The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
After a period of stability, the transatlantic community is facing considerable challenges in maintaining European security. Russia’s efforts to destabilize Europe, terrorism, climate change, energy insecurity, migration, fracturing European identity, and the reemergence of nationalist populism challenge the ability of European institutions to perform their central functions. Different visions for Europe’s future and the lack of a shared threat perception add to these dilemmas.
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The USAWC Research Plan is one part of a research program cycle that incorporates three interrelated documents: the KSIL, the USAWC Annual Research Plan and the USAWC Annual Research Report. While the KSIL drives USAWC research, the Research Plan describes how directed resources will answer many of the questions posed in the KSIL. The Research Report serves as a compendium of research completed and a means to identify unanswered questions from the current KSIL, to assist in the next cycle’s KSIL formulation
Mr. Frederick J. Gellert, Professor John F. Troxell, and Dr. David Lai
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
The challenge for the U.S. administration, and for policy experts writ large, is to build an effective strategy for a whole-of-government action in moving forward from the “Rebalance” in the direction of a free and open Indo-Pacific while avoiding the Thucydides Trap. This U.S. Army War College report provides analysis and policy recommendations on topics regarding the instruments of national power, regional affairs, and key Asia-Pacific countries. The key findings are rooted in the following overarching concepts:
Donald Trump’s “Deal of the century” is the final phase of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which formalized the final liquidation of the Palestinian anti-colonial national struggle for independence and liberation. The “Deal” is nothing more or less than the last step of the so-called “peace process.” In order to understand the aims of the “Deal,” we need to go back to the Oslo Accords, which anticipated this step and assiduously prepared the ground for it. Since the beginning of the so-called “peace process” inaugurated in Madrid in 1991, the PLO, through its unofficial negotiators, conceded Palestinian rights one by one, in a gradual process culminating in the official PLO signing of the Declaration of Principles in Washington D.C. on September 13, 1993.
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
This policy brief is based on “Escalation through Entanglement: How the Vulnerability of Command-and- Control Systems Raises the Risks of Inadvertent Nuclear War,” which appears in the summer 2018 issue of International Security.
Topic:
International Relations, International Security, and International Affairs
The 2018 Small Arms Trade Transparency Barometer (the
Barometer) identifies the most and least transparent of 49
major small arms exporters, based on their reporting of their
arms-trading activities undertaken in 2015.1 For the first time
the Barometer assesses Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and UN Programme
of Action on small arms (PoA) reports to determine
small arms exporters’ levels of transparency. These sources
provide new information for the Barometer’s assessment of
national transfer control systems, while ATT annual reports
on arms exports reveal new data compared to national arms
export reports; United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics
Database (UN Comtrade) data, and the UN Register of Conventional
Arms (UN Register). Despite the increase in reports
containing information on national transfer control systems
and small arms exports assessed by the Barometer, no major
exporter received full marks for transparency.
Topic:
International Security, International Affairs, and Arms Trade
This Briefing Paper analyses the emergence of a life-cycle
management of ammunition (LCMA) system in Bosnia and
Herzegovina (BiH) during the period 2012–16, with reference
to four of the five elements of the Small Arms Survey’s LCMA
model: national ownership, planning, stockpile management,
and disposal. The paper examines the key challenges faced by
the international community and BiH government in addressing
the safety and security risks posed by BiH’s post-conflict
ammunition surplus, focusing on the international community’s
role in facilitating the development, and transfer to national
ownership, of an LCMA system. The paper notes ‘ten lessons
learned’ that could apply to other post-conflict countries. These
lessons stress the importance of building sustainable national
capacity in states receiving international assistance. Training,
infrastructure, and operating standards need to be country specific
to achieve this goal and reduce the risk of unplanned explosions
at munitions sites (UEMS) and diversion in the long term.
The historically severe drought in Syria from 2006-2011 led to the migration of rural communities to already overburdened urban centers, which concurrent with the state’s mismanagement of freshwater resources, helped foment the social unrest and the uprisings against President Bashar al-Assad. The ongoing conflict has had repercussions around the globe with refugees fleeing to, and having an unmistakable political impact upon, neighboring states and Europe. The war in Yemen was rooted in the Arab Spring, but while the attempts to overthrow President Ali Abdullah Saleh were eventually successful, the political transition was not. The overextraction of Yemen’s groundwater led to an unprecedented water crisis that has been exacerbated by the civil war. Terrorist cells, militant insurgencies, and foreign interventions have undermined efforts to reform the Yemeni government and address this humanitarian catastrophe.
Topic:
International Security, International Affairs, and Water
Daesh’s innovative and tailored use of social media has enabled the terrorist organization to lure and recruit disaffected young men and women on a global scale. Effective interventions to reduce the flow of foreign fighters to Daesh require a nuanced understanding of the organization’s recruitment strategies. This includes both the range of Daesh’s propaganda media (videos, online print materials, offline recruitment networks), and the material’s content.1 Such analysis is essential for policy-makers and community leaders who are on the frontlines of developing effective counter-narratives to Daesh’s insidious ideology.