Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Global Focus Publishing Institution Center for a New American Security

11. Rethinking Requirements and Risk in the New Space Age

Author:
John Klein
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
Recent advancements in the commercial space launch and small satellite sectors are revolutionizing how the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will access and use space. Increasingly, many within the national security space community view commercial space capabilities as essential for maintaining U.S. competitive advantage and protecting national security interests in space.1 However, DoD is still failing to take full advantage of the benefits from the commercial space sector. This shortfall is due to fundamental differences between defense and commercial innovation cycles, as well as differing perspectives on requirements and risk
Topic:
International Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

12. Strengthening the Economic Arsenal: Bolstering the Deterrent and Signaling Effects of Sanctions

Author:
Elizabeth Rosenberg and Jordan Tama
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
Economic sanctions have become the tool of choice for U.S. policymakers to influence international affairs. On issues ranging from nuclear nonproliferation to human rights, the United States typically imposes sanctions with the goal of inducing a government to change its behavior. Yet sanctions often have more potential to deter unwanted actions than to compel policy reversals, and the greatest impact of sanctions sometimes involves the signals they convey about likely future U.S. steps. Maximizing the overall effectiveness of U.S. economic pressure therefore requires concerted efforts by policymakers in the executive branch and Congress to make sanctions more effective instruments of deterrence and signaling. Doing this will also have positive knock-on effects, helping to limit the unintentional escalation of international competition and preserve the utility of sanctions as a vehicle for addressing security challenges and protecting universal norms. This report highlights several areas for action by U.S. policymakers: Make U.S. sanctions-removal assurances more credible: U.S. offers to lift sanctions on a country if it makes certain concessions send an effective signal only if the United States has a track record of backing up its commitments. In recent years, this signal has been severely weakened by U.S. failures to follow through on some significant sanctions-removal agreements, notably with Iran and Cuba.
Topic:
Economics, National Security, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Iran, Global Focus, and United States of America

13. Getting it Righter, Faster The Role of Prediction in Agile Government Decisionmaking

Author:
Kathryn McNabb Cochran and Gregory Tozzi
Publication Date:
08-2017
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
Humanity is fascinated by prediction failures. The failure to predict the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has replaced the failure to predict the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as the United States’ canonical intelligence failure, but the failure to predict the Arab Spring is gaining ground. These failures have prompted some to argue that because prediction is a futile exercise, organizations are better served by investing in agile systems that can react rapidly to change rather than investing in predictive systems that help them anticipate change. The authors argue that this is a false dichotomy. Predictive systems can support agility, and recent advances in the science of forecasting offer multiple tools for organizations seeking to see around the corner faster and with more acuity.
Topic:
Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. After Paris A Climate Agenda that Serves U.S. Interests

Author:
David F. Gordon, Divya P. Reddy, and Elizabeth Rosenberg
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
The dust is now settling on President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. This decision was a foreign policy mistake. It will make sustaining American credibility more difficult in other multilateral institutions and settings. It will exacerbate anti-American sentiment in Europe, making trans-Atlantic leadership collaboration more difficult well beyond climate policy. On climate, it threatens to undermine the balance achieved in Paris between the centralized and top-down approach favored by the Europeans and the more decentralized and market-friendly approach of the United States, which was supported by China. As a result, it also could lead to the creation of an uneven playing field for U.S. businesses.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. Gender Equality as a National Security Priority

Author:
Julia M. Santucci
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
The Obama administration made efforts to advance gender equality around the world one of its core national security and foreign policy priorities, based on the premise that countries are more stable, secure, and prosperous when women enjoy the same rights as men, participate fully in their countries’ political systems and economies, and live free from violence. A growing body of research makes a compelling case about these links. Former Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Cathy Russell and former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon sum up much of the evidence in this Medium piece, noting that advancing gender equality around the world helps grow global gross domestic product, decreases hunger, strengthens the prospects for peace agreements to succeed, and counters violent extremism.1
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, and International Security
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. The "Section 702" Surveillance Program

