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181. Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future

Author:
Stephen J. Blank (ed.)
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
As of November 2010, the so-called “New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)” treaty between the United States and Russia that was signed in Prague, Czech Republic, on April 8, 2010, awaits a ratification vote in the Senate. Regardless of the arguments pro and con that have emerged since it was signed, it is clear that the outcome of the ratification vote will not only materially affect the Obama administration's reset policy towards Russia, but also the strategic nuclear forces of both signatories. Indeed, throughout the Cold War, both sides built up their forces based on what each was thought to have or be building. Although the Bush administration (2001-09) rhetorically announced its intention to sever this mutual hostage relationship, it failed in that regard. As a result, critical aspects of that relationship still survive in Russia's orientation to the United States and in the language of the treaty, especially in its preamble, which explicitly affirms a link between nuclear offense and defense.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Czech Republic

182. Security Council Reform: Past, Present, and Future

Author:
Shashi Tharoor
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
Carnegie Council
Abstract:
Even though it has been more than a year since I left the service of the United Nations, the one question people have not stopped asking me here in India is when our country, with 1.2 billion people and a booming economy, is going to become a permanent member of the Security Council. The short answer is "not this year, and probably not the next." But there are so many misconceptions about this issue that a longer answer is clearly necessary.
Topic:
Security and United Nations
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and China

183. Beyond Geopolitics: Common Challenges, Joint Solutions?

Author:
Gustav Lindstrom
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The 2010 Gstaad Process meeting was held in Switzerland from 16-18 September. Entitled “Beyond Geopolitics – Common Challenges, Joint Solutions?”, the event was organised by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) with the financial support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). Additional partners and contributors were the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies in Monterey (California) and the PIR Center (Moscow).
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, and Europe

184. European Energy Security: Reducing Volatility of Ukraine-Russia Natural Gas Pricing Disputes

Author:
Michael Kofman and Richard B. Andres
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
On January 7, 2009, the existing energy relationship among Europe, Russia, and Ukraine broke down over a natural gas dispute, just as it had done 3 years earlier. Amid subzero temperatures in many parts of Europe, Russia turned off its gas supply to Ukraine, causing shortages in more than 20 European countries. Thousands across the continent were left in the dark, and government services were closed. While the flow of gas was eventually restored, Russian gas disputes with Ukraine continue, and the prospect of another Gazprom shutoff has become an annual event for European consumers. Despite earlier indications that another breakdown in negotiations would lead to blackouts in Europe early in 2010, the potential crisis was averted via a Russia-Ukraine deal that restructured earlier payment and pricing arrangements. However, it is doubtful that Ukraine can continue timely payments for its domestic gas consumption and maintain its own pipeline infrastructure. Fundamental changes to Russia-Ukraine energy transport agreements are coming.
Topic:
Security and Energy Policy
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

185. Strengthening Oversight of the Security Sector in Georgia: an Agenda

Author:
Erik Sportel (ed) and Vasili Tchkoidze (ed)
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Centre for European Security Studies
Abstract:
Since the 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia has undertaken serious reforms, moving the country towards becoming a democracy anda market economy. Instead of proceeding at a steady pace, Georgia haschosen to take an accelerated path to reform. Since coming to office,the Saakashvili administration has underlined its ambition to bring Georgia into Euro-Atlantic structures. After an energetic start, Georgia ran into difficulties in late 2007 and 2008. During this period, the democratic credentials of the Saakashvili government were put to the test for the first time.The government was faced with massive public demonstrations, to which it responded in a heavy-handed fashion. The security forces attacked protesters, and the government declared a state of emergency, blaming the unrest on Russia. Many domestic and foreign observers feared that Georgia was abandoning the road to democracy. However, the state of emergency was soon lifted, and the government called an early presidential election. International observers judged the election to be largely democratic, despite some irregularities, but opposition forces claimed that the president's results had been boosted by fraud. Mr Saakashvili won an absolute majority in the first round of polling. The subsequent parliamentary elections in the spring of 2008 gave the ruling United National Movement party a landslide victory. With 119 out of 150 seats, theparty currently holds a two-thirds majority in parliament. The two major opposition parties (winning 17 and six seats respectively) refused to take their seatsin parliament.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Civil Society, and Democratization
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Georgia

186. Russia's strategies in Afghanistan and their consequences for NATO

Author:
Marlène Laruelle
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
NATO Defense College
Abstract:
In July 2011, the first U.S. troops started to leave Afghanistan - a powerful symbol of Western determination to let the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) gradually take over responsibility for national security. This is also an important element in the strategy of Hamid Karzai's government, which seeks to appear not as a pawn of Washington but as an autonomous actor in negotiations with the so-called moderate Taliban. With withdrawal to be completed by 2014, the regionalization of the "Afghan issue" will grow. The regional powers will gain autonomy in their relationship with Kabul, and will implement strategies of both competition and collaboration. In the context of this regionalization, Russia occupies an important position.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, and United States

