Author: / Political Geography: United States

401. DREAM Act-Eligible Poised to Build on the Investments Made in Them

Author:: Donald Kerwin and Robert Warren
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: This paper presents the results of a study by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) on potential beneficiaries of the DREAM Act of 2017 (the “DREAM Act” or “Act”). The study reveals a long-term, highly productive population, with deep ties to the United States. In particular, it finds that: More than 2.2 million US residents would qualify for conditional residence under the DREAM Act. An additional 929,000 — who are now age 18 and over — arrived when they were under 18, but have not graduated from high school and are not enrolled in school and, thus, would not currently qualify for status under the Act. The DREAM Act-eligible can be found in large numbers (5,000 or more) in 41 states and more than 30 counties, metropolitan areas, and cities. Potential DREAM Act recipients have lived in the United States for an average of 14 years. Sixty-five percent (age 16 and above) participate in the labor force, with far higher rates in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Utah, Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, and Oregon. This population works heavily in sales and related occupations; food preparation and serving; construction and extracting; office and administrative support; production; transportation and material moving; and building/grounds cleaning and maintenance. Many of the DREAM Act-eligible are highly skilled and credentialed. 70,500 are self-employed. Eighty-eight percent speaks English exclusively, very well, or well. 392,500 have US-citizen children, and more than 100,000 are married to a US citizen or lawful permanent resident. Twenty-nine percent has attended college or received a college degree. The DREAM Act-eligible include 50,700 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras, 45 percent of whom live in the Miami metro area, Los Angeles County, the Washington, DC area, Houston, New York City, the San Francisco metro area, and the City of Dallas. The study also underscores the immense investment — $150 billion — that states and localities have already made in educating these young Americans. It argues that over time and with a path to citizenship the return on this investment will increase by virtually every indicia of integration — education levels, employment rates, self-employment numbers, US family members, and English language proficiency.
Topic:: Migration, Border Control, Refugees, and Citizenship
Political Geography:: United States

402. Twenty Years After IIRIRA: The Rise of Immigrant Detention and Its Effects on Latinx Communities Across the Nation

Author:: Melina Juarez and Sonia Bettez
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: This paper studies the dynamics of detention, deportation, and the criminalization of immigrants. We ground our analyses and discussion around the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996’s (IIRIRA’s) detention mandate, the role of special interest groups and federal policies. We argue that these special interest groups and major federal policies have come together to fuel the expansion of immigrant detention to unprecedented levels. Moreover, we aim to incite discussion on what this rapid growth in detention means for human rights, legislative representation and democracy in the United States. This study analyzes two main questions: What is the role of special interests in the criminalization of immigrants? And does the rapid increase in detention pose challenges or risks to democracy in the United States? Our study is grounded within the limited, yet growing literature on immigrant detention, government data, and “gray” literature produced by nonprofits and organizations working on immigration-related issues. We construct a unique dataset using this literature and congressional reports to assess what factors are associated with the rise of immigrant detention. A series of correlations and a time series regression analysis reveal that major restrictive federal immigration policies such as IIRIRA, along with the increasing federal immigration enforcement budget, have had a significant impact on immigrant detention rates. Based on these findings, we recommend three central policy actions. First, the paper recommends increased transparency and accountability on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and on lobbying expenditures from for-profit detention corporations. Second, it argues for the repeal of mandatory detention laws. These mandatory laws have led to the further criminalization and marginalization of undocumented immigrants. And lastly, it argues that repeal of the Congressional bed mandate would allow for the number of detainees to mirror actual detention needs, rather than providing an incentive to detain. However, we anticipate that the demand for beds will increase even more given the current administration’s push for the criminalization and increased arrests of undocumented individuals. The rhetoric used by the present administration further criminalizes immigrants.
Topic:: Immigration, Border Control, Criminal Justice, and Mass Incarceration
Political Geography:: United States

