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321. Dangerous Ambitions: The Challenges of Iran and Hamas

Author:
Amjad Atallah, David Makovsky, Graham T. Allison, Richard Haass, R. Nicholas Burns, Moshe Yaalon, and Dan Meridor
Publication Date:
05-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
I want to present some thoughts about the way we should look at modern Iran, the threat it poses to the United States, what we can do as Americans to confront that threat, and what your government is doing and should be doing along those lines.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Government, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

322. Can't Stay the Course, Can't End the War, But We'll Call it Bipartisan

Author:
Erik Leaver and Phyllis Bennis
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
Despite the breathless hype, the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) report did not include any dramatic new ideas for ending the war in Iraq. In fact, it did not include a call to end the war at all. Rather, the report's recommendations focus on transforming the U.S. occupation of Iraq into a long-term, sustainable, off-the-front-page occupation with a lower rate of U.S. casualties. Despite its title, it does not provide "A New Approach: A Way Forward."
Topic:
Peace Studies and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East

323. Madness and War

Author:
Conn Hallinan
Publication Date:
12-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:
In the 5th century BC, the Greek tragic playwright Euripides coined a phrase that still captures the particular toxic combination of hubris and illusion that seizes many of those in power: Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. What other line could better describe British Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent address to his nation's troops hunkered down at Camp Bastion, in southern Afghanistan's Helmand Province? Here, Blair said. In this extraordinary piece of desert is where the fate of world security in the early 21st century is going to be decided. While Blair was turning Afghanistan's arid south into the Armageddon of terrorism, the rest of the country was coming apart at the seams. Attacks by insurgents have reached 600 a month, more than double the number in March, and almost five times the number in November of last year. We do have a serious problem in the south, one diplomat told Rachel Morarjee of the Financial Times on November 22, but the north is a ticking time bomb. Suicide bombers have struck Kunduz in the north, where former U.S. protégé Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e-Islami organization are hammering away at the old Northern Alliance. The latter, frozen out of the current government following the 2001 Bonn Conference, is busy stockpiling arms and forming alliances with drug warlords. According to the Associated Press, opium poppy production is up 59%. While Blair was bucking up the troops, their officers were growing increasingly desperate. Major Jon Swift, a company commander in the Royal Fusiliers told the Guardian that casualties were very significant and showing no signs of reducing, and Field Marshall Peter Inge, former chief of the British military, warned that the army in Afghanistan could risk operational failure, military speak for defeat. The Brits don't have a monopoly on madness, however. Speaking in Riga, Latvia on the eve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting, President George Bush said, I am not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete. We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren. In the meantime, the Iraq War that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said would cost $50 billion at the most, was burning up more than twice that each year. The Pentagon just requested $160 billion in supplemental funds for the Iraq and Afghan wars for the remainder of fiscal 2007. Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz says the final costs may exceed $2 trillion.
Topic:
NATO and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Asia

324. Fighting on Borrowed Time: The effect on US military readiness of America's post-9/11 wars

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
Considerable controversy surrounds the effects of America's post-9/11 wars on its armed forces – more specifically, their effects on military readiness. And there are grounds enough for concern in the August 2006 admission by General Peter Pace, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, that two-thirds of the US Army's active and reserve combat brigades registered in the two lowest readiness categories.
Topic:
International Relations, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:
United States and America

325. War and Consequences: Global terrorism has increased since 9/11 attacks

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
Since the onset of the US “global war on terrorism”, the operational capacity of the original “Al Qaeda” centered around Osama bin-Laden has been significantly degraded. Hundreds of cadre formerly commanded by bin-Laden have been killed (mostly during the Afghan war). Several top leaders of the organization have been killed or captured – most notably Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubaydah, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – as have several leading regional associates, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Dozens of third tier operatives have been killed or captured. Nonetheless, the organization continues to function in a more decentralized form.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
United States

326. QDR 2006: Do the forces match the mission? DOD gives little reason to believe

Author:
Carl Conetta
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:
As originally conceived the Quadrennial Defense Review was meant to help ensure the internal consistency of mid-and longer-term US defense planning. By “internal consistency” I here mean a concordance of strategy, assets, and budgets. As critics often put it in the past: the point is to show how the force fits the strategy and the budget fits the force. The exercise is supposed to “connect” our military strategy with our force development plans and, in turn, connect these with current and future budgets. In this regard, the 2006 QDR is long on assertion and short on quantification – “short” as in utterly lacking.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Economics, and War
Political Geography:
United States

