« Previous |
1 - 10 of 27
|
Next »
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
2. Americans on War Powers, Authorization for Use of Military Force and Arms Sales: A National Survey of Registered Voters
- Author:
- Steven Kull
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- The question of when the United States should use military force is a profound question. There has been a long-running debate about the role of Congress and the President when it comes to making this decisions. The constitution gives Congress the power to fund the military and declare war, and declares the President as the Commander in Chief of the military. However, there are ambiguities about which branch of government has the power in a number of specific situations related to the use of force and the transfer of arms to another country. Currently there are a number of pieces of Congressional legislation that seek to give Congress greater power. One proposal seeks to give Congress greater influence over the use of military force outside of the framework of a declaration of war or in response to an attack on the US. Current law, grounded in the War Powers Act of 1973, requires that the President withdraw troops after 60 days unless Congress votes in favor of continuing it. However, since its passage, every President has considered this unconstitutional and many have not abided by it, keeping forces in place without Congressional approval. In order to stop such a military operation, Congress must gather a veto-proof majority, or bring the President to court. Neither has ever happened. A proposal that has been put forth in Congress is to ‘flip the script’ on this, and automatically cut off funding to such military operations after 60 days, unless Congress actively votes in favor of continuing the operation. (Based on H.R. 2108, H.R. 5410 and S. 2391) Another proposal deals with the termination of a Congressional authorization to use military force (AUMF). Shortly after the September 11 attacks Congress authorized the President to use military force against those responsible for the attacks, or who have aided those responsible. Since then all presidents have used this AUMF to justify various uses of force that some Members of Congress feel go beyond its original purpose. Currently there is a proposal to terminate this AUMF which requires an act of Congress. (Based on H.R. 255 and S. 2391) The last proposal seeks to give Congress greater authority over arms sales. Currently, all arms sales must be approved by the President, and Congress can only halt an arms sale with a majority vote, or more realistically a veto-proof majority. Members of Congress believe that it should be easier for Congress to halt an arms sale. They have introduced a proposal that would also ‘flip the script’ in this case by requiring that any arms sale over $14 million only proceed if Congress votes in favor. (Based on H.R. 5410 and S. 2391) To bring the American people a voice at the table of the current debate on these various pieces of legislation, the Program for Public Consultation (PPC) has conducted an in-depth on-line survey of 2,702 registered voters with a probability-based sample provided by Nielsen Scarborough.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Public Opinion, and Civil-Military Relations
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
3. What the First Week of Fighting in Ukraine Tells Us About a Potential Insurgency
- Author:
- Alec Worsnop
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- While the Russian advance in Ukraine has been slower than expected, its overwhelming conventional superiority gives it the upper hand. Despite the valiant resistance of many Ukrainians, Russia will probably conquer all or a portion of the country. However, the first week of the conflict has provided some useful information about the prospects for an insurgent campaign in the wake of a Russian occupation.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Military Intervention, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Ukraine
4. Iranian Public Opinion at the Start of the Biden Administration: Report
- Author:
- Nancy Gallagher, Clay Ramsay, and Ebrahim Mohseni
- Publication Date:
- 02-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- This report covers findings from two surveys fielded in September and early October 2020 and late January through early February 2021 to assess how Iranians were faring as the covid-19 pandemic intensified the challenges their country was already facing, what they thought about the parliamentary election in Iran and the presidential election in the United States, and how the inauguration of Joe Biden impacted their attitudes towards nuclear diplomacy and regional security. Iran was one of the earliest countries to be hard-hit by the novel coronavirus, with the country’s first cases confirmed on February 13, 2020, two days before the parliamentary election, senior officials among those soon infected, and high death rates reported. Western reporting depicted widespread government incompetence and cover-ups exacerbating the pandemic’s toll. As in other countries, Iranian officials struggled to decide whether to close schools, curtail economic activities, and restrict religious observances in hopes of slowing the virus’ spread, but cases and deaths remained high through 2020. When we fielded the first survey wave, the daily number of new confirmed covid-19 cases in Iran was starting to climb sharply again after having been relatively flat since May. Some world leaders, including the U.N. Secretary General, called for an easing of sanctions on Iran as part of global efforts to fight the pandemic. The United States, which had withdrawn from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in May 2018, maintained that medicine, personal protective equipment, and other humanitarian supplies were exempt from the steadily increasing sanctions applied as part of its “maximum pressure” campaign. But, the