party Talks but there were limits to what this leverage could gain. Moreover, the links to the denuclearization process also generated leverage for North Korea that it exercised, creating a more complex and crosscutting mix of costs and incentives that was more difficult for Washington to control.

4000 dwellings from a Paris factory: Le procédé Camus and state sponsorship of industrialised housing in the 1950s

In early 1949, Eugéne Claudius-Petit, the new Minister of Reconstruction and Urbanism, had announced a campaign to build 20,000 dwellings a year for forty years, a measure of his determination to shift priorities from post-war reconstruction to the longer-term goals of renovation and modernisation of France's cities. For Claudius-Petit, the State had a duty to offer assistance not just to the sinistrés de la guerre but, as he put it, to the sinistrés de la vie, to the long suffering victims of France's inadequate housing conditions. To do so France had to build more housing and to do so more quickly. Since the Liberation there had been general agreement that the only way to achieve this was to transform the way that housing was built and that ‘industrialisation’ in one form or another was critical to doing so.

2008 Cultural Heritage Legal Summary

In the past year acceptance of the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict received significant impetus with the vote of the U. S. Senate to ratify the main Convention and the drafting of legislation by the United Kingdom and New Zealand that would implement the Convention and both Protocols. Efforts by the United States to continue implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property continued with import restrictions imposed under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (1983). At the end of the year, the dispute between Peru and Yale took an ominous turn, while new amendments enacted by the U. S. Congress in January 2008 to facilitate the recovery of property belonging to state sponsors of terrorism in the United States by victims of terrorism continue to cause problems for several leading American cultural institutions.

Give a Little to Get a Lot from North Korea

[ 51 ] special roundtable • advising the new u.s. president “Some believe that coercion will eventually cause North Korea to capitulate, and that ‘just a little more’ pressure on the regime will force it to submit. Unfortunately, past history reveals that this is unlikely.” • Give a Little to Get a Lot from North Korea David C. Kang There is one enduring truth regarding North Korea that any policymaker would be well advised to understand: North Korea will not give something for nothing. Pyongyang responds to external pressure with pressure of its own. Some believe that coercion will eventually cause North Korea to capitulate, and that “just a little more” pressure on the regime will force it to submit. Unfortunately, past history reveals that this is unlikely. There is little reason to think that applying even more pressure will finally result in North Korea meeting U.S. demands and a de-escalation of tension. Understanding this truth is important because many policy advisors agree on the goal: a denuclearized North Korea that opens to the world, pursues economic and social reforms, and increasingly respects human rights. Disagreement only occurs over the tactics—what actions will best set us on the path toward this outcome. To that end, the North Korean problem has been driven by intense U.S. and North Korean distrust of each other. Almost any aspect of the other side’s behavior that is even remotely suspicious is extrapolated to the “worst case” scenario and becomes further justification for caution. Perhaps even more importantly, while we in the United States focus intently on whether North Korea will live up to its side of the bargains that are struck, I am quite confident that in Pyongyang the leadership is just as skeptical that the United States will do what it says it will do. The latest setback is just one of many examples of this pattern. By the spring of 2008, meetings both at the six-party level (at the working group stage) and between U.S. and DPRK representatives had made continued, albeit halting, progress. The DPRK nuclear program had been effectively capped, dismantlement of the Yongbyon reactor had begun, and North Korea had allowed multiple teams of inspectors back into the DPRK. North david c. kang is Professor of International Relations and Business and Director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California. He can be reached at . [ 52 ] asia policy Korea had also produced eighteen thousand pages of operating documents regarding its plutonium program and allowed the United States to inspect aluminum tubes that were suspected of being intended for use in a uraniumbased enrichment reactor. For its part, the United States had begun removing economic sanctions, provided fuel oil, and alluded to a possible political relationship in the future. Most significantly, on June 26 President Bush announced his intention to take the DPRK off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and lift the restrictions imposed by the Trading with the Enemy Act within 45 days. Yet by August both sides had essentially returned to square one. The United States decided not to delist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, mainly because the United States had added a stipulation that North Korea must provide a full explanation for its suspected nuclear cooperation with Syria. North Korea responded by saying that to unilaterally add other provisions to the agreement was “moving the goalposts,” and privately some U.S. officials agreed. Thus, North Korea began rebuilding the nuclear reactor and expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors from the country. Most of the attention in the United States focused on North Korea’s actions, and few pointed out that it was the U.S. actions that had prompted North Korea’s reaction. When the United States finally did delist the DPRK in September 2008, North Korea also responded promptly, inviting back inspectors and agreeing to work with the United States on other outstanding issues. There is more potential for negotiation with North Korea than is generally believed, if such negotiation is done with the realization that the United States will not obtain unilateral concessions from the DPRK. Indeed, it is worth...