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12. China's Real and Present Danger
- Author:
- Avery Goldstein
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Much of the debate about China's rise in recent years has focused on the potential dangers China could pose as an eventual peer competitor to the United States bent on challenging the existing international order. But another issue is far more pressing. For at least the next decade, while China remains relatively weak compared to the United States, there is a real danger that Beijing and Washington will find themselves in a crisis that could quickly escalate to military conflict. Unlike a long-term great-power strategic rivalry that might or might not develop down the road, the danger of a crisis involving the two nuclear-armed countries is a tangible, near-term concern -- and the events of the past few years suggest the risk might be increasing.
- Topic:
- Security
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
13. The End of Hypocrisy
- Author:
- Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- The U.S. government seems outraged that people are leaking classified materials about its less attractive behavior. It certainly acts that way: three years ago, after Chelsea Manning, an army private then known as Bradley Manning, turned over hundreds of thousands of classified cables to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, U.S. authorities imprisoned the soldier under conditions that the UN special rapporteur on torture deemed cruel and inhumane. The Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, appearing on Meet the Press shortly thereafter, called WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, “a high-tech terrorist.”
- Topic:
- Security, Government, and United Nations
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, and India
14. Keeping Science in the Right Hands
- Author:
- Ronald K. Noble
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Ongoing research and discoveries in the life sciences -- the latest and most promising involving synthetic biology -- have led to extraordinary advances that will benefit society. But criminals and terrorists could manipulate such advances to disrupt public safety and national security. Since its founding in 1923, Interpol has learned that the most effective way to keep up with a constantly changing world is by engaging law enforcement and consulting experts in its 190 member countries. Effective solutions to new global security threats require the exchange of information and intelligence. As the methods criminals employ have developed, so, too, has Interpol's capacity for deploying new strategies and offering assistance to stop them.
- Topic:
- Security and Terrorism
15. Cyberwar and Peace
- Author:
- Thomas Rid
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Foreign Affairs
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Cyberwar Is Coming!” declared the title of a seminal 1993 article by the RAND Corporation analysts John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, who argued that the nascent Internet would fundamentally transform warfare. The idea seemed fanciful at the time, and it took more than a decade for members of the U.S. national security establishment to catch on. But once they did, a chorus of voices resounded in the mass media, proclaiming the dawn of the era of cyberwar and warning of its terrifying potential. In February 2011, then CIA Director Leon Panetta warned Congress that “the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyberattack.” And in late 2012, Mike McConnell, who had served as director of national intelligence under President George W. Bush, warned darkly that the United States could not “wait for the cyber equivalent of the collapse of the World Trade Centers.”
- Topic:
- Security and War
- Political Geography:
- United States
16. Entrepreneurship in Postconflict Zones
- Author:
- Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Economic development is a critical component of promoting stability and U.S. security interests, particularly in conflict and postconflict zones. Reviving institutions and rebuilding an economic base are among the first priorities after fighting ends and reconstruction begins. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), negative economic shocks of just 5 percent can increase the risk of a civil war by as much as 50 percent in fragile environments. Additionally, donor assistance, which can account for 20 percent to as much as 97 percent of a country's GDP, is unsustainable in the long term. Building local business capacity and supporting homegrown entrepreneurs can help curb this risk. Research from Iraq has found that labor-generating reconstruction programs can reduce violence during insurgencies, with a 10 percent increase in labor-related spending associated with a 10 percent decrease in violence. And as Shari Berenbach, director of the Office of Microenterprise Development at USAID, argues, the development of “private enterprise is an important stabilizing force,” particularly for countries suffering from the political uncertainty and civil unrest that often characterizes the postconflict period.
- Topic:
- Security, Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- United States
17. Advancing Human Rights in the UN System
- Author:
- Suzanne Nossel
- Publication Date:
- 05-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- The 2011–2012 crisis in Syria offers a painful reminder of the international community's limited ability to prevent and halt large-scale human rights violations. As the number of casualties in the country continued to rise, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the main international body responsible for maintaining peace and security, struggled to appropriately react. For over a year and despite more than nine thousand documented deaths, the UNSC remained deadlocked, and it eventually managed to issue only weak presidential statements and, in April 2012, dispatch a small team of monitors to bolster a faltering ceasefire. During the same period, however, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) showed significant signs of revival and effectiveness. Intended to be the centerpiece of the UN's human rights machinery, the UNHRC had—since its founding in 2006—been dubbed by diplomats a “leper of the UN system.” It was known for passivity in the face of human rights crises and for the polarized dynamic between countries of the global North and South.
- Topic:
- Security, Political Violence, Diplomacy, Human Rights, Human Welfare, United Nations, and Peacekeeping
- Political Geography:
- Syria
18. Armed Clash in the South China Sea
- Author:
- Bonnie S. Glaser
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- The risk of conflict in the South China Sea is significant. China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines have competing territorial and jurisdictional claims, particularly over rights to exploit the region's possibly extensive reserves of oil and gas. Freedom of navigation in the region is also a contentious issue, especially between the United States and China over the right of U.S. military vessels to operate in China's two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). These tensions are shaping—and being shaped by—rising apprehensions about the growth of China's military power and its regional intentions. China has embarked on a substantial modernization of its maritime paramilitary forces as well as naval capabilities to enforce its sovereignty and jurisdiction claims by force if necessary. At the same time, it is developing capabilities that would put U.S. forces in the region at risk in a conflict, thus potentially denying access to the U.S. Navy in the western Pacific.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Oil, Natural Resources, and Territorial Disputes
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Malaysia, Israel, Taiwan, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and Brunei
19. The Drug War in Mexico: Confronting a Shared Threat
- Author:
- David A. Shirk
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Mexico is in the midst of a worsening security crisis. Explosive clashes and territorial disputes among powerful drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) have killed more than thirty-five thousand people since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006. The geography of that violence is limited but continues to spread, and its targets include a growing number of government officials, police officers, journalists, and individuals unrelated to the drug trade. The Mexican government has made the war on drugs its top priority and has even called in the military to support the country's weak police and judicial institutions. Even so, few Mexican citizens feel safer today than they did ten years ago, and most believe that their government is losing the fight.
- Topic:
- Security, War on Drugs, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Latin America, and Mexico
20. Cyberspace Governance: The Next Step
- Author:
- Adam Segal
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- After years of dismissing the utility of international negotiations on cyberspace, U.S. officials now say that they will participate in talks to develop rules for the virtual world. But which norms should be pursued first and through which venues? As a start, the United States should issue two “cyber declaratory statements,” one about the thresholds of attacks that constitute an act of war and a second that promotes “digital safe havens”—civilian targets that the United States will consider off-limits when it conducts offensive operations. These substantive statements should emerge from a process of informal multilateralism rather than formal negotiations. Washington should engage allies and close partners such as India first and then reach out to other powers such as China and Russia with the goal that they also issue similar statements. Washington should also reach out to the private corporations that operate the Internet and nongovernmental organizations responsible for its maintenance and security.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Security, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Russia, United States, China, and Washington