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12991. Military Lessons from Desert One to the Balkans

Author:
Ike Skelton
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Military leaders are often accused, usually unfairly, of fighting the last war. It would be a pretty poor general, however, who failed to learn from what worked and what didn't work when military plans were actually put to the test. The task is to correct what went wrong and to build on what went right without losing sight of the fact that conflicts in the future may be quite different from those in the past. It is the premise of this article that a careful look at significant U.S. military operations over about the past twenty years—roughly the period the author has served in Congress—can help shape answers to a surprisingly large number of contemporary issues in defense policy. What follows is a brief review of seven of these military operations, followed by a discussion of some important lessons.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Balkans

12992. "One China" and Relations Across the Taiwan Strait

Author:
James J. Przystup, Ronald N. Montaperto, and Gerald W. Faber
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Relations across the Taiwan Strait have reached an apparent impasse. Both China and Taiwan have, in a sense, painted themselves into corners. Yet, aware of the considerable costs that will inevitably be incurred by new and higher levels of tension or conflict, both President Jiang Zemin of China and Chen Shui-bian, the newly elected President of Taiwan, share a vital interest in finding a face-saving way out of their respective dilemmas without compromising their longer term objectives. In the process, each is being influenced and constrained by a number of factors related to politics, economics, and broad strategic interests. Overall, these factors will provide incentives to seek a reduction of tensions, at least in the short term. At the same time, years of mutual mistrust and the stark and growing differences between their respective political and social cultures will continue to affect the prospects for a mutually acceptable resolution of the issues separating China and Taiwan.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and Taiwan

12993. Transforming the Armed Forces of Central and East Europe

Author:
Jeffrey Simon
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
As Central and East European (CEE) armed forces are reduced and restructured over the next decade, human and financial resources will be stretched and stressed, in some cases beyond capacity. CEE governments and societies will likely experience civil-military tension. Due to resource shortages, CEE Membership Action Plan (MAP) partners, who aspire to NATO membership, will be tempted to exaggerate defense planning and enlarge forces to accommodate their political objective of Euro-Atlantic integration.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
Europe

12994. Indonesian Democratic Transition: Implications for United States Policy

Author:
James J. Przystup, Ronald N. Montaperto, Gerald W. Faber, and Adam Schwarz
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The onset of the Asian economic crisis in May 1997 assured the end of the tottering "New Order" regime of President Suharto. Economic collapse re-energized social and political grievances long muted by the cumulative effects of steady economic growth and political repression. In May 1998, the discredited Suharto regime collapsed. In June 1999, democratic elections led to the formation of a reform government led by President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and Democratization
Political Geography:
Asia and Southeast Asia

12995. All Possible Wars? Toward a Consensus View of the Future Security Environment, 2001-2025

Author:
Sam J. Tangredi
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
There was a legend in ancient Rome about a fabulous set of nine books which contained a predestined history of the Roman people and — in particular — details of all future wars and crises which would beset them. These oracles, the property of Amalthaea ؏ the sibyl or prophetess of Cumae — were proffered to the Roman government. In a tale of greed, chauvinism, and intrigue worthy of a melodrama, the Romans decided not to pay the sibyl's price for the books and to bargain for a better deal. Upon learning of their decision, an angry and incredulous Amalthaea threw the first three books into a fire where they burnt to ashes. She thereupon asked for the exact same price for the remaining six books.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and International Law
Political Geography:
Rome

12996. The Revenge of the Melians: Asymmetric Threats and the Next QDR

Author:
Kenneth F. McKenzie
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
In 416 B.C., the Athenian-led Delian League, then the dominant naval power of the Hellenic World, was locked in a death struggle with its rival, Sparta, and its Peloponnesian allies. In the wake of the battle of Mantinea, and on the eve of the ill-fated naval expedition to Syracuse, the small island of Melos in the northern Cretan Sea had become an object of strategic concern to Athens which south to force Melos to join the Delian League and pay tribute. The Melians refused and claimed the moral right of a state to remain neutral. "Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power," answered the Athenians; The strong do what they wish and the weak suffer what they must."
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and International Law

12997. Integration and Disintegration in the Former Soviet Union: Implications for Regional and Global Security

Author:
P. Terrence Hopmann, Stephen D. Shenfield, and Dominique Arel
Publication Date:
01-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, cross-pressures toward integration and disintegration have influenced relations among the 15 newly independent states that appeared on the territory formerly occupied by the Soviet Union. Centrifugal tendencies continue to be manifest as some of these states try to achieve even greater independence from one another. Distinct regions within many of these states have also sought varying degrees of sovereignty and independence. These trends are countered in part by centripetal tendencies. The costs of independence within this previously highly integrated region have become increasingly apparent, especially for the economies of the newly independent states.
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Ukraine, and Soviet Union

