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42. Metrics for the Haiti Stabilization Initiative
- Author:
- Robert Grossman-Vermaas and David C. Becker
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Stabilization in postconflict or low-conflict situations is a growing business around the world. For the United States, stabilization efforts at the moment may seem to focus on U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the recently released Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review noted that there are 36 active conflicts and 55 fragile states in the world. In reality, the United States supports stabilization efforts from Colombia to Lebanon through a variety of programs. Using a parallel non-U.S.-centric indicator, the United Nations (UN) now supports more than 14,000 police in 17 different countries to provide police advice, law enforcement training, and a public security presence in situations where the UN has a mandate to support a government or encourage peace-building efforts.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Colombia, United Nations, and Lebanon
43. ISAF Lessons Learned: A German Perspective
- Author:
- Rainer Glatz
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Following several largely futile attempts to gain control over Afghanistan, the British Empire granted independence to the country in 1919. Seventy years later, Russian forces withdrew having failed to establish control through a pro-Russian government. Today, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) struggles to establish a stable political system in order to prevent the country from again becoming a safe haven for terrorists. The question is: Will the Alliance prevail or will it join the club of losers? The answer is open, and it is up to NATO and the international community to sustain the positive momentum gained in 2010. The difficulty of nation-building in this remote, but nevertheless strategically important, part of the world can be seen in daily media coverage of the setbacks and losses, progress and success.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Russia, North Atlantic, and Germany
44. Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and Beyond
- Author:
- Robert Killebrew
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the global context for American security policy was changing. While the traditional state-based international system continued to function and the United States reacted to challenges by states in conventional ways (for example, by invading Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11), a cascade of enormous technological and social change was revolutionizing international affairs. As early as the 1990s, theorists were writing that with modern transnational communications, international organizations and corporate conglomerates would increasingly act independently of national borders and international regulation. What was not generally foreseen until about the time of 9/11, though, was the darker side: that the same technology could empower corrupt transnational organizations to threaten the international order itself. In fact, the globalization of crime, from piracy's financial backers in London and Nairobi to the Taliban and Hizballah's representatives in West Africa, may well be the most important emerging fact of today's global security environment.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq
45. Irregular Conflict and the Wicked Problem Dilemma: Strategies of Imperfection
- Author:
- Franklin Kramer
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Irregular conflict is neither neat nor fair. Definitionally, it is hard to describe, including as it does conflicts ranging from Somalia to Bosnia to Sierra Leone to Colombia to Iraq to Afghanistan (to say nothing of Sudan, the Philippines, or Yemen). Hybrid, counterinsurgency (COIN), stability operations, counterterrorism, and civil war have all been utilized as descriptions, often in combination. But if defining irregular conflict is difficult, even more difficult is knowing how to respond, especially for an outside intervener like the United States. Doctrine has now been developed, but in practice the context of an irregular conflict is generally so complex and contradictory that it is difficult to put the full doctrine effectively into practice.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Sudan, Bosnia, Philippines, Yemen, Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia
46. Transforming the Conflict in Afghanistan
- Author:
- Joseph A. L'Etoile
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Many have characterized the war in Afghanistan as a violent political argument between the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (with its coalition partners) and the Taliban, with the population watching and waiting to decide whom to join, and when. The main value of this analogy is not in its characterization of the war but in its explanation of why the Afghan government and the coalition are finding it so difficult to gain traction against a largely unpopular insurgency. By framing the options as a simple binary choice between the government with its hierarchical, remote, and centralized governing structure and the Taliban with its violently repressive but locally present shadow government, the war is represented—or misrepresented—as a matter of unattractive choices that impel the population to remain on the sidelines waiting to see who will win.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Taliban
47. State-building: Job Creation, Investment Promotion, and the Provision of Basic Services
- Author:
- Paul Collier
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Rigorous research on state-building is still in its infancy. In this article, I take three issues that are important and distinctive to state-building situations and discuss what research can potentially contribute. The issues are by no means exhaustive; they are merely a sample of what needs to be a more comprehensive engagement between scholars and practitioners. There is unfortunately a wide gap between what practitioners need to know and what research can currently show with reasonable confidence. There is a further wide gap between what is known and what is likely to be feasible for researchers in the next few years. At least practitioners should be aware of where they must make decisions unsupported by solid evidence; more ambitiously, they can encourage research into those issues that are both feasible and significant.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and Europe
48. Reflections on the Human Terrain System During the First 4 Years
- Author:
- Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- The Human Terrain System (HTS) is a U.S. Army program that recruits, trains, and deploys mixed military and civilian Human Terrain Teams (HTTs), which embed with military units in Iraq and Afghanistan. These teams conduct social science research about the local popula¬tion to provide situational awareness to the military and “enable culturally astute decision-making, enhance operational effectiveness, and preserve and share socio-cultural institutional knowledge.” The teams rely on the HTS Research Reachback Center to provide secondary source research and the Mapping the Human Terrain Toolkit (MAP–HT) to support analysis, storage, and retrieval of sociocultural information.
- Topic:
- Military Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States
49. Patronage versus Professionalism in New Security Institutions
- Author:
- Kimberly Marten
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Where do effective military and police institutions come from in a society that is not already based on the rule of law? In particular, can informal militias based on patron/ client relations be successfully reformed or integrated into professional and effective state security institutions? We do not have good answers to these questions. Yet the United States and its allies are wrestling with them daily in many locations around the globe. My goal in this article is to examine what we do know about historical and recent situations that to some degree mirror these current challenges, and to draw out some unexpected practical suggestions about what might work on the ground.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States
50. Counterinsurgency after Afghanistan: A Concept in Crisis
- Author:
- David Ucko
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Six years have passed since the publication of Field Manual (FM) 3−24, Counterinsurgency. Embraced by sections of the military and civilian defense community seeking a fresh approach to the conflict in Iraq, the new field manual gained a political significance and profile unlike previous doctrinal publications. When General David Petraeus was able to incorporate some of the manual's core precepts into the new U.S. strategy for Iraq, and casualties and instability in Iraq declined over the following few years, both counterinsurgency doctrine and the people associated with it gained unprecedented influence.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States