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19672. Forging a Comprehensive Approach to Counterinsurgency Operations
- Author:
- Robert L. Caslen Jr. and Bradley S. Loudon
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- The United States will face a myriad of new strategic challenges and opportunities in the 21st century that will test its capability and capacity to succeed in an increasingly competitive, dynamic, and uncertain operating environment. A key component to success in future stability operations will be the ability to interpret the seemingly chaotic series of weak global signals and environmental stimuli to draw logically valid connections and conclusions to recognize obstacles and opportunities in advance. Equally important will be the capability, capacity, and will to leverage the appropriate balance of national power in a coordinated, synchronized, and focused manner to mitigate risk and exploit opportunities.
- Political Geography:
- United States
19673. Terrorist-Criminal Pipelines and Criminalized States: Emerging Alliances
- Author:
- Douglas Farah
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- On July 1, 2010, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment that outlined the rapid expansion of operations of transnational criminal organizations and their growing, often short-term strategic alliances with terrorist groups. These little-understood transcontinental alliances pose new security threats to the United States, as well as much of Latin America, West Africa, and Europe.
- Political Geography:
- United States, New York, Europe, Latin America, and West Africa
19674. Criminal Insurgency in the Americas and Beyond
- Author:
- Robert Killebrew
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the global context for American security policy was changing. While the traditional state-based international system continued to function and the United States reacted to challenges by states in conventional ways (for example, by invading Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11), a cascade of enormous technological and social change was revolutionizing international affairs. As early as the 1990s, theorists were writing that with modern transnational communications, international organizations and corporate conglomerates would increasingly act independently of national borders and international regulation. What was not generally foreseen until about the time of 9/11, though, was the darker side: that the same technology could empower corrupt transnational organizations to threaten the international order itself. In fact, the globalization of crime, from piracy's financial backers in London and Nairobi to the Taliban and Hizballah's representatives in West Africa, may well be the most important emerging fact of today's global security environment.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq
19675. Law Enforcement Capacity-building in African Postconflict Communities
- Author:
- Bruce Baker
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Postconflict is, unfortunately, not always a suitable descriptor of societies where a peace agreement has been signed and a transitional government installed. Violence does not stop on the day of the public signing of the treaty. Large numbers of unemployed and (in the short term) unemployable youths, often armed or with access to arms, loiter on the streets. They have had little opportunity to gain education in the preceding years, but have learned that violence is the key to accessing resources and status. The former security forces or informal armed groups and militias that they have been part of have, over many years, provided a whole range of roles: social support group, family, employer, provider, escape ladder from rural poverty, and source of status. Hence, whether these groups are officially disbanded or not, the youths look to their former general-patron and their ex-fighting colleagues as their surrogate “clan” in times of trouble. Violence may well live on in their minds, dreams, responses to conflict resolution, attitudes toward women, and methods of securing resources. No wonder, then, that the crime rates escalate in the cities where they now live, and no wonder that some militias remain in the countryside, looting and robbing, despite the official end of the war.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution and War
- Political Geography:
- Africa
19676. International Support for State-building: Flawed Consensus
- Author:
- Stephen Krasner
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- State-building—external efforts to influence the domestic authority structures of other states— is arguably the central foreign policy challenge of the contemporary era. The principal security threat of the last several centuries—war among the major powers—is gone, primarily because of nuclear weapons. At the same time, the relationship between underlying capacity and the ability to do harm has become attenuated because of the actual and potential proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. North Korea, with a fraction of the gross domestic product of any one of its neighbors, could kill millions of people in China, Japan, or Russia. Biological or nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of transnational terrorist organizations. Anxiety about the relationship between failed or malevolent states and transnational terrorism will not disappear despite the recognition that there can be training camps in Oregon as well as Kandahar. Perhaps more than at any point in the several-hundred-year history of the modern state system, policymakers are confronted with the uncertainty—not a specific known risk—of the small probability of a bad outcome. It is an uncertainty that they cannot ignore, and state-building will be part of the program.
- Topic:
- Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Japan, China, and North Korea
19677. Irregular Conflict and the Wicked Problem Dilemma: Strategies of Imperfection
- Author:
- Franklin Kramer
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Irregular conflict is neither neat nor fair. Definitionally, it is hard to describe, including as it does conflicts ranging from Somalia to Bosnia to Sierra Leone to Colombia to Iraq to Afghanistan (to say nothing of Sudan, the Philippines, or Yemen). Hybrid, counterinsurgency (COIN), stability operations, counterterrorism, and civil war have all been utilized as descriptions, often in combination. But if defining irregular conflict is difficult, even more difficult is knowing how to respond, especially for an outside intervener like the United States. Doctrine has now been developed, but in practice the context of an irregular conflict is generally so complex and contradictory that it is difficult to put the full doctrine effectively into practice.
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Sudan, Bosnia, Philippines, Yemen, Colombia, Sierra Leone, and Somalia
19678. Three Lessons from Contemporary Challenges to Security
- Author:
- Max G. Manwaring
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- There are well over 100 small, irregular, asymmetric, and revolutionary wars ongoing around the world today. In these conflicts, there is much to be learned by anyone who has the responsibility of dealing with, analyzing, or reporting on national security threats generated by state and nonstate political actors who do not rely on highly structured organizations, large numbers of military forces, or costly weaponry—for example, transnational criminal organization (TCO)/gang/insurgent phenomena or politicized gangs. In any event, and in any phase of a criminal or revolutionary process, violent nonstate actors have played substantial roles in helping their own organizations and/or political patrons coerce radical political change and achieve putative power.
- Topic:
- National Security
19679. Five Missteps in Interagency Reform — And What to Do About Them
- Author:
- James Carafano
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Carved into the base of a statue at the National Archives are some of the most important words in Washington, DC: “What is past is prologue.” This phrase succinctly states the intent behind the laws requiring that the U.S. Government record and interpret its history. Such laws are in place not only to illuminate the past but also to provide insights and observations to inform future decisionmaking. No government activity demands more reflection than overcoming the obstacles to conducting effective interagency operations. In the past decade, the United States has done more than enough wrong to learn some lessons on how to do things right.
- Political Geography:
- United States and Washington
19680. Stability Operations: From Policy to Practice
- Author:
- James Derleath and Jason Alexander
- Publication Date:
- 06-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- The 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America led to a number of bureaucratic and policy changes. In 2004, the Department of State established the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). It was charged with coordinating the Nation's postconflict and stabilization efforts. In 2005, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) created an Office of Military Affairs. Its mission was to serve as the agency's focal point for civilian-military planning and interaction with the Department of Defense (DOD) and foreign militaries. On November 28, 2005, DOD published Directive 3000.05, which established stability operations as a core U.S. military mission with the same priority as combat operations. Over the next few years, DOD also issued new military doctrine—Field Manual (FM) 3–24, Counterinsurgency, and FM 3–07, Stability Operations. The latter defines stability operations as the “various military missions, tasks, and activities conducted outside the United States in coordination with other instruments of national power to maintain or reestablish a safe, secure environment, provide essential government services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief.”
- Political Geography:
- United States and America