Search

Begin New Search Author Geoffrey Kemp Publication Year within 25 Years

1. Water Crises, Security and Climate Change

Author:
Geoffrey Kemp and Luke Hagberg
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for the National Interest
Abstract:
The historically severe drought in Syria from 2006-2011 led to the migration of rural communities to already overburdened urban centers, which concurrent with the state’s mismanagement of freshwater resources, helped foment the social unrest and the uprisings against President Bashar al-Assad. The ongoing conflict has had repercussions around the globe with refugees fleeing to, and having an unmistakable political impact upon, neighboring states and Europe. The war in Yemen was rooted in the Arab Spring, but while the attempts to overthrow President Ali Abdullah Saleh were eventually successful, the political transition was not. The overextraction of Yemen’s groundwater led to an unprecedented water crisis that has been exacerbated by the civil war. Terrorist cells, militant insurgencies, and foreign interventions have undermined efforts to reform the Yemeni government and address this humanitarian catastrophe.
Topic:
International Security, International Affairs, and Water
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. American Policy and Changing Alignments in the Middle East

Author:
Geoffrey Kemp
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for the National Interest
Abstract:
America’s Middle East policy must adapt to a changing region. The lack of an overarching theory of vital U.S. interests in the Middle East and of a strategy narrowly tailored to defending them has rendered U.S. policy reactive and largely incoherent. To the extent that it has coherence, it is driven by a strategy of primacy—by a complex of ideas in which active, armed American management of the region is essential for stability, in which states do not have a strong tendency to seek balance against threats, and in which increasing U.S. involvement will generally increase stability—and do so at costs acceptable to the United States. This strategy has undergirded costly choices like striking Libya, invading and occupying Iraq, putting American boots on the ground in Syria, and supporting unsavory partners against their internal opponents. This strategy faces building headwinds: public frustration, a growing national debt, and better-armed foes. Primacy comes at a growing opportunity cost: power tied up in the Middle East is unavailable to address a rising China or a more active Russia. And this strategy seems out of step with the region’s rapidly shifting strategic alignments. The time is ripe to go back to the basics, prioritizing the threats that require U.S. action in relation to the other international crises that affect vital U.S. interests, especially in East Asia and Europe
Topic:
International Cooperation and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Middle East

3. Maritime Security East of Suez Sustaining the U.S. Role as the Key Policeman in Times of Change

Author:
Geoffrey Kemp
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for the National Interest
Abstract:
At the height of America’s postwar power, in the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. Seventh Fleet was able to sustain an unchallenged presence “East of Suez” to embrace the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the Indonesian Straits, and the South and East China Seas as well as the Western Pacific. Today the U.S. remains the dominant maritime power in this vast area, especially in the region to the west of the Straits of Malacca. However, in the region closer to China, the growing power projection and sea denial capabilities of China’s military raises questions about the future ability of the United States to operate with immunity in an area China increasingly believes is part of its own patrimony. Although the United States has many allies in the region, especially Singapore, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and increasingly Vietnam, the trends in military spending and force deployments suggest the U.S. will have to increasingly rely on cooperation with allies if there is to be a balance against China’s maritime aspirations. The downside of this is that the U.S. must avoid being drawn into the many bilateral disputes between China and its neighbors and must try to play a conciliatory role rather than taking sides. This will inevitably mean that the U.S. will have to play a different role from the one it became accustomed to during its days as the undisputed hegemon. The U.S. will still remain the key policeman in the Indian Ocean and Gulf regions, but will have to adapt to a different role in parts of the Western Pacific and southeast Asian waters.
Topic:
International Security and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Partners in Frustration: Europe, the United States and the Broader Middle East

Author:
Geoffrey Kemp, Bruce Stokes, William Drozdiak, Flynt L. Leverett, Christopher J. Makins, and Christopher Caldwell
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Europeans and Americans view the Middle East through historical lenses of different hues. Their different experiences of the region and differing priorities and interests greatly contributed to the transatlantic rift over the war in Iraq and other issues in 2003. During 2004, however, there have been some more hopeful signs of potential transatlantic rapprochement over the broader Middle East. The prospective advantages of closer U.S.-European cooperation on the Middle East remain enormous. With a new U.S. administration due to take office in January 2005, it is timely to review the prospects for such cooperation.
Topic:
International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Middle East

5. Considering the Options: U.S. Policy toward Iran's Nuclear Program

Author:
Rose Gottemoeller, Ray Takeyh, Danielle Pletka, Patrick Clawson, Michael Eisenstadt, Dennis Ross, Geoffrey Kemp, Henry Sokolski, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Ladan Boroumand, and Thomas McInerney
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
I'm Patrick Clawson, the Deputy Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I would like to thank all of our guests for attending this event today. If I could just take a couple of minutes to explain what our intention is in organizing this event, and then we can plunge right in, after we go around the table and everyone introduces themselves.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

6. Elusive Partnership: U.S. and European Policies in the Near East and the Gulf

Author:
Geoffrey Kemp, James Steinberg, Christopher J. Makins, Rita Hauser, J. Robinson West, Marc C. Ginsburg, and Craig Kennedy
Publication Date:
09-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The current transatlantic relationship as it concerns the Middle East can only be understood in a broader context. The History of U.S.-European Relations on the Middle East. The affairs of the Middle East have been uniquely contentious between the principal European countries and the United States for over 50 years. This has derived primarily from differing approaches to the Arab-Israel problem. The 1990s were an unusual and short-lived interlude in this hi story of differences. The recent emergence of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union and a growing awareness of a broader common European interest in the region based on history, proximity, trade, migration and the changing role of Islam, have prompted the European Union to engage increasingly in the region and to seek a position as a true partner for the United States and not just as 'a wallet.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Middle East