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13771. Clausewitzian Friction and Future War

Author:
Barry D. Watts
Publication Date:
10-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Since the end of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, there has been growing discussion of the possibility that technological advances in the means of combat would produce ftmdamental changes in how future wars will be fought. A number of observers have suggested that the nature of war itself would be transformed. Some proponents of this view have gone so far as to predict that these changes would include great reductions in, if not the outright elimination of, the various impediments to timely and effective action in war for which the Prussian theorist and soldier Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) introduced the term "friction." Friction in war, of course, has a long historical lineage. It predates Clausewitz by centuries and has remained a stubbornly recurring factor in combat outcomes right down to the 1991 Gulf War. In looking to the future, a seminal question is whether Clausewitzian friction would succumb to the changes in leading-edge warfare that may lie ahead, or whether such impediments reflect more enduring aspects of war that technology can but marginally affect. It is this question that the present essay will examine.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Cold War, Government, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, Soviet Union, and Southeast Asia

13772. The Major Powers in Northeast Asian Security

Author:
Ralph A. Cossa
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The political, economic, and security environment of the Asia-Pacific region in the 21st century will be shaped in very large part by the interrelationships among the United States, Japan, China, and Russia. To the extent these four nations can cooperate, a generally benign environment can develop in which the challenges sure to develop in the region can be managed. Conversely, tensions and conflict among the four will have a profoundly destabilizing impact regionally, if not globally.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and International Law
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, China, Asia, and Northeast Asia

13773. Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality

Author:
Alan L. Gropman
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
At a dinner during the Teheran Conference in December 1943, Joseph Stalin praised United States manufacturing: I want to tell you from the Russian point of view, what the President and the United States have done to win the war. The most important things in this war are machines. The United States has proven that it can turn out from 8,000 to 10,000 airplanes per month. Russia can only turn out, at most. 3,000 airplanes a month .... The United States, therefore, is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines, through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Industrial Policy, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States and Vietnam

13774. Trouble in Paradise? Europe in the 21st Century

Author:
Steven Philip Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos
Publication Date:
03-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
When political observers talk about European security, they invariably refer to the challenges Western Europe faces on its peripheries from a renationalized Russia, conflicts in the Balkans, and Islamic fundamentalism in North Africa. Rarely do they imagine that the greatest dangers to the new Europe may come from within, that the kind of stability Europe has enjoyed since World War II could be merely a passing chapter in history, not a transcendence of history. Without suggesting that there is necessarily a worst case ending, this study will argue that there is indeed a series of crises converging on post-Cold War Europe that threaten its stability and that need to be addressed by European policy makers and taken into account by Americans.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and North Africa

13775. Khomeini's Incorporation of Iranian Military

Author:
Mark Roberts
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
In her book, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (1979), revolutionary authority and sociologist Theda Skocpol states: The repressive state organizations of the prerevolutionary regime have to be weakened before mass revolutionary action can succeed, or even emerge. Indeed, historically, mass rebellious action has not been able, in itself, to overcome state repression. Instead, military pressures from abroad … have been necessary to undermine repression.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, Nuclear Weapons, and Religion
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Middle East, and France

13776. The New Great Game in Muslim Central Asia

Author:
M.E. Ahrari and James Beal
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The dismantlement of the Soviet Union also brought about the liberation of six Central Asian Muslim republics—Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (figure 1). Although Azerbaijan is part of the Caucasus region, it is included in this study because: The independence of that country, like that of the Central Asian states, was brought about as a result of the dismantlement of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan, like its Central Asian counterparts, is a Muslim state, and faces similar politico-economic problems. Azerbaijan's conflict with Armenia involving Nagorno-Karabkh reminds one of a number of conflicts in the Central Asian region. These include a seething ethnic conflict in Kazakhstan (involving the Khazaks and the Slavs), the ongoing civil war in Tajikistan "along ethnic, national, and religious lines (since the Russian forces are "also involved in this civil war), and the ethnic conflict in the Fargana valley that cuts across the borders of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Like the economies of its Central Asian neighbors, the Azeri economy was largely dependent on the economy of the former Soviet Union. Consequently, like its other neighbors, Azerbaijan is also busy establishing economic self-sufficiency, along with strengthening its religious political, linguistic, and ethnic identities.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, Nuclear Weapons, and Religion
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Middle East, and Soviet Union

13777. Armed Conflict in Georgia: A Case in Humanitarian Action and Peacekeeping

Author:
S. Neil MacFarlane, Larry Minear, and Stephen D. Shenfield
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
This is a study of the world's response to internal armed conflicts in the Republic of Georgia. The principal features of that response on the humanitarian side were the delivery of emergency assistance and the protection of human rights. That response also included the establishment of peacekeeping operations, both by the Commonwealth of Independent States, with the United Nations' blessing, and by the United Nations itself. This report assesses the performance and effectiveness of humanitarian and peacekeeping activities and reviews the interaction between the two.
Topic:
Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Georgia

13778. Imagining a Free Cuba: Carlos Manuuel de Cespedes and José Martí

Author:
Wayne S. Smith, Cathy L. Jrade, Geaorge Monteiro, Nelson R. Orringer, Louis A. Pérez,Jr, Ivan A. Schulman, and Thomas E. Skidmore
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
Thirty-five years ago, Cuba was at the center of a Cold War confrontation that brought us closer to the brink of a nuclear holocaust than we had ever been before. The 1962 missile crisis, eventually solved by diplomacy, was the highest point of danger in the troubled history of mankind since World War II. That terrifying experience alone should justify our efforts to understand how Cuba has reached its present moment in history.
Political Geography:
Cuba

13779. The Policies of Mercy: UN Coordination in Afghanistan, Mozambique, and Rwanda

Author:
Antonio Donini
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
As it struggles through the first decade of the post-Cold War era, the international community is confronted with an unprecedented increase in the number of internal conflicts and complex emergencies. With some 120 active wars and more starting each year than are ending, the world is a much less safer place than ten years ago. Never since the end of World War II has conflict-related displacement reached such levels. Fifty million refugees and internally displaced persons, or one in every 115 living human beings, require assistance. Tens of millions more do not show up on the statistics, such as the direct and indirect casualties of conflict and violent or forgotten crises. More than 90 percent of the casualties are civilians.

13780. Responses to the Quest for Nationhood, 1986-1996

Author:
Larry Minear, Thomas G. Weiss, William G. O'Neill, Robert Maguire, Edwige Blutansky, Jaques Fomerand, and Sarah Zaidi
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:
In his inaugural speech February 7, 1991, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide told representatives of the international community that Haiti “will be looking forward to a close cooperation of our countries with mutual support and assistance.” That cooperation would help the country fulfill its dreams of becoming “a democracy [that] will mean justice and well-being for all.