United States’ designation in September 2019 of the Central Bank of Iran as a terrorist organization made most foreign suppliers of humanitarian goods reluctant to sell to Iran. A decision in October 2020 to also designate the few Iranian banks that were not previously subject to secondary sanctions further impeded humanitarian trade, caused another sharp drop in the value of Iran’s currency, and had other negative economic effects. The Trump administration’s stated objective was to keep imposing more sanctions until Iran acquiesced to a long list of U.S. demands articulated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The original twelve points include the types of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program that the government rejected during previous negotiations and that the Iranian public has consistently opposed. It also included stopping development of nuclear-capable missiles and ending support for various groups throughout the Middle East.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Public Opinion, and International Community
- Political Geography:
- Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America
5. Global Governance 2.0: The Collective Choreography of Cooperation
- Author:
- Poorti Sapatnekar
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- Multi-stakeholder partnerships among states and non-state actors have become increasingly prevalent models for the delivery of global public goods. Various international organizations—particularly the United Nations entities—are pouring resources into large-scale efforts such as conferences and summits to promote partnerships. Are such efforts effective? If so, what is the causal mechanism at work? Analyzing all major UN conferences and summits on climate change in the 2000-2015 period, this study finds that contrary to conventional wisdom, only two were successful in driving the growth of climate partnerships. Six organizational attributes acted as conditions of success for these efforts, enabling a mechanism this study labels the collective choreography of cooperation. They are: (1) strategic timing; (2) leaders’ level convening; (3) emphasis on ambitious, cooperative commitments; (4) sectoral orientation; (5) subsidiarity; and (6) leadership with centralized decision-making. Effective collective choreography requires high level convening power and autonomy of the summit host. Among international organizations, only the UN Secretary-General has both these two attributes. Gaining sufficient autonomy on climate change without alienating key member states took decades, during which successive Secretaries-General engaged in ‘conference activism’ and expanded the range and breadth of their good offices to help overcome intergovernmental gridlock and steer towards constructive outcomes. Achieving the Paris Agreement goals is a global policy priority that requires exponential acceleration of climate partnerships across economic sectors during the first half of this century. A five-year choreography cycle led by the Secretary-General over the next thirty years, and coinciding with the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement, could serve to achieve this policy priority. Four features of the climate problem have made it conducive to collective choreography that are more or less characteristic of many other global governance challenges. (1) There is dispersed control over causes of the problem and over possible solutions. (2) Economic and social benefits to non-state actors for engaging in voluntary cooperation on climate change exist or can be made to exist. (3) Barriers to cooperation exist in the form of high transaction costs, risks, and limited trust. (4) The problem is mature enough that multilateral solutions had already been attempted, without success thus far. As such, this paper provides a basis for further investigation into the potential to apply collective choreography to other global public goods.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, International Cooperation, United Nations, Multilateralism, and Paris Agreement
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
6. US-Russian Contention in Cyberspace: Are Rules of the Road Necessary or Possible?
- Author:
- Pavel Sharikov
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- In recent years, as news of U.S.-Russian tensions in the cyber domain has dominated headlines, some strategic thinkers have pointed to the need for a bilateral cyber “rules of the road” agreement. American political scientist Joseph Nye, a former head of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, wrote in 2019 that, even “if traditional arms-control treaties are unworkable” in cyberspace, “it may still be possible to set limits on certain types of civilian targets, and to negotiate rough rules of the road that minimize conflict.” Robert G. Papp, a former director of the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, has likewise argued that “even a cyber treaty of limited duration with Russia would be a significant step forward.” On the Russian side, President Vladimir Putin himself has called for “a bilateral intergovernmental agreement on preventing incidents in the information space,” comparing it to the Soviet-American Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents on and Over the High Seas. Amid joint Russian-U.S. efforts, the Working Group on the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations recommended several elements of an agreement in 2016, among them that Russia and the U.S. agree “on the types of information that are to be shared in the event of a cyberattack” (akin to responses to a bio-weapons attack) and prohibit both “automatic retaliation in cases of cyberattacks” and “attacks on elements of another nation’s core internet infrastructure.” Most recently, in June 2021, a group of U.S., Russian and European foreign-policy officials and experts called for “cyber nuclear ‘rules of the road.’”
