Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will deliver the annual Drell Lecture, presented by the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), 4 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 4, 2004, in Stanford University's Kresge Auditorium. His lecture, "Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Arms Control: The Road Ahead," is free and open to the public.

As head of the IAEA, ElBaradei oversees international inspections enforcing provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and related arms control agreements. Prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in spring 2003, ElBaradei and Hans Blix, former chief of U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), the IAEA group charged with carrying out U.N. Security Council-mandated inspections in Iraq, reported progress with the inspections. As IAEA inspectors evacuated from Iraq on March 19, 2003, ElBaradei continued to urge completion of the U.N. Security Council inspection process.

More recently, IAEA reprimands of Iran have made headlines, with the agency's board of governors scheduled to revisit Iran's compliance with NPT provisions shortly after ElBaradei's visit to Stanford. On Sept. 13, 2004, the IAEA issued a deadline of Nov. 25 for Iran to report fully on its nuclear program. For more than a year, the U.S. has advocated referral of Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council, after inspections revealed evidence of covert Iranian nuclear research.

Before assuming the IAEA's top job on Dec. 1, 1997, ElBaradei held a number of high-level policy positions, including that of IAEA legal adviser. A diplomat and scholar, ElBaradei works closely with international organizations, particularly in the fields of peace, security and law.

CISAC's Drell Lecture traditionally addresses a critical national or international security issue that has important scientific or technical dimensions. The lecture is named for Sidney Drell, CISAC's founding science co-director. Albert and Cicely Wheelon generously endowed the lectureship.

Neither the Bush nor the Kerry campaign has chosen to make U.S. policy toward North Korea a central part of its election platform -- and for good reason. Both sides recognize that it may no longer be possible to peacefully resolve the dispute over that country's nuclear-weapons development, and a debate over whether to wage another controversial war would hardly appeal to the electorate.

The fundamental problem is that North Korea believes it needs a sizable nuclear arsenal. Politically, such an asset would transform the country into a regional power whose views on international issues must always be taken seriously. Militarily, the possession of a large number of atomic weapons would bolster North Korea's security by discouraging intimidation of the sort Washington employed in 1994, when it forced President Kim Jong Il to shut down his plutonium-based arms program.

Most compelling, however, is Pyongyang's financial situation. The North Korean economy is so dysfunctional that it cannot reliably generate enough wealth to sustain the state. Kim and his colleagues have dabbled in reform, but they apparently realize that the degree of liberalization necessary to produce strong GDP growth would coincidentally release a wave of popular animosity sufficient to wash the government away. Thus, the safest course of action is to leave the economy unreconstructed while securing a constant stream of foreign aid.

Since Pyongyang needs leverage to obtain this support, it is determined to amass a big nuclear force. The international community would then have no means of persuading North Korea to abandon its weaponry short of risking catastrophic war and would consequently be reduced to bribing the Kim government not to use its new capabilities.

Moreover, if the flow of aid were interrupted, Pyongyang could garner the foreign exchange it requires by selling its new technology, fissile materials or even a few of its bombs.

What this implies is that despite its rhetoric to the contrary, North Korea does not really want to trade its nuclear program for economic assistance and a security guarantee. Pyongyang would plainly prefer to embark on diplomatic talks with nuclear weapons in hand. This is why it cheated on the 1994 agreement by enriching uranium and why it resumed reprocessing plutonium in early 2003. But to realize his strategic aspirations, Kim must still prevent the United States, China, Japan and South Korea from forming a coalition that imposes crippling sanctions before his armament effort has reached fruition.

Driving wedges between the other regional powers is not as difficult as it might seem. Paradoxically, perhaps, the United States is the only relevant country that views the achievement by North Korea of significant nuclear status as absolutely unacceptable.

Tokyo and Seoul are worried about that eventuality but conversely fear the geopolitical instability and refugee crisis that would ensue if economic or military pressure caused the Kim regime to collapse. Beijing shares these immediate concerns and additionally worries about the longer-term possibility that a united Korean Peninsula might incline toward the United States.

Only by alleviating these anxieties can the U.S. government unite East Asia against North Korea.

Washington, however, is constrained by its own internal rift. On the one hand are those doves who want to exchange aid and a security arrangement for the termination of North Korea's nuclear projects, on the other are the hawks who oppose all diplomatic contact with the Kim government. The conflict between these two camps has paralyzed Bush administration policy, leaving Pyongyang more or less free to proceed with its nuclear gambit.

If the doves err in overestimating Pyongyang's flexibility, the hawks are guilty of the more serious mistake of thinking that a refusal to negotiate with mendacious states is an actual diplomatic strategy.

