Number of results to display per page
Search Results
54062. A First-hand Report: Cuban Biotechnology
- Author:
- Glenn Baker
- Publication Date:
- 05-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, triggered a furor when on May 6, 2002, he stated, “The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort.” Two days later, I was meeting with a representative from the Cuban Interests Section on an unrelated matter when I posed the question, “How would Cuba respond if CDI asked to bring a group of experts down to learn more about these charges?” I had no expectations of hearing any more about it. But less than two weeks later, I was told that not only was there an interest, but that we were invited to bring anyone, come anytime, and visit anywhere we wanted. Clearly, Bolton's comments had struck a nerve in Havana.
- Topic:
- Security, Human Welfare, Science and Technology, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States, Caribbean, and Havana
54063. A Swift, Elusive Sword: What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd Did a National Defense Review?
- Author:
- Chester W. Richards
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- What kind of question is: “What if Sun Tzu and John Boyd did a National Defense Review?” Sun Tzu, if he existed at all, has been gone some 2,500 years. The late Col. John R. Boyd, U.S.A.F., while intimately involved in fighter aircraft design during his active duty years, wrote practically nothing on hardware or force structure after he retired, when he created the strategic concepts for which he is best known today.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States and Europe
54064. Honing the Sword: Strategy and Forces After 9/11
- Author:
- Marcus Corbin
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- In 2001, prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, the Center for Defense Information published a national security review and force structure entitled Reforging the Sword: Forces for a 21st Century Security Strategy. Happily for the authors of Reforging, the Sept. 11 attacks did not make it obsolete. To the contrary, its emphases on working more closely with allies, on lighter, more agile forces, on intelligence, and on the importance of nonmilitary components of a conflict were important elements of the conduct of the counterattack by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. The events of Sept. 11 and Operation Enduring Freedom have reinforced the need raised in Reforging to prepare for new threats, and have enhanced the prospects for some of its proposed new directions, particularly in the area of allied collaboration if a multilateralist administration took office. This report updates Reforging the Sword in light of events on and since Sept. 11, 2001. The suggestions here use as a foundation the predilections spelled out in Reforging for working with allies, for taking the nonmilitary elements of modern war into consideration, and for trying to keep humans in the war-fighting loop.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Terrorism
- Political Geography:
- United States
54065. The Defense Monitor, Vital Statistics: The U.S. Military
- Author:
- Marcus Corbin and Olga Levitsky
- Publication Date:
- 12-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- This issue of the defense monitor provides basic information about U.S. and foreign military forces, including facts on size, equipment, and cost. It is intended as a snapshot reference guide — more data is available on the CDI website at www.cdi.org/ news/vital-statistics/ and on the government Internet sources listed at the back of the issue.
- Topic:
- Security and Defense Policy
- Political Geography:
- United States
54066. The Defense Monitor: Little Room in Politics for the Facts of the Matter
- Author:
- Philip E. Coyle, Rachel Stohl, Winslow Wheeler, Theresa Hitchens, Victoria Garcia, Colin Robinson, Krista Nelson, and Jeffrey Lewis
- Publication Date:
- 10-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Few things are more routinely abused than facts when people in government — any party, any branch — set out to make a decision. I've been reminded of this truth watching the current administration parry revelations that it manipulated “facts” about weapons of mass destruction as a pretext for the war against Iraq that Congress authorized a year ago this past week. But I'd learned it the hard way much earlier. During a 31-year career as an evaluator for the General Accounting Office and a staffer for four different U.S. senators from both parties, I spent a lot of time trying to use facts to influence decisions made by the U.S. government. The facts took a beating all too often.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Government
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq
54067. The Defense Monitor: Liberation and Occupation in Iraq
- Author:
- Michael Donovan
- Publication Date:
- 07-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- S of this writing, 39 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the 10 weeks following the declared conclusion of the campaign to over throw Saddam Hussein on May 1. This fact stands in sharp contrast to the optimistic pre-war rhetoric of the George W. Bush administration regarding the “liberation” of Iraq and testifies to the arduous road that lies ahead.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq
54068. The Defense Monitor: Nuclear Recollections
- Author:
- Bruce Blair
- Publication Date:
- 04-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- Rear Adm. Eugene (Gene) Carroll, our beloved colleague who passed away this February, often shared with me his recollections of the role he once played in planning for nuclear war. As quoted in his obituary in the Washington Post, Gene once wrote: “During the horrible confrontation with the Soviet Union we called the Cold War, I frequently stood nuclear alert watch on aircraft carriers. For a period of time my assigned target was an industrial complex and transportation hub in a major city in Eastern Europe … My bomb alone would have resulted in the death of an estimated 600,000 human beings. Multiply that by 40 or 50 times and you can understand what two carriers alone would have done.”
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, and Cold War
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, and Soviet Union
54069. The Defense Monitor: The World At War
- Author:
- Col. Daniel Smith
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Defense Information
- Abstract:
- At the start of 2003, the United States remains focused on fighting global terrorism in general even as it zeroes in on Iraq as the nexus of evil. But a number of factors in play today make international support for such a venture less effusive than in 1990-91, when the last anti-Saddam “coalition of the willing” formed. Many economies, including those of three of the four big financial supporters of the 1990-91 war — Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia — are weaker. Any war would be relatively more expensive. Suspicions about U.S. motives, fueled by the Bush administration's initial unilateralism, remain alive despite Washington's patient work in obtaining a UN Security Council resolution on new inspections. Germany has declared it will provide no forces; use of Saudi Arabian airbases to launch combat missions against Iraq remains unclear; and troop contributions, as well as moral support, from other Arab states such as Egypt and Syria may not materialize.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, Iraq, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt
54070. Coercion and Risk-Taking in Nuclear South Asia
- Author:
- Verghese Koithara
- Publication Date:
- 03-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University
- Abstract:
- The partition-bred conflict between India and Pakistan that began in 1947 went into remission in 1971 following India's emphatic victory in war that year. It reemerged in 1989 when serious disaffection in the Kashmir Valley gave Pakistan an opening to promote militancy. This created a dangerous situation because it was about the same time that both Pakistan and India also acquired nuclear weapons. There was a major confrontation between the two countries during March-May 1990. Since then there has been continuous tension with each attempting to coerce the other. In May 1998 both countries carried out several nuclear tests each. A year later, during May-July 1999, the two fought a two-month "limited war" in the Kargil region of Kashmir that caused over 1,200 fatalities. Kargil was a clear effort on Pakistan's part to test the deterrence value of its nuclear weapons. In December 2001 India resorted to an unprecedented military mobilization (Operation Parakram), holding out the clear threat of attacking Pakistan unless the latter stopped its sub-conventional operations.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Security, and Nuclear Weapons
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, South Asia, and India