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Military Strategy, Cybersecurity, Conflict, and Cyberspace
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, North America, and United States of America
7. Takeaways From a Time of Increased Friction: South Korea-Japan Security Cooperation From 2015 to Present
- Author:
- Naoko Aoki
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- South Korea and Japan share common challenges and liberal democratic values but have been unable to build a close security relationship, due mainly to their political differences. This paper examines the two countries’ defense cooperation in the bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral arenas over the past six years to explore how the external security environment, as well as bilateral political problems, have affected their joint activities. The paper’s analysis shows that defense cooperation between South Korea and Japan is not always a binary choice between full cooperation or no cooperation. The two countries not only weigh external threats and bilateral problems, but also ponder such factors as U.S. encouragement to adjust the scope of their cooperation. The paper also shows that while the main constraint for security cooperation between South Korea and Japan is their historical animosity, in recent years, frictions involving the countries’ armed forces have become a new reason for limiting cooperation. As a result, grassroots military-to-military exchanges between the two countries, which in the past continued despite political problems, have largely stopped since late 2018. The paper concludes by proposing that South Korea and Japan work to restore routine bilateral working-level exchanges. It also recommends that the United States continue to urge the two countries to cooperate, and that multilateral exercises be employed as forums for cooperation between the two armed forces, as that is an area that is least impacted by bilateral problems.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- Japan, Asia, and South Korea
8. Iranian Public Opinion At the Start of the Raisi Administration
- Author:
- Nancy Gallagher, Clay Ramsay, and Ebrahim Mohseni
- Publication Date:
- 10-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) has been conducting in- depth surveys of Iranian public opinion on nuclear policy, regional security, economics, domestic politics, and other topics since the summer of 2014. Each survey includes a combination of trend-line questions, some going as far back as 2006, and new questions written to assess and inform current policy debates. This report covers findings from a survey fielded in late August and early September, shortly after Ebrahim Raisi was inaugurated as Iran’s new president on August 5, 2021. It provides insights into Iranian public attitudes regarding a wide range of foreign and domestic policy issues as Raisi takes office, eight months after we released a similar survey of Iranian attitudes in the early days of American president Joe Biden’s first term in office. Much has changed, and much has stayed the same since February 2021. Biden had campaigned on a pledge to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and lift sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, as a first step toward further negotiations, so Iranians were relatively positive in February about the prospects for reviving the nuclear deal and improving U.S.-Iranian relations. It took about ten weeks for the new administration to begin indirect negotiations with Iran on a mutual return to full compliance with the JCPOA. The Iranian parliament had responded to Trump’s maximum pressure campaign by passing a law specifying that if the Biden administration did not reverse that policy within weeks of taking office, Iran would exceed JCPOA-mandated limits on its nuclear program in more consequential ways and suspend special International Atomic Energy Agency access to Iran’s nuclear sites that were called for by the JCPOA. The economic, political, and public health crises confronting the new Biden administration precluded it from moving that quickly. The Iranian government promised to r The talks in Vienna made slow, but significant progress as preparations for Iran’s presidential election intensified. Members of the negotiating teams indicated that agreement had been reached by mid-June on some key issues, including the sequence of steps that Iran would take to resume fulfilling its JCPOA commitments and the corresponding sanctions relief it would get from the United States. Some important points of disagreement still needed to be resolved, though. Iran wanted reliable assurances that the United States would not withdraw again or take other steps to preclude Iran from receiving the promised benefits if it abided fully by its JCPOA obligations through October 2025, when the JCPOA specifies that many of Iran’s special nuclear commitments would end and it would have the same rights and responsibilities as other non- nuclear weapon states party to the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The United States also wanted assurance from Iran that once the JCPOA had been restored, it would start follow-on negotiations to address additional U.S. concerns.
- Topic:
- Security, Economics, Military Strategy, Public Opinion, and Nuclear Energy
- Political Geography:
- Iran and Middle East
9. Restoring and Improving Nuclear Forensics to Support Attribution and Deterrence
- Author:
- Steve Fetter
- Publication Date:
- 12-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- Nuclear forensics is the analysis of nuclear materials, devices, emissions, and signals to determine the origin and history of those nuclear materials and devices. At the request of the Secretary of Energy, and in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Restoring and Improving Nuclear Forensics to Support Attribution and Deterrence evaluates the U.S. government's nuclear forensics capabilities. A 2010 National Academies report, Nuclear Forensics: A Capability at Risk, characterized the precarious state of the national technical nuclear forensics (NTNF) program at that time: NTNF relied almost entirely on staff dedicated to and residual funding from other related programs. This summary report addresses the current state of U.S. NTNF capabilities relative to the National Academies evaluation in 2010 and recommends ways to improve the NTNF program through improvements in policy, operations, and research and development efforts.
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, and Deterrence
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
10. An Effect-Centric Approach to Assessing the Risks of Cyber Attacks Against the Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems at Nuclear Power Plants
- Author:
- Nancy Gallagher, Charles Harry, and Jor-Shan Choi
- Publication Date:
- 02-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)
- Abstract:
- Cyberattacks against the digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs) are of grave security concern. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requires all NPPs to protect critical digital assets that support safety, security, and emergency preparedness functions against cyberattacks.1 Other standards bodies like the International Society of Automation (ISA) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have also developed standards that address cybersecurity for industrial control systems (ICS) including DI&C.2 Due to concerns for security, relevant stakeholders such as regulators, plant operators, information technology (IT) and operation technology (OT) staff, and equipment suppliers are sometimes reluctant to reveal in technical detail about vulnerabilities posed by DI&C systems. Yet, because some types of cyberattacks against an NPP may cause core damage or significant release of radioactivity, harming the plant, the public and the industry, the safety implications of potential cyberattacks should be evaluated. This divide between security and safety is a challenge for stakeholders focused in cyber security for NPPs. To bridge this security and safety divide, this study proposes and demonstrates a methodology for assessing and addressing the safety consequences of cyber events that disrupt one or more parts of the DI&C systems at NPPs. The methodology builds on the “effect-centric” cyber risk assessment framework developed by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). It is used to analyze two historical cyberattacks and one hypothetical attack scenario. As the focus is on plant safety, these assessment, evaluation, and analysis can be candidly and openly discussed with the goal of finding the best defense to thwart the specific cyberattack.
- Topic:
- Security, Governance, Nuclear Power, Cybersecurity, and Regulation
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
- « Previous
- Next »
- 1
- 2
- 3