403. Immigration Governance for the Twenty-First Century

Author:: Ruth Ellen Wassem
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: The governance of immigration has a checkered past, and policy makers’ efforts at reform rarely meet expectations. Critiques have echoed over the years and across the political spectrum. The current system of immigration governance is scattered around the federal government, with no clear chain of command. No single government department or agency captures the breadth of the Immigration and Nationality Act’s reach. At the crux of understanding immigration governance is acknowledging that immigration is not a program to be administered; rather, it is a phenomenon to be managed. The abundance of commissions that have studied the issues and the various administrative structures over time offers some wisdom on ingredients for successful governance. Based upon this research, options for effective immigration governance emerge. This paper studies the administration of immigration law and policy with an eye trained on immigration governance for the future. It opens with a historical overview that provides the backdrop for the current state of affairs. It then breaks down the missions and functions of the Immigration and Nationality Act by the lead agencies tasked with these responsibilities. The paper concludes with an analysis of options for improving immigration governance. Each of these options poses unique challenges as well as political obstacles.
Topic:: Immigration, Governance, and Border Control
Political Geography:: United States

404. Predicting Unauthorized Salvadoran Migrants’ First Migration to the United States between 1965 and 2007

Author:: Karen Pren and Nadia Flores-Yeffal
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: Although Salvadoran emigration to the United States is one of the most important migratory flows emanating from Latin America, there is insufficient information about the predictors of first unauthorized migration from El Salvador to the United States. In this study, we use data from the Latin American Migration Project–El Salvador (LAMP-ELS4) to perform an event history analysis to discern the factors that influenced the likelihood that a Salvadoran household head would take a first unauthorized trip to the United States between 1965 and 2007. We take into account a series of demographic, social capital, human capital, and physical capital characteristics of the Salvadoran household head; demographic and social context variables in the place of origin; as well as economic and border security factors at the place of destination. Our findings suggest that an increase in the Salvadoran civil violence index and a personal economic crisis increased the likelihood of first-time unauthorized migration. Salvadorans who were less likely to take a first unauthorized trip were business owners, those employed in skilled occupations, and persons with more years of experience in the labor force. Contextual variables in the United States, such as a high unemployment rate and an increase in the Border Patrol budget, deterred the decision to take a first unauthorized trip. Finally, social capital had no effect on the decision to migrate; this means that for unauthorized Salvadoran migrants, having contacts in the United States is not the main driver to start a migration journey to the United States. We suggest as policy recommendations that the United States should award Salvadorans more work-related visas or asylum protection. For those Salvadorans whose Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has ended, the United States should allow them to apply for permanent residency. The decision not to continue to extend TPS to Salvadorans will only increase the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States. The United States needs to revise its current immigration policies, which make it a very difficult and/or extremely lengthy process for Salvadorans and other immigrants to regularize their current immigration status in the United States. Furthermore, because of our research findings, we recommend that the Salvadoran government — to discourage out-migration — invest in high-skilled job training and also offer training and credit opportunities to its population to encourage business ventures.
Topic:: Migration, Immigration, Violence, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:: United States, Central America, North America, and El Salvador

