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56381. Dissuasion as a Strategic Concept

Author:
Richard Kugler
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Some analysts want to downplay dissuasion or set it aside entirely because of its ambiguity. But ignoring this emerging idea would be short sighted. Despite its haziness, the term goes to the heart of new-era geopolitics in several key regions, including Asia. If the United States can learn how to dissuade skillfully, its strategic effectiveness in troubled regions will improve significantly. When the idea of deterrence first appeared 50 years ago, it too was ambiguous. During the Cold War, however, it acquired a role of central importance once it was equipped with a full-fledged strategic theory. The same may hold true for dissuasion in the early 21st century—but only if it too is equipped with the full set of analyses and calculations needed to bring it to life.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States and Asia

56382. Flashman's Revenge: Central Asia after September 11

Author:
Eugene Rumer
Publication Date:
12-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The terrorist attacks of September 11 swept away much of the uncertainty about Central Asia's importance to the international system and its relationship with the major powers, especially the United States. Indeed, the five states of the region—ajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan—have become among the most important frontline states in America's war on terrorism. But the war did not alter many basic long-term trends in the region that will complicate U.S. activities as well as color Central Asian perceptions of the United States. Beyond the immediate demands of the war on terrorism, many fundamental questions remain unanswered: How important is Central Asia to the United States? What is the nature of U.S. interest in the region? What role should the United States play in Central Asia: security manager, hegemon, limited partner? Defining the right role for the United States in Central Asia is no easy task. The region is geographically remote, unknown to much of the American public, and not easily accessible. It has few evident connections to the United States. U.S. interests in Central Asia— beyond the most basic ones such as peace, stability, and alleviation of human suffering, as well as those associated with terrorism—are not easy to identify in ways that the American people and their leaders would readily embrace. Moreover, the early record of U.S. engagement in Central Asia immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union and through the 1990s was not a positive one, resulting in mutual disappointments in Washington and the Central Asian capitals. That record offers important lessons that will be considered below.
Topic:
Security and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States, America, Washington, and Central Asia

56383. Colombia's War: Toward a New Strategy

Author:
John A. Cope
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Colombia's new president, Alvaro Uribe, is confronting a protracted internal war and moving to assert national political authority. Hopes are being pinned on Uribe, the new “law and order” president who took office on August 7, 2002, with an overwhelming mandate to end violence, narcotics, and official corruption.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Colombia, and Latin America

56384. China's Trade Opening: Implications for Regional Stability

Author:
Howard M. Krawitz
Publication Date:
08-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
In late 2001, China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO), a dramatic step that marks not only the end of a 15-year odyssey for Beijing but also the beginning of a new phase in the country's internal development and its relations with the outside world. It may sound odd to suggest that joining the WTO—an organization focused on rules of conduct for trade and commerce—will influence not only China's economy but also its political, military, and social development, as well as its interaction with the United States. Yet China's efforts to play by WTO rules could affect its internal development far more extensively than has been the case with many new member nations.
Topic:
Security and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, China, and Asia

56385. U.S.-Russian Relations: Toward a New Strategic Framework

Author:
Eugene B. Rumer and Richard D. Sokolsky
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
In 2001, President Vladimir Putin made a strategic choice for Russia's integration with the West. Indicators of this decision include Putin's quest for better relations with the United States and Europe, his stated commitment to Russian membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), his pursuit of a new relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and his almost casual dismissal of the potential major irritants in the relationship with the United States and its allies—U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the likelihood of Baltic membership in NATO, sizeable U.S. military deployments to Central Asia, and a growing U.S. military presence in Georgia. Putin has unequivocally crossed these once-insurmountable red lines despite opposition from his closest advisers and the unease of the Russian public over the American presence in Russia's backyard.
Topic:
Security and Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Georgia

56386. Terrorism's Financial Lifeline: Can It be Severed?

Author:
Kimberley L. Thachuk
Publication Date:
05-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
To operate effectively, transnational terrorists and criminals need ready access to money and the ability to maneuver it quickly and secretly across borders. On a large scale, such money maneuvers can ripple across entire regions, embroiling global markets and threatening vital American economic interests as well as destabilizing other countries politically. The ability to move vast quantities of wealth rapidly and anonymously across the globe—sometimes combining modern-day wire transfers, faxes, and Internet connections with centuriesold practices, such as the hawala, of personal connections and a handshake—gives terrorist and criminal networks a strategic advantage over many states. Yet it also might be their vulnerability.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Economics, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
America

56387. Anticipating Strategic Surprise on the Korean Peninsula

Author:
James J. Przystup
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Despite the current stagnation in South-North dialogue, relations between the Koreas have been subject to sudden shifts. In the warm afterglow of the historic June 2000 South-North Summit in Pyongyang, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's engagement policy appeared to have created a self-sustaining dynamic. Policymakers in Washington and Seoul scrambled to manage the potential diplomatic and security consequences of a rapid breakthrough in bilateral relations driven by presidential summitry.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Security
Political Geography:
Israel, Korean Peninsula, and Pyongyang

56388. Homeland Security: The New Role for Defense

Author:
Steven J. Tomisek
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Americans have become accustomed to the idea of a forward defense of U.S. interests. Accordingly, the Nation has organized, trained, equipped, maintained, and deployed its military forces to deal with threats beyond its shores—an engagement strategy that generally has been met by stationing or deploying over 250,000 U.S. forces at key points around the Eurasian periphery. The strategic construct is evolving to include an element of internal engagement.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

56389. U.S.-Iran Relations: Normalization in the Future?

Author:
Judith S. Yaphe
Publication Date:
01-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, the United States has tried to find a framework for understanding this enigmatic country. America defended its commitments to help an ailing Shah in exile but was ill prepared to deal with the crises that raged in and around Iran in the 1980s: U.S. diplomats were held hostage in Tehran for 444 days, militant clerics tried to export revolutionary Islamic governance across the Gulf, and Iraq invaded Iran, ostensibly to stave off a Shiah Islamist tidal wave.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, and Tehran

56390. Europe's New Security Vocation

Author:
Michael Brenner
Publication Date:
03-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The idea of a European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) has been a feature of the transatlantic security dialogue for a decade. The 1991 Maastricht Treaty foresaw an eventual incorporation of the Western European Union (WEU) as the defense arm of the European Union (EU). Endowing the Union with military capability was a logical extension of the commitment to a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as stipulated in the treaty. Both ideas, promoted by France and Germany, expressed the general desire of member states to play a more active role in securing the peace and stability of postcommunist Europe. Extending the principle of integration into the foreign policy field served two purposes. It was a means to tighten community bonds in the new, unsettled strategic environment by providing reassurance against the renationalization of defense policies. At the same time, it laid the basis for a collective effort to influence continental affairs consonant with the European venture in an orderly transition to democracy and market economies. The perceived need to add a security building block to the project of "constructing Europe" also reflected apprehension about a possible retreat of the United States from a Europe now free of the Soviet military threat. That possibility added further reason for West Europeans to make contingency plans for an uncertain future.
Topic:
Security and NATO
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, France, Soviet Union, and Germany