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ARMS CONTROL & DISARMAMENT
MOST WOULD USE FORCE TO STOP IRANIAN NUKES.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. October 6, 2009.
Full Text [PDF format, 8 pages]
According to the Pew survey, the public approves of direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, although most Americans are not hopeful the talks will succeed. And a strong majority – 61% – says that it is more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action. Far fewer (24%) say it is more important to avoid a military conflict with Iran, if it means that the country may develop nuclear weapons.
[Note: contains copyrighted material.]
NUCLEAR CHALLENGE FROM PAKISTAN AND IRAN – PART II.
YaleGlobal. Leonard S. Spector. October 7, 2009.
Full Text [HTML format, various paging]
Iran’s surprise revelation of a nuclear facility near the city of Qom was not such a surprise given that Western intelligence agents already knew of the site. The consensus analysis was that Iran revealed the existence of the site precisely because it had been discovered. But Leonard S. Spector, Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, believes the revelation was motivated by a different concern, which does come as a surprise.
[Note: contains copyrighted material.]
NUCLEAR CHALLENGE FROM PAKISTAN AND IRAN – PART I.
YaleGlobal. October 5, 2009.
Full Text [HTML format, various paging]
This past summer, advances of the Pakistani Taliban toward the capital Islamabad caused wide concern in the media. Though the Pakistani army vigorously pushed back, reclaiming Swat Valley and an American drone killed the top Taliban leader in Pakistan, the threat to the regime remains, according to the report.
[Note: contains copyrighted material.]
AA09317
Dunn, Lewis A. THE NPT: ACCESSING THE PAST, BUILDING THE FUTURE (Nonproliferation Review, vol. 16, no. 2, July 2009, pp. 143-172)
Online link to PDF Full Text
This article provides an analysis of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT) successes and failures to date. The author, who works as a senior vice-president for Science Applications International Corporation, also examines the prospects for the upcoming May 2010 NPT Review Conference. Ambassador Dunn suggests 15 possible steps to strengthen the treaty. He recommends pursuing three plans of action to establish a roadmap between the 2010 meeting and the next review conference in five years. The first plan would be organized around non-proliferation goals. Peaceful uses of nuclear energy would be the focus of the second plan. The last one would explore the broader ramifications of nuclear disarmament.
DEFENSE POLICY
HOMELAND SECURITY
MILITARY CIVILIAN RELATIONS
POLITICAL STABILITY
GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR STABILIZATION AND RECONSTRUCTION.
U.S. Institute of Peace and U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. October 2009.
Full Text [PDF format, 244 pages]
The manual presents the first strategic “doctrine” ever produced for civilians engaged in peace building missions. It is a practical roadmap for helping countries transition from violent conflict to peace.
[Note: contains copyrighted material.]
UNITED NATIONS CRIMINAL JUSTICE STANDARDS FOR UNITED NATIONS POLICE.
U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime and U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations. October 2009.
Full Text [PDF format, 116 pages]
Building peace requires more than simply bringing an end to armed conflict; it also requires strengthening the rule of law. The international standards and norms summarized in the present handbook can assist in this critical process.
[Note: contains copyrighted material.]
AFGHANISTAN: POLITICS, ELECTIONS, AND GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE.
Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Kenneth Katzman. October 1, 1009.
Full Text [PDF format, 29 pages]
The Afghan government's limited writ and widespread official corruption are helping sustain a Taliban insurgency, and have fed pessimism about the Afghanistan stabilization effort. President Hamid Karzai has previously been able to confine ethnic disputes to political competition by engaging in compromises with major faction leaders, combined with occasional moves to weaken them. Despite the measurable loss of confidence in Karzai, many Afghans consider their country's difficulties as beyond his control. The author discusses the efforts of the government to promote stability.
IRAQ’S NEW BATTLEFRONT: THE STRUGGLE OVER NINEWA.
International Crisis Group. September 28, 2009.
Full Text [PDF format, 53 pages]
The report focuses on the troubled northern governorate, where a conflict between Arabs and Kurds threatens to spiral out of control. While levels of violence have continued to drop in other parts of the country, Ninewa has seen a dramatic spike in attacks in recent months as the two groups compete for power and influence. Caught between them are vulnerable minority groups that have taken the brunt of casualties: scores have already died in large-scale, horrific attacks in the last two months.
[Note: contains copyrighted material.]
AA09332
Trenin, Dmitri NATO AND RUSSIA: PARTNERSHIP OR PERIL? (Current History, vol. 108, no. 720, October 2009, pp. 299-303)
Link to PDF Full Text
Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, notes that, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the major piece of unfinished post-Cold War business is Russia’s absence from a European security framework. This affects not just Russia, but its neighbors, such as Ukraine and Georgia, as seen by the August 2008 conflict in the Caucasus. Trenin says it is unlikely that Russia will join the U.S.-led NATO alliance in the foreseeable future, so the only option is to pursue the long and difficult path toward a security community that would include NATO members and non-members. He emphasizes that “it is important that the Russians do not feel that a common front of Western allies is ganging up on them,” and making them feel that they are “equals among equals” would do a lot to promote security in Europe. Trenin notes that the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), founded in 2002, has been underused as a vehicle for Western-Russian security interaction; he advocates expanding the NRC’s agenda, turning it into an “all-weather operation” to handle the inevitable disagreements. An expanded NRC mandate could prove beneficial in missile defense, conventional arms control and anti-drug cooperation in Afghanistan.
AA09320
Green, Michael J. THE PERILOUS CASE OF KIM JONG-IL (National Interest, September/October 2009)
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The author, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and associate professor of international relations at Georgetown University, writes that, lost amid the arguments over the details of the negotiations with North Korea is the fact that Pyongyang has deliberately made itself more dangerous over the past fifteen years. This is complicated by the fact that Kim Jong-Il is dying, and the son whom he has likely picked as his successor will not have the legitimacy to keep the Communist Party and the military in line. Green believes that we are unlikely to see a peaceful collapse of the North Korean regime; more likely is that there will be three dangerous stages, the first of which we are experiencing now, which is the growing bellicosity of the military which is trying to maintain discipline and control. Next will be the challenge of containing nuclear or chemical arsenals, dealing with the North’s million-man army, and a massive humanitarian crisis as the regime collapses, and finally the U.S. will have the delicate task of managing competing regional interests in stabilizing the peninsula.
TERRORISTS & TERRORISM
CYBERDETERRENCE AND CYBERWAR.
RAND Corporation. Martin C. Libick. October 8, 2009.
Full Text [PDF format, 240 pages
The protection of cyberspace, the information medium, has become a vital national interest because of its importance both to the economy and to military power. An attacker may tamper with networks to steal information for the money or to disrupt operations. Future wars are likely to be carried out, in part or perhaps entirely, in cyberspace, says the report.
[Note: contains copyrighted material.]
MILITARY & DEFENSE