405. Immigration Detention, Inc.

Author:: Denise Gilman and Luis A. Romero
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: This article addresses the influence of economic inequality on immigration detention. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detains roughly 350,000 migrants each year and maintains more than 30,000 beds each day. This massive detention system raises issues of economic power and powerlessness. This article connects, for the first time, the influence of economic inequality on system-wide immigration detention policy as well as on individual detention decisions. The article begins with a description of the systemic impact that for-profit prisons have had on the federal immigration detention system, by promoting wide-scale detention. The resulting expansion of detention has led to ever-increasing profitability for the private for-profit prison sector, which allows the companies to exercise even more influence over policymakers to achieve yet higher levels of detention. The influence of wealthy private prison corporations also affects the very nature of immigration detention, leading to the use of jail-like facilities that are the product offered by the private prison industry. The article then describes the mechanisms by which economic inequality dictates the likelihood and length of detention in individual cases. The detention or release decisions made by DHS in individual cases must account for the need to keep numerous detention beds full to satisfy the contracts made with powerful private prison companies. DHS regularly sets bond amounts at levels that are not correlated to flight risk or danger, but rather to the length of time that the individual must be held in detention to keep the available space full. The article presents data, obtained from immigration authorities, regarding detention and bond patterns at a specific detention center that demonstrate this point. The research finds an inverse relationship between the number of newly arriving immigrants in the detention center and the bond amounts set by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). During times when new arrivals were few, the amount required to be released from detention on bond was high; during times when there were many new arrivals, bond amounts were reduced or set at zero. The article also presents another way in which economic inequality affects the likelihood of detention at the individual level. Release and detention are largely controlled through the use of monetary bond requirements, which must be paid in full. The regular use of financial bonds as the exclusive mechanism for release means that those migrants who are most able to pay are most likely to be released, without regard to their likelihood of absconding or endangering the community. Wealth thus determines detention rather than an individualized determination of the necessity of depriving an individual of liberty. The article urges that the role of economic inequality in immigration detention raises troubling issues of democratic governance and the commodification of traditional governmental functions. The current system also leads to an unjustifiable redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich. Looking at immigration detention through the lens of economic inequality offers new lines of theoretical inquiry into immigration detention. It connects the discussion of immigration detention to scholarly critiques of for-profit prisons and the privatization of state security functions more generally. It also brings a new perspective to prior work in the immigration and criminal justice contexts, questioning the fairness and utility of requiring payment of monetary bonds to obtain liberty from detention. The article concludes with recommendations for reform. These reforms would help to sideline the influence of economic inequality in immigration detention decision making.
Topic:: Immigration, Economic Inequality, and Mass Incarceration
Political Geography:: United States

406. The Case for a National Legalization Program without Legislation or Executive Action

Author:: Jeanne M. Atkinson and Tom Wong
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: This article presents the results of a study that finds that as many as two million unauthorized immigrants in the United States could have a path to permanent legal status. However, these immigrants may not know that they are eligible for legal status, much less be able to afford the costs or take the necessary steps to obtain it. The two million figure is drawn from an analysis of screening data from 4,070 unauthorized immigrants from 12 states. The study highlights the profound impact that a national project to screen for legal status would have on the entire US population, including eligible immigrants, their family members, and the country at large. The need for legal screening has become particularly acute in light of the Trump administration’s focus on apprehension and deportation of unauthorized immigrants without regard to their length of residence in the United States, family relationships to US citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPRs), or other positive factors. The proposed termination of benefits for many Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)1 recipients would add more than one million individuals — approximately 325,000 (Warren and Kerwin 2017), and 700,000 (Krogstad 2017) people, respectively — to the pool of unauthorized immigrants.
Topic:: Immigration, Border Control, and Citizenship
Political Geography:: United States, Central America, and North America

407. Family Matters: Claiming Rights across the US-Mexico Migratory System

Author:: Jacqueline Maria Hagan, Ricardo Martinez-Schuldt, Alyssa Peavey, and Deborah Weissman
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) created an immigration system favoring the immigration of spouses, children, and parents of US citizens, thereby establishing family unity as the cornerstone of US immigration policy. Despite this historical emphasis on family unity, backlogs and limited visas for non-immediate relatives of US citizens and legal permanent residents, the militarization of the US-Mexico border, punitive measures for those who enter without inspection, such as the forced separation of children from their parents at the US border, and an aggressive policy of deportation have made it more difficult for members of Mexican binational families to unify. How do members of Mexican binational families manage the hardships that result from US immigration policies that prolong and force family separation? Immigrants and return migrants alike may not be aware of their rights and the legal remedies that exist to enforce them. Structural barriers such as poverty, legal status, fear of deportation, lack of proficiency in English, and lack of familiarity with government bureaucracies no doubt prevent many migrants in the United States and return migrants in Mexico from coming forward to request legal assistance and relief in the courts. Despite these barriers, when it comes to family matters, members of some Mexican binational families can and do assert their rights. In this article, we analyze an administrative database of the Department of Legal Protection of the Mexican consular network that documents migrant legal claims resulting from family separation, along with findings from 21 interviews with consular staff and community organizations in three consular jurisdictions — El Paso, Raleigh, and San Francisco — to investigate the sociolegal processes of claims. Our investigation centers on the mediating role the Mexican state — via its consular network — has developed to assist binational families as they attempt to assert their rights and resolve child support and child custody problems resulting from prolonged and forced family separation. We find that the resolution of binational family claims in part depends on the institutional infrastructure that has developed at local, state, and federal levels, along with the commitment and capacity of the receiving and sending states and the binational structures they establish. These binational structures transcend the limitations of national legal systems to achieve and implement family rights and obligations across borders.
Topic:: Military Strategy, Immigration, Border Control, and Family
Political Geography:: United States, North America, and Mexico

