This paper introduces Central Asia’s geopolitical significance and explores several inter-related security challenges. For each security issue, this paper provides a brief overview of the issue, explains why or how it developed and looks at the issue’s significance within the broader security environment. The paper then turns to Canada’s role in Central Asia and addresses opportunities to expand engagement in the security realm.
Topic:
Security, International Security, Bilateral Relations, Governance, and Geopolitics
Regional security is being adversely affected by a worsening perception gap between China and other regional powers in the Indo-Pacific. What China sees as the legitimate defence of its interests others in the region see as assertive behaviour.
There are some real differences in interests between China and other regional players in the Indo-Pacific, but tensions can also be moderated by efforts to address the perception gap.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Defense Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
How do we reconcile self-government with national security and analyze claims of national security? There should be little doubt that many assertions of "national security" have left the nation less secure. Consider the case of Ellen Knauff, a German woman who married a U.S. soldier and came to New York City to meet his parents in 1948. Instead of being allowed to disembark with other passengers, she was held at Ellis Island for three years and threatened with deportation as a security risk. At no time was Knauff or her attorney told why she was a risk. Her case reached the Supreme Court in Knauff v. Shaughnessy (1950). The Court, divided 6 to 3, found no objections to the procedures used by the executive branch. In a dissent, however, Justice Robert Jackson said: “Security is like liberty in that many are the crimes committed in its name.” No one has better underscored the danger of automatically bowing down to claims of security.
The recent food security crisis has shed light on the importance of agricultural development in the South Mediterranean countries. An ‘urban bias’ and ‘trade liberalisation’ policies have resulted in growing dependence on imports, narrow specialisations and unsustainable production practices. The Euro-Mediterranean integration process has put trade liberalisation in the centre of attention, while the progress in agriculture has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the challenges faced by agro-food systems in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries, with specific attention to the role of the Euro-Mediterranean integration and the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The paper also reviews relevant economic and environmental data in selected South and East Mediterranean countries.
Topic:
Security, Agriculture, Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Food
The Future of Work for Low-Income Workers and Families is a policy brief aimed at state policy advocates and policymakers seeking to help low-income workers and their families secure healthy economic livelihoods as the nature of work evolves in the United States. Published by the Working Poor Families Project in December 2015, the brief was written by Vickie Choitz, associate director of the Economic Opportunities Program, with Maureen Conway, vice president at the Aspen Institute and executive director of the Economic Opportunities Program. This brief reviews the major forces shaping the future of work, including changes in labor and employment practices, business models, access to income and benefits, worker rights and voice, education and training, and technology. Across these areas, we are seeing disruptive change in our economy and society resulting in increasing risk and challenges for low-income workers, in particular.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Human Welfare, Social Stratification, and Employment
The 2015 Financial Security Summit, titled Reimagining Financial Security: Managing Risk and Building Wealth in an Era of Inequality, took place July 15–17 in Aspen, Colorado. The Summit agenda built on FSP's core themes of expanding retirement security and children’s savings accounts for low- and moderate-income families, and began to explore a broader vision of how to improve short- and long-term dimensions of financial wellbeing in a rapidly changing economy. Participant contributions helped shape new areas of focus for FSP going forward. This report incorporates those insights and provides an outline for future policy dialogue and directions.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Human Welfare, Social Stratification, and Employment
In the 11 months since President Barack Obama committed the United States to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS), the group has expanded its international reach, metastasized to form offshoots across multiple regions, and increased its perceived momentum. Although U.S. government officials cite a reduction in the overall size of the group’s
sanctuary in Iraq and Syria and the killing of thousands of ISIS fighters, the fall of Ramadi and much of Anbar province to the Islamic State served as a wakeup call that current efforts to counter ISIS are not adequate to the task.2 Meanwhile, the threat posed by the terrorist group to Americans at home and abroad appears to be growing as ISIS-inspired individuals conduct attacks targeting Westerners
around the globe, including here in the United States.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, Civil War, Islam, and Terrorism
The United States and Taiwan are both approaching presidential elections in the next 18 months amid an environment of growing security tensions throughout maritime Asia, especially due to China’s tailored coercion. At the same time, regional politics are developing in such a way that stability across the Taiwan Strait cannot be taken for granted in the future. In this policy brief, Alexander Sullivan, an Associate Fellow in the Asia-Pacific Security Program, charts major challenges that the United States and Taiwan will face in the maritime domain over the medium term and offers a series of policy prescriptions to capitalize on opportunities and mitigate risks.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Maritime Commerce, Bilateral Relations, and Territorial Disputes
Military, Veterans, and Society Program Director Phillip Carter and Research Associate Katherine Kidder examine the growth of military compensation in the post-Cold War era, from 1990 to 2015, as well as the social contract America has with its All-Volunteer Force, and the ways in which monetary compensation should be considered as part of a broader talent management strategy for the armed forces. The policy brief presents an opportunity for the nation to assess its social contract with the All-Volunteer Force and adjust (if necessary) to meet the national interest and sustain its most critical national security asset.
Topic:
Security, Economics, Labor Issues, and Military Affairs
In "Defend, Defect, or Desert?: The Future of the Afghan Security Forces,” Tyler Jost, a former U.S. Army Company Commander who served two tours in Afghanistan, lays out how the United States can most effectively support the Afghan National Security Forces. Mr. Jost argues that in the coming months, Afghanistan will depend on increasingly independent Afghan security forces to fight a tough insurgency—one that is perhaps even as strong as it was four years ago during the height of U.S. and coalition operations.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, War, and Insurgency