U.S. President George W. Bush came to power emphasizing that he did not regard nation-building as an appropriate activity for the U.S. military. As he prepares to run for re-election, the United States is engaged in two of the most ambitious nation-building projects in its history in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. undertook a lead role in part because of the circumstances in which the two conflicts commenced, but also as an extension of the present administration's more general opposition to multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. Though the United States determined that it did not need the UN going into Iraq, however, it appears that it has belatedly realized it might need the UN in order to get out.

Simon Chesterman is Executive Director of the Institute for International Law and Justice at New York University School of Law. Prior to joining NYU, he was a Senior Associate at the International Peace Academy and Director of UN Relations at the International Crisis Group in New York. He had previously worked for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Belgrade and at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha.

He is the author of You, The People: The United Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-Building (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2001), which was awarded the American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit. He is the editor, with Michael Ignatieff and Ramesh Thakur, of Making States Work: State Failure and the Crisis of Governance (United Nations University Press, forthcoming) and of Civilians in War (Lynne Rienner, 2001). He regularly contributes to international law and political science journals, as well as mass media publications such as the International Herald Tribune. His has taught at the Universities of Melbourne, Oxford, Southampton, and Columbia.

Drell Lecture Recording: NA

Drell Lecture Transcript: 

Speaker's Biography: Richard Garwin is IBM Fellow Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. After three years on the faculty of the University of Chicago, he joined IBM Corporation in 1952, and was until June 1993 IBM Fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York; Adjunct Research Fellow in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Columbia University. In addition, he is a consultant to the U.S. government on matters of military technology, arms control, etc. He has been Director of the IBM Watson Laboratory, Director of Applied Research at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and a member of the IBM Corporate Technical Committee. He has also been Professor of Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. From 1994 to 2004 he was Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

He has made contributions in the design of nuclear weapons, in instruments and electronics for research in nuclear and low-temperature physics, in the establishment of the nonconservation of parity and the demonstration of some of its striking consequences, in computer elements and systems, including superconducting devices, in communication systems, in the behavior of solid helium, in the detection of gravitational radiation, and in military technology. He has published more than 500 papers and been granted 45 U.S. patents. He has testified to many Congressional committees on matters involving national security, transportation, energy policy and technology, and the like. He is coauthor of many books, among them Nuclear Weapons and World Politics (1977), Nuclear Power Issues and Choices (1977), Energy: The Next Twenty Years (1979), Science Advice to the President (1980), Managing the Plutonium Surplus: Applications and Technical Options (1994), Feux Follets et Champignons Nucleaires (1997) (in French with Georges Charpak), and Megawatts and Megatons: A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age? (2001) (with Georges Charpak).

He was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee 1962-65 and 1969-72, and of the Defense Science Board 1966-69. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, of the IEEE, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2002 he was elected again to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

His work for the government has included studies on antisubmarine warfare, new technologies in health care, sensor systems, military and civil aircraft, and satellite and strategic systems, from the point of view of improving such systems as well as assessing existing capabilities. For example, he contributed to the first U.S. photographic reconnaissance satellite program, CORONA, that returned 3 million feet of film from almost 100 successful flights 1960-1972.

He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and was in 1998 a Commissioner on the 9-person "Rumsfeld" Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. From 1993 to August 2001, he chaired the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board of the Department of State. On the 40th anniversary of the founding of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) he was recognized as one of the ten Founders of National Reconnaissance. In June, 2002, he was awarded la Grande Medaille de l'Academie des Sciences (France)-2002.

Conflicting claims over Kashmir have been the main cause of hostility between India and Pakistan. The Kashmir dispute is complex. Although the area is predominantly Muslim, significant other religious minorities coexist in Indian Kashmir, while Pakistan Kashmir is linguistically divided from the rest of Kashmir. Nevertheless, both sides of the region are linked by common historical aspirations for a united Kashmir. India and Pakistan have fought several times over differences in their vision for Kashmir, which itself differs from the Kashmiri vision. During the late 1980s, an armed uprising in Indian Kashmir over independence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people. A peaceable resolution should look at the region's history and culture even as it balances India and Pakistan's ambitions over Kashmir. It is not obvious, though, that such a resolution must be a "once-and-for-all-time" resolution or an agreed-to process without a committed timeline or, indeed, goals. The seminar will present and discuss these issues. Samina Ahmed is project director for South Asia at the International Crisis Group. She has worked previously as a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad; and the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Karachi. Dr. Ahmed has a masters degree in international relations and a Ph.D. in political science from the Australian National University, Canberra. Dr. Ahmed is the author of several book chapters and articles in academic journals and the print media. Her publications include ?The United States and Terrorism in Southwest Asia: September 11 and Beyond,? International Security, Vol. 26, (Winter 2001/2002); ?Pakistan: Professionalism of an Interventionist Military? in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Military Professionalism in Asia: Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives (Honolulu: East-West Center, University of Hawaii, 2001), and a co-edited book.