408. An Examination of Wage and Income Inequality within the American Farmworker Community

Author:: Marianne L Bowers and Daniel Chand
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: This article explores the reasons for earning inequalities among farmworkers. Using national data from the US Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS), we detail and examine differences in earnings among farmworkers based on certain characteristics identified in prior literature. We find that gender and youth are the most reliable predictors of farmworker earnings, with females and workers under 21 consistently earning less than other categories of farmworkers. In addition, we find that workers who seasonally follow crops are among the lowest earning farmworkers. We also confirm that, as expected, workers lacking authorized status earn less than those who have legal status. Surprisingly, however, foreign-born US citizens actually earn more than their US-born counterparts. These findings have substantial implications for policymakers and labor advocates who seek to improve the plight of US farmworkers.
Topic:: Agriculture, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Youth, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:: United States

409. The US Refugee Resettlement Program — A Return to First Principles: How Refugees Help to Define, Strengthen, and Revitalize the United States

Author:: Donald Kerwin
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: The US refugee resettlement program should be a source of immense national pride. The program has saved countless lives, put millions of impoverished persons on a path to work, self-sufficiency, and integration, and advanced US standing in the world. Its beneficiaries have included US leaders in science, medicine, business, the law, government, education, and the arts, as well as countless others who have strengthened the nation’s social fabric through their work, family, faith, and community commitments. Refugees embody the ideals of freedom, endurance, and self-sacrifice, and their presence closes the gap between US ideals and its practices. For these reasons, the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) has enjoyed strong, bipartisan support for nearly 40 years. Yet the current administration has taken aim at this program as part of a broader attack on legal immigration programs. It has treated refugees as a burden and a potential threat to our nation, rather than as a source of strength, renewal, and inspiration. In September 2017, it set an extremely low refugee admissions ceiling (45,000) for 2018, which it had no intention of meeting: the United States is on pace to resettle less than one-half of that number. It has also tightened special clearance procedures for refugees from mostly Muslim-majority states so that virtually none can enter; cynically slow-walked the interview, screening, and admissions processes; and decimated the community-based resettlement infrastructure built up over many decades (Miliband 2018). At a time of record levels of forced displacement in the world, the United States should model solidarity with refugees and exercise leadership in global refugee protection efforts (Francis 2018a, 102). Instead, the administration has put the United States on pace to resettle the lowest number of refugees in USRAP’s 38-year history, with possible further cuts in fiscal year (FY) 2019. This report describes the myriad ways in which this program serves US interests and values. The program: saves the lives of the world’s most vulnerable persons; continues “America’s tradition as a land that welcomes peoples from other countries” and shares the “responsibility of welcoming and resettling those who flee oppression” (Reagan 1981); promotes a “stable and moral world” (Helton 2002, 120); reduces spontaneous, unregulated arrivals and encourages developing nations to remain engaged in refugee protection (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Tan 2017, 42-43); and promotes cooperation from individuals, communities, and nations that are central to US military and counter-terrorism strategies.[1] In that vein, the report describes the achievements, contributions, and integration outcomes of 1.1 million refugees who arrived in the United States between 1987 and 2016. It finds that: the median household income of these refugees is $43,000;[2] 35 percent of refugee households have mortgages; 63 percent of refugees have US-born children; 40 percent are married to US citizens; and 67 percent have naturalized. Comparing the 1.1 million refugees who arrived between 1987 and 2016 with non-refugees,[3] the foreign born, and the total US population, the report finds: Refugees’ labor force participation (68 percent) and employment rates (64 percent) exceed those of the total US population (63 and 60 percent respectively).