In fact, the talks advocated by the doves are an essential step toward the application of coercive force. It is only by offering reasonable deals, and having the Kim government reject them, that Washington can demonstrate to Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul that Pyongyang cannot be bought off with money and a verbal guarantee of its security. This recognition, in turn, is critical both to building a coalition against North Korea and, alternatively, to reducing the political costs of unilateral U.S. military action.

The better course has therefore always been to negotiate earnestly with Pyongyang in the hope that it would accede to a peace agreement while knowing that its failure to do so would facilitate the adoption of more assertive measures, if necessary, at a later date.

Yet rather than taking every opportunity to interact with Kim's representatives, the Bush administration has limited its diplomacy to desultory exchanges at multilateral conferences and only put forward a detailed settlement proposal in June. Pyongyang has exploited the opening created by this stubbornness fairly effectively. It has capitalized on anti-American sentiment in South Korea by persuading Seoul to cooperate economically and militarily while also prevailing upon Tokyo to resume large-scale food aid and seek an early exchange of ambassadors.

In the occasional six-party talks with delegations from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, Pyongyang's objective has been to stall for time. Its diplomats have postponed specific meetings many times; then behaved so egregiously that the other participants were relieved when the North Koreans consented merely to engage in future negotiations. Those too, however, would soon be rescheduled.

Washington has inadvertently abetted these tactics through thoughtless insults -- canceling, for instance, informal exchanges between U.S. and North Korean officials at the last minute -- which Pyongyang could then cite as proof that the United States was not acting in good faith.

North Korea has also benefited from the awkward developments that inevitably arise when sensitive dialogues are delayed. Seoul's recent declaration that it had reprocessed a small volume of nuclear material is one such event; Pyongyang may use that admission to complicate the next round of six-party discussions. Thus the Kim government buys more time for its nuclear technicians to continue their work.

It is true that North Korea has committed some blunders over the past two years, but it has played its cards more adroitly than the United States. The members of a potential coalition are largely going their own way now, and the odds that those countries will unite behind any U.S. strategy, peaceful or otherwise, have diminished considerably.

So, unless the winner of the November election acts quickly and with better judgment than Washington has so far, the United States may soon be forced to choose between launching military strikes without foreign support and letting Kim attain the nuclear status he desires.

ROBERT MADSEN is a fellow at the Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford Institute for International Studies. He wrote this article for Perspective.

South Africa will experience routine electricity blackouts in a few years unless new electricity policy and investment decisions are formulated and implemented this year.

This is the inexorable conclusion that emerges from scenario and modelling exercises undertaken separately by the National Electricity Regulator, Eskom and large energy-intensive industries.

Growing electricity demand will outstrip existing national supply capacity next year or the year thereafter, assuming a prudent reserve margin to allow for maintenance and unscheduled plant shutdowns.

Hydro-electricity imports, mainly Cahora Bassa in Mozambique, will provide respite for about another year. Thereafter, we need further generation capacity or significant energy savings and demand-side measures.

Eskom has started re-commissioning old moth-balled coal-fired power stations to meet this challenge. Camden, the first plant, will be relatively easy to re-commission and work has commenced. Grootvlei will be more difficult and Komati, the last plant that Eskom plans to re-commission, will be the most uncertain and expensive.

If successful, these old generating stations will give us a breather until around 2008. And then we need new generation capacity.

2008 might seem years away, but investment decisions, environmental impact assessments, plant construction and commissioning take many years. For a hydro-electric or pumped storage scheme, this could take ten years. A coal-fired power station could take six years or more, and gas turbines - two to four years.

If our economy grows faster, or we are not able to implement effective demand-side measures, new power generation capacity might be needed even earlier.

Government is aware of this situation. The President confirmed, in his state of the nation address in parliament in May, that a tender for new capacity will be awarded early in 2005.

The Department of Minerals and Energy has appointed technical advisors to prepare and manage this tender. However, their work schedule indicates that the contract with a new Independent Power Producer will only be concluded early in 2006, and this will only happen if the bid manages to comply with National Treasury's Public Private Partnership regulations. The DME will have to show that Eskom cannot build a new plant more cheaply - an interesting possibility given Eskom's competitive cost of capital and the potential for transfer-pricing with its current portfolio of extremely low-cost generating plant.

Given these tight time constraints, it is not unlikely that we shall have to resort to buying, on an emergency basis, a series of highly expensive, paraffin-burning open-cycle gas turbines.

There is a dangerous assumption that the current tender process for new generation capacity answers concerns about supply security. It does not.

