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Begin New Search Topic Defense Policy Author Anthony H. Cordesman

1. Transition in Afghanistan: Losing the Forgotten War?

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
On December 29, 2014, the US President and Secretary of Defense announced the formal end to Operation Enduring Freedom, its combat mission in Afghanistan, which had begun in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. They also stated that the US would begin its follow-on mission, Operation Freedom's Sentinel, at the start of 2015.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Defense Policy, International Security, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:
Pakistan and Afghanistan

2. Improving the US-GCC Security Partnership: Planning for the Future

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Over the years since the formation of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Southern Gulf states and the US have developed a de facto strategic partnership based on a common need to deter and defend against any threat from Iran, deal with regional instability in countries like Iraq and Yemen, counter the threat of terrorism and extremism, and deal with the other threats to the flow of Gulf petroleum exports.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Defense Policy, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Yemen, Arabia, and North America

3. Chinese Military Modernization and Force Development: Chinese and Outside Perspectives

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) face a critical need to improve their understanding of how each is developing its military power and how to avoid forms of military competition that could lead to rising tension or conflict between the two states. This report focuses on China's military developments and modernization and how they are perceived in the US, the West, and Asia.
Topic:
Defense Policy and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

4. Security Transition in Afghanistan

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Creating an effective transition for the ANSF is only one of the major challenges that Afghanistan, the US, and Afghanistan's other allies face during 2014-2015 and beyond.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Middle East

5. The Emirates Center and Gulf Think Tanks: The Next Twenty years

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Let me begin by congratulating the Emirates Center and Dr. Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi for so many accomplishments over the last 2 0 years. It has been a privilege to watch its growth, its sustained quality, and its steadily increasing influence.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
United States and Iran

6. Iran, Evolving Threats, and Strategic Partnerships in the Gulf

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Internal ethnic and sectarian tensions, civil conflict, continued instability, failed governance and economy. Syrian civil war. Iraq, Lebanon, “Shi'ite crescent.” Sectarian warfare and struggle for future of Islam through and outside region. Sunni on Sunni and vs. Shi'ite struggles Terrorism, insurgency, civil conflict linked to outside state and non-state actors. Wars of influence and intimidation Asymmetric conflicts escalating to conventional conflicts. Major “conventional” conflict threats: Iran-Arab Gulf, Arab-Israeli, etc. Economic warfare: sanctions, “close the Gulf,” etc. Missile and long-range rocket warfare Proliferation, preventive strikes, containment, nuclear arms race, extended deterrence, “weapons of mass effectiveness”.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, International Security, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Lebanon, and Syria

7. The Gulf Military Balance Volume II: The Missile and Nuclear Dimensions

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman and Bryan Gold
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
No single aspect of US and Iranian military competition is potentially more dangerous than the missile and nuclear dimensions, and the possibility Iran will deploy long-range, nuclear-armed missiles.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
United States, Iran, and Middle East

8. Defense Cuts, Sequestration, and the US Defense Budget

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman and Robert M. Shelala II
Publication Date:
04-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Concepts are not a strategy. Broad outlines do not set real priorities. A strategy requires a plan with concrete goals numbers schedules and costs for procurement, allocation, manpower, force structure, and detailed operational capabilities. For all the talk of 10 years of planned spending levels and cuts, the President and Congress can only shape the actual budget and defense program one year at a time. Unpredicted events and realities will intervene. There is a near zero real world probability that the coming plan and budget will shape the future in spite of changes in the economy, politics, entitlements, and threats to the US.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Cooperation, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States

9. The Civil-Military Challenge to National Security Spending

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Perhaps the worst part of the debate that has led to the shut down of the federal government is its almost total irrelevance. It threaten both the US economy and US national security, but it does even begin to touch upon the forces that shape the rise in entitlements spending or their underlying causes.The Congressional debate does not address the forces that have led to a form of sequestration that focuses on defense as if it were the key cause of the deficit and pressures on the debt ceiling. It does not address the irony that much of defense spending has direct benefits to the US economy and that the spending on foreign wars–the so-called OCO account–dropped from $158.8 billion in FY2011 to some $88.5 billion in FY2013, and is projected to drop to around $37 billion in FY2015. Much of the debate focuses on the Affordable Care Act or "Obama Care"–a program whose balance between federal expenditures and revenues is sufficiently uncertain so the Congressional Budget office can only make limited forecasts, but whose net impact cannot come close to the cost pressures that an aging America and rising national medical costs have put on Federal entitlements in the worst case NDS May actually have a positive impact in the best case.The following briefing provides a range of estimates that addresses the real issues that are shaping the overall pressures that poverty, an aging America, and rising medical costs are putting on the US economy and federal spending. It draws on a range of sources to show how different estimates affect key trends, but focuses on data provide by a neutral arm of the same Congress that has paralyzed the US government and whose action threaten the funding on a viable national security strategy.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Economics, and Governance
Political Geography:
United States and America

10. Chinese Military Modernization and Force Development

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman, Nicholas S. Yarosh, and Ashley Hess
Publication Date:
09-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) face a critical need to improve their understanding of how each is developing its military power and how to avoid forms of military competition that could lead to rising tension or conflict between the two states. This report utilizes the unclassified data available in the West on the trends in Chinese military forces. It relies heavily on the data in the US Department of Defense (DoD) Report to Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China, particularly the 2013 edition.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
United States and China