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141. Defeating the Jihadists in Syria: Competition before Confrontation

Author:
Faysal Itani
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Since August 2014, the US-led air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has successfully inflicted casualties on ISIS and weakened its oil revenues. However, the same efforts have also accelerated the rise of the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate, and the near-collapse of nationalist rebel forces. In "Defeating the Jihadists in Syria: Competition before Confrontation," Faysal Itani of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East details the unintended consequences of the coalition air campaign and proposes a revised US strategy. He argues that the United States can effectively assist nationalist insurgents to defeat ISIS and the Nusra Front by enabling them to compete with and contain these groups before ultimately confronting them. Itani writes that the US-led campaign thus far and the train-and-equip initiative set to begin next month undermine and weaken nationalist rebel forces. He criticizes these efforts for failing to provide sufficient support to the rebel forces, while directing them to target ISIS instead of the regime. Meanwhile, the Nusra Front and other jihadist organizations have greater resources and have been effective in targeting the Assad regime. As such, nationalist rebel forces and local populations have increasingly aligned with the Nusra Front and even tolerate ISIS in order to protect themselves against regime violence, criminality, and chaos. Itani's proposed US strategy offers a practical and workable response to the rise of jihadists groups in Syria; this revised strategy seeks to support rebel forces to compete with the Nusra Front for popular support and to take control of the insurgency, contain ISIS, and build capacity for an eventual offensive against the jihadists. This approach will build on positive results in southern Syria by significantly increasing direct financial and material support and training for vetted nationalist groups that have already shown significant success. Simultaneously, in the north the campaign can provide sufficient material support to nationalist forces while expanding coalition air strikes to target ISIS's frontlines, allowing the nationalist insurgency to defend and govern territory. Only once nationalist insurgent forces have successfully competed with the Nusra Front and contained ISIS can they confront and ultimately defeat the jihadist groups in Syria.
Topic:
Politics, Terrorism, and International Security
Political Geography:
Iraq and Syria

142. Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine

Author:
Maksymilian Czuperski, John Herbst, Eliot Higgins, Alina Polyakova, and Damon Wilson
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Russia is at war with Ukraine. Russian citizens and soldiers are fighting and dying in a war of their government's own making. Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to deny Russian involvement in the fighting, but the evidence is overwhelming and indisputable. Drawing upon open source information, Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine provides irrefutable evidence of direct Russian military involvement in eastern Ukraine.
Topic:
Political Violence, War, Hegemony, and Self Determination
Political Geography:
Ukraine and Eastern Europe

143. A Post-Sanctions Iran and the Eurasian Energy Architecture

Author:
Micha'el Tanchum
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
With the removal of international sanctions on Iran, different markets will have a great interest in importing Iranian gas. But which market will benefit the most? In A Post-Sanctions Iran and the Eurasian Energy Architecture, Micha'el Tanchum, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center and the Eurasian Energy Futures Initiative, argues that the lifting of the sanctions carries the potential to radically restructure the Eurasian energy architecture and, as a consequence, reshape Eurasian geopolitics. After Iran meets its domestic demand for natural gas, it will have the option to export gas to two of the following three markets: European Union/Turkey, India, or China. Iran will not have enough natural gas to supply all three of these major markets. The pattern of Iran's gas exports in the immediate post-sanctions period will shape the relationship between two competing orientations in the Eurasian energy architecture: a system of energy relationships reinforcing the EU's outreach to the Eastern Neighborhood alongside a system of energy relationships reinforcing China's OBOR integration project. A pivot to China will not be favorable to EU's and NATO's interests as it decreases Europe's energy security. By contrast, an expanded Southern Gas Corridor to Europe would promote the extension of Euro-Atlantic influence in Eurasia.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Energy Policy, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Iran and Eurasia