12998. The United States and Europe: Smooth Sailing or Storm Clouds Ahead?

Author:
William Hitchcock
Publication Date:
08-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Two years ago, when many of us gathered together in the dramatic Alpine setting of Leukerbad to consider the recent past and the likely future of US-European relations, our group was full of dire prognostications. Russia was headed toward collapse, the EU looked weak after the Yugoslav war, NATO expansion appeared to be dividing Europe; the introduction of the euro looked liked a risky gamble that might worsen trans-Atlantic relations; and most disturbing for me as an American, my government was preoccupied with the Lewinsky scandal and the future of the Clinton presidency seemed at risk. Indeed, one of our colleagues, discussing the crisis over after-dinner drinks, declared that Clinton would resign from the presidency within matter of weeks.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

12999. Through the Glass Ceiling: Towards a New Security Regime for Europe?

Author:
Anne Deighton
Publication Date:
08-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The 'St Malo process' which has being taking shape since December 1998, will bring a qualitative change in the EU's role as an international institution. Many of the big initiatives that the Union undertakes are not fully understood early on - unexpected, and sometimes unintended consequences can result from the changes that the EU agrees to. It takes time for the institutional implications of major changes to emerge: the Single Act was, in the mid 80s, often seen as the 'elephant that gave birth to a mouse'; and the Maastricht Treaty as at once called too federalist, and too timid. Likewise, the exact configuration of the changes that St Malo may bring will also take time to become clear. 'Militarising' the EU, however, ends one of the last policy taboos of a 'civilian-power' European Union and breaks through the 'glass ceiling' of the EU's self-denying ordinance against the adoption of the instruments of military force which has existed since its inception. This paper assesses how far these changes got by the summer of 2000 and asks whether the last eighteen months are one stage in the messy birth of a post-Cold War pan-European defence and security regime with institutions based around NATO and the EU. Europe's institutional configuration tends to matter more to Europeans than to our transatlantic partners; but institutions are the reality of contemporary European international politics. 'Multilateral institutionalism' too, is inescapable, and how institutions relate to each other has become an increasingly significant question. To accept this does not meant that states do not matter, for states also use institutions, as well as being shaped by institutions.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Asia, and Switzerland

13000. NATO's Past, NATO's Future

Author:
John Lewis Gaddis
Publication Date:
08-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization stands at a crossroads. Critical choices lie ahead that will determine its future. I begin my paper this way because it is customary to begin pronouncements on NATO with this kind of statement. Indeed papers and speeches on NATO have been beginning this way through the half-century of the alliance's existence - and yet NATO never quite reaches whatever crisis the speaker or writer has in mind. NATO seems to have a life of its own, which is remarkably detached from the shocks and surprises that dominate most of history, certainly Cold War history. And NATO's members, both actual and aspiring, seem bent on keeping it that way. So what is a crossroad anyway in historical terms? Most of my colleagues, I think, would say that it's a turning point: a moment at which it becomes clear that the status quo can no longer sustain itself, at which decisions have to be made about new courses of action, at which the results of those decisions shape what happens for years to come. The Cold War was full of such moments: the Korean War, Khrushchev's de-Stalinization speech, the Hungarian and Suez crises, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Six Day War, the Tet offensive, Nixon's trip to China, the invasion of Afghanistan, the reunification of Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War itself. What strikes me as a historian, though, is how little impact these turning points had on NATO's history - even General deGaulle, who tried to turn himself personally into a turning point. The structure and purposes of the alliance today are not greatly different from what they were when NATO was founded. Which is to say that NATO's history, compared to that of most other Cold War institutions, is uneventful, bland, and even (let us be frank) a little dull. That very uneventfulness, though, is turning out to be one of the more significant aspects of Cold War history. It surprised the historians, who have been able to cite no other example of a multi-national alliance that has had the robustness, the durability, the continuity, some might say the apparent immortality, of this one. It has also surprised the international relations theorists, for it is a fundamental principle of their discipline that alliances form when nations balance against threats. It follows, then, that as threats dissipate, alliances should also - and yet this one shows no signs of doing so. An instrument of statecraft, which is what an alliance normally is, has in this instance come to be regarded as a fundamental interest of statecraft. That requires explanation, which is what I should like to attempt here.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, United States, China, Europe, Asia, Soviet Union, Germany, and Berlin