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981. The Global Arctic: The Growing Arctic Interests of Russia, China, the United States and the European Union

Author:
Juha Käpylä and Harri Mikkola
Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
With exciting economic opportunities and serious environmental challenges, the Arctic is transforming and re-emerging as a geopolitically important region. Major global players within and without the Arctic are paying greater attention to the region. While Russia is a traditional Arctic state with significant economic and security interests in the region, China, the US and the EU have also expressed their Arctic interests more explicitly. They are keen to tap into the economic potential and have a say in the way the region becomes accessed, exploited and governed. As a result, the Arctic is no longer a spatially or administratively confined region, but is instead taking its new form in the midst of contemporary global politics. The globalization and economization of the Arctic will most likely downplay environmentalism and reduce the relative influence of the indigenous people and small Arctic states in Arctic affairs. Arctic governance is also likely to turn more complex and complicated as the economic and political stakes are raised.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Development, International Trade and Finance, Oil, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, China, and Europe

982. Attack on Syria: the danger is in escalation

Publication Date:
08-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxford Economics
Abstract:
It is now looking all but certain that the United States will launch some form of attack on Syria. What is unclear is the severity and duration of the attack. Leaving aside the political ramifications, the immediate economic effects are likely to be limited (and are mostly already factored in). Opposing impacts on inflation and activity means that changes to central bank policy could be postponed. A prolonged campaign could have wider ramifications, not least if there is a risk of a geographical widening of the conflict.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Arabia, and Syria

983. A Turkish Perspective on Security Issues in the Mediterranean

Author:
Şadi Ergüvenç
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center
Abstract:
The Mediterranean is where the atmosphere of mutual distrust, fear and polarization prevail. Arab Israeli dispute and Turkish Greek differences over the Aegean and Cyprus impede efforts for developing mutual confidence and co operation. Recently, economic and financial crises and the “Arab Risings” have brought along more reasons for concern. Islamophobia and racism versus Islamic jihadism increase the risk of confrontation. Turkey together with Spain appeals for an “Alliance of Civilizations” and exploits its double identity, European and Muslim, through a proactive and multilateral poli cy for finding peaceful solutions to chronic regional solutions. Greece and Greek Cypriot governments should refrain from unilateral attempts to declare maritime borders.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Islam, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, and Arabia

984. Managing Intractable Conflicts: Lessons from Moldova and Cyprus

Author:
Mensur Akgün
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center
Abstract:
Some would argue that the once violent inter-communal conflict in Cyprus has transformed through the decades into a comfortable status quo that has enabled the main stakeholders, and everyone else directly or indirectly influenced by the problem, to take advantage of the situation on the ground, which has in turn developed a desire to intentionally protract the comfortable conflict. Yet others would claim that the number of failed attempts to agree on a comprehensive solution acceptable by all parties have diminished the quality of life on the island and have become a chronic headache not only for the locals, but also for the international community. Because of these reasons, one could rightfully ask why would the fruitless search for a resolution to the Cyprus conflict be chosen as an exemplar case study and source of inspiration for generating creative ideas aiming to help solve other disputes around the world, specifically the one regarding the territory of Moldova.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Islam, Bilateral Relations, Territorial Disputes, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Moldova and Cyprus

985. China-Southeast Asia Relations: China's Toughness on the South China Sea – Year II

Author:
Robert Sutter and Chin-hao Huang
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
China's tough stand on maritime territorial disputes evident first in 2012 confrontations with the Philippines in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea has endured into 2013. Leaders' statements, supporting commentary, military and paramilitary activity, economic developments, and administrative advances all point to determined support of an important shift in China's foreign policy with serious implications for China's neighbors and concerned powers, including the US. China's success in advancing its control of disputed areas in the South China Sea and its overall assertiveness in support of China's broad territorial claims along its maritime rim head the list of reasons why the new Chinese policy is likely to continue and intensify. Few governments are prepared to resist.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
China, Indonesia, and Asia

986. Russia and the Arab Spring

Author:
Alexey Malashenko
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Russia has spent over a decade trying to recapture the influence the Soviet Union once enjoyed in the Middle East, but President Vladimir Putin's attempts to position Moscow as a key regional player have come up short. With revolutions across the Arab world overturning old orders and ushering in Islamist governments, Russia's chances for strengthening its position in the region look increasingly slim. The Kremlin must change course and ensure that its approach to the Middle East and Islamists reflects post–Arab Spring realities.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Islam, Post Colonialism, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
Russia, Middle East, Soviet Union, and Arabia

987. Lessons from Libya: How Not to Intervene

Author:
Alan J. Kuperman
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Many commentators have praised NATO\'s 2011 intervention in Libya as a humanitarian success for averting a bloodbath in that country\'s second largest city, Benghazi, and helping eliminate the dictatorial regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi. These proponents accordingly claim that the intervention demonstrates how to successfully implement a humanitarian principle known as the responsibility to protect (R2P). In-deed, the top U.S. representatives to the transatlantic alliance declared that “NATO\'s operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention.” A more rigorous assessment, however, reveals that NATO\'s intervention backfired: it increased the duration of Libya\'s civil war by about six times and its death toll by at least seven times, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If this is a “model intervention,” then it is a model of failure.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, NATO, War, and Regime Change
Political Geography:
United States, Libya, Arabia, and North Africa

