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Georgia After the Rose Revolution: Geopolitical Predicament and Implications for U.S. Policy
Svante E. Cornell Dr.
The attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, enhanced the importance of both the Transcaucasus and Central Asia to American security. Overflight rights through the Caucasus to Central Asia and Afghanistan are vital components of the ongoing military effort there by both U.S. and NATO forces. But this region has multiple conflicts and fault-lines. As multiple recent crises show, Russo-Georgian tensions connected with South Ossetia and Abkhazia could erupt into open violence at any time. The author outlines the possibilities for conflict in this region and the qualities that make it strategically important, not only for Washington and Moscow, but also increasingly for Europe.
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North Korean Foreign Relations in the Post-Cold War World
Samuel S. Kim Dr.
The author examines North Korea’s foreign relations with China, Russia, Japan, the United States, and South Korea during the post-Cold War era. North Korea’s extended and heavy reliance on foreign aid and assistance —both military and economic—in the first 4 decades came from China, the Soviet Union, and communist bloc states; in the past 2 decades, this aid has come from countries including China, South Korea, and the United States. He argues that central to understanding North Korea’s international behavior in the 21st century is the extent to which the policies of the United States have shaped that behavior. Although some readers may not agree with all of Dr. Kim’s interpretations and assessments, they nevertheless will find his analysis simulating and extremely informative.
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North Korea's Military Threat: Pyongyang's Conventional Forces, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Ballistic Missiles
Andrew Scobell Dr. and John M. Sanford Captain USN
North Korea's conventional capabilities have eroded but remain significant, including its sizeable contingent of special operations forces. Meanwhile, Pyongyang continues the vigorous development of its nuclear and missile programs, and has ongoing chemical and biological weapons programs. Perhaps the biggest unanswered questions concern North Korea’s military intentions. Does the Korean People’s Army have an offensive or defensive doctrine? Does Pyongyang intend to use its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles to replace the threat posed by its eroding conventional forces? Or is its intention to use conventional and unconventional forces in what it might view as a winning combination? In theory, U.S. forces could carry out preemptive precision attacks to destroy known North Korean nuclear facilities and missile emplacements, but such attacks might provoke North Korean retaliation and trigger a general conflict. Washington and Seoul cannot overthrow the North Korean regime by force or destroy its strategic military assets without risking devastating losses in the process. Meanwhile, North Korea cannot invade the South without inviting a fatal counterattack from the United States and South Korea. Thus, the balance of forces that emerged from the Korean War, and which helped maintain the armistice for more than 50 years, remains in place.
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Russian-American Security Cooperation after St. Petersburg
Richard Weitz Dr.
Until Russia and the United States experience a change on government in 2008, the prospects for additional strategic arms control agreements, limits on destabilizing military operations, and joint ballistic missile defense programs appear unlikely. Yet, near-term opportunities for collaboration in the areas of cooperative threat reduction, third-party proliferation, and bilateral military engagement do exist.
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The Politics of Identity: History, Nationalism, and the Prospect for Peace in Post-Cold War East Asia
Sheila Miyoshi Jager Dr.
Both the Taiwan Strait and the Korean peninsula harbor real dangers for the Northeast Asian region. The clash between an increasingly divergent nationalist identity in China and in Taiwan represent a new challenge for U.S. policy in this area. Similarly, the rise of pan-Korean nationalism in South Korea, and an unpredictable North Korean regime that has succeeded in driving a wedge between Seoul and Washington, has created another highly combustible zone of potential conflict. The author explores how the United States might respond to the emerging new nationalism in the region in order to promote stability and peace. Offering a constructivist approach which highlights the central role that memory, history and identity play in international relations, the monograph offers wide-ranging implications for U.S. foreign policy.
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Chinese Perceptions of Traditional and Nontraditional Security Threats
Susan L. Craig Ms
To understand the motivations and decisions of China’s leadership and to behave in a manner so that we can influence them, we must try to understand the world as China does. This research is an attempt to do so by examining the writings and opinions of China’s scholars, journalists and leaders--its “influential elite.” China has a comprehensive concept of national security that includes not only defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity, but continuing its economic and social development and maintaining its international stature. The two main types of threats to China’s national security are traditional and nontraditional. The United States, Japan, and India are traditional threats, considered willing and able to endanger all three components of China’s national security. While military containment is a concern, the possibility for economic and diplomatic containment from any or all of these countries is more worrisome. Even more troublesome are nontraditional threats. Military deterrence and diplomatic skill have successfully managed traditional threats to date, but these are insufficient for overcoming nontraditional threats. An examination of China’s social and economic disparities, environmental degradation, and energy insecurity demonstrates that to overcome nontraditional threats, China’s leadership must not only look outward in efforts to foster cooperation, they must also look inward and make serious internal reforms.
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Gauging U.S.-Indian Strategic Cooperation
Henry D. Sokolski Mr.
This volume consists of research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) commissioned and vetted throughout 2006. For at least half of the chapters, authors presented versions of their work as testimony before Congressional oversight committees. No matter what one’s point of view, these chapters deserve close attention since all are focused on what is needed to assure U.S.-Indian strategic cooperation succeeds. The volume offers U.S. and Indian policy and law makers a detailed checklist of things to watch, avoid, and try to achieve.
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Gauging U.S.-Indian Strategic Cooperation
Henry D. Sokolski Mr.
This volume consists of research that the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC) commissioned and vetted throughout 2006. For at least half of the chapters, authors presented versions of their work as testimony before Congressional oversight committees. No matter what one’s point of view, these chapters deserve close attention since all are focused on what is needed to assure U.S.-Indian strategic cooperation succeeds. The volume offers U.S. and Indian policy and law makers a detailed checklist of things to watch, avoid, and try to achieve.
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Political Warfare in Sub-Saharan Africa: U.S. Capabilities and Chinese Operations in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa
Donovan C. Chau Dr.
Domestic and international terrorism aside, the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), are vying for influence over African governments and people. Not unlike the Cold War, the primary means of exerting influence in Africa is through the use of nonviolent instruments of grand strategy. The author considers one nonviolent instrument of grand strategy in particular, political warfare. He suggests that the PRC has used political warfare as its leading grand strategic instrument in Africa and offers a concise, detailed overview of U.S. capabilities to conduct political warfare in Africa in four of its nation-states.
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U.S. Interests in Central Asia and the Challenges to Them
Stephen J. Blank Dr.
The author assesses the interests of the United States in Central Asia and the challenges to them. These challenges consist of the revival of the Taliban, Russo-Chinese efforts to oust U.S. strategic presence from the area, and the possibility of internal instability generated by the regression of local regimes form democratizing and liberalizing policies. The author then recommends policies designed to meet those challenges to American policy in this increasingly more important area of the world.
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Colombia and the United States--The Partnership: But What Is the Endgame?
Myles R. R. Frechette Ambassador
American Ambassador to Colombia, 1994-97, Myles R. R. Frechette provides authoritative, eloquent, and impassioned perspectives on both the achievements and failures of American and Colombian efforts. He argues that American policy made analytical errors that need to be rectified, including underestimating the long-term complexity and interrelated nature of the problem, while both nations overestimated the amount of support that Colombia would receive from the international community. Moreover, nation-building and the rule of law are strategic imperatives which American policy must take seriously. Finally, it is critical to appreciate that Colombian cultural characteristics sharply influence what Colombians will do on their own behalf.
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Globalization and Its Implications for the Defense Industrial Base
Terrence R. Guay Dr.
The forces of globalization present challenges, risks, and opportunities to virtually every industry in every country. One of the most important implications of globalization is its effect on the economic competitiveness of countries and particular industries. The author explores how key elements of globalization have transformed national defense industries around the world, and how these changes will affect the U.S. defense industrial base in the coming years. He focuses on elements of globalization that are relevant especially to the defense industry: the globalization of capital (finance), production, trade, technology and labor, and the changes in global governance that structure the forces of globalization. He concludes by offering ten recommendations for policymakers who have the difficult task of maximizing U.S. economic competitiveness without compromising national security.
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Russia and the European Union: The Sources and Limits of "Special Relationships"
Cynthia A. Roberts Dr.
