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7301. Defiant Again: Indigenous Poeples and Latin American Security

Author:
Donna Lee Van Cott
Publication Date:
10-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The cycle of Indian rebellion and government repression that characterized the first centuries of contact between European and Amerindian peoples cannot yet be consigned to the history books. The eruption of an armed movement in southern Mexico, comprised primarily of destitute Maya Indians, as well as smaller demonstrations of resistance in Brazil, Ecuador, and elsewhere speaks eloquently to this fact. While the majority of conflicts between the estimated 40 million indigenous peoples in Latin America and the societies in which they live are now played out in the political arena, security issues continue to generate violent interethnic conflict. Since the Conquest, the interests of indigenous communities usually have conflicted with national governments' security policies. These include a dimension explicitly intended to control the autonomous tendencies of indigenous communities, suppress Indian political organizing, and erase the independent identity of Indian nations.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and International Law
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, Latin America, and Central America

7302. Clausewitzian Friction and Future War

Author:
Barry D. Watts
Publication Date:
10-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Since the end of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, there has been growing discussion of the possibility that technological advances in the means of combat would produce ftmdamental changes in how future wars will be fought. A number of observers have suggested that the nature of war itself would be transformed. Some proponents of this view have gone so far as to predict that these changes would include great reductions in, if not the outright elimination of, the various impediments to timely and effective action in war for which the Prussian theorist and soldier Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) introduced the term "friction." Friction in war, of course, has a long historical lineage. It predates Clausewitz by centuries and has remained a stubbornly recurring factor in combat outcomes right down to the 1991 Gulf War. In looking to the future, a seminal question is whether Clausewitzian friction would succumb to the changes in leading-edge warfare that may lie ahead, or whether such impediments reflect more enduring aspects of war that technology can but marginally affect. It is this question that the present essay will examine.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Cold War, Government, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States, Soviet Union, and Southeast Asia

7303. The Major Powers in Northeast Asian Security

Author:
Ralph A. Cossa
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The political, economic, and security environment of the Asia-Pacific region in the 21st century will be shaped in very large part by the interrelationships among the United States, Japan, China, and Russia. To the extent these four nations can cooperate, a generally benign environment can develop in which the challenges sure to develop in the region can be managed. Conversely, tensions and conflict among the four will have a profoundly destabilizing impact regionally, if not globally.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and International Law
Political Geography:
Russia, Japan, China, Asia, and Northeast Asia

7304. Mobilizing U.S. Industry in World War II: Myth and Reality

Author:
Alan L. Gropman
Publication Date:
08-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
At a dinner during the Teheran Conference in December 1943, Joseph Stalin praised United States manufacturing: I want to tell you from the Russian point of view, what the President and the United States have done to win the war. The most important things in this war are machines. The United States has proven that it can turn out from 8,000 to 10,000 airplanes per month. Russia can only turn out, at most. 3,000 airplanes a month .... The United States, therefore, is a country of machines. Without the use of those machines, through Lend-Lease, we would lose this war.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Industrial Policy, and International Law
Political Geography:
United States and Vietnam

7305. Trouble in Paradise? Europe in the 21st Century

Author:
Steven Philip Kramer and Irene Kyriakopoulos
Publication Date:
03-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
When political observers talk about European security, they invariably refer to the challenges Western Europe faces on its peripheries from a renationalized Russia, conflicts in the Balkans, and Islamic fundamentalism in North Africa. Rarely do they imagine that the greatest dangers to the new Europe may come from within, that the kind of stability Europe has enjoyed since World War II could be merely a passing chapter in history, not a transcendence of history. Without suggesting that there is necessarily a worst case ending, this study will argue that there is indeed a series of crises converging on post-Cold War Europe that threaten its stability and that need to be addressed by European policy makers and taken into account by Americans.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, and War
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and North Africa

7306. Khomeini's Incorporation of Iranian Military

Author:
Mark Roberts
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
In her book, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (1979), revolutionary authority and sociologist Theda Skocpol states: The repressive state organizations of the prerevolutionary regime have to be weakened before mass revolutionary action can succeed, or even emerge. Indeed, historically, mass rebellious action has not been able, in itself, to overcome state repression. Instead, military pressures from abroad … have been necessary to undermine repression.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, Nuclear Weapons, and Religion
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Middle East, and France

