In December 2005 leaders from 16 Asia-Pacific nations gathered in Kuala Lumpur for the first East Asia Summit (EAS). The US was conspicuous by its absence. Should Washington be concerned about being excluded from the process of building an East Asia community? Serious questions remain about the prospects for such a community and the intentions of its creators. Will the EAS and the Asian-only ASEAN Plus Three rival or complement broader frameworks that include the US, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation? How does one create avenues of interaction between East Asian and Asia-Pacific mechanisms to make them mutually supporting rather than mutually exclusive? Ralph Cossa will address these questions and draw the implications for US policy.

Ralph A. Cossa, in addition to running the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu - a non-profit foreign-policy research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC - is senior editor of its quarterly electronic journal, Comparative Connections. He is also a founding member of the Steering Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP), co-chairs the CSCAP International Study Group on Countering the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Asia Pacific, and belongs to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Experts and Eminent Persons Group.

The disarmament euphoria of the first post-Cold War years has been replaced with enhanced attention to nuclear weapons. In the place of traditional missions assigned to nuclear weapons during the Cold War, new ones have emerged or became relatively more prominent--limited use in primarily conventional conflicts. The enhanced role of nuclear weapons is likely a result of the emergence of a new international system following the hiatus of the post-Cold War period. With the end of the Cold War, the primary mission of nuclear weapons, mutual strategic deterrence of two opposing poles of the international system, largely exhausted itself, leading to hopes that nuclear weapons would lose relevance. The disarmament momentum has, however, largely exhausted itself, at least in its traditional forms and priorities, as the emerging new international system is giving rise to threats and challenges that seem to require a "nuclear response". The emergence of a new, limited-use mission assigned to nuclear weapons increases the likelihood of actual use of nuclear weapons. The increase is modest--perhaps from effectively zero in the last years of the Cold War to maybe 2-3 percent in the future--but an increase nonetheless.

Nikolai Sokov is a senior research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1981 and subsequently worked at the Institute of USA and Canadian Studies and the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. From 1987-92 he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union and Russia, dealing with nuclear arms control; he participated in START I and START II negotiations as well as in a number of summit and ministerial meetings. Sokov has a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (1996) and a Soviet equivalent of a Ph.D. (Candidate of Historical Sciences degree) from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (1986). Sokov has published extensively on international security and arms control; he is the author of "Russian Strategic Modernization: Past and Future" (Rowman and Littlefield in 2000) and co-author and co-editor of the first college-level textbook on nuclear nonproliferation regime in Russian (PIT-Center, 2000 and 2002).

National security and global climate change are key motivations for seriously examining strategies for sustainable energy independence. We currently import more than 60% of our oil -- soon to be 70% -- from sources that are either unfriendly or unstable. We are also importing a substantial and increasing amount of natural gas from outside of North America.

The effectiveness of recent widespread supply abuses provides evidence of the fragility of the US economy to interruption of that energy supply stream for whatever end. This vulnerability and the mounting evidence of greenhouse gas induced climate change demand a fundamental change in US energy policies and behavior.

This paper draws on data presented at a National Academy of Engineering meeting last June and other sources to examine the options proposed and endeavors to separate the signal from the considerable noise associated with the subject. I propose a set of solutions that appear readily achievable to eliminate all dependency on imported oil and gas. The seminar provides an opportunity to get some expert feedback and discussion of the policy changes involved.

L. David Montague, an independent consultant, retired as President of the Missile Systems Division at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in 1996. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Mr. Montague has 50 years of background in design, development and management of strategic and tactical military weapon systems. In addition to his development expertise in both tactical and strategic strike and defensive systems, his experience includes the requirements, development, and national security policy issues of strategic forces and defense systems to protect against weapons of mass destruction.