327. Debunking the 1930s Analogy: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Re-Examined

Author:
Christopher Layne
Publication Date:
11-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
Abstract:
The key events of the 1930s Hitler's rise to power, Germany's reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with Austria, Munich and the subsequent German occupation of Prague in March 1939, and the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 transpired some seventy years ago. The events of the 1930s or at least Churchill's depiction of them have provided the standard images that have shaped U.S. foreign policy and scholarly research alike: falling dominoes, insatiable dictators, the interdependency of strategic commitments, the importance of demonstrating resolve, and the impossibility of achieving diplomatic accommodation with nondemocratic regimes. But does the myth track with the historical record? Does the 1930s myth accurately explain British grand strategy in the 1930s? Simply stated, my argument is that the 1930s myth as commonly understood in the United States is bad history, and that its use has contributed importantly to a series of dubious policy decisions by U.S. decisionmakers and still does. As I demonstrate, the British, in fact, were not willfully blind to the German threat or indifferent to the need to rearm to meet it. Rather, during the 1930s, London formulated a quintessentially realist grand strategy that attempted to blend deterrence and diplomacy to contain Hitler's Germany (and Japan and Italy), and defend Britain's interests as a world power by avoiding what, for Britain, could only be a disastrous war.
Topic:
Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:
Britain, United States, Japan, Europe, London, Germany, Italy, and Austria

328. Myths of the Current War

Author:
Frederick W. Kagan
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
The debate about American policy and strategy in Iraq has veered off course. A number of myths have crept into the discussion over the past two years that distort understanding and confuse discussion. It is possible and appropriate to question the wisdom of any particular strategy proposed for Iraq, including the Bush administration's strategy, and there is reason to be both concerned and encouraged by recent events there. But constructive dialogue about how to choose the best way forward is hampered by the distortions caused by certain myths. Until these myths recede from discussions about Iraq strategy, progress in those discussions is extremely unlikely.
Topic:
Security and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East

329. Cop Out - Why Afghanistan Has No Police

Author:
Vance Serchuk
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
When rioting sparked by a fatal traffic accident involving the U.S. military suddenly broke out in Kabul in May, most in the city were taken by surprise. Less shocking was the response of the Afghan National Police (ANP) to the unrest. Rather than dispersing the mobs and restoring order, Kabul's cops were reported fleeing their posts and, in some cases, joining the looters. “The reaction of our police was really shameful,” acknowledged Jawed Ludin, chief of staff to President Hamid Karzai. Unfortunately, the sorry performance of the ANP was not an isolated event, but a reflection of a much bigger problem. Nearly five years since the ouster of the Taliban and more than three since the fall of Saddam, the Bush administration has repeatedly stumbled in its efforts to create effective foreign police forces. In marked contrast to the army-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have begun to yield encouraging results, the indigenous police in both countries appear stuck in a transition to nowhere, slaughtered by insurgents and infiltrated by militias and warlords.
Topic:
Government, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Middle East, Taliban, and Kabul

330. Lessons and Consequences of the Israel-Hizballah War: An Early Assessment

Author:
David Makovsky, Dennis Ross, and Jeffrey White
Publication Date:
09-2006
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
On August 25, 2006, Jeffrey White, David Makovsky, and Dennis Ross addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. Jeffrey White is the Berrie Defense Fellow at The Washington Institute and the coauthor, with Michael Eisenstadt, of the Institute Policy Focus Assessing Iraq's Sunni Arab Insurgency. David Makovsky, senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute's Project on the Middle East Peace Process, is author of the Institute monograph Engagement through Disengagement: Gaza and the Potential for Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking. He, like Jeffrey White, recently returned from a trip to Israel. Dennis Ross, the Institute's counselor and Ziegler distinguished fellow, is a former U.S. Middle East peace envoy and author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. The following is a rapporteur's summary of their remarks.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Government, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Washington, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, and Gaza