[4] Large numbers of refugees (10 percent) are self-employed and, in this and other ways, job creators, compared to 9 percent for the total US population. Refugees’ median personal income ($20,000) equals that of non-refugees and exceeds the income of the foreign born overall ($18,700). Refugees are more likely to be skilled workers (38 percent) than non-refugees (33 percent) or the foreign born (35 percent). Refugees are less likely to work in jobs that new immigrants fill at high rates, such as construction, restaurants and food service, landscaping, services to buildings and dwellings, crop production, and private households. Refugees use food stamps and Medicaid at higher rates than non-refugees, the foreign born, and the total US population. However, their public benefit usage significantly declines over time and their integration, well-being, and US family ties increase. Comparing refugee characteristics by time present in the United States — from the most recent arrivals (2007 to 2016), to arrivals between 1997 to 2006, to those with the longest tenure (1987 to 1996) — the report finds: Refugees with the longest residence have integrated more fully than recent arrivals, as measured by households with mortgages (41 to 19 percent); English language proficiency (75 to 55 percent); naturalization rates (89 to 24 percent); college education (66 to 32 percent); labor force participation (68 to 61 percent); and employment (66 to 55 percent) and self-employment (14 to 4 percent). Refugees who arrived from 1997 to 2006 have higher labor force participation and employment rates than refugees who arrived from 1987 to 1996.[5] Refugees who arrived between 1987 and 1996 exceed the total US population, which consists mostly of the native-born, in median personal income ($28,000 to $23,000), homeownership (41 to 37 percent with a mortgage), percent above the poverty line (86 to 84 percent), access to a computer and the internet (82 to 75 percent), and health insurance (93 to 91 percent). Comparing nationals — in 2000 and again in 2016 — from states formerly in the Soviet Union, who entered from 1987 to 1999, the report finds that: median household income increased from $31,000 to $53,000; median personal income nearly tripled, from $10,700 to $31,000; the percent of households with a mortgage increased from 30 to 40 percent; public benefit usage fell; English language proficiency rose; the percent with a college degree or some college increased (68 to 80 percent); naturalization rates nearly doubled, from 47 to 89 percent; marriage to US citizens rose from 33 to 51 percent; and labor force participation rate (59 to 69 percent), employment (57 to 66 percent), self-employment (11 to 15 percent), and the rate of skilled workers (33 to 38 percent) all grew. The report also finds that refugees bring linguistic diversity to the United States and, in this and other ways, increase the nation’s economic competitiveness and security. In short, refugees become US citizens, homeowners, English speakers, workers, business owners, college educated, insured, and computer literate at high rates. These findings cover a large population of refugees comprised of all nationalities, not just particularly successful national groups. Section I of the report describes the nation’s historic commitment to refugees and critiques the administration’s rationale for dismantling the resettlement program. Section II sets forth the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) methodology for selecting the refugee data used in this report. Section III discusses the resettlement, national origins, and years of arrival of the refugees in CMS’s sample. Section IV details the report’s main findings on the achievements, contributions, and integration of refugees over time. It compares the characteristics of refugees, non-refugees, the foreign born, and the total US population; and examines the progress of refugees — measured in 2000 and 2016 — that arrived from the former Soviet Union between 1987 and 1999. This section also references the growing literature on the US refugee program and on the economic and fiscal impacts of refugees. Section V discusses the important role of voluntary agencies in the resettlement process, focusing on the work of Catholic agencies in building community support for refugees and promoting their entrepreneurial initiatives. Section VI identifies the national interests served by the refugee program, recommends ways to address several of the program’s longstanding challenges, and urges the president, Congress, Americans with refugee roots, and other stakeholders to work to strengthen and expand the program.
Topic:: Nationalism, Refugees, and Resettlement
Political Geography:: United States

410. Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and Their Human Consequences

Author:: Donald Kerwin, Daniela Alulema, and Mike Nicholson
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:: Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:: In late 2017, the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), and the Office of Justice and Ecology (OJE) of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States initiated a study to examine the characteristics of deportees and the effects of deportation, and to place them in a broader policy context (see Attachment A in the Supplemental Material, available in the online version of this article).[1] The CRISIS Study (Catholic Removal Impact Survey in Society) included both quantitative and qualitative elements. During the first five months of 2018, KBI staff surveyed 133 deportees from the United States at its migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora. Survey respondents were all Mexican nationals, all but one were men, and each had been living for a period of time in the United States.[2] They had resided in 16 US states, the majority in Arizona, followed by Nevada, California, and Utah. The survey sought information on their US lives, the removal and detention process, and the impact of removal on them and their families (see Attachment B in the Supplemental Material, available in the online version of this article). The study also included one interview with a deportee (via Skype) and 20 interviews with the family members of deportees and other persons affected by deportation in Catholic parishes in Florida, Michigan, and Minnesota. The parishes — which the report will not identify in order to ensure the interviewees’ anonymity — were chosen based on their geographic, demographic, and sociopolitical diversity, their connections to the agencies conducting the study, and their ability to facilitate access to deportees, their families, and others impacted by deportation. The interviews explored: (1) the impact of removals on deportees, their families, and other community members; (2) the deportation process; and (3) the relationship between deportees and their families (see Attachment C in the Supplemental Material, available in the online version of this article). They provided an intimate, often raw look at the human consequences of deportation.
Topic:: Migration, Refugees, and Deportation
Political Geography:: United States

411. Consensus for Action: Towards a More Effective EU Sanctions Policy

Author:: Tom Keatinge and Emil Dall
Publication Date:: 11-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
Abstract:: Sanctions are a key tool of foreign policy but have taken on greater salience over the last 20 years as governments have reached for leverage in negotiations but foregone the use of force. During this period, the alignment of the design and implementation of sanctions by the European Union and the United States has, on the whole, been an article of faith as the transatlantic allies have pursued mutual foreign policy objectives. Yet despite the consistency of objectives, the bureaucratic structures, technical mechanisms, and processes by which the European Union and the United States design and implement sanctions differ significantly. These differences—always present—have been amplified by the current stresses in transatlantic relations and may be further exacerbated when the United Kingdom leaves the European Union in March 2019. The reasons behind these differences are myriad and touch upon both structural matters (such as the construction of the European Union and the manner in which its member states can enact policy) and more philosophical matters, as the focus on due process and human rights in EU sanctions policy demonstrates. But given the importance of transatlantic ties and cooperation in managing the sorts of problems that sanctions are usually developed to address, it is important for both the United States and the European Union to work through these differences. Toward that goal, this paper provides a European perspective on US sanctions activity, where there are differences in approach, in particular EU attitudes toward secondary sanctions put in place by the United States, and it explains the complications that may result from the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. The paper concludes with recommendations for how the European Union can address the challenges it faces in achieving an effective sanctions policy. In short, it recommends the following: The European Union should work through its structural issues to create a more decisive and effective EU sanctions policy. The implementation and enforcement of sanctions at the member state level must be improved, and a formal EU-level sanctions body is needed to independently monitor compliance with sanctions across the European Union. A clear mechanism for ensuring the coordination and effectiveness of EU-UK post-Brexit sanctions policy must be established. The global centrality of both the European Union’s economy and the United Kingdom’s financial sector combine to present a powerful sanctions force and must thus be closely coordinated to ensure maximum effectiveness. The European Union should directly address the matter of human rights exemptions by incorporating it as a key consideration of the EU-level sanctions body identified in the first recommendation. The European Union should establish a clear channel for human rