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18661. Chronic Misperception and International Conflict: The U.S.-Iraq Experience

Author:
Charles A. Duelfer and Stephen Benedict Dyson
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Why did the United States and Iraq and themselves in full-scale conflict with each other in 1990–91 and 2003, and in almost constant low-level hostilities during the years in- between? We suggest that the situation was neither inevitable nor one that either side, in full possession of all the relevant information about the other, would have purposely engineered: in short, a classic instance of chronic misperception. Combining the psychological literature on perception and its pathologies with the almost unique firsthand access of one of the authors— Charles Duelfer—to the decisionmakers on both sides, we isolate the perceptions that the United States and Iraq held of each other, as well as the biases, mistakes, and intelligence failures of which these images were, at different points in time, both cause and effect.
Topic:
Intelligence
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, and Soviet Union

18662. "Revisiting Osirak: Preventive Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation Risks"

Author:
Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Thirty years after the Israeli attack on the Osirak reactor in June 1981 the consequences for Iraq's nuclear weapons program remain hotly debated. A new history of this program, based on several new Iraqi sources, yields a net assessment of the impact of the Israeli attack that differs from prevailing accounts. The attack had mixed effects: it triggered a covert nuclear weapons program that did not previously exist, while necessitating a more difficult and time consuming technical route to developing nuclear weapons. Notwithstanding gross inefficiencies in the ensuing program, a decade later Iraq stood on the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability. This case suggests that preventive attacks can increase the long-term proliferation risk posed by the targeted state.
Political Geography:
Iraq and Israel

18663. "Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb: Nuclear Alarmism Justified?"

Author:
Hal Brands and David Palkki
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Efforts to understand Saddam Hussein's strategic thought have long been hampered by the opacity and secrecy of the Baathist regime. Newly available, high-level Iraqi archival documentation demonstrates that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Saddam viewed nuclear weapons through a fundamentally coercive, revisionist lens. He had long hoped to wage a grinding war of attrition against the Israeli state, and he believed that Iraqi acquisition of the bomb would neutralize Israeli nuclear threats, force the Jewish state to fight at the conventional level, and thereby allow Iraq and its Arab allies (with their larger economic and population base) to prosecute a prolonged war that would displace Israel from the territories occupied in 1967. These findings have implications for the existing theoretical literature on the causes and consequences of nuclear proliferation, as well as for the growing body of work on “nuclear alarmism.” The Iraqi case undermines the thesis that states proliferate primarily because of defensive concerns. Saddam certainly viewed possession of the bomb as a means of enhancing Iraq's security, but his attraction to nuclear weapons revolved around offensive objectives. Saddam hoped to exploit the deterrent balance with Israel to initiate a bloody conventional war that would have likely been immensely destructive and destabilizing for the Middle East as a whole. In other words, though Saddam never obtained nuclear weapons, his views on their potential utility give good cause for both pessimism and alarm.
Political Geography:
Iraq, Israel, and Arabia

18664. "A Crude Threat: The Limits of an Iranian Missile Campaign against Saudi Arabian Oil"

Author:
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson and Miranda Priebe
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The United States and its Persian Gulf allies have been increasingly concerned with the growing size and complexity of Iran's ballistic missile programs. At a time when the United States and its allies remain locked in a standoff with Iran over the latter's nuclear program, states around the Persian Gulf fear that Iran would retaliate for an attack on its nuclear program by launching missiles at regional oil installations and other strategic targets. An examination of the threat posed by Iran's missiles to Saudi Arabian oil installations, based on an assessment of Iran's missile capabilities, a detailed analysis of Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure, and a simulated missile campaign against the network using known Iranian weapons, finds no evidence of a significant Iranian missile threat to Saudi infrastructure. These findings cast doubt on one aspect of the Iranian threat to Persian Gulf oil while offering an analytic framework for understanding developments in the Iranian missile arsenal and the vulnerability of oil infrastructure to conventional attack.
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Persia

18665. "Correspondence: Civil War Settlements and the Prospects for Peace"

Author:
Monica Duffy Toft and Laurie Nathan
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Security
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Laurie Nathan responds to Monica Duffy Toft's spring 2010 International Security article, "Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?"
Topic:
Security and War

