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972. Thinking About Strategic Hybrid Threats-In Theory and in Practice
- Author:
- Frank J. Cilluffo and Joseph R. Clark
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- As the United States resets in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the face of growing uncertainty in the South China Sea, a good and important debate is occurring about how best to provide for our national security. Reasonable arguments can be made about the threats posed by potential peer competitors such as China, rogue nations such as North Korea, and prospective revisionist powers such as Russia. Arguments can be made about threats arising from political instability or intrastate conflicts, such as in Pakistan, Uganda, and Syria. Arguments can also be made about the threats posed by jihadi terror groups, organized crime syndicates, and drug trafficking organizations. The dangers highlighted by any one of these arguments are real and perhaps grave. They are not, however, novel.
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, United States, China, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria
973. Chinese Organized Crime in Latin America
- Author:
- Evan Ellis
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- In June 2010, the sacking of Secretary of Justice Romeu Tuma Júnior for allegedly being an agent of the Chinese mafia rocked Brazilian politics. Three years earlier, in July 2007, the head of the Colombian national police, General Oscar Naranjo, made the striking proclamation that “the arrival of the Chinese and Russian mafias in Mexico and all of the countries in the Americas is more than just speculation.” although, to date, the expansion of criminal ties between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Latin America has lagged behind the exponential growth of trade and investment between the two regions, the incidents mentioned above highlight that criminal activity between the regions are becoming an increasingly problematic by-product of expanding China–Latin America interactions, with troubling implications for both regions.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, America, Brazil, Latin America, and Mexico
974. Is a Nuclear Deal with Iran Possible? An Analytical Framework for the Iran Nuclear Negotiations
- Author:
- James K. Sebenius and Michael K. Singh
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Since assuming the presidency of the United States in January 2009, Barack Obama has tried both outreach and sanctions in an effort to halt Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapons capability. Yet neither President Obama's personal diplomacy nor several rounds of talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council-China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States-plus Germany (the "P5 1") nor escalating sanctions have deterred Tehran. Iran has not only continued but accelerated its nuclear progress, accumulating sufficient low-enriched uranium that, if further enriched, would be sufficient for five nuclear weapons. Consequently, as Iran makes major advances in its nuclear capabilities, speculation has increased that Israel or a United States-led coalition may be nearing the decision to conduct a military strike to disable Iran's nuclear program.
- Topic:
- Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, China, United Kingdom, Iran, and France
975. Russian Foreign Policy: Continuity in Change
- Author:
- Andrew C. Kuchins and Igor A. Zevelev
- Publication Date:
- 12-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- The imminent return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency of the Russian Federation in 2012 raises many questions about the future of Russian foreign and security policy as well as U.S.—Russia relations. To what extent will Putin seek to continue and implement the goals of current President Dmitri Medvedev's modernization program? Will Putin reform the political system in the direction of decentralization of power and pluralism? Will the ''reset'' in U.S.—Russia relations endure? Even with these issues up in the air, the return of Putin as president will not significantly alter the course of Moscow's foreign policy. Some argue that Putin never relinquished authority over foreign policy in the first place, and that may well be true. But even if it is, there are deeper structural reasons involving debates among Russian elites about foreign policy and Russia's place in the world that are more important in explaining why Putin's return will not usher in a significant policy shift
- Political Geography:
- Russia and United States
976. The European Commission's Policy Towards the Southern Gas Corridor: Between National Interests and Economic Fundamentals
- Author:
- Nicolò Sartori
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- The European Union launched the ambitious Southern Gas Corridor initiative with the goal of enhancing the security of its energy supply. The corridor - a virtual transit route running from the gas-rich Caspian basin to the EU while bypassing Russian soil - is meant to increase diversification of the EU's supplier and transit countries. While various projects have been proposed to give life to the corridor, the European Commission has given particular support to the realisation of Nabucco, a 3,893km pipeline running from Turkey to the European gas hub of Baumgarten in Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. The Commission's choice is, however, flawed in several respects, as it fails to take account of key factors, such as the diverging, and sometimes conflicting, interests of individual EU member states, the geopolitical challenges of the Caspian basin, and the commercial constraints on Nabucco. This short-sighted approach has hindered the efficient development of the Southern Gas Corridor and weakened the EU's energy policy.
- Topic:
- Security, Energy Policy, and Natural Resources
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria
977. Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire, by Marlene Laruelle
- Author:
- Norman Stone
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- Eurasianism' is a relatively new concept in Russian history, and not one that appeals beyond a fairly narrow circle. The argument goes back to the turn o Russia somehow a creation of Europe, of Germans especially? Peter the Great had famously set about the westernization of the place, and St Petersburg had been put up almost as a stage-set, "a combination of Wedgwood and cardboard". By 1900, something of a nationalist reaction to such westernization set in, and the Eurasianists made much more of their Asiatic-for short, 'Tatar'-side. They had had quite enough of hearing that the original Russians had been drunken buffoons whose civilization had to be planted upon them by Vikings or Poles or Baltic Germans. No, they said, we have a Tatar side, and we owe a great deal to the Asiatics. In this, they were quite right. Pushkin had said, of the Mongols who had crushed Russia for two and a half centuries, that they, unlike the Arabs who had taken so much of Spain at the same time, had not brought "Aristotle and algebra". But in reality the Mongols brought a great deal, especially in styles of government. A third of the old Russian nobility had Tatar names ("Yusupov" from "Yusuf", "Muraviev" from "Murad", etc.) while Ivan the Terrible himself descended, through his mother, from Genghiz Khan, and through his grand-mother from the Byzantines. For a long time, under the Soviet Union, a sort of vehement and stupid nationalism was permitted to occlude the Tatar element in Russian history. Now, matters are rather different. In 2005 there were celebrations of it at Kazan; and there is an interesting aspect of Putin's reign, that Tatars have been doing remarkably well.
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Soviet Union
978. Exploring the Caucasus in the 21st Century: Essays on Culture, History and Politics in a Dynamic Context
- Author:
- Michael B. Bishku
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Insight Turkey
- Institution:
- SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
- Abstract:
- According to the introduction of this book, it is the hope that this collection of essays "will enhance insight on the Caucasus and cogently encourage European Union citizens and civil servants to develop more policy towards the South Caucasus" (p. 22). Such is considered essential by the authors since the EU became a "Black Sea power" in 2007 with the memberships of Romania and Bulgaria and the impact of the August 2008 Russian-Georgian war, in which Russia was sending a message to the West that it regarded the region as its own "backyard. Interestingly some of the chapters deal with developments in the North Caucasus-a part of the region politically attached to the Russian Federation-that may affect or be affected by developments in the South Caucasus. Most of these essays, while diverse in subject matter,are brief in length, but welldocumented and clearly written; despite the title of the book, some chapters include extensive historical background especially regarding the 19 th and 20 th centuries when the entire Caucasus region was either under the control or being conquered by the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. Recurrent themes in this book are: 1) the transition process through which the South Caucasus republics have been moving from autocratically-ruled to hopefully more democratic societies with greater political and economic freedom, and 2) the Russian Federation's relations with the republics of both the North and South Caucasus.
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Europe
979. Raising our Sights: Russian-American Strategic Restraint in an Age of Vulnerability
- Author:
- David C. Gompert and Michael Kofman
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Abstract:
- The United States and Russia have sought to reduce the danger of nuclear war by limiting offensive strategic capabilities through negotiated agreements, relying on mutual deterrence based on reciprocal threats and the corresponding fear of retaliation. Although nuclear arsenals have been pared, this is fundamentally the same way the United States and Soviet Union sought to reduce the danger of nuclear war during the Cold War, when both were impelled to do so because they were adversaries and able to do so despite being adversaries. It is ironic—not to say unimaginative—that although the two are no longer adversaries, they stick to a path chosen when they were. This current approach is inadequate given new strategic vulnerabilities brought on by technological change. Both the opportunity and the need now exist for a different, more ambitious approach to avoiding strategic conflict—one designed for new possibilities as well as new vulnerabilities. The United States and Russia can and should raise their sights from linear numerical progress to qualitative transformation of their strategic relationship.
- Topic:
- Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, and Treaties and Agreements
- Political Geography:
- Russia and United States
980. Russian Protest On- and Offline: The role of social media in the Moscow opposition demonstrations in December 2011
- Author:
- Markku Lonkila
- Publication Date:
- 02-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Finnish Institute of International Affairs
- Abstract:
- Social media played an important role in the Moscow opposition demonstrations in December 2011, functioning both as an alternative arena for public debate and as a tool for mobilising the protests. In a matter of months, the political atmosphere in the country changed and the legitimacy of the Russian power vertical was called into question. Even before the Duma elections in 2011, social media had turned into an alternative forum for political debate in Russia. These media frayed the image of United Russia and Vladimir Putin, politicised new audiences, and helped to form both a collective 'anti' identity and networks among the protesters. The reports of the falsification of the Duma elections circulated through social media channels and exploded into anger on the part of the betrayed voters. Social media were put to good effect when making the practical arrangements for the protests, such as financing the street demonstrations and recruiting participants. Albeit crucial in mobilising discontent, social media is less well-suited to building lasting political structures. In the longer run, the conflict-torn opposition has to transform the protests into offline organisations and decide, among other things, who can represent the street protesters in negotiations with the power-holders. Imposing strict internet control in Russia does not seem likely since the Russian urban middle class is accustomed to seeking information and expressing itself freely on the net. Removing this freedom would lead to an increase in anti-government sentiments and the intensification of protests in big Russian cities.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Science and Technology, and Social Stratification
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Moscow