Many have argued that the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in September 2001 and the bombings in Indonesia in October 2002 (Bali) and August 2003 (Jakarta) have revamped the security situation for America?s partners in and near Southeast Asia. Is this true? What security challenges do America?s partners now face in the region? Are these challenges so thoroughly domestic and political in nature that that they cannot be addressed by military force, or through military cooperation? And to the extent that military approaches are viable, are America?s Southeast Asian and Australian partners equipped and trained to undertake them? For example: How interoperable are the relevant Southeast Asian, Australian, and American forces? How well does Australia in particular fit into this picture? Is Canberra disdained by Southeast Asian governments as a ?deputy sheriff? of Uncle Sam? Should Washington develop meetings of defense ministers into an alternative to the so far unimpressive ASEAN Regional Forum? Or is hub-and-spokes bilateralism the better way to go? Should Washington try to upgrade its warming security relations with Singapore into a fully fledged security treaty along U.S.-Japanese lines? How should nontraditional security threats?not only terrorism but piracy, drugs, and people-smuggling?be factored into these calculations? Sheldon Simon is a leading American specialist on Southeast Asian security. The author or editor of nine books--most recently The Many Faces of Asian Security (2001)--and more than a hundred scholarly articles and book chapters, Professor Simon has held faculty appointments at George Washington University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Hawaii, the University of British Columbia, Carleton University (Ottawa), the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and the American Graduate School of International Management. He visits Asia annually for research and is a consultant to the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. He earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1964.

Admiral Thomas Boulton Fargo assumed duties as Commander U.S. Pacific Command, at Camp H.M. Smith, Hawaii, on May 2, 2002. He is the twentieth officer to hold the position. As the senior U.S. military commander in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas, he leads the largest of the unified commands and directs Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force operations across more than 100 million square miles. He is responsible to the President and the Secretary of Defense through the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and is the U.S. military representative for collective defense arrangements in the Pacific.

On 19 January 2001, General Angelo Reyes, then chief of staff of the armed forces, led a transfer of military support from democratically elected but disgraced President Joseph Estrada to his vice-president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. A day later, Arroyo became president. At the time, the general defended his action as "promot[ing] the public good under extreme circumstances." Soon thereafter, President Arroyo named him her secretary of defense. In July 2003, nearly 300 heavily armed junior military officers seized the center of Manila?s business district, rigged explosives around the buildings, and demanded President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo?s resignation. They accused Reyes of corruption and urged him to resign as well. Reyes denied the charge as baseless. Saying he wanted to spare his family and the armed forces further abuse, he resigned in August. In October, President Arroyo appointed him Ambassador-at-Large for Counter-Terrorism. What if any conditions justify military intervention in the name of the public interest? In this lecture, Reyes will argue that in certain extreme circumstances, civilian democracy can be served by military intervention. He will also warn, however, that such intervention can undermine democracy in the long run. Angelo Reyes' military career lasted thirty-five years. He commanded at all levels of the Philippine armed forces. His field experience included counter-insurgent operations in Mindanao and Luzon. He holds advanced degrees from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Asian Institute of Management in Manila. On Wednesday, October 1, 2003 he was appointed Ambassador-at-Large for Counter-terrorism by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

5:30 pm registration 6:00 pm program followed by reception Public Policy Institute of California 500 Washington Street, Founders' Room, 5th Floor, San Francisco $12 Members of the Asia Society $15 Non-members $8 Student with ID Please contact that Asia Society to register for this event. They can be reached at 415-421-8707. Experts on Indonesia's political, social, and economic climate will share their insights on the challenges and opportunities ahead for the world's fourth most populous country. Organized in conjunction with the upcoming release of Asia Society's Asian Update on decentralization in Indonesia, this panel will assess some of the key issues facing the largest Muslim society in the world. With presidential elections scheduled for April 2004, what progress has been made toward political reforms and increased accountability in Indonesia? As regional conflicts in Aceh and Papua continue to simmer and expanded military authority is being debated, how will Indonesia balance its needs for effective central authority and greater regional autonomy? Will transferring power and resources downward merely decentralize corruption? How will Indonesia's economy fare in the face of the war in Iraq, sagging American and global markets, and the prospect of higher energy prices? How have the AmericanÑled wars against terrorism and the Iraqi regime affected Indonesia's domestic politics and relations with the United States? Please join us for a timely and informative briefing on political, economic, and social developments in Indonesia today.