144. China's Evolving Role in Latin America: Can it Be a Win-Win?

Author:
Enrique Dussel Peters
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Weeks before Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with President Barack Obama in Washington, the Atlantic Council's Latin America Center launched a new report that unravels the complexities of the Latin America-China relationship. Titled China's Evolving Role in Latin America: Can it Be a Win-Win?, the report provides five recommendations to help both China and Latin America usher in a mutually beneficial post-commodity-boom relationship. The key to long-term success will be to insure that the relationship promotes—rather than delays—economic growth and social progress in the hemisphere. In the report, renowned Mexico-based China Expert Enrique Dussel Peters, an Atlantic Coucil author and Professor at the Graduate School of Economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), calls for a ratcheting up of strategic planning and multilateral support so the relation¬ship is a win-win for all parties, including the United States. A deep dive of the state of play is provided for five countries: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela. These countries illustrate the spectrum of ties with China, ranging from those with long and complex historical relation¬ships to those almost entirely structured around recent opportunities for economic cooperation.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Economics, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
China and Latin America

145. NATO's New Strategy: Stability Generation

Author:
Franklin Kramer, Hans Binnendijk, and Daniel Hamilton
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The new threat landscape the transatlantic community faces means that NATO must adapt its strategy to remain relevant. While many transatlantic policymakers and thought leaders have called for a new strategy for NATO, few have outlined what that strategy should actually entail. This report proposes that NATO adopt a new strategy called "Stability Generation," built on the concept of ensuring stability in the NATO region and reducing the threat of significant conflicts in NATO's neighborhood. To accomplish this, NATO must add resilience as a core task to its existing tasks of collective defense, crisis management, and cooperative security. NATO must also enhance capabilities in the East against conventional and hybrid conflicts, in the South against instability arising from conflicts and extremism in neighboring countries, and across the Alliance to decrease vulnerabilities and enhance resilience, particularly with respect to cybersecurity.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
North Atlantic

146. Risk Nexus: Overcome by cyber risks? Economic benefits and costs of alternate cyber futures

Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
In 2030, will the Internet and related information and communications technologies (ICTs) continue to drive global innovation and prosperity? Or will that bright promise be swamped by an unstable and insecure Internet, so overwhelmed by non-stop attacks that it has become an increasing drag on economic growth? The answers, as far as we can predict, are not promising and mean the difference in tens of trillions of dollars in global economic growth over the next fifteen years.
Topic:
Economics, Science and Technology, Communications, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

147. ISIS War Game III: The Final Phase

Author:
Bilal Y. Saab
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
September 2015 marked the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama's speech outlining the administration's strategy to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Yet, ISIS celebrated in June its own first-year anniversary of setting up a state by conducting three nearly simultaneous terrorist operations in three different countries—France, Tunisia, and Kuwait. Just this past month, ISIS also shocked the world with its attacks in Paris and Beirut and its downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt, killing more than 400 people combined and injuring hundreds more. While nobody expected the destruction of a resilient and agile foe such as ISIS within a couple of years, it is deeply troubling that the coalition is having such a hard time even disrupting its activities.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, War, Counterinsurgency, Fragile/Failed State, and ISIS
Political Geography:
Middle East

148. Renewable Energy’s Coming of Age: A Disruptive Technology?

Author:
Robert A. Manning
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
The eyes of the world are on the United Nations Climate Conference, also known as COP21. Leaders from around the world are gathered in Paris in an effort to combat the effects of climate change. One of the best chances we have to mitigate these harmful effects are renewable technologies.
Topic:
Climate Change, Industrial Policy, International Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Global Focus

149. Nordstream 2: Too Many Obstacles, Legal, Economic, and Political to be Delivered?

Author:
Alan Riley
Publication Date:
11-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Germany may be seeking to expedite the construction of Russia's Nordstream 2 pipeline by shielding the controversial project from tough the laws of the European Union (EU), according to a transcript of talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Energy Minster Sigmar Gabriel, Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Alan Riley writes in "Nordstream 2: Too Many Obstacles, Legal, Economic, and Political to Be Delivered?".
Topic:
Energy Policy, International Law, International Trade and Finance, Natural Resources, and European Union
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

