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232. An Emergency Coordination Center Is Needed for a New Frontier
- Author:
- George B. Newton
- Publication Date:
- 01-2008
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- European Affairs
- Institution:
- The European Institute
- Abstract:
- As global warming unfreezes the Arctic, these literally uncharted waters are going to be plied by shipping, but there is no collective network to coordinate emergency responses on land and sea.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Disaster Relief, Environment, and International Cooperation
- Political Geography:
- United States
233. Conflict-Sensitive Approach to Infrastructure Development
- Author:
- Merriam Mashatt, Major General Daniel Long, and James Crum
- Publication Date:
- 01-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- United States Institute of Peace
- Abstract:
- Infrastructure development is the foundation of a sustainable economy and a means to achieving broader nation-building goals. Providing basic services is critical to security, governance, economic development, and social well-being. U.S. military forces have improved planning and coordination mechanisms and have created doctrine, planning processes, and training exercises that are shared by all branches of the military. This type and level of coordination mechanism is necessary for civilian and military coordination, as well, and progress is starting to be made in this important area. The complexity of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) often results in missed opportunities to act quickly in restoring essential services. Contracting officers are often reluctant to take chances in expediting infrastructure contracts due to concerns about violating the FAR. Simplified contracting, use of smaller projects, and reach - back support are three ways to ensure fleeting opportunities are not lost. In conflict-sensitive environments, the condition of infrastructure is often a barometer of whether a society will slip further into violence or make a peaceful transition out of the conflict cycle. The rapid restoration of essential services, such as water, sanitation, and electricity, assists in the perception of a return to normalcy and contributes to the peace process. According to James I. Wasserstrom, head of the Office for Oversight of Publicly- Owned Enterprises (utilities) in the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, infrastructure adds “arms and legs” to strategies aimed at winning “hearts and minds.” Infrastructure is fundamental to moving popular support away from prewar or during-conflict loyalties and to moving spoilers in favor of postwar political objectives. This U.S. Institute of Peace Special Report presents a model that links the infrastructure cycle with conflict analysis. This model is helpful to focus the attention of the infrastructure program planners and implementers on the conflict cycle. In many instances, infrastructure experts approach problems from an engineering perspective. While this view is important, it must be married with an appreciation of the conflict dynamic. Indeed, traditional engineering concerns, such as efficiency, are secondary in a conflict-sensitive approach.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Development, and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and Kosovo
234. Nuclear Challenges and Policy Options for the Next U.S. Administration
- Author:
- Jean du Preez (ed)
- Publication Date:
- 12-2008
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
- Abstract:
- With the support of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Aff airs, the Monterey Nonproliferation Strategy Group (MNSG) has focused its work over the past two years on specifi c issues that have a direct bearing on the strength and vitality of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). To date, the strategy group's agenda has included ways and means to eliminate the threat of fi ssile material; renewed commitments and new approaches to verifi cation of and compliance with the nuclear nonproliferation regime; practical and achievable nuclear arms reduction and disarmament; the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East; and nuclear challenges and policy options for the next U.S. administration.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- United States and Middle East
235. What security makes possible: Some thoughts on critical security studies
- Author:
- Anthony Burke
- Publication Date:
- 06-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Australian National University Department of International Relations
- Abstract:
- It has become commonplace to accept that security is a 'contested concept'. How contested, however, seems to be what is at stake for critical approaches to security. With the US Congress poised to ask for a National Intelligence Estimate on the security impacts of human-induced climate change; with terrorism, people movements and disease the focus of national security policy; and with various conceptualisations of human security informing national policy and new global norms, we are well into the 'broadening and deepening' phase once seen as revolutionary. At the same time, state-centric discourses of security remain very powerful, and global patterns of insecurity, violence and conflict are getting more destructive and uncontrollable.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- United States
236. Taiwan's Defense Budget: How Taipei's Free Riding Risks War
- Author:
- Justin Logan and Ted Carpenter
- Publication Date:
- 09-2007
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- Taiwan spends far too little on its own defense, in large part because the Taiwanese believe the United States is their ultimate protector. The Taiwan legislature's six-year delay and severe down- sizing of a budget to pay for weapons systems that Washington has offered the island since 2001 is only one piece of evidence of Taiwan's free riding. Although Taiwan recently approved roughly US$300 million of the original budget of about $18 billion, the underlying problem remains: even with the new appropriation, Taiwan's overall investment in defense—approximately 2.6 percent of GDP—is woefully inadequate, given the ongoing tensions with mainland China. America is now in the unenviable position of having an implicit commitment to defend a fellow democracy that seems largely uninterested in defending itself.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Security, and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States and Asia
237. PolicyWatch #1259: AFRICOM: A New American Military Command
- Author:
- Gabe Scheinmann
- Publication Date:
- 07-2007
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- This month, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will appoint a commander for the newly created U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Set to launch sometime this fall and become fully operational with 1,000 American personnel by September 2008, AFRICOM will be responsible for all African countries except Egypt. Although no African state poses a direct threat to the United States, Washington is concerned about the growth of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups throughout the continent. Africa has the fastest population growth rate in the world, and several of its countries, such as Nigeria, Angola, Libya, and Sudan, are important sources of crude oil.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy and Population
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, Sudan, Libya, and Angola
238. After the Surge: The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq
- Author:
- Steven Simon
- Publication Date:
- 09-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- When this Council Special Report (CSR) was first issued in February 2007, the debate over the surge was raging. President George W. Bush had only announced his intention to deploy additional troops. Democrats and Republicans rushed to the barricades either to deplore or to defend it. This report, however, saw the surge as inevitable—since its opponents were powerless to stop it—and, more importantly, as beside the point.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, and Middle East
239. The Pentagon and Global Development: Making Sense of the DoD's Expanding Role
- Author:
- Stewart Patrick and Kaysie Brown
- Publication Date:
- 11-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- One of the most striking trends in U.S. foreign aid policy is the surging role of the Department of Defense (DoD). The Pentagon now accounts for over 20 percent of U.S. official development assistance (ODA). DoD has also expanded its provision of non-ODA assistance, including training and equipping of foreign military forces in fragile states. These trends raise concerns that U.S. foreign and development policies may become subordinated to a narrow, short-term security agenda at the expense of broader, longer-term diploma tic goals and institution-building efforts in the developing world. We find that the overwhelming bulk of ODA provided directly by DoD goes to Iraq and Afghanistan, which are violent environments that require the military to take a lead role through instruments like Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and the use of Commanders' Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds. This funding surge is in principle temporary and likely to disappear when the U.S. involvement in both wars ends. But beyond these two conflicts, DoD has expanded (or proposes to expand) its operations in the developing world to include a number of activities that might be more appropriately undertaken by the State Department, USAID and other civilian actors. These initiatives include: the use of “Section 1206” authorities to train and equip foreign security forces; the establishment of the new Combatant Command for Africa (AFRICOM); and the administration's proposed Building Global Partnerships (BGP) Act, which would expand DoD's assistance authorities.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, Africa, United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Asia
240. Defense Monitor, Civil Wars Turned Regional
- Author:
- Col. Daniel Smith
- Publication Date:
- 01-2007
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- No conventional, state-sponsored opposing armies took to the field of battle in 2006. Nonetheless, the number of overt armed interventions by out-side powers in other nations civil wars increased, illustrating a trend away from conventional armed conflicts and toward more complex civil wars that increasingly transform into larger regional wars.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, International Political Economy, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States