7307. The New Great Game in Muslim Central Asia

Author:
M.E. Ahrari and James Beal
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The dismantlement of the Soviet Union also brought about the liberation of six Central Asian Muslim republics—Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (figure 1). Although Azerbaijan is part of the Caucasus region, it is included in this study because: The independence of that country, like that of the Central Asian states, was brought about as a result of the dismantlement of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan, like its Central Asian counterparts, is a Muslim state, and faces similar politico-economic problems. Azerbaijan's conflict with Armenia involving Nagorno-Karabkh reminds one of a number of conflicts in the Central Asian region. These include a seething ethnic conflict in Kazakhstan (involving the Khazaks and the Slavs), the ongoing civil war in Tajikistan "along ethnic, national, and religious lines (since the Russian forces are "also involved in this civil war), and the ethnic conflict in the Fargana valley that cuts across the borders of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Like the economies of its Central Asian neighbors, the Azeri economy was largely dependent on the economy of the former Soviet Union. Consequently, like its other neighbors, Azerbaijan is also busy establishing economic self-sufficiency, along with strengthening its religious political, linguistic, and ethnic identities.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, International Law, Nuclear Weapons, and Religion
Political Geography:
Central Asia, Middle East, and Soviet Union

7308. Caribbean Basin Economic Development and the Section 936 Tax Credit

Author:
Richard L. Bernal and Stephen E. Lamar
Publication Date:
12-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The North-South Center, University of Miami
Abstract:
In 1986, as part of a major overhaul of the U.S. tax code, the U.S. Congress made a valuable source of private sector financing available for Caribbean economic development. Less than 10 years later, as part of a series of measures to balance the U.S. federal budget and enact a package of tax cuts for small businesses, the Congress approved legislation to terminate this source of funds for the Caribbean.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Development, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
United States and Caribbean

7309. Bulgaria and the European Union in the Process of Buliding a Common European Defence

Author:
Plamen Pantev, Valeri Ratchev, and Tilcho K. Ivanov
Publication Date:
09-1996
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
During the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of the European Union (EU) for reviewing the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty once again public and experts around the world realize the dramatic improvement of the security situation of the old continent that European integration led to. Few would doubt about the impact IGC will have on the security of the broader area of the Northern Hemisphere and the world in general. This is even more true considering the coincidental interaction of the EU with the evolutionary developments of the Western European Union (WEU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and of the internal national adaptations in the once divided into East and West parts of the Euroatlantic social, economic, political and defence space. Important outlines of a new design for the Euroatlantic security architecture with stronger European security and defence identity are already drawn. One should soberly admit that whatever political decisions are taken in the next two years, some more time would be needed to give a better shape and clarity of the new security design and its defence component. Bulgaria's structured dialogue with and pre-accession strategy to the EU as well as her formal submission of an application for full membership of the Union and the intensified dialogue that stemmed from it logically bring the country to the need of taking decisions for practical adaptation to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the future Common European Defence (CED) of the EU. These evolutionary developments importantly coincide in a non contradictory manner with the deepening involvement of the country in the activities of the WEU, NATO's instruments - the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) and the Partnership for Peace (PFP) programme, with the efforts of the governments of the Balkan and the Black Sea regions to improve their stability and strengthen regional peace and with the procedures of formulating a concept for the European security in the 21 century by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Treaties and Agreements, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe and Bulgaria

7310. An International Methodology for Evaluation of Combat Capabilities of Military Systems: The Bulgarian Perspective of Greater Transparency and Confidence

Author:
Volodya Kotsev
Publication Date:
10-1996
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
The problems of peace and security in Europe occupy an important place in the public conscience. New ways of improvement of the security situation are constantly being examined. The lessons learned from the terrible events in former Yugoslavia show us there is a lot to be done. Europe needs new and better instruments for strengthening of stability and security, applicable to all countries. This Research Report offers some ideas in that direction. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact increased the number of countries in Europe whose national security interests are being defended mainly by themselves. The usefulness of all the international efforts, like the Helsinki Final Act, the Declaration of Madrid Meeting and the CFE Treaty is indisputable. They treat the problems of the then existing two opposing military alliances. The efforts of the people who gave birth to these processes deserve the highest estimation and respect. Now new steps towards a further development of the confidence and the security of our continent are needed. Our special interest is directed to a higher transparency in the military area.
Topic:
Security, Military Affairs, Weapons, Transparency, and Political System
Political Geography:
Europe and Bulgaria