The official U.S. government policy is to maintain "calculated ambiguity" about whether the United States would retaliate with nuclear weapons in response to an adversary's use of chemical weapons (CW) or biological weapons (BW) against U.S. allies, U.S. armed forces overseas, or the U.S. homeland. Since the 1991 Gulf War, numerous civilian and military leaders have stated that the United States might use nuclear weapons in response to CW and BW threats or attacks, and some have even stated that the United States will use nuclear weapons in such circumstances. The central argument in my spring 2000 International Security article was that this policy has created a dangerous "commitment trap" problem.

The benefit of making such nuclear threats, whether stated ambiguously or clearly, is that they can increase an adversary's estimate of the probability that the U.S. president would order nuclear retaliation, which should therefore decrease the likelihood of chemical or biological weapons attacks. But there is a serious cost attached to this obvious benefit: If deterrence fails despite nuclear threats, the statements will also increase the likelihood that the United States will actually use nuclear weapons, because the president's personal and the U.S. government's institutional reputations for following through on threats would be perceived to be at stake.

I argued that current U.S. nuclear doctrine has therefore created a subtle dilemma that has not been recognized, much less debated, in both policy and academic circles: Is the improvement in the U.S. ability to deter CW and BW threats worth the increased likelihood of a U.S. nuclear response if deterrence fails?

A joint Stanford University-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory team of scientists, nuclear engineers and arms control experts has concluded in a new study that North Korea's compliance with the 1994 Agreed Framework can be verified to a satisfactory degree of accuracy. Special effort, however, will be needed from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as well as support from the US, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan and perhaps other countries. Most importantly, cooperation and openness from North Korea are essential.

The 1994 Agreed Framework (AF) between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has become the centerpiece of recent US efforts to reduce the threat of conflict on the Korean peninsula. Under the AF, the US and its allies (mainly South Korea) will provide the DPRK with two large nuclear-power reactors and other benefits such as annual shipments of fuel oil for the generation of electricity until the nuclear-power reactors being built for that purpose are able to do so. In exchange the DPRK will declare how much nuclear weapon-usable material it has produced; identify, freeze, and eventually dismantle specified facilities for producing this material; and remain a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and allow the implementation of its safeguards agreement.

The AF is now being carried out according to a complex and currently delayed schedule. Fuel oil shipments have been provided to the DPRK, the site for the two nuclear-power reactors has largely been prepared, and construction has begun on some components. The DPRK, for its part, has declared some nuclear weapon-usable material and has identified and frozen some facilities for producing this material.

As emphasized in President Bush's statement at the White House on March 7, 2001, verification is an essential part of any agreement with North Korea. How well can it be verified that the DPRK has no access to nuclear weapon-usable material? What is the potential impact of delays, disagreements, and lack of cooperation on verification? The United States and the international community must answer these questions if the nuclear-power reactor project is to proceed as planned.

The report analyzes in detail both the task of safeguarding the nuclear-power reactors to be provided and also that of dealing with known or suspected nuclear-materials production facilities in the DPRK. Scenarios governing both DPRK cooperation and possible non-cooperation, up to and including abrogation of the agreement are considered.

The challenges of verification examined in this report must be met if a necessary minimum of trust is to be established between the parties and the rewards of the agreement are to be realized. The authors believe that the challenges can be met under the conditions outlined in this report, but that special effort on all sides will be needed to meet them.

The military campaign unleashed in Chechnya in September 1999 was portrayed by the Russian leadership as a limited and carefully targeted counter-terrorist operation aimed at eliminating the threat to Russia posed by "international terrorism." In a 14 November article in the New York Times, then Prime Minister Putin sought to deflect American criticism of Russian actions and to win acquiescence, if not sympathy, by likening Russias effort in Chechnya to U.S. anti-terrorist actions. The Russian military, he insisted, had chosen "accurately targeted strikes on specifically identified terrorist bases" to avoid direct attacks on Chechen communities.

But the radical discrepancy between the initial rationale and the actual conduct of the campaign makes it clear that what we are seeing is in fact a deliberate resumption of the 1994-96 war by the Russian Government--and a unilateral abrogation of the agreements that terminated it--now pursued with even greater determination and brutality, with even less regard for civilian casualties, and with a more sophisticated military and public relations strategy.

Not only is there a massive chasm between the professed aims of the campaign and its actual conduct; there appears to be a major disconnect between the real problems of the region and the Russian Government's response. Indeed, the attempt at military subjugation and occupation of Chechnya by Russian forces is likely to exacerbate rather than solve the deeper problems of the Northern Caucasus.

This analysis focuses on three broad issues: (a) the challenge facing Moscow in Chechnya more broadly, and in particular why the opportunity for a political solution of the conflict afforded by the Khasaviurt and other peace agreements was squandered; (b) the assumptions that appear to underlie the actions of the Russian Government and why some of these assumptions appear to be questionable; and (c) the prospects for a political resolution of the conflict and for establishing longer-term peace and stability in the region.

Reprinted in Central Asia and the Caucasus, no. 4, August 2000.

Chapter in Chechnya: The International Community and Strategies for Peace and Stability, edited by Lena Jonson and Murad Esenov.

China and the United States share a new and rapidly expanding border-the Internet. It is a border that neither country fully understands. The possibility for misunderstanding is great because the Internet is not only transforming the relationship between the two countries, it is also transforming the countries themselves. It could be argued that China is going through the greater change. Unlike the past where information was mediated by the State, the mass media, and the work unit, Chinese citizens with Internet connections and a command of English have unprecedented direct and immediate access to information and people around the world. Because of abundance of Chinese language content, Chinese who can only read Chinese still have access to a wealth of information. The Chinese government has imposed its own unique regime on the networks in China that connect to the Internet. Though the United States and China both participate in the Internet, the regimes that they use to govern their networks are very different.