Russia and the West have avoided renewed confrontation despite many post Cold War crises, but illiberal trends in Russia rule out any prospect of developing a mutual agenda for closer integration. Russian engagement with the leading Euro-Atlantic institutions on a special, but still subordinate, nonmember basis remains a clever yet suboptimal substitute. Such relationships, as this monograph about Russia and the European Union explains, tend to produce shallow collaboration, symbolic summitry and costly standoffs. Closer cooperation is blocked by an ongoing dispute over terms, which is rooted in asymmetries in power, ambivalent preferences, uncertainty about the distributional costs and benefits of deeper engagement, and Russia’s continued unwillingness or inability to lock-in the liberal domestic structures necessary to make credible commitments. Moscow’s renewed self-confidence and geopolitical ambitions, bolstered by sustained economic growth and high energy prices, complicate the bargaining and further strain these special relationships which persist for lack of a realistic, superior alternative.
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Russia, the United States, and the Caucasus
R. Craig Nation Dr.
In the post-Soviet period, the Caucasus region has been a source of chronic instability and conflict. Many factors have ensured that the region would become a source of significant international engagement and concern. Conflicting interests that have made Russian-American relations in the region highly competitive are addressed as well as areas of shared priorities and mutual advantage that may provide a foundation for containing conflict and heading off further regional disintegration. However they are resolved, regional issues emerging from the Caucasus will have a significant impact upon the larger climate of U.S.-Russian relations in the years to come.
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The Iraq War: Learning from the Past, Adapting to the Present, and Planning for the Future
Thomas R. Mockaitis Dr.
Taking full account of the factors beyond the control of the U.S. military and avoiding glib comparisons with Vietnam, the author examines how the American approach to the war in Iraq has affected operations there. He also draws on the experience of other nations, particularly the United Kingdom, to identify broad lessons that might inform the conduct of this and future campaigns. He documents the process by which soldiers and Marines in Iraq have adapted to the challenging situation and incorporated both historic and contemporary lessons into the new counterinsurgency doctrine contained in Field Manual 3-24.
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The Other Special Relationship: The United States and Australia at the Start of the 21st Century
Jeffrey D. McCausland Dr., Douglas Stuart Dr., William T. Tow Prof., and Michael Wesley Professor
This volume summarizes the major findings of the conference participants over the last year. Beyond the thematic resemblance between this volume and the previous study of U.S.-UK relations, another similarity is the importance of two events in determining London and Canberra’s relations with Washington. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) represent the first turning point. The British and Australian governments reacted similarly to these attacks—immediately identifying 9/11 as a transformative moment in international relations. But the Australian Prime Minister’s presence in Washington, DC, during the 9/11 terrorist attacks intensified the personal impact of the events, and within a few days his government had invoked the ANZUS Treaty to offer its full support to the United States. The second “big event” dominating both U.S.-UK relations and U.S.-Australia relations has been America’s management of the Global War on Terror and, in particular, its leadership of the ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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The Other Special Relationship: The United States and Australia at the Start of the 21st Century
Jeffrey D. McCausland Dr., Douglas Stuart Dr., William T. Tow Prof., and Michael Wesley Professor
This volume summarizes the major findings of the conference participants over the last year. Beyond the thematic resemblance between this volume and the previous study of U.S.-UK relations, another similarity is the importance of two events in determining London and Canberra’s relations with Washington. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) represent the first turning point. The British and Australian governments reacted similarly to these attacks—immediately identifying 9/11 as a transformative moment in international relations. But the Australian Prime Minister’s presence in Washington, DC, during the 9/11 terrorist attacks intensified the personal impact of the events, and within a few days his government had invoked the ANZUS Treaty to offer its full support to the United States. The second “big event” dominating both U.S.-UK relations and U.S.-Australia relations has been America’s management of the Global War on Terror and, in particular, its leadership of the ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Understanding Indian Insurgencies: Implications for Counterinsurgency Operations in the Third World
Durga Madhab (John) Mitra Deputy Inspector General
A simple linear model for India has been developed to demonstrate how the degree of inaccessibility of an area, the strength of separate social identity of its population, and the amount of external influence on the area determine the propensity of that area for insurgency. Implications of the Indian model for various aspects of counterinsurgency strategy for the Third World, including economic development, the role of democracy, social and political autonomy, and counterinsurgency operations are discussed. Recommendations for effective counterinsurgency strategy and for long-term stability in these countries are included. India is very complex and provides an ideal window for understanding Asian society.
