A Belated Victory for Non Proliferation

For the Government, simply fulfilling all of the obligations it undertook in the communiqué a year ago would be a positive, if belated, step forward.

One example is the belated recognition that seemingly inert and benign halogenated hydrocarbons were interfering with the ozone layer. Another is the slowness to acknowledge the possibility of novel transmission mechanisms for spongiform encephalopathies ( mad cow disease ).

Third, Russia is already facing massive demographic decline and an aging and sickening population China faces the near certainty of a Japanese style demographic downturn from the 2040 s onward, a belated legacy of its one child policy.

Burma failed miserably, and, despite belated efforts to make the best of terrible circumstances, so has ASEAN. In the end, of course, it doesn t matter much whether or not we ascribe the failures of autocracy and non intervention to anything specifically Asian.

ATHENS The International Monetary Fund s belated admission that it significantly underestimated the damage that austerity would do to European Union growth rates highlights the self defeating character of orthodox recipes to address the causes of the debt crisis that followed the financial crash of 2008 2009.

China then embarked on coercive diplomacy, withdrawing its troops only after India destroyed a defensive line of fortifications. It also handed a lopsided draft agreement that seeks to freeze the belated, bumbling Indian build up of border defenses while preserving China s capability to strike without warning.

Israel should follow Obama, whose recent decision to arm the Syrian rebels, though belated and still ill defined, is a choice for the Sunni alliance. Israel should play an active role in the fall of Assad as a way to undermine the region s Shia crescent and isolate its leader, Iran.

The Asian economies should not count on being able to decouple from the economic woes of Europe and the US in the short run. But there are promising signs that, over time, the advanced countries difficulties will trigger a healthy, if belated, shift in Asia s development strategy, with China leading the way.

In all these cases, authorities have responded with repression, including the hiring of plain clothes militias to kidnap or beat up people who attempt to publicize problems. China s belated bouts of openness about the rural spread of AIDS and the SARS epidemic clearly indicate that the central government regards transparency solely as a matter of expediency.

The PRESIDENT As we begin the session of the Conference on Disarmament, I would like to bid a belated farewell to those colleagues who have left the Conference since we adjourned in September, namely, Ambassador Alfredo Vicente Chiaradia of Argentina, Ambassador Sverre Bergh Johansen of Norway, Ambassador Habib Mansour of Tunisia and Ambassador Blancanieve Portocarrero of Venezuela.

The European Central Bank s belated embrace of quantitative easing was a welcome step forward, but policymakers enormously destructive decision to shut down a member state s banking system for what appears to be political reasons is a far larger step backward. And no one is talking about real fiscal and political union, even though no one can imagine European Monetary Union surviving under the status quo.

As he looks ahead to the verdict of history, he seems to realize that hard power alone will not consolidate his reputation, but he remains hostage to incidents and accidents that could drive even his best laid plans off course. Nonetheless, the most striking thing at this point in Bush s second term is his belated discovery of the importance of diplomacy and soft power.