Cato Daily Dispatch for December 2, 2003
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Eventually, U.S. Wants to Turn Over Afghan Military Operations to NATOChina Roiled by Taiwan Independence Stirrings
Rumsfeld: Stabilization in Iraq Comes at a Price
Eventually, U.S. Wants to Turn Over Afghan Military Operations to NATO
"The United States favors eventually turning over the U.S.-led coalition's military operations in Afghanistan to NATO as the alliance expands its security role there, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Brussels," Agence France-Press reports.
"Rumsfeld said the idea of such an expanded role for NATO might come up in discussions at a two-day meeting here of alliance defense ministers but not as formal US proposals or requests."
In "At a Crossroads in Afghanistan: Should the United States Be Engaged in Nation Building?" Subodh Atal, an independent foreign affairs analyst, writes: "The U.S. military forces currently operating in Afghanistan should concentrate on smashing the Taliban and al Qaeda remnants who are regrouping along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Once this goal is achieved, U.S. forces need not remain in the nation. Following the end of military operations, the focus could then shift to monitoring Afghanistan and its neighbors to ensure that forces that threaten the United States are not resurrected."
China Roiled by Taiwan Independence Stirrings
"China said today that hard-liners in Taiwan were playing a deceitful and dangerous game by seeking independence, and appealed to the United States to oppose those seeking to split the island from the mainland," Reuters reports.
"'At present, the extremist splittists on the island of Taiwan participating in Taiwan independence activities in the name of human rights and democracy are very deceiving and dangerous,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference."
In "The China-Taiwan Military Balance: Implications for the United States," Ivan Eland, former director of defense policy studies, writes: "Even an informal U.S. security guarantee for Taiwan against nuclear-armed China is ill-advised. Taiwan is not strategically essential to America's national security. Moreover, China has significant incentives to avoid attacking Taiwan. Perhaps the most crucial is that hostile behavior toward Taiwan would jeopardize China's increasing economic linkage with the United States and other key countries.
Rumsfeld: Stabilization in Iraq Comes at a Price
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged Monday that the security environment in Iraq presented 'a contradiction' in which attacks from 'a limited number' of adversaries continued to kill or wound American and allied forces even as schools and hospitals open and the economy stabilized," The New York Times reports.
"Joining Rumsfeld at a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels, Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke of a grim lesson for America's foes that emerged from the ambush on Sunday of an Army convoy in Samarra."
In "Leave Iraq as Soon as Possible," Charles Peña, Cato director of defense policy studies, writes: "The guerrilla-style tactics being used to pick off U.S. and British troops may only be the tip of the iceberg. The lesson should be clear: The United States must leave Iraq at the earliest possible opportunity.
"But to do so requires a willingness to renounce the unrealistic goal of building a perfect democracy in Iraq," writes Peña. "U.S. national security demands only that any new government not harbor or support terrorists who would harm the United States."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org
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