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A Nation at War
John R. Martin Professor
One of the basics of strategy is understanding the foe and the type of war in which a nation is involved. Perhaps even more basic than that is the seemingly simple requirement to understand that the nation is at war. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) does not fit easily into the mold of war, but that is because of too much comparison with conventional wars; the Cold War may provide a better model. The United States--especially the government, but also the people--need to focus more fully on prosecuting the GWOT, but there is no requirement for the full mobilization seen in World War II. This report chronicles the panels and resulting papers from the Seventeenth Annual U.S. Army War College Strategy Conference, held at Carlisle Barracks, PA, in April 2006.
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A Nation at War
John R. Martin Professor
One of the basics of strategy is understanding the foe and the type of war in which a nation is involved. Perhaps even more basic than that is the seemingly simple requirement to understand that the nation is at war. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) does not fit easily into the mold of war, but that is because of too much comparison with conventional wars; the Cold War may provide a better model. The United States--especially the government, but also the people--need to focus more fully on prosecuting the GWOT, but there is no requirement for the full mobilization seen in World War II. This report chronicles the panels and resulting papers from the Seventeenth Annual U.S. Army War College Strategy Conference, held at Carlisle Barracks, PA, in April 2006.
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Learning from Iraq: Counterinsurgency in American Strategy
Steven Metz Dr.
While the involvement of the United States in counterinsurgency has a long history, it had faded in importance in the years following the end of the Cold War. When American forces first confronted it in Iraq, they were not fully prepared. Since then, the U.S. military and other government agencies have expended much effort to refine their counterinsurgency capabilities. But have they done enough?
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Rosoboroneksport: Arms Sales and the Structure of Russian Defense Industry
Stephen J. Blank Dr.
Although Russian observers believe that Washington imposed sanctions in Russian arms sellers and producers because of these firms’ arms sales to Venezuela. Sales to such dangerous states oblige us to analyze the Russian defense export program and the structure of its defense industry. Until now, that industry would have collapsed without arms sales. Arms sales thus have become the main source of its reveneue until the present and will play a key role in Russia’s ongoing attempt to regenerate its armed forces while winning friends and influence abroad.
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The New Totalitarians: Social Identities and Radical islamist Political Grand Strategy
Douglas J. Macdonald Dr.
The author argues that the social identity theory behind the “clash of civilizations” thesis is useful for analyzing the tasks before us in the “Long War” on Terrorism. The “clash of civilizations” is not actually occurring, he argues, but is rather the end goal of radical Islamist political grand strategy. Radical Islamist terrorists, like the Fascists and Communists before them, cannot allow alternative value systems to exist in areas they control. Their goal is to spread such totalitarian beliefs to the entire Muslim world in order to create a violent “clash” with non-Muslim societies, and, in some versions, radical Islam is expected to spread to the entire world. The author argues that the first thing to understand about the enemy is that there is nothing to negotiate with them because of their radical totalitarian nature. He warns that the first imperative of any strategy in the “Long War” on Terror must be to prevent such a totalitarian ummah from being created in order to prevent a “clash of civilizations.” This can best be accomplished by supporting the majority of mainstream Muslims, rewarding moves towards moderation, and avoiding unnecessary irritants to Muslim sensibilities.
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Castro's Cuba: Quo Vadis?
Francisco Wong-Diaz Dr.
The United States, particularly the Army, has a long history of involvement with Cuba. It has included, among others, the Spanish-American War of 1898, military interventions in 1906 and 1912, the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion, the 1962 Missile Crisis, counterinsurgency, and low intensity warfare in Latin America and Africa against Cuban supported guerrilla movements. After almost 5 decades of authoritarian one-man rule, Fidel Castro remains firmly in power. On July 31, his brother, Raul Castro, assumed provisional presidential power after an official announcement that Fidel was ill and would undergo surgery. What would be the strategic and political implications attendant to Castro’s eventual demise or incapacitation? The author suggests some possible transition or succession scenarios and examines the consequences that might follow and the role that the United States might be called to play.
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Challenging Transformation's Clichés
Antulio J. Echevarria Dr.
Critical thinkers analyze and refine ideas underpinning the foundation of American defense policy and military strategy today so the defense community can apply them in strategy and force development. This is an ongoing process: new ideas emerge, are tested, and adopted, revised, or discarded. The author challenges some of the accepted notions that have become foundational to contemporary theories of military transformation. In his view, any endeavor as resource-intensive as military transformation is too important to rest on uncontested truths.
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