Author:
Adam Klein, Madeline Christian, Matt Olsen, and Tristan Campos
Publication Date:
08-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an important intelligence tool that will expire on December 31, 2017, unless Congress re-authorizes it. Here’s what it is, and how it works. First, a bit of background: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 requires the government to get a court order to intercept the electronic messages of a suspected spy or terrorist on U.S. soil. By contrast, overseas spying took place with no court oversight. That made sense for 20th century technology, because international communications rarely transited the United States. The internet made things far more complicated: now, foreigners’ communications often travel through the United States, or are stored on servers here. That produced an anomaly: FISA was forcing the government to apply Fourth Amendment safeguards when a foreign terrorist or spy’s internet messages passed through the U.S.—even though non-Americans overseas do not have Fourth Amendment rights. This overtaxed the Justice Department and made counterterrorism more difficult. To remedy this, Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which included Section 702. Section 702 creates a middle ground between U.S.-based surveillance under FISA and overseas surveillance by the NSA.
Topic:
International Relations and International Security
Political Geography:
Global Focus

17. A Blueprint for New Sanctions on North Korea

Author:
Edward Fishman, Peter Harrell, and Elizabeth Rosenberg
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
North Korea has emerged as one of the most significant national security threats facing the United States and its allies today. Since leader Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011, North Korea has accelerated the pace of its nuclear tests, and appears to have made substantial progress in developing operational medium-, long-range, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Many experts assess that if left unchecked, Pyongyang could develop the capability to strike the contiguous United States with a nuclear warhead within 5–10 years. Because of that, in June 2017 U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis characterized North Korea as “the most urgent and dangerous threat” to U.S. peace and security.
Topic:
International Relations, International Security, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
North Korea and Global Focus

18. Artificial Intelligence and National Security

Author:
Gregory Allen and Taniel Chan
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
Partially autonomous and intelligent systems have been used in military technology since at least the Second World War, but advances in machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) represent a turning point in the use of automation in warfare. Though the United States military and intelligence communities are planning for expanded use of AI across their portfolios, many of the most transformative applications of AI have not yet been addressed. In this piece, we propose three goals for developing future policy on AI and national security: preserving U.S. technological leadership, supporting peaceful and commercial use, and mitigating catastrophic risk. By looking at four prior cases of transformative military technology—nuclear, aerospace, cyber, and biotech—we develop lessons learned and recommendations for national security policy toward AI.
Topic:
Science and Technology, International Security, Military Strategy, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. Higher, Heavier, Farther, and now Undetectable?

Author:
Jerry Hendrix and Lt Col James Price
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
On Christmas Day in 1914, three former cross-channel packet ships, the Engadine, Empress, and Riviera, stood off the island of Heligoland in the North Sea. Under the watchful eye of the Royal Navy cruisers Arethusa and Undaunted, the three ships pulled back the tarps erected on their sterns and forecastles to reveal nine seaplanes. The aircraft – three Short Folders (Short was the company name; Folder was the model and denoted the aircraft’s ability to fold its wings for storage), four Short 74s, and two Short 135s – were assembled and carefully lowered into the water. The Folders had a 67-foot wingspan, were powered by a 160-horsepower engine, and weighed 3,040 pounds fully loaded. The other two models were derivatives of the original Folder and had similar, if not exact, characteristics. Seven of the nine aircraft were able to get airborne (the other two were unable to break the dynamic tension of the water) and headed eastward carrying three 20-pound Hale bombs apiece, each of which contained 4.5 pounds of explosives within 13 pounds of steel guided by aluminum tail fins. Combined, the 21 bombs had less destructive power than one 13-inch shell fired from a British battleship, but these weapons could be taken directly to their targets and dropped precisely on top of them.
Topic:
International Security and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

20. Toward an “Open Source” Maritime Force Structure

Author:
Nicholas C. Prime
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for a New American Security
Abstract:
The U.S. Navy’s updated Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower outlines several key themes and areas of development for the sea services as they continue the transition from the focus on the land wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.1 Some are new, a few are traditional, and several provide an interesting perspective on previously gestating concepts. One item of particular interest, and the focus herein, is the call to “expand the practice of employing adaptive force packages, which tailor naval capabilities to specific regional environments.”2 This seems like something that should be fairly intuitive, something that should evolve naturally as the sea services adapt to new and challenging circumstances. However, the argument here is meant to suggest something broader, a more conceptual rethink of how the maritime services, collectively, develop and deploy force structure packages. In short, all three maritime services should work toward the creation of an integrated, open framework for force development and deployment. A framework which replaces the practice of haphazard or incoherent deployment of assets, deployments with little or no connection between platforms deployed and overarching strategic aims. Abandoning a practice that indelicately pushes standardized—one size fits most—force packages into meeting unique operational requirements, and instead develop a system that identifies operational requirements and allows the relevant services (even when acting in concert with partner nations) to more precisely match particular capabilities to unique operational requirements.
Topic:
Defense Policy and International Security
Political Geography:
Global Focus