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191. Shaping Iraq's Security Forces US-Iranian Competition Series

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman, Sam Khazai, and Daniel Dewit
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The last active US combat forces left Iraq in August 2010, marking the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the beginning of Operation New Dawn. Some 49,000 advisory troops, four advisor assistance brigades, and a limited number of special operations forces (SOF) remained to train, advise, and assist Iraq's security forces after that date, including the military, intelligence, and police. Until the end, these US troops continued to serve a number of other important security functions: carrying out kinetic operations against Iranian-backed and other militant groups; providing training to the ISF; taking part in joint patrols along the borders of the Kurdish provinces and helping integrate ISF and Kurdish forces; and acting as a deterrent to Iraq's neighbors–in particular Iran.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Counterinsurgency, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, and Arabia

192. The Gulf Military Balance Volume II: The Missile and Nuclear Dimensions

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman and Bryan Gold
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
No single aspect of US and Iranian military competition is potentially more dangerous than the missile and nuclear dimensions, and the possibility Iran will deploy long-range, nuclear-armed missiles.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

193. Combating Global Poverty: Investing in the Governance and Growth Nexus

Author:
Conor M. Savoy
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
Foreign aid donors face a changed development landscape that necessitates a new approach to programming resources. In the last 20 years, countries across the developing world demo cratized, began to improve their governance, and experienced substantial economic growth. Yet, significant challenges remain that must be tackled, many of which fall within the governance and growth nexus. These issues—government effectiveness, rule of law, regulatory policies related to the business and investment climate, and barriers to entry to the formal economy—are the preeminent challenges to expanding broad- based economic growth and continuing to reduce global poverty. The United States needs to shift its focus away from meeting basic human needs toward broader institutional development if it is to increase support for the governance and growth nexus. U.S. foreign aid is overwhelmingly directed toward global health and the delivery of other public goods. This must change.
Topic:
Security, Development, Education, Emerging Markets, Health, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States and United Kingdom

194. How to Disrupt Enablers of Mass Atrocities

Publication Date:
02-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Human Rights First
Abstract:
Successive administrations have recognized that preventing genocide and crimes against humanity is in the national interest of the United States. The Obama Administration put this rhetoric into action in 2011 by issuing Presidential Study Directive 10, which elevated mass atrocities prevention to a "core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States" and ordered the creation of a standing atrocities prevention structure in the U.S. government. With far- reaching atrocities prevention efforts now underway in the U.S. government, Human Rights First offers an additional, innovative approach that broadens the scope of current atrocities prevention efforts and opens up new avenues for tackling this persistent and complex problem.
Topic:
Security, Crime, Genocide, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
United States

195. Politics and Economics in Putin's Russia

Author:
Stephen J. Blank
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The United States Army War College educates and develops leaders for service at the strategic level while advancing knowledge in the global application of Landpower.
Topic:
Security, Political Violence, and Economics
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

196. Federated Defense Project

Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The United States has long emphasized the desirability of working with allies and partners to meet pressing security challenges. Indeed, many of our most vexing security challenges-such as terrorism, threats to freedom of the seas and air, and cyber threats-are best met with multilateral action. At a time when the United States and many of its allies and partners are reluctant to increase defense and security investments, working together is of increasing importance. This is perhaps most evident in the Middle East and Asia, where real and potential threats to U.S. and partner security are high and our interests great.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Cooperation, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Asia

197. South Korea: Responding to the North Korean threat

Author:
Bruce E. Bechtol
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
South Korea is in a unique position. It is an economic powerhouse and a thriving democracy that faces the most ­ominous and imminent threat on its borders of any democracy in the world. Moreover, this is a threat that continues to evolve, with increasing missile, cyber, special operations, and nuclear capabilities and a new leader who shows no signs that he will be any less ruthless or belligerent than his father. To meet this threat, Seoul has undertaken a number of efforts to better deter and defend against North Korean capabilities and provocations, including increasing the defense budget, upping training with US forces, creating new command elements, and establishing plans for preemptive strikes against imminent North Korean missile launches. However, in part because of administration changes in Seoul, the South Korean effort has been uneven. And decisions remain to be made in the areas of missile defense, tactical fighter aircraft, and command-and-control arrangements that will be significant for not only South Korea but all states that have an interest in Northeast Asia's peace and stability.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Democratization, Development, Emerging Markets, Nuclear Weapons, Bilateral Relations, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
United States, East Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

198. Saudi Arabia's forgotten Shi'ite Spring

Author:
Ahmad Khalid Majidyar
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
For decades the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been America's indispensable ally in the Middle East, and the ­Kingdom's stability remains vital for US strategic interests in the region. While antigovernment protests in the Kingdom's Sunni-majority regions have been small and sporadic in the wake of Arab Spring, there has been an unremitting unrest in the strategic Eastern Province, home to Saudi Arabia's marginalized Shi'ite minority and major oil fields. As in the 1980s, if government repression and discrimination push the Shi'ites to extremes, some may resort to violence and terrorism, jeopardizing American interests in the region, benefitting Iran and ­al-Qaeda, disrupting the equilibrium of global oil markets, and adversely affecting economic recovery in the West. To ensure lasting stability in the Kingdom, the United States must work with the Saudi government to achieve gradual but meaningful reforms that include integrating the Shi'ites into the Kingdom's sociopolitical system.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Islam, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Arabia, and Saudi Arabia

199. The Myth or Reality of US Energy Independence

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
01-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
US “independence” from energy imports has been a key source of political dispute ever since the October War in 1973 and the Arab oil embargo that followed. Much of this debate has ignored or misstated the nature of the data available on what the US options are, as well as the uncertainties involved in making any long range projections.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Oil
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, and Arabia

200. The Rise of Latin America : Reordering Regional Security in Latin America

Author:
Harold Trinkunas
Publication Date:
05-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of International Affairs
Institution:
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Abstract:
In the wake of the Cold War, regional democratization and economic liberalization were supposed to usher in an opportunity to build a common hemispheric security agenda, designed to unite the United States and Latin America in collaboration against the "new" security threats posed by organized crime and violent nonstate actors. Two decades later, the threats remain much the same, yet the hemispheric security agenda has fragmented, replaced in part by projects designed to build specifically South American regional institutions. As some scholars predicted, heterogeneous threat perceptions across the region, differences over democratization, and tensions over the effects of free trade and market liberalization have confounded the effort to build a hemispheric security agenda. Yet the efforts by former President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela to radically transform the regional security order by building a Bolivarian alliance of states as an explicit counterweight to U.S. power have also fallen short. Instead, Brazil's ascent as a global economic power and the growing prosperity of the region as a whole has created an opportunity for Brazil to organize new mid-range political institutions, embodied in the Union of South American States (UNASUR), that exclude the United States yet pursue a consensual security agenda. This emerging regional order is designed by Brazil to secure its leadership in South America and allow it to choose when and where to involve the United States in managing regional crises. Yet, Brazil is finding that the very obstacles that confounded hemispheric security collaboration after the Cold War still endure in South America, limiting the effectiveness of the emerging regional security order.
Topic:
Security and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Brazil, South America, and Latin America