150. Antimicrobial Resistance as an Emerging Threat to National Security

Author:
Maxine Builder
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Growing rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pose a threat to public health that could undo many of the medical advances made over the last seventy years, eroding the global medical safety net and posing a significant threat to national security. Diseases once eliminated by a single course of antibiotics show drug resistance, often to several different classes of drugs. Some of the implications of increasing rates of AMR are intuitive, such as longer duration of illness, extended hospital stays, and higher rates of mortality. But other effects of a postantibiotics world are less obvious, such as the inability to perform life-saving operations or the ability for a simple scratch on the arm to kill. Humanity could soon find itself living in a reality in which communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera, pneumonia, and other common infections cannot be controlled. This potentially catastrophic problem still can be abated, and the global health community, including the World Health Organization (WHO), has highlighted AMR as a priority in global health. But all sectors of the international community, not simply those in public health, need to take immediate steps to reverse the current trends and eliminate the systematic misuse of antimicrobial drugs, especially in livestock, and restore the pipeline of new antimicrobial drugs. The significant health and economic costs of AMR are difficult to quantify due to incomplete data that often underreports the extent of the problem, since there are no standard metrics or consensus on methodology to measure rates of AMR. But even the piecemeal statistics that exist paint a bleak picture. In a 2013 report, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports at least two million Americans acquire serious infections to one or more strains of AMR bacteria annually, and at least 23,000 people die of these infections.1 A 2008 study estimated the excess direct costs to the US medical system attributable to AMR infections at $20 billion, with additional estimated productivity losses to be as high as $35 billion.2 With the increase in resistant infections and continuing rise in medical costs, the cost to the American medical system no doubt also has increased. This trend is not a uniquely American problem; it is truly global in scope. The European Union (EU) reports about 25,000 deaths annually due to drug-resistant bacteria, at an overall, combined cost of $2 billion in healthcare costs and productivity losses.3 There were over 14.7 million incidents of moderate-to-severe adverse reactions to antibiotics each year between 2001 and 2005 in China. Of these, 150,000 patients died annually.4 The most recent available data on China estimates that treatment of AMR infections during that same time period cost at least $477 million, with productivity losses of more than $55 million each year.5 A 2005 study of the United Kingdom (UK) found that the real annual gross domestic losses due to AMR were between 0.4 and 1.6 percent.6 Although slightly outdated, this estimate may be a useful guide in assessing the global impact of AMR, and given the trend of increasing resistance, it is likely that the impact will also increase accordingly. That said, it is prudent to repeat that the disparities in the quality of data reporting standards across China, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union make it difficult to directly compare the severity of the impacts AMR has on each entity. The primary cause of AMR globally is antibiotic overuse and misuse, be it from doctors inappropriately prescribing antibiotics to treat viral infections or individuals seeking over-the-counter antibiotics for self-treatment. But another driver, less obvious than overuse in humans, is the use of antimicrobials in livestock, and the ratio of use in animals as compared to humans is astounding. In the United States, about 80 percent of all antibiotics are consumed in either agriculture or aquaculture. Generally, these drugs are administered to livestock as growth promoters and are medically unnecessary. Resistance in livestock quickly spreads to humans, and many community-acquired infections are the result of a contaminated food supply. Although most infections are acquired in the community, most deaths attributed to resistant infections occur in healthcare settings, and healthcare-acquired (or nosocomial) infections are another driver of AMR. At this point, AMR does not pose an immediate and direct threat to national security. Rather, this is a creeping global security crisis. If current trends continue, these drugs upon which the world relies will lose effectiveness. The gains made in fighting infectious diseases will be reversed, and a wide range of routine surgeries and easily treatable infections will become much more dangerous and deadly. This will cause the health of the world's working population to deteriorate, and the economic productivity and social cohesion of the globe to decline. At any time, a “black swan” event—triggered by an outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis, cholera, or pneumonia, for example—could prove catastrophic, endangering the fabric of societies and our globalized economy, forcing a stop to international trade and travel to prevent further spread. The issue of AMR is a tragedy of the commons in which individual incentives lead to the overuse and eventual destruction of a shared resource. International cooperation is required to walk back from this ledge and avoid a postantibiotics world, even though it is impossible to completely reverse the damage already done.
Topic:
Health, National Security, Infectious Diseases, and Health Care Policy
Political Geography:
United States, China, United Kingdom, America, and Europe