18666. The Cosmopolitan Epics of 2004: A Case Study

Author:
Saverio Saverio Giovacchini
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
In 2004 Hollywood produced three purportedly blockbuster epic films: Troy, King Arthur and Alexander. Many critics suggested a direct link between the 1950s “sword and sandal” epic and this new crop of movies. Similarities between the two cycles certainly exist but in this essay I want to emphasize a crucial difference between the contemporary, cosmopolitan, epic and the previous, more nation-bound, 1950s cycle. Rather than being in tune with key elements of American foreign policy, the new cycle of “sword and sandal” films offers a somber assessment of American imperial adventures. I shall contend, in fact, that the new crop of epic films had to choose between two generic conventions that are, at present, not compatible. On the one hand, epic films had traditionally been the bearers of the foreign policy vision of the country that produced them. On the other, their inflated budgets made them dependent on an international market. Deeply aware of a globalized and rising opposition to US foreign policy and of the fact that foreign box office now exceeds the domestic take of a blockbuster, it may be no wonder that the makers of these films chose to craft them into citizens of the world.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and America

18667. 'We are entirely exploitable': The lack of protection for civilians in eastern DRC

Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Each year Oxfam undertakes a far-reaching survey of unheard, conflict-affected people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Three-quarters of the 1,705 people polled in 2011 said that they felt their security had not improved since last year. In areas affected by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), this figure rose to 90 per cent, with communities telling Oxfam that they felt abandoned, isolated, and vulnerable. Communities everywhere painted a grim picture of continued abuse of power by militias, the Congolese army, and other government authorities, wearing away their livelihoods and ability to cope.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Armed Struggle, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa and Democratic Republic of the Congo

18668. Is Aid the Capital Component Making Countries Efficient? A Non-Parametric Production Theory Approach

Author:
Ann Veiderpass and Per-Åke Andersson
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Cross country regressions on aid effectiveness have failed to provide substantial evidence on the effects of foreign aid. This study focuses on country performance in a production theory context. By means of the non-parametric DEA method, we study 60 individual low and middle income countries over a six year period. Is there a systematic correlation between resource intensity and country efficiency? We find indications of a positive relation between capital intensity and country efficiency. We then investigate whether aid is the conclusive part of capital providing this correlation, but when linking country efficiency development to aid such a pattern is not to be found.
Topic:
Cold War

18669. Women's Empowerment through Self-help Groups and its Impact on Health Issues: Empirical Evidence

Author:
Sudipta De and Debnarayan Sarker
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Based on an empirical study in West Bengal, this paper attempts to examine whether women's involvement in the microcredit programme through SHGs makes any positive change on women's empowerment. From the assessment of various criteria of empowerment(power, autonomy and self-reliance, entitlement, participation and awareness and capacity-building), the study suggests that if women participating in the microcredit programme through SHGs sustain for some longer period (eight years or more), such programme might contribute to higher level of women's empowerment than women's empowerment under all types of control group. This paper also finds that women's earnings from saving and credit have positive and significant effect on nutritional status of the children of women members of SHGs and on the protein-intake for their household compared with that of among control groups.

18670. Integration in the Global South: What Role for IBSA Dialogue Forum?

Author:
Mehmet Özkan
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
Recently we have seen that the middle-sized states are coming together in several forums. The WTO meetings and India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) dialogue forum are among those to be cited. Such groupings are mainly economy oriented and whether they will have political output needs to be seen, however, in the future if globalization goes in a similar way as today, we might see more groupings. Those groupings should be seen as reactions to unjust and exclusive globalization. The IBSA Dialogue Forum members have enhanced their relations economically by signing bilateral trade agreements and acting together on economic issues in global forums. If they can hold together, they are creating a market more than ¼ of global population and, if successful, it has a chance to be the engine of growth in the South. Moreover if they can create the biggest market in the South, they would also be influential in the being of the voice of the South. In that sense, this paper addresses the possible ways to develop relations between the IBSA members and economic development in the South, furthermore, implication of the IBSA on global governance and development can be as critical as its contribution to economic development, since the global governing bodies have legitimacy crisis.
Topic:
Cold War and Economics
Political Geography:
India, South Africa, and Brazil