988. Iran's Present Day Military Capabilities and Military Aspirations in the Middle East

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Far too much of the analysis of Iran's search for nuclear weapons treats it in terms of arms control or focuses on the potential threat to Israel. In reality, Iran's mix of asymmetric warfare, conventional warfare, and conventionally armed missile forces have critical weaknesses that make Iran anything but the hegemon of the Gulf. Iran's public focus on Israel also disguises the reality that its primary strategic focus is to deter and intimidate its Gulf neighbors and the United States – not Israel. It has made major progress in creating naval forces for asymmetric warfare and developing naval missiles, but it has very limited air-sea and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (IS) capabilities. It lacks modern conventional land, air, air defense and sea power, has fallen far behind the Arab Gulf states in modern aircraft and ships, and its land forces are filled with obsolete and mediocre weapons that lack maneuver capability and sustainability outside Iran. Iran needs nuclear weapons to offset these facts.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Arabia

989. Changing US Security Strategy: The Search for Stability and the "Non-War" against "Non-Terrorism"

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
More than a decade into the “war on terrorism,” much of the political debate in the US is still fixated on the legacy of 9/11. US politics has a partisan fixation on Benghazi, the Boston Marathon bombing, intelligence intercepts, and Guantanamo. Far too much US attention still focuses on “terrorism” at a time the US faces a much broader range of threats from the instability in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) and Islamic world. Moreover, much of the US debate ignores the fact that the US has not actually fought a “war on terrorism” over the last decade, and the US failures in using military force and civil aid in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US has not fought wars as such, but rather became involved in exercises in armed nation building where stability operations escalated into national building as a result of US occupation and where the failures in stability operations and nation building led to insurgencies that forced the US into major counterinsurgency campaigns that had little to do with counterterrorism. An analysis of the trends in the Iraq and Afghan conflicts shows that the US has not been fighting a war on terrorism since Bin Laden and Al Qaida Central were driven into Pakistan in December 2001. The US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and then made stability operations and armed nation building its key goals. It was US mishandling of these exercises in armed nation building that led to major counterinsurgency campaigns although – at least in the case of Afghanistan --the US continued to label its military operations as a struggle against “terrorism.” By 2013, the US had committed well over $1.4 trillion to these exercises in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, the US made massive increases in its domestic spending on homeland defense that it rationalized as part of the fight against terrorism but often had little or nothing to do with any aspect of counterterrorism. At the same time, the US failed to develop consistent or useful unclassified statistics on the patterns in terrorism and its counterterrorism activities. The US government has never provided a meaningful break out of federal activities and spending at home or abroad which actually focus on terrorism, or any unclassified measures of effectiveness. The OMB has lumped a wide range of activities that have no relation to terrorism it its reporting on the President's budget request – activities whose total cost now approach $60 billion a year. The Department of Defense has never provided a meaningful estimate of the total cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or a break out of the small portion of total overseas contingency operations (OCO) spending actually spent on counterterrorism versus counter insurgency. The State Department and US intelligence community provide no meaningful unclassified data on the cost of their counterterrorism effort and it is unclear that they have developed any metrics at any level that show the cost-benefits of their activities. The annual US State Department country reports on terrorism come as close to an unclassified report on the status of terrorism as the US government provides. While many portions are useful, the designation of terrorist movements is often political and shows the US designation of terrorist movements conflates terrorism and insurgency. The closest the US has come to developing any metrics on terrorism has been to develop an unclassified database in the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) that never distinguished terrorism from insurgency. This database formed the core of the statistical annex to State Department reporting, but has since been withdrawn without explanation. As this analysis shows in detail, it now has been replaced by a contractor effort that makes all of the previous mistakes made by the NCTC. The end result is a set of official reporting and statistics in the annex to the State Department report where “terrorism” remains remained poorly defined, badly structured, ignored in parts of the world, and conflates terrorism with counterinsurgency, instability, and civil war. A review of the Afghan, Iraq conflicts, and other recent conflicts in the MENA region shows just how serious these problems are in distorting the true nature of the wars the US is fighting and the threats it faces. The same is true of the unclassified reporting the US government provides on terrorism. A detailed review of the most recent State Department report on terrorism provides important insights into key terrorist movements, but the narratives generally ignore their ties to insurgent movements, their statistical data include some major insurgent movements and exclude others, and many of the data seem to include violence that is not truly terroristic in character.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Islam, Terrorism, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Middle East, and North Africa

990. A U.S.-Indonesia Partnership for 2020: Recommendations for Forging a 21st Century Relationship

Author:
Murray Hiebert, Gregory B. Poling, and Ted Osius
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The U.S.- Indonesia relationship is critical to the national interests of both nations, and will only grow more so in the years to come. The catch words are now well- known. Indonesia is the world's fourth largest country and third largest democracy. It is the largest Muslim- majority nation, one of the most pluralistic societies on the planet. Its political system provides proof that democratic norms and values are not dependent on culture, history, or religion.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Development, Diplomacy, Economics, Science and Technology, Bilateral Relations, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia