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31. Solving Transnistria: Any Optimists Left?

Author:
Cristian Urse
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Since 1992, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the situation in Transnistria, the breakaway republic on the border between Moldova and Ukraine. After the conclusion of the agreement that ended the armed conflict, the Moldovan government in Chişinău and the Transnistrian authorities in Tiraspol made efforts to find a political solution, under the supervision of a negotiation mechanism that included, until the end of 2005, Russia, Ukraine, and the OSCE. Russia's 2003 plan to that end was rejected by the Moldovan leadership. This triggered a set of political and economic punishments from Moscow. The political changes of 2005 have given a new impetus to the negotiations on the resolution of the Transnistrian conflict. The changes in Georgia and Ukraine and the resuscitation of GUAM have significantly influenced the premises for a settlement, while the United States and the European Union have become observers in the negotiations format.
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia

32. The European Union's Energy Security Challenges

Author:
Paul Belkin
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Recent increases in energy prices and a steady escalation in global energy demand—expected to rise by nearly 60 percent over the next twenty years—have led U.S. policymakers to engage in a wide-ranging debate over how best to address the country's future energy requirements. Similarly, energy security has become a policy priority for the European Union (EU) and its twenty-seven member states. Together, the United States and Europe represent the world's largest energy market. Although they produce approximately 23 percent of the world's energy, they consume almost 40 percent of the world's supply.
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

33. Public Diplomacy's Next Challenge

Author:
Christopher C. Harmon
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Despite seven years of experiments, U.S. public diplomacy against international terrorism has largely failed. What is most needed is a strong infusion of fresh ideas. The rhetorical branch of the offensive against terror has been utterly neglected. U.S. spokesmen should re-open the argument about terrorism's rank immorality; amplify the voices of Muslim critics of terrorism; publicly deconstruct the ideas of outspoken terrorists; and point to such weaknesses as their lack of credentials in theology. Secondly, there is much room for vigorous and thoughtful defense of evident political alternatives to terror, especially moderation and the rule of law.
Topic:
Diplomacy and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

34. The Renaissance of Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency: Examining Twenty-First Century Insurgencies and Government Responses

Author:
John J. Le Beau
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Insurgency and counterinsurgency as types of warfare are currently subject to considerable attention due to the nature of the high-profile struggles underway in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is prudent to note that neither insurgency nor the strategy and tactics required to combat it represent new phenomena. A large body of experience and literature from the twentieth century and earlier exists that addresses both sides of the insurgent struggle. Some characteristics of insurgencies are largely immutable, since insurgency is ultimately a form of warfare that is adopted when a combatant has limited resources and limited choices for how to fight against a more powerful adversary. Today as in the past, these characteristics include employment of small-unit attacks, ambushes, assassinations, propaganda activity, and the development of covert infrastructure. Nevertheless, the primary insurgencies active in the twenty-first century are marked by important differences from earlier struggles, particularly in the areas of motivation and inspiration. Rather than being quintessentially political and interested in local or national grievances, many contemporary insurgencies are at their core linked to a particular interpretation of Islam. Thus, these insurgencies represent a war of religion, not of politics, economics, or ethnicity. Islamist insurgencies are likely to be uncompromising and averse to negotiation, absolutist and pan-national in their goals, and willing to justify the mass slaughter of non-combatants who do not share their religious vision.
Topic:
Islam, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Saudi Arabia

35. Full Issue

Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

36. Building Defense Institutions: The Broader Context Today

Author:
Peter Faber
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
When the Soviet empire imploded, hopes of a post-Westphalian peace first rose, and then fell. The end of history did not come, nor did uncomfortable discontinuities coalesce into new international patterns. In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, those who hoped for the emergence of new structures of global relations claimed that the interregnum was now over. A clearly definable historical epoch—the Age of Terror—had now emerged. To many observers, however, the years since the 9/11 attacks represent continuity rather than departure. The dissociations and confusions of the interregnum have not disappeared, and one can see terrorism as a feature of this flux rather than its end point. Drifting, in other words, continued to compete with planning; discernible order continued to battle with entropy. If the high priests of pattern identified terrorism as their preferred organizing device in the U.S., advocates of European integration touted their own organizing principle: a trans-European narrative that enjoyed growing acquiescence (if not total uncritical acceptance) throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

37. NATO Enlargement and Beyond

Author:
Edwin J. Pechous
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The direction of NATO's future security posture currently hangs in the balance. Efforts for a modest increase in new membership and an expansion of interests and cooperation beyond its present day borders continue unabated. Where this policy will lead is yet to be determined. It is certainly worthwhile for those involved in this planning and strategy development in the next years to pursue a deeper understanding of the most recent enlargement processes from the mid-1990s to 2004—when ten new members entered the Alliance—and the overall NATO/U.S. outreach efforts during the same period of expansion. Our analysis of these endeavors is based on the insight gained from the conduct of 105 conferences with various combinations of the 26 PFP members led by a team from the Institute for Defense Analyses under the sponsorship and guidance of the George C. Marshall Center and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Political Geography:
United States

38. Beyond the RMA: Survival Strategies for Small Defense Economies

Author:
Ron Matthews and Curie Maharani
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Life was straightforward during the Cold War. There were the big guys in the bi-polar strategic stand-off—the United States and the Soviet Union—and there were the little guys: the Eastern European countries, such as Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia; Chile in Latin America; Spain in Southern Europe; Sweden in Scandinavia; Israel in the Middle East; and Singapore in the Far East. All these countries, big or small, capitalist or communist, possessed comprehensive and diversified defense industrial bases. However, times have changed, and in some senses they have changed dramatically. More than anything else, economics does not favor small countries. Previously, Cold War doctrine was premised on mass formations of artillery, main battle groups of tanks and combat aircraft located on the Central European front. In the twenty-first century, these formations have disappeared. Militaries have been transformed by the need to respond to new, emerging, asymmetrical threats arising anywhere across the globe, a shift that is captured under the umbrella term of the “Revolution in Military Affairs” (RMA). Contemporary doctrine focuses on high-intensity warfare, characterized by sophisticated defense systems, such as telemetry and cruise missiles, fiber optic technologies, sensors, modern telecommunication systems, “stealth” coatings of modern weapon platforms, light-weight composite materials, and the miniaturization of technologies in, for instance, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, Poland, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Latin America, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, Chile, and Scandinavia

39. Report by Swiss Federal Councillor Adolf Ogi on the results of the Consortium's first conference to the EAPC-D in Brussels, Belgium, on 18 December 1998

Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
During the EAPC Meeting of Defence Ministers of 12 June 1998, US Secretary of Defence Cohen proposed the creation of a PfP Consortium of defence academies and civilian institutes of security studies. This Consortium should serve to strengthen defence civilian and military professionalism through enhanced institutional cooperation among the forty-four EAPC member states in defence education and training. Its activities should include an annual conference, a dedicated Internet website, a secretariat, and a journal or other appropriate publication to further its goals.
Political Geography:
United States, Belgium, and Brussels

40. Memorandum of understanding between the Department of Defense of the United States of America and the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection, and Sports of Switzerland Concerning Cooperation in the Development of an Internet- Based Website, to Support the Work of the Partnership For Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes

Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Defense of the United States of America (hereinafter referred to as “the United States”) and the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection, and Sports of Switzerland (hereinafter referred to as “Switzerland”) is in furtherance of the principles established in the Partnership for Peace (PFP) Framework Document adopted by the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels on 10 January 1994.
Political Geography:
United States, America, North Atlantic, and Switzerland