NAPSNet 19 May 2011

Recommended Citation

"NAPSNet 19 May 2011", NAPSNet Weekly Report, May 19, 2011, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-weekly/napsnet-19-may-2011/

NAPSNET 19 May 2011

  1. Deterrence: The U.S. policy of extended deterrence in East Asia
  2. DPRK: DPRK denounces Lee Myung Bak’s provocative remarks against DPRK
  3. AUSTRAL SECURITY: Myanmar, North Korea in missile nexus
  4. GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Action June 11: no nuclear power
  5. ENERGY SECURITY: Stanford Ovshinsky: pursuing solar electricity at a cost equal to or lower than that of coal electricity
  6. CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Spending adaptation money wisely

DETERRENCE: The U.S. policy of extended deterrence in East Asia, Brookings Institution (February 2011)

Asia’s rise to global significance in post-Cold War global agendas, and shifts in U.S. nuclear policy have modified the extended deterrence dilemma for US allies but have not negated it says Richard Bush in The U.S. Policy of Extended Deterrence in East Asia. A regional, multilateral nuclear planning mechanism would need to be designed to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons in China’s military policy.

DPRK: DPRK denounces Lee Myung Bak’s provocative remarks against DPRK, KCNA (11 May 2011)

North Korea rejected ROK President Lee Myung-Bak’s invitation to attend the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul.  North Korea described the South’s preconditions (an apology and pledge to eventually denuclearize) as an insult to the “dignity” of the state and a “mockery” of the DPRK’s effort to restart dialogue with the ROK.  The article also attacked what it saw as an implied comparison between North Korea and East Germany in the offer. The KCNA statement marked one of the first uses of the phrase “traitor Lee Myung-Bak” in DPRK news since December 2010.

AUSTRAL SECURITY: Myanmar, North Korea in missile nexus, Asia Times (2 March 2011)

Bertil Lintner says that new evidence that North Korea has assisted Myanmar to produce ‘long-range Scud-type missiles’ could have serious repercussions in the region, sparking an arms race among neighbouring countries. Lintner says Myanmar is on the way to becoming the ‘a new global weapons proliferation hotspot’.

GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Action June 11: no nuclear power, No Nukes (May 2011)

Three months after the Fukushima disaster and 3 months before the anniversary of the 9.11 terrorist attacks, Japanese civil groups are organizing June 11 actions for ‘no nuclear power’. While supporting Japanese civil groups on nuclear issues, groups in ROK and China joined to deal with Japan’s distortion of history textbooks.

ENERGY SECURITY: Stanford Ovshinsky: pursuing solar electricity at a cost equal to or lower than that of coal electricity, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (May/June, 2011)

In an interview with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Stanford Ovshinsky, a key figure in the development of solar photovoltaic cells (PVs) and advanced batteries, discusses institutional roadblocks to and elements of a sensible energy policy.  He describes plans for 150,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facilities producing 1 GW of thin-film PV panels per year that would put electricity costs from solar PV on a par with coal-fired generation.

CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Spending adaptation money wisely, Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, and Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (2011) [PDF, 361 KB]

The discussions about climate adaptation finance have mostly been about process: how money should be raised and how adaptation spending should be governed and monitored. Fankhauser and Burton seek to move the focus of the debate back towards the substance of adaptation by asking what “good adaptation” in developing countries would look like. They argue that the best use of funds in the short term may be for “soft”, or less tangible developmental activities that increase adaptive capacity.

Editor

Contributors