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1681. Setting the Stage for Progress Towards Nuclear Disarmament

Author:
Tytti Erasto, Sibylle Bauer, Shannon N. Kile, and Peter Topychkanov
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:
Recognizing that the current international context is hardly conducive to arms control and disarmament, SIPRI working paper ‘Setting the stage for progress towards nuclear disarmament’ identifies 10 practical steps to revitalize the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the principal normative and legal foundation of the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. At the same time, it recognizes the NPT’s inherent compatibility with other disarmament initiatives, most notably the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In addition to restoring a sense of common purpose and addressing ‘old’ nuclear weapon-related risks, the paper highlights ‘new’ risks arising from developments in conventional capabilities and emerging technologies. The overarching objective is to set the stage for future concrete steps and initiatives to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and to eventually eliminate them.
Topic:
Peace Studies and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1682. Intelligence and Policy Community Cooperation in the Libya WMD Disarmament Case

Author:
William H. Tobey
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
As the Trump Administration prepares to negotiate with North Korea, a question has arisen as to what model Washington should follow. National Security Advisor John Bolton has suggested that the Libyan nuclear case represents the best example to emulate. Given the violence Libya suffered after it disarmed, this recommendation provoked criticism, not only from the North Korean government, but a number of American analysts. Anticipating the importance of this case, NPEC commissioned William Tobey, former Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration, to write a primary history. Mr. Tobey served on the National Security Council in the Bush (43) Administration when the Libyan nuclear case was being worked.
Topic:
Intelligence, International Affairs, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Libya

1683. Avoiding a Nuclear Wild, Wild West in the Middle East

Author:
Henry Sokolski (ed)
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:
With the Trump Administration’s announcement last fall that it intended to negotiate a civil nuclear cooperative agreement with Saudi Arabia, a debate has ensued over how restrictive any such agreement should be over the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of plutonium. These nuclear activities can bring a country within weeks of making its first batch of bombs. This announcement immediately raised the question, how much economic sense it made for Saudi Arabia to invest in nuclear power. It also raised a number of security questions. Should the United States allow Riyadh to reprocess and enrich even though these activities could bring Saudi Arabia within weeks of acquiring nuclear weapons? If Washington acceded to this demand by Riyadh, what would be the implications for the terms of nuclear cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Morocco? How would such an agreement impact efforts to tighten the terms of our nuclear understanding with Iran? Would such a permissive deal with Riyadh make it more difficult to say no to Seoul’s demand that we allow them to enrich uranium? All of these questions and more are discussed in this volume’s four sections
Topic:
International Affairs and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Middle East

1684. The Medium-Run and Scale-Up Effects of Performance-Based Financing

Author:
Diana Ngo and Sebastian Bauhoff
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Rwanda’s performance-based incentives were effective for some indicators, but unconditional financing also induced improvements. The incentive effects persisted in the mediumrun and as the program was scaled-up. Additionally, the analysis demonstrates how observational research methods and secondary data can generate new insights on existing evaluations
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1685. The Peace Process: Will the Taliban give up its Insurgency in Afghanistan?

Author:
Ifran Yar
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
In the wake of the incipient peace process in Afghanistan, new hopes have emerged and an aura of optimism has spread across the country. After the first successful meeting with the Taliban, US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met recently with the insurgents to discuss the peace talks in Qatar. This comes after Russia, reasserting its influence in the region, hosted a landmark international conference aimed at spurring the peace efforts in its restive neighborhood. The meeting was attended by the Taliban and its adversaries and concluded without any formal breakthrough. Since 2010, many efforts have been made to broker a peace deal with the Taliban but to no avail. Will this peace process convince the Taliban to give up its insurgency?
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1686. Inauspicious Incident: Erdoğan’s Evolving Relationship with Turkey’s Military

Author:
Ben Tannenbaum
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
Turkey’s military has historically played an outsized role in the country’s politics. Since assuming power in 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) have worked to limit the military’s political influence, a process that has damaged Turkish civil society. The military overthrew the previous AKP government in 1997, and Erdoğan sought to avoid a similar fate. However, after the first decade of Erdoğan’s rule, political loyalties shifted. His chief ally against the military, Fethullah Gülen, became Erdoğan’s principal rival. The drama escalated in 2016 when Gülen allegedly cultivated a cohort of military officers in an attempted coup against Erdoğan. Since thwarting the coup, Erdoğan has successfully re-escalated his quest to constrain the military’s domestic political role. Nevertheless, despite this political feuding, Erdoğan and the Turkish military do hold some common interests on foreign policy. Their overlapping goals have provided some basis for cooperation between Erdoğan and his military. Erdoğan has scored political gains from his relationship with the military, instituting policies that have harmed Turkey’s economy and threatened its democracy.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1687. Trump isn’t NATO’s Only Problem

Author:
Basel Ammane
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
During the last NATO Summit in Brussels in July, the first since the onset of the Trump presidency, observers were carefully watching in anticipation of any indicators about the state of commitment by the US to the alliance. Trump’s antics, such as the insults he levelled at Germany, the impudent demands he made, and the thinly-veiled threat he issued unsurprisingly dominated media coverage. This served as a reminder that the alliance and its members need to work vigorously to safeguard US commitment given that this president’s preoccupation with prodding allies into increasing military spending, though echoed by previous administrations, is much more forceful and borders on the nakedly belligerent. To make matters worse, a skeptical view of alliances that sees them through a transactional prism and portrays them as burdens seems to be a consistent view that President Trump has held for years. This further demonstrates that the risk of a declining US commitment to the alliance is real. But a shaky commitment by a US president is hardly the only source of problems for today’s NATO.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1688. Limited Justice for Syria on the Horizon

Author:
Basel Ammane
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
The recent attacks in Eastern Ghouta in which a swath of land housing a population of 400,000 was surrounded, shelled incessantly and later invaded have refocused the world’s attention on the events in Syria.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1689. Better Blending: Making the Case for Transparency and Accountability in Blended Finance

Author:
Transparency International
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Transparency International
Abstract:
As available resources for official development assistance have come under strain in the past ten years, blended finance has been hailed as a means to finance development in low- and middle-income countries. Governments and international organisations are increasingly advocating the use of blended finance to fill the “financing gap” between current commitments and target levels of investment needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Little consideration has been given to potential corruption risks in blended finance mechanisms. As a result, integrity issues in blended finance projects are understudied and poorly appreciated by many development practitioners, investors and regulators. As blended finance becomes an increasingly common instrument in development assistance, a richer understanding of the cause and impact of corrupt practices in this form of development finance is essential.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

1690. Model Monitoring Agreement

Author:
Transparency International
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Transparency International
Abstract:
One of the oldest weapons in Transparency International’s anti-corruption arsenal is the Integrity Pact, designed specifically to tackle corruption in public procurement – one of the biggest areas of corruption risk for governments.
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus