Search

Begin New Search Political Geography United States

6241. A First-hand Report: Cuban Biotechnology

Author:
Glenn Baker
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, triggered a furor when on May 6, 2002, he stated, “The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort.” Two days later, I was meeting with a representative from the Cuban Interests Section on an unrelated matter when I posed the question, “How would Cuba respond if CDI asked to bring a group of experts down to learn more about these charges?” I had no expectations of hearing any more about it. But less than two weeks later, I was told that not only was there an interest, but that we were invited to bring anyone, come anytime, and visit anywhere we wanted. Clearly, Bolton's comments had struck a nerve in Havana.
Topic:
Security, Human Welfare, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Caribbean, and Havana

6242. A Swift, Elusive Sword: What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd Did a National Defense Review?

Author:
Chester W. Richards
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
What kind of question is: “What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd did a National Defense Review?” Sun Tzu, if he existed at all, has been gone some 2,500 years. The late Col. John R. Boyd, U.S.A.F., while intimately involved in fighter aircraft design during his active duty years, wrote practically nothing on hardware or force structure after he retired, when he created the strategic concepts for which he is best known today.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

6243. Honing the Sword: Strategy and Forces After 9/11

Author:
Marcus Corbin
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
In 2001, prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, the Center for Defense Information published a national security review and force structure entitled Reforging the Sword: Forces for a 21st Century Security Strategy. Happily for the authors of Reforging, the Sept. 11 attacks did not make it obsolete. To the contrary, its emphases on working more closely with allies, on lighter, more agile forces, on intelligence, and on the importance of nonmilitary components of a conflict were important elements of the conduct of the counterattack by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. The events of Sept. 11 and Operation Enduring Freedom have reinforced the need raised in Reforging to prepare for new threats, and have enhanced the prospects for some of its proposed new directions, particularly in the area of allied collaboration if a multilateralist administration took office. This report updates Reforging the Sword in light of events on and since Sept. 11, 2001. The suggestions here use as a foundation the predilections spelled out in Reforging for working with allies, for taking the nonmilitary elements of modern war into consideration, and for trying to keep humans in the war-fighting loop.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

6244. The Defense Monitor, Vital Statistics: The U.S. Military

Author:
Marcus Corbin and Olga Levitsky
Publication Date:
12-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
This issue of the defense monitor provides basic information about U.S. and foreign military forces, including facts on size, equipment, and cost. It is intended as a snapshot reference guide — more data is available on the CDI website at www.cdi.org/ news/vital-statistics/ and on the government Internet sources listed at the back of the issue.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States

6245. The Defense Monitor: Little Room in Politics for the Facts of the Matter

Author:
Philip E. Coyle, Rachel Stohl, Winslow Wheeler, Theresa Hitchens, Victoria Garcia, Colin Robinson, Krista Nelson, and Jeffrey Lewis
Publication Date:
10-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Few things are more routinely abused than facts when people in government — any party, any branch — set out to make a decision. I've been reminded of this truth watching the current administration parry revelations that it manipulated “facts” about weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for the war against Iraq that Congress authorized a year ago this past week. But I'd learned it the hard way much earlier. During a 31-year career as an evaluator for the General Accounting Office and a staffer for four different U.S. senators from both parties, I spent a lot of time trying to use facts to influence decisions made by the U.S. government. The facts took a beating all too often.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

6246. The Defense Monitor: Liberation and Occupation in Iraq

Author:
Michael Donovan
Publication Date:
07-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
S of this writing, 39 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the 10 weeks following the declared conclusion of the campaign to over throw Saddam Hussein on May 1. This fact stands in sharp contrast to the optimistic pre-war rhetoric of the George W. Bush administration regarding the “liberation” of Iraq and testifies to the arduous road that lies ahead.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:
United States and Iraq

6247. The Defense Monitor: Nuclear Recollections

Author:
Bruce Blair
Publication Date:
04-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
Rear Adm. Eugene (Gene) Carroll, our beloved colleague who passed away this February, often shared with me his recollections of the role he once played in planning for nuclear war. As quoted in his obituary in the Washington Post, Gene once wrote: “During the horrible confrontation with the Soviet Union we called the Cold War, I frequently stood nuclear alert watch on aircraft carriers. For a period of time my assigned target was an industrial complex and transportation hub in a major city in Eastern Europe … My bomb alone would have resulted in the death of an estimated 600,000 human beings. Multiply that by 40 or 50 times and you can understand what two carriers alone would have done.”
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Cold War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Soviet Union

6248. The Defense Monitor: The World At War

Author:
Col. Daniel Smith
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Defense Information
Abstract:
At the start of 2003, the United States remains focused on fighting global terrorism in general even as it zeroes in on Iraq as the nexus of evil. But a number of factors in play today make international support for such a venture less effusive than in 1990-91, when the last anti-Saddam “coalition of the willing” formed. Many economies, including those of three of the four big financial supporters of the 1990-91 war — Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia — are weaker. Any war would be relatively more expensive. Suspicions about U.S. motives, fueled by the Bush administration's initial unilateralism, remain alive despite Washington's patient work in obtaining a UN Security Council resolution on new inspections. Germany has declared it will provide no forces; use of Saudi Arabian airbases to launch combat missions against Iraq remains unclear; and troop contributions, as well as moral support, from other Arab states such as Egypt and Syria may not materialize.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, Iraq, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt

6249. Effectiveness of Nuclear Weapons against Buried Biological Agents

Author:
Michael May and Zachary Haldeman
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
This report describes the results of some calculations on the effectiveness of penetrating nuclear weapons of yield 1 and 10 kilotons against targets containing biological agents. The effectiveness depends in detail on the construction of the bunkers, on how the bio-agents are stored, on the location of the explosions with respect to the bunkers, the bio-agent containers and the surface of the ground, and on the yield of the explosion and the geology of the explosion site. Completeness of sterilization of the bio-agents is crucial in determining effectiveness. For most likely cases, however, complete sterilization cannot be guaranteed. Better calculations and experiments on specific target types would improve the accuracy of such predictions for those targets, but significant uncertainties regarding actual geology, actual target layouts, and knowledge of the position of the explosion with respect to the target would remain. Aboveground effects of the nuclear explosions, all of which would vent to the surface, are estimated. They include intense local radioactivity and significant fallout, air blast, and seismic effects to kilometers distances. It is likely, however, that casualties from those effects would be less than the casualties that would result from the dispersal of large quantities of bio-agents.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States

6250. Container Security Report

Author:
Michael May, Tonya L. Putnam, and Dean Wilkening
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
During the week of August 18–23, 2002, the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) of the Institute for International Studies (IIS) at Stanford University hosted four summer studies sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. One of these studies, the Container Security study, examined how to apply existing technology and resources most effectively to prevent the transport of illicit nuclear materials for use in terrorist activities by means of international commercial shipping.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States