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1. The Parliamentary Dimension of Defence Procurement. Requirements, Production, Cooperation and Acquisition

Author:
Willem F. van Eekelen
Publication Date:
03-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
This occasional paper of the Geneva Center for Democratic Control of Armed Forces attempts to consider defence procurement in its modern political – military setting. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall most European countries no longer regard the defence of their territory and independence as the overriding priority it had during the Cold War. The role of military forces has changed considerably. Collective defence focused on reliable capabilities of 'forces in being' and effective mobilisation and, in the case of NATO, on integrated planning and command structures. Today, the protection of national territory has a new dimension in the face of terrorist at tacks, and in the case of the US, by the programme for missile defence. Everywhere the link between external and internal security has become closer.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Cooperation, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Berlin

2. A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author:
Lawrence J. Korb
Publication Date:
05-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
From the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the fall of the Twin Towers in 2001, and even now after the Iraq war of 2003, the United States has not had a consistent national security strategy that enjoyed the support of the American people and our allies. This situation is markedly different from the Cold War era when our nation had a clear, coherent, widely supported strategy that focused on containing and deterring Soviet Communist expansion. The tragic events of September 11, the increase in terrorism, and threats from countries such as North Korea and, until recently, Iraq, create an imperative once again to fashion and implement a coherent national security strategy that will safeguard our national interests.
Topic:
Defense Policy and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, Israel, East Asia, North Korea, and Berlin

3. A Military for the 21st Century: Lessons from the Recent Past

Author:
Anthony C. Zinni
Publication Date:
07-2001
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, more than any other event, marked the collapse of the Soviet Union. I remember crossing through a vacant Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. No one on either side knew quite what we could or could not do, since it all happened so fast. The confusion and stark contrast between East and West Berlin made it hard to believe that we had once feared this collapsed Warsaw Pact or seen it as a serious global competitor. The West always contended that communism was a fundamentally flawed system that would eventually fail. Despite that belief, we were caught by surprise by the sudden and total end of the Soviet empire and the system that governed half the world. At the time, our President proudly drew what appeared to be the logical conclusion from these events: that there was to be a new world order. Others talked of reaping a peace dividend, since defense spending surely could be reduced.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Berlin

4. 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

5. The Future of the U.S. Defense Industry

Author:
Vance D. Coffman
Publication Date:
10-1998
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Let me begin with a review of where we are some nine years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after 14 years of continuous declines in the defense budget. Current expenditures are now at their lowest point since before the beginning of World War II; in terms of share of GDP, the share devoted to defense is less than three percent. As a portion of the federal budget, it is at its lowest point in modern history. As a benchmark, during the Kennedy Administration, defense represented about one-half of the federal budget. Today it is about one-seventh.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Industrial Policy, and War
Political Geography:
United States and Berlin