This book examines the effects of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington of 11 September 2001 on America's human rights and counter-terrorism policies towards a number of countries in Asia. Five countries have been chosen for examination, divided into two front-lines states (Pakistan and Uzbekistan), two second-front countries (Indonesia and Malaysia), and a third-front country, China. The paper also looks at changes in US domestic legislation and its treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in order to analyse the extent to which the US promotion of an external human rights policy might also have been compromised by its own legislative changes as a result of the struggle against terrorism.

The paper concludes that the attacks on US territory, overall, have constrained America's willingness and capacity to promote an external human rights policy with respect to these five countries. However, some attention - especially at the rhetorical level - to these countries' human rights records has been retained to differing degrees among the five states. This degree of difference is not explained entirely in reference to a country's perceived centrality to the struggle against terrorism. It depends on the extent to which the US executive and legislative branches are united - either singly or in combination - in their disapproval of a state's record, or in their understanding about how best to reach the policy goals that are sought.

Herbert J. Ellison is professor of Russian history in the History Department and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies of the University of Washington. He is the author of History of Russia, and editor and contributor to Sino-Soviet Conflict in Global Perspective, Soviet Policy toward Western Europe, and Japan and the Pacific Quadrille. He has also written an extensive list of book chapters and articles on Russian history and foreign policy. He is currently writing a book on Russia in the Yeltsin era. Donald W. Treadgold was professor of Russian history in the History Department and the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies of the University of Washington. He was the author of Lenin and His Rivals, The Great Siberian Migration, The West in Russia and China (2 vols.), and A History of Christianity, a long-time editor of The Slavic Review, and editor and contributor to many books and journals on Russian history and other issues.