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9631. Security Sector Reform

Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
This paper provides Department of State, Department of Defense (DoD), and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) practitioners with guidelines for planning and implementing Security Sector Reform (SSR) programs with foreign partner nations. SSR refers to reform efforts directed at the institutions, processes, and forces that provide security and promote the rule of law. Over the past decade, the U.S. Government (USG), along with like-minded bilateral and multilateral donors, has begun to develop a more comprehensive approach to SSR by better integrating its defense, development, and diplomatic tools and resources. The objective of this new approach is to assist partner governments to provide effective, legitimate, and accountable security for their citizens. In so doing, SSR assists these governments to respond appropriately to threats within and outside their borders.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
United States

9632. Countering Air Terrorism

Author:
Stanisław Zajas
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Air terrorism is an international phenomenon, and one that is not at all new to the global scene: the first example of a politically-motivated jetliner hijacking happened in July 1968, and the first bomb attack on board a plane occurred in May 1949. Until 1967, the number of terrorist attack s directed against civilian aviation was minimal. From 1967–77, however, the frequency of these terrorist attacks increased rapidly. The highest numbers of terrorist acts against civilian airliners was recorded in the years 1977–86. The current annual frequency of such events represents a decrease of about half from the high-water mark in the early 1980s, but the potential effects of contemporary air terrorism attacks are more dramatic and tragic. Terrorists' targets in such operations are passenger planes, airports, or airline offices. The events of 11 September 2001 have shown that terrorists can suddenly strike against key facilities—private buildings, government properties, military installations, etc.—in any place on earth. The destruction of symbolic objects can weaken the confidence of citizens in a nation's government, because the state is not able to secure the safety of their own people. And the attacks of 9/11 also proved that at least some terrorists will not hesitate to use jetliners as “human missiles” to accomplish their aims.
Topic:
Terrorism

9633. U.S. Climate Change Policy: A New Chance for Leadership

Author:
Samiksha Nair
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
U.S. climate change policy has been glacial in its progress over the past fifteen years, as its development has been subject to significant economic and political forces. Even though there has been a gradually narrowing global consensus in the great debate on climate change, a distinct impression exists that the United States, as one of the principal producers of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world, has delayed signing on to the leading international accords that seek to reduce and control their harmful effects. U.S. policy regarding climate change over the past eight years has been subject to the less-than-friendly approach of the recently completed Bush Administration, but a new, almost diametrically opposed stance is now expected from the Obama Administration. While wholesale reversals of policy are predicted, realists see less of a policy shift in the offing, and in fact expect to see the continuation of earlier policies in many areas.
Topic:
Environment
Political Geography:
United States

9634. Political Dimensions of the Northern Afghanistan Resupply Routes

Author:
Gregory Gleason
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
A series of insurgent attacks in Pakistan targeting U.S./NATO supply lines took place during the latter half of 2008 and early 2009. As much as 75 percent of the cargo to support military operations and development programs in Afghanistan previously had been shipped through Pakistan, passing through a small number of precarious transport corridors, constrained by chokepoints and subject to disruption. As a result of insurgent attacks, carriage of supplies through the Khyber Pass along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was repeatedly interrupted for brief periods. These events in Pakistan shifted Allied attention from the southern routes to Afghanistan's northern access routes. The existing transit routes for supplies entering Afghanistan from the north passed across European and Eurasian countries and then through the Central Asian countries. This combination of port, air, rail, and road facilities came to be referred to within the framework of Afghanistan's normalization operations as the NDN-the "Northern Distribution Network."
Topic:
NATO
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Europe, and Central Asia

9635. Energy and the 3 Levels of National Security: Differentiating Energy Concerns within a National Security Context

Author:
Phillip E. Cornell
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The past several years have seen a renewed interest in the confluence of energy security and national security policy. Defining the intersection between such wideranging policy areas has been predictably inconsistent, and highly dependent on respective national and agent-based interests. At both national and multinational levels, conflicting objectives and definitions have driven confused attempts to develop singular "energy security" policies within an international security context. Since 2006, NATO has been engaged in a concerted if arduous and controversial process of defining the value the organization adds to the security environment. The new U.S. administration has put energy security front and center on its agenda, particularly in relation to foreign and security policy, but a confused interagency jumble has left many hands on the rudder of foreign energy policy. In the media as well as policy circles, cut-offs of Russian gas, Somali piracy, SCADA system vulnerabilities, terrorist attacks on Middle East pipelines, nuclear safety, and volatile gasoline prices have been too often lumped together.
Topic:
Security and NATO
Political Geography:
United States and Middle East

9636. Russia's Asymmetric Wars in Chechnya since 1994

Author:
Martin Malek
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Historically, symmetrical warfare was not the norm, but rather a European anomaly. Today's protracted low-intensity wars seem to point back towards the era of asymmetrical warfare. This development is obviously closely linked to the phenomenon of state failure in Third World countries, in southern regions of the former USSR, and in the Western Balkans.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

9637. Enhancing Diplomatic Effectiveness: A Common-Sense Risk Management Approach to Counter-terrorism

Author:
Raphael Perl
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
Effective counter-terrorism efforts require practical and realistic risk management decisions. Since our resources are limited, clearly we should allocate them in sensible proportions and on parallel tracks in order to achieve optimal results over the long term. Unfortunately, while we are good at mobilizing resources to defend against perceived imminent threats, we often neglect or underfund other important activities, such as enhanced diplomacy, which could reduce those threats in the future.
Topic:
Diplomacy and Environment

9638. Secession: Final Frontier for International Law or Site of Realpolitik Revival?

Author:
Clifton van der Linden
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of International Law and International Relations
Institution:
Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto
Abstract:
In its opinion regarding the legality of the secession of Quebec, the Supreme Court of Canada observed that 'the process of [state] recognition, once considered to be an exercise of pure sovereign discretion, has come to be associated with legal norms.' Mindful of the principle of effectivity, the Court was cautious not to overstate the bounds of legal authority in matters of secession. Nevertheless, the acknowledgement of international law as a constitutive element of state behaviour in matters relating to secession marks a significant departure from conventional realpolitik accounts, wherein 'successful revolution begets its own legality.'
Political Geography:
Canada

9639. The Quality of Norms is What Actors Make of It: Critical Constructivist Research on Norms

Author:
Antje Wiener and Uwe Puetter
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Journal of International Law and International Relations
Institution:
Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto
Abstract:
What actors make of norms matters, in particular, in situations of crisis when the contextual conditions for norm interpretation are enhanced. That is, situations of crisis add an additional factor of pressure next to the conditions of normative contingency and moving the social practice of governance. beyond the boundaries of modern states. The addition of time requires fast decisions thus leaving little room for deliberation about a norm's meaning. Contrary to the expectation that based on an increasing constitutional quality in beyond‐the‐state contexts, actors can build on and refer to a set of formally and informally shared principles for information and guidance in designing common action and policies, we hold that norm interpretation in international relations is challenged by the absence of cultural background information. If this observation holds, it follows that the often observed constitutional quality beyond the state which includes the formalization of the role of international norms through treaties and agreements, the dense web of international negotiation forums and enhanced possibilities of iterated interaction in the global realm is not necessarily conducive to the shared interpretation of norms in an international setting. While this constitutional quality has been acknowledged and reflected by the concepts of disaggregated network governance, a global community of courts, or as sites of struggle, paradoxically, the very process of norm proliferation and the increasing acknowledgement of the power of norms in international relations and decisions that are taken bring the contested nature of norms to the fore—thus demanding a fresh look at norm applications. Research on norms, therefore, needs to better understand the inherently contested quality of norms that stems from and is closely interrelated with the very processes of norm application. A key theme throughout this special issue is that theoretical approaches to the study of norms need to generate a more encompassing and substantive definition of norms, allowing researchers to study and understand them in a context‐specific manner. We argue that only such an approach can account for the role of contestation as an integral part of the processes by which specific policy options are derived. This poses both a conceptual and empirical challenge.

9640. Japan-China Relations Chronology

Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Jan. 3, 2009: Prime Minister Aso Taro visits Issei Shrine to pray for a prosperous 2009. Jan. 4, 2009: Yomuri Shimbun reports that the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will set up mechanism to protect Japan's intellectual property rights in farm, forestry, and fisheries sectors in China. Jan. 4, 2009: Sankei Shimbun reports that China has unilaterally initiated drilling in the Kashi/Tianwaitan natural gas field in the East China Sea. Japan-China Relations 114 April 2009 Jan.
Topic:
Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Japan and China