The U.S. Japan alliance has faced new challenges: domestic opposition to U.S. bases in Okinawa; Chinese criticism of a stronger U.S.-Japan security relationship; and growing international frustration with Japan's economic policies. The alliance remains crucial to both nations' interests, but the management of bilateral security ties has become more complex. The U.S.-Japan Alliance explains the inner workings of that alliance and recommends new approaches to sustain this critical bilateral security relationship. The authors are scholars and practitioners who understand where the alliance came from, how it is managed, and the strategic decisions that will have to be made in the future. The volume is divided into four sections: the role of the alliance in the context of the East Asian strategic environment; the bilateral military relationship; the domestic politics of the alliance in both Japan and the United States; and the economic dimension of the security relationship. The volume concludes with the editors' recommended agenda for the future of the alliance.

For more than fifty years, the United States has led the world economically, diplomatically, and militarily. In recent decades, however, as the need for highlevel skills and knowledge has become increasingly important, America's students have fallen behind their international peers in math, science, and reading.

With increasing global competition, the United States must make sure that its students are equipped to sustain U.S. enterprise, economic and military strength, and intellectual leadership. In short, it must ensure that Americans are able to compete with peers around the globe today and in decades to come. If the United States cannot adequately educate its young people, failure will threaten its role as an international leader and its economic competitiveness, putting America's global leadership and future at risk.

Improving America's public schools cannot be considered a purely domestic concern: the country's ability to prepare students to compete globally is integrally tied to U.S. national security. This Task Force report offers concrete recommendations for education reform that refocus the country on transforming schools and school systems to ensure America's continued economic and political growth and security.

The US-Japan alliance is confronting its most critical test since its inception in 1951. It is facing a new evolutionary stage in a radically-changed context, with the rise of China, Asia's economic crisis, and Japan's economic deadline and political immobility.

This timely book demystifies the politics of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman, and focuses on the new pressures that have emerged since the Gulf War. Gause illuminates the foreign policy tightrope these states walk in the Middle East: self-defense is problematic, regional pressures translate directly into the domestic arena, and relations with the United States cause as well as solve many problems. Gause examines the interplay of Islamic fundamentalism, tribalism, and, most importantly, oil wealth that has determined the power structure of the Gulf monarchies. He shows what influences really drive politics in the Middle East as well as how U.S. foreign policy must respond to them in order to forge more meaningful ties with each country and preserve the stability of a fragile region that is vital to U.S. interests.

A Council-sponsored Task Force says that the United States should support the evolutionary development of democracy consistently throughout the Middle East. It points out that a strategy to promote democracy entails inherent risks, but that the denial of freedom carries much more significant long-term dangers.

Connections between climate change and national security are receiving unprecedented attention from policymakers and analysts. Vulnerable countries need to be prepared to adapt to and minimize risks arising from climate change. Developing nations --a number of which are in strategically important parts of the world --are the least able to adapt and are the most likely to experience political instability in the wake of extreme weather, drought, floods, and other climate-related problems.Joshua W. Busby argues that it is in the United States' interest to help vulnerable countries adapt to the potentially destabilizing effects of climate change. He recommends expanding current adaptation efforts for coastal defenses, water conservation and catchment, alterations in food production, migration-relocation programs, and building and planning regulations. He identifies a number of high-profile security initiatives targeting strategically important countries and critical infrastructure vulnerable to climate change, for which he suggests risk-reduction measures including diversification, relocation, and building and planning regulations. Finally, he encourages expansion of military-to-military environmental security initiatives and identification of military bases and embassies vulnerable to climate change.This report is sponsored by the Council's Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies.

Immigration reform is one of the most divisive issues confronting U.S. policymakers. The rise in the number of illegal immigrants in the United States over the past ten years --from five to twelve million --has led to concerns about the effects of illegal immigration on wages and public finances, as well as the potential security threats posed by unauthorized entry into the country. In the past year alone, the governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared a state of emergency over illegal immigration, and President Bush signed into law the Secure Fence Act, which authorizes the spending of $1.2 billion for the construction of a seven-hundred-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. In this Council Special Report, Professor Gordon H. Hanson of the University of California, San Diego approaches immigration through the lens of economics. The results are surprising. By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration, Professor Hanson concludes that stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy --a finding that calls into question many of the proposals to increase funding for border protection. Moreover, Hanson argues that guest worker programs now being considered by Congress fail to account for the economic incentives that drive illegal immigration, which benefits both the undocumented workers who desire to work and live in the United States and employers who want flexible, low-cost labor. Hanson makes the case that unless policymakers design a system of legal immigration that reflects the economic advantages of illegal labor, such programs will not significantly reduce illegal immigration. He concludes with guidelines crucial to any such redesign of U.S. laws and policy. In short, Professor Hanson has written a report that will challenge much of the wisdom (conventional and otherwise) on the economics behind a critical and controversial issue.

In this timely report, a bipartisan group of experts concludes that the Islamic Republic is solidly entrenched and that the urgency of the concerns around Irans policies mandates that Washington deal with the current regime rather than wait it out. The Task Forceco-chaired by former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former Director of Central Intelligence Robert M. Gatesrecommends selective engagement with Tehran to promote regional stability, dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, preserve reliable energy supplies, reduce the threat of terror, and address the democracy deficit that pervades the Middle East as a whole. This volume includes a chronology of important dates in U.S.-Iranian history, economic and demographic facts about Iran, plus reference materials on Iranian state institutions and governance. The reports recommendations have sparked debate in Washington and generated extensive coverage by U.S. and international media.

North America is vulnerable on several fronts: the region faces terrorist and criminal security threats, increased economic competition from abroad, and uneven economic development at home. In response to these challenges, a trinational, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America has developed a roadmap to promote North American security and advance the well-being of citizens of all three countries. This report is also available in Spanish and French.

As the economic crisis spreads from financial markets to real economies in countries around the world, governments have understandably focused on short-term measures to contain the collapse. Constructing stimulus packages and financial bailouts to address the immediate problems has been the policymakers' priority for foundational recovery. Detailing another proximate cause of the crash --the problem of global imbalances between savings and investment in major countries --former IMF official Steven Dunaway drafts a proposal to rebuild international finance's structural foundations.

Fiscal diplomacy, through the Group of Twenty (G20) process, represents an important opportunity to make the world economy sounder and to prevent future problems for the financial system. But if nothing is done to correct global current account deficits, Dunaway warns in this important book, the imbalances will simply build up again as the world economy seemingly recovers. In time, the enlarging deficits will become a major contributing factor to the next global crisis.

North Korea poses difficult challenges for the United States. The full extent of the North Korean nuclear arsenal is unknown; tens of thousands of U.S. forces are deployed on the Korean peninsula in support of U.S. commitments to South Korea; and the peninsula sits in a strategically vital region, where the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea all have important interests at stake. And the Kim Jong-Il government is perhaps the world's most difficult to read or even see.

Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea focuses on how to manage one of the most central unknowns: the prospect of change in North Korea's leadership. Paul B. Stares and Joel S. Wit outline three scenarios of succession --managed, contested, and failed --and offer policy recommendations for dealing with potentially fractious leadership change. Stares and Wit consider the challenges that these scenarios would pose to domestic institutions and regional security, the proliferation of nuclear arms, jumpstarting the economy, and providing humanitarian assistance.

Book Description The persistent problem of the tens of millions of children across the developing world who grow up without receiving the most basic education has attracted increased public attention in recent years. This crisis is acute in rural and poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. More than 180 governments have committed to addressing this crisis by pledging that every boy and girl will receive a quality basic education by 2015. This target is now firmly established and endorsed as one of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Yet to reach the overall goal of universal education for children, policymakers will need to make special efforts to address the economic, social, and cultural barriers that keep even larger proportions of girls in poor countries out of school. Indeed, extensive research confirms that investing in girls' education delivers high returns not only for female educational attainment, but also for maternal and children's health, more sustainable families, women's empowerment, democracy, income growth, and productivity. What Works in Girls' Education summarizes the extensive body of research on the state of girls' education in the developing world today; the impact of educating girls on families, economies, and nations; and the most promising approaches to increasing girls' enrollment and educational quality. The overall conclusions are straightforward: educating girls pays off substantially. While challenges exist, existing research provides us guidance on how to make significant progress. About the Author Barbara Herz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has worked on and written about girls' education for more than 20 years. When she worked at the World Bank from 1981-1999, she launched the Women in Development division and then headed another division covering education, health, and population in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Gene B. Sperling is the director of the Center for Unviersal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served as national economic adviser to President Clinton from 1996-2000, and represented the Clinton administration at the 2000 UN World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal.

After more than half a century in which the United States led international trade liberalization, the country has been in a long stalemate over trade policy. It has been losing ground as other nations enter into market-opening arrangements that disadvantage U.S.-based production. In an increasingly competitive global economy, the policies of the past no longer offer a road map for the future. U.S. Trade Policy assesses current U.S. trade policy and analyzes issues of trade policy authority, trade negotiations, investment rules, competition policy, regulatory barriers, exchange rates, and export controls.

This report argues that closing the political divide on trade will require measures that respond to the American public's ambivalence and are more explicitly designed to maximize the economic benefits that come from trade openings by increasing exports and attracting job creating investment. It also offers recommendations for trade and investment policies the United States should adopt that will help to create jobs and raise incomes for more Americans while also advancing foreign policy interests.

Saudi Arabia is one of the only countries in the Arab world that has not experienced a serious internal political crisis as a result of the region's recent unrest. The al- Saud regime was able to maintain stability by, among other measures, raising government salaries and augmenting social welfare programs, adroitly deploying its well-trained security forces, and mobilizing a host of patronage networks --especially the religious establishment. The regime still faces challenges, however. Most notably, a succession crisis within the ruling royal family, a severe drop in oil prices, and high unemployment among the country's youth could threaten the regime's long-term stability.

This Council Special Report posits that, while the Arab Awakening has caused tensions in Saudi-American relations, the two countries do not face a crisis, as many analysts argue. Although Riyadh and Washington have often been at odds over how to respond to the unrest in the region, they still have significant mutual interests such as counterterrorism cooperation and balancing Iran. Accordingly, U.S. policymakers should prioritize these interests while recognizing that Saudi Arabia will not agree with American policy preferences on all issues.

Last year's protracted health care debate in the United States exposed the world to a Congress gridlocked by outdated rules, incivility, and partisanship that have national security implications. In a post-9/11 world of nuclear standoffs, terrorist threats, and economic rivalries, congressional oversight and action is needed more than ever. Yet deadlock and dysfunction have caused Congress to fall short in fulfilling its constitutional role as partner to the executive branch in the formulation and implementation of national security policy.

Congress and National Security reviews the factors that have led to today's dysfunctional Congress and the impact the breakdown has had on its role in shaping national security policy. Kay King explains the demise of effective congressional action on pressing international issues since the conclusion of the cold war. She offers a series of recommendations to reset congressional rules, practices, and procedures to address the deadlock and restore Congress as a full partner to the executive branch in advancing U.S. national security interests.