In his presentation at the June 1-3 annual Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared much more sanguine about the possibilities of establishing a constructive Sino-American military relationship than his own Defense Department. A few days earlier, DOD had released the latest version of its annual publication, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2007” (pdf file). The report’s content is replete with warnings about China’s growing military capabilities, something Gates downplayed at Singapore. As directed by Congress, the report focused on the potential threat posed by China to Taiwan. Its authors warn that China continues to [...]
Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported once again that Iran had defied U.N. Security Council demands to stop enriching uranium. And in response, the United States once again demanded that international sanctions against Iran be made more severe. This call for sanctions — which has become routine by now — would be a lot more credible if it were not for a one embarrassing fact: The United States now lags many other countries in enforcing sanctions that the U.N. Security Council has already approved. One of the few real penalties to survive previous rounds of council negotiation over [...]
BERLIN — During the past few months, leading members of the major political parties comprising the German coalition government have expressed widely divergent views on the key foreign policy issues facing Germany. Senior representatives from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) have made conflicting statements on the ballistic missile defense (BMD) issue, how to curb Iran’s nuclear program, Germany’s role in the war in Afghanistan, and other topics. At some point, these foreign-policy divergences, combined with differences over other policy areas, could lead to the coalition’s collapse before its scheduled dissolution at [...]