The challenge is not only to manage the current tender process within tight time-constraints. We need to make decisions this year about procuring much more capacity than the approximately 1000 MW anticipated in the current tender.

A likely planning scenario indicates that this year, 2004, we need to make investment decisions on a new pumped-storage scheme, a new pulverised coal-fired plant and a green-field coal fluidized-bed combustor or a combined-cycle gas turbine. In short, we need to start placing orders for a range of new power plant. In ensuing years we shall need to continue to order new plant.

These challenges raise the question of whether a part-time committee of government officials, assisted by consultants, is the most appropriate and sustainable mechanism to continue to procure new power? It also provokes debate about what market structure is appropriate to encourage the most efficient and cost-effective investment decisions?

Following the 1998 While Paper on Energy Policy, and a number of subsequent studies, Cabinet decided, in May 2001, to restructure the power sector by unbundling Eskom's electricity transmission division into an independent company and selling-off 30% of Eskom's generation plants. New capacity would be provided by private investors and an electricity trading market would be established comprising a power exchange and a parallel market for bilateral power contracts and financial hedges. None of this happened.

What is emerging is a quite different market model. In her budget speech, the Minister of Minerals and Energy stated that "the state has to put security of supply above all and above competition especially". The Minister of Public Enterprises has indicated that Eskom will not be privatised and that a strong state-owned utility is important for social and economic development.

Eskom is thus likely to continue to dominate the market. It may even be permitted to build new generation plant. Private sector investment will be permitted only on the margins in the form of Independent Power Producers. They will sign long-term power purchase agreements with Eskom (or with an independent transmission company or system operator, if these are eventually separated form Eskom).

Government will now need to clarify whether the emerging market model for the electricity sector is its preferred model or is merely a temporary measure to secure emergency supplied. This is not a trivial question - for it strikes at the heart of the cost and efficiency issues in the power sector, and will have long-term consequences for electricity prices in this country.

Few remember the controversial electricity price-hikes by Eskom in the late 1970s and 1980s when it made investment mistakes that resulted in huge unused power generation capacity. History demonstrates the potential weaknesses of the old industry model where state-owned monopoly utilities simply pass the costs of poor investment decisions to consumers.

The current tender process is also full of risk. A small number of officials and technical advisors will decide how much new power is needed, using which fuel sources, when and where. While a degree of (once-off) competition might be possible through the tender bids, long-term power purchase agreements could tie-up non-competitive electricity prices for decades.

Plans for a new market structure, where investors have to compete to sell their power in a power exchange or a contract market, have been sacrificed in the face of security of supply concerns.

Periods of supply uncertainty and shortages are never a good time to design and implement new competitive market structures. The long period of large capacity surpluses that provided a window of opportunity for major reform has disappeared. Now we have to patch the current system and prepare for the future.

The default IPP/ single-buyer model that is emerging now requires the establishment of a robust and sustainable institutional structure (probably best attached to the power system operator) that will be responsible for long term planning, security of supply and procurement of generation capacity.

We can avoid future black-outs. But we need to act now.

After an intensive selection process, the Korean Studies Program (KSP) at the Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford Institute for International Studies at Stanford University has selected the first class of its Pantech Fellowships for Mid-Career Professionals. Philip W. Yun and John Feffer will be in residence during the 2004-2005 academic year and collaborate with the faculty and fellows at KSP and APARC. The fellowship was made possible by generous gift from Pantech Group.

Philip Yun received his law degree from Columbia University and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies. Yun has had a remarkable career working both in the private and the public sector. While holding high-level positions at the U.S. Department of State, Yun worked closely with the Secretary of Defense, Dr. William Perry, to develop broad expertise on international negotiations, strategic planning and problem solving. He has practiced law both in Korea and in the U.S., worked in private equity investment, and provided comments and opinions for the media on North Korean issues. While in residence, he will work on developing an outline of a comprehensive roadmap that will lead to a secure and prosperous Northeast Asia that would include North Korea.

John Feffer is an accomplished writer and editor who has written on numerous topics such as the politics of food, Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, foreign policy, economics, and nationalism. As a frequent traveler to North Korea (and to South Korea), he has a rare knowledge of and balanced perspective toward North Korea. His most recent publication is "North Korea/South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis". He is a former associate editor of World Policy Journal and has worked for the American Friends Service Committee, most recently as an international affairs representative in East Asia. He serves on the advisory committees of the think tank Foreign Policy in Focus and the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea. While in residence, he will concentrate on examining food policy on the Korean peninsula.

KSP and APARC look forward to their joining us in the fall.