187. The Best Defense?

Author:
Abraham D. Sofaer
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
After 9/11, U.S. President George W. Bush announced his determination to do whatever was necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States. Following the lead of several countries that had recently come to similar conclusions after their own bitter experiences -- including India, Israel, Japan, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom -- the United States tightened its immigration laws; increased the protection of its borders, ports, and infrastructure; criminalized providing "material support" for terrorist groups; and tore down the wall between the intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies, which had crippled counterterrorist efforts for decades. Washington did not authorize preventive detention, as other countries had, but it used other measures to hold persons against whom criminal charges could not be brought -- thereby preventing terrorist attacks. The U.S. government also led or joined various international efforts aimed at warding off new dangers, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, through which over 70 states cooperate to interdict the movement of nuclear materials across international borders. But the Bush administration's call for preventive action went further: it endorsed using force against states that supported terrorism or failed to prevent it. This was a particularly controversial position, since using (or threatening to use) preventive force across international borders is generally considered to be a violation of international law: the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and most international legal authorities currently construe the United Nations Charter as prohibiting any use of force not sanctioned by the UN Security Council, with the exception of actions taken in self-defense against an actual or imminent state-sponsored "armed attack."
Topic:
Security and United Nations
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Washington, Israel, and Spain

188. Strengthening the IAEA: How the Nuclear Watchdog Can Regain Its Bark

Author:
Gregory L. Schulte
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The United States has a great interest in the success of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), given the important role it can play in reducing the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Stalled investigations of Iran and Syria have put the credibility of the IAEA at stake. The agency detected neither Iran’s hidden uranium enrichment facility near Qom nor the reactor being constructed by Syria near al Kibar. These examples underscore the importance of strengthening the agency’s verification capability, by both increasing its authority and sharing more information. The IAEA can also help shape the global growth of nuclear power, ensuring the highest levels of safety and security, while discouraging the spread of sensitive technologies that can be misused to build nuclear weapons. The IAEA Board of Governors’ recent decision to establish a nuclear fuel bank in Russia is a step in the right direction. Success requires a new “Spirit of Vienna”—a willingness of delegates to work toward consensus on even difficult topics—surrounding the agency’s important role in nonproliferation. It also requires a conscious effort by the new Director General to remove the politics from IAEA business and return the agency to its technical mandate.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Iran, Syria, and Vienna

189. Russia's New Nobility: The Rise of the Security Services in Putin's Kremlin

Author:
Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
In December 2000, Nikolai Patrushev, who had succeeded Vladimir Putin as director of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), gave an interview to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. He described the FSB's personnel: "Our best colleagues, the honor and pride of the FSB, don't do their work for the money," he said. "They all look different, but there is one very special characteristic that unites all these people, and it is a very important quality: It is their sense of service. They are, if you like, our new 'nobility.'"Over the last decade in Russia, the FSB, the modern successor to the Soviet secret police, the KGB, has been granted the role of the new elite, enjoying expanded responsibilities and immunity from public oversight or parliamentary control. The FSB's budget is not published; the total number of officers is undisclosed. But even cautious estimates suggest that the FSB employs more than 200,000 people. For ten years, Putin, a KGB and FSB veteran himself, has held power in the Kremlin as president and now prime minister. He has made the FSB the main security service in Russia, permitting it to absorb much of the former KGB and granting it the right to operate abroad, collect information, and carry out special operations. When Putin was elected president, in 2000, the Russian secret services were in an extremely difficult position. They had been left behind in the mad rush to market reforms and democracy of the 1990s, and their ranks had thinned due to the lure of big money in Russia's new capitalist economy. Those who remained faced daunting and dispiriting new challenges: the festering war in Chechnya and the resulting rise of terrorism in Moscow and other cities far from the Chechen battlefield. FSB officers faced pressures of corruption that far exceeded those of Soviet times. The organization also suffered from deep public distrust, a legacy of both the repression carried out by the Soviet KGB and the chaotic first decade of Russia's post-Soviet experience.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Russia and Moscow

190. Not Ready for Prime Time: Why Including Emerging Powers at the Helm Would Hurt Global Governance

Author:
Jorge G. Castañeda
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Few matters generate as much consensus in international affairs today as the need to rebuild the world geopolitical order. Everyone seems to agree, at least in their rhetoric, that the makeup of the United Nations Security Council is obsolete and that the G-8 no longer includes all the world's most important economies. Belgium still has more voting power in the leading financial institutions than either China or India. New actors need to be brought in. But which ones? And what will be the likely results? If there is no doubt that a retooled international order would be far more representative of the distribution of power in the world today, it is not clear whether it would be better.The major emerging powers, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, catchily labeled the BRICs by Goldman Sachs, are the main contenders for inclusion. There are other groupings, too: the G-5, the G-20, and the P-4; the last -- Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan -- are the wannabes that hope to join the UN Security Council and are named after the P-5, the council's permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Up for the G-8 are Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa. The G-8 invited representatives of those five states to its 2003 summit in Evian, France, and from 2005 through 2008, this so-called G-5 attended its own special sessions on the sidelines of the G-8's.
Topic:
Security
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, and Brazil