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2. East of the Middle East: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and U.S. security implications
- Author:
- Tim Murphy
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- The war in Afghanistan represented an eastward shift in the United States' international focus. Previously concentrated on the Middle East, the United States has reconfigured its foreign policy directives to include interests east of the Middle East. The shift was long overdue. Central Asia is a rising regional security concern, and Chinese and Russian actions therein have cultivated robust political ties. Resulting cooperatives and agreements promote Chinese and Russian regional objectives. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) originally consisted of five Central Asian and Asian countries (the Shanghai Five), ostensibly to unify signatories on economic, social and political platforms. However, the SCO is often a proxy to advance Chinese and Russian interests.
- Topic:
- Security and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Russia, United States, China, Europe, Middle East, and Asia
3. The Proliferation Security Initiative in Perspective
- Author:
- Andrew Prosser
- Publication Date:
- 06-2004
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Participant countries of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a U.S.-led effort to stem the illicit trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and delivery systems, met on the first anniversary of the initiative, from May 31 to June 1 in Krakow, Poland. Russia announced on the first day of the meeting its decision to participate in the PSI, a move that U.S. officials had supported as an important step in augmenting the effectiveness of the initiative. However, Russia's participation will only occur, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, as long as PSI activities do not violate national or international law. Russian officials have similarly expressed concerns that the PSI's land, sea, and air-based WMD interdiction activities could endanger international commerce, and give unwarranted powers to the U.S. Navy to act as a global police force.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Russia and United States
4. A First-hand Report: Cuban Biotechnology
- Author:
- Glenn Baker
- Publication Date:
- 05-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, triggered a furor when on May 6, 2002, he stated, “The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort.” Two days later, I was meeting with a representative from the Cuban Interests Section on an unrelated matter when I posed the question, “How would Cuba respond if CDI asked to bring a group of experts down to learn more about these charges?” I had no expectations of hearing any more about it. But less than two weeks later, I was told that not only was there an interest, but that we were invited to bring anyone, come anytime, and visit anywhere we wanted. Clearly, Bolton's comments had struck a nerve in Havana.
- Topic:
- Security, Human Welfare, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States, Caribbean, and Havana
5. The Defense Monitor: The World At War
- Author:
- Col. Daniel Smith
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- At the start of 2003, the United States remains focused on fighting global terrorism in general even as it zeroes in on Iraq as the nexus of evil. But a number of factors in play today make international support for such a venture less effusive than in 1990-91, when the last anti-Saddam “coalition of the willing” formed. Many economies, including those of three of the four big financial supporters of the 1990-91 war — Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia — are weaker. Any war would be relatively more expensive. Suspicions about U.S. motives, fueled by the Bush administration's initial unilateralism, remain alive despite Washington's patient work in obtaining a UN Security Council resolution on new inspections. Germany has declared it will provide no forces; use of Saudi Arabian airbases to launch combat missions against Iraq remains unclear; and troop contributions, as well as moral support, from other Arab states such as Egypt and Syria may not materialize.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, Iraq, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt
6. The Defense Monitor: Victory At An Unknown Cost
- Author:
- Stephen H. Baker
- Publication Date:
- 12-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Throughout the spring, summer and fall of this year thousands of U.S. military planners have worked on the various contingencies and strategies concerning a possible invasion of Iraq.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq
7. The Defense Monitor: The Afghan Campaign One Year On
- Author:
- Mark Burgess
- Publication Date:
- 09-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- An Afghan Blitzkrieg? Sept. 11, 2001, transformed Afghanistan even more than it did America. The pariah state which harbored Osama bin Laden, and was the base camp for his al Qaeda network, immediately became the focus of the U.S. war against terrorism. The Afghan campaign began amid dire warnings of the dangers historically faced by foreign interlopers in the country that was center stage of central Asia's “great game” during the 19th and 20th centuries and that would become the first battlefield of an even greater one during the first year of the 21st. The experience of the British and the Soviets was held up as an example of what fate potentially awaited any American intervention in Afghanistan. A year later, such warnings seem overstated. Al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan have been destroyed, the Taliban ousted, and an Afghan Transitional Government rules in their place. Meanwhile, life for the average Afghan is a considerably less nasty and brutish affair than it was a little over a year ago — all in short order and at a relatively low cost in human life. Such successes notwithstanding, the Afghan campaign is not yet over. It has not been without failings, some of which may return to haunt ongoing operations there. Similarly, some of the methods used to achieve this success, while effective in the short term, may yet prove polemical.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan
8. The Defense Monitor: How Little is Enough: U.S. End–Use Monitoring and Oversight of the Weapons Trade
- Author:
- Fleur A. Burke
- Publication Date:
- 08-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- When the united states began airstrikes in Afghanistan in October 2001, U.S. planes were threatened by Stinger missiles that had been provided to the mujaheddin by the United States in the 1980s. Since at least the mid-1990s, the use of legally exported U.S. weaponry to bomb and burn Kurdish villages in southeastern Turkey has been documented. Turkish forces have also used U.S.-supplied light weaponry in specific human rights violations, ranging from torture to indiscriminate firing on civilians.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Turkey
9. The Defense Monitor: Intelligence and Sept. 11
- Author:
- Dan Smith
- Publication Date:
- 06-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- In the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, the accusation was “intelligence failure.” In the aftermath of the series of revelations in May and June 2002 about bureaucratic bungling in the weeks before the attacks, the accusation was “what did the president know and when did he know it?”
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
10. The Defense Monitor: Nuclear Time Warp
- Author:
- Dr. Bruce G. Blair
- Publication Date:
- 05-2002
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- President george W. Bush's new Nuclear Posture Review harks back to the stone age, or at least to the 1950s, when America's most beautiful minds struggled to devise a strategy to deal with the original rogue state — the Soviet Union. The latest exercise to devise a nuclear strategy to neutralize threats of weapons of mass destruction wielded by the 2002-class of rogue states such as Iraq and North Korea is proof that time folds over on itself, and that higher-order nuclear intelligence is as elusive as table-top fusion. This repetition of history isn't funny, but it is dangerous.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- Iraq and North Korea