Publishing Institution: Project on Defense Alternatives / Topic: Defense Policy

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 01-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: President Bush's request to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 personnel follows on the heels of similar proposals by Congress members of both parties. Despite the bipartisan appeal of this idea, it is not at all clear what problem it is intended to solve or how it is supposed to solve it. Advocates may believe that America's troubles in Iraq provide reason enough to “grow” the Army and Marine Corps. But this view misconstrues both the lessons of that war and America's true security needs.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Government, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and America

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 09-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Considerable controversy surrounds the effects of America's post-9/11 wars on its armed forces – more specifically, their effects on military readiness. And there are grounds enough for concern in the August 2006 admission by General Peter Pace, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, that two-thirds of the US Army's active and reserve combat brigades registered in the two lowest readiness categories.
Topic:: International Relations, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:: United States and America

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 09-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Since the onset of the US “global war on terrorism”, the operational capacity of the original “Al Qaeda” centered around Osama bin-Laden has been significantly degraded. Hundreds of cadre formerly commanded by bin-Laden have been killed (mostly during the Afghan war). Several top leaders of the organization have been killed or captured – most notably Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubaydah, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – as have several leading regional associates, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Dozens of third tier operatives have been killed or captured. Nonetheless, the organization continues to function in a more decentralized form.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: United States

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 02-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: As originally conceived the Quadrennial Defense Review was meant to help ensure the internal consistency of mid-and longer-term US defense planning. By “internal consistency” I here mean a concordance of strategy, assets, and budgets. As critics often put it in the past: the point is to show how the force fits the strategy and the budget fits the force. The exercise is supposed to “connect” our military strategy with our force development plans and, in turn, connect these with current and future budgets. In this regard, the 2006 QDR is long on assertion and short on quantification – “short” as in utterly lacking.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Economics, and War
Political Geography:: United States

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 11-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: We have come a long way since autumn 1989 and the few optimistic years that followed. During that dawn of the post-Cold War era, security policy discourse focused briefly on notions of common security and a peace dividend. Since then, these ideas have been displaced by other, more bellicose ones: the clash of civilizations, the war on terrorism, and their constant companion: the Revolution in Military Affairs.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Development
Political Geography:: United States

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 02-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Among those endeavors that a state or a people may undertake, none is more terrible than war. None has repercussions more far-reaching or profound. Thus, a grave responsibility to one's own nation and to the global community attends any decision to go to war. And part of this responsibility is to estimate and gauge the effects of war, including the collateral damage and civilian casualties that it incurs.
Topic:: Defense Policy and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and Middle East

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 09-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: This report analyzes an important aspect of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF): the interdiction of Iraqi ground units by coalition air forces. Based on air campaign statistics, observations from the field, and the experience of past air campaigns, the report assesses the likely impact (in terms of combatant casualties) of coalition air attacks on the Iraqi army in the field. Our approach is a comparative one that views the OIF air interdiction campaign in light of the experience of the 1991 Gulf War. Among the issues we explore is the contribution of coalition air power to the catastrophic collapse of the Iraqi Republican Guard and regular army.
Topic:: Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

Author:: Charles Knight
Publication Date:: 09-2002
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: In the first Clinton administration Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced that the United States would seek the capability to undertake offensive counterproliferation strikes against proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). To this end Les Aspin's 1993 Bottom Up Review calls for "Improvements in the ability of both our general purpose and special operations forces to seize, disable, or destroy arsenals of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and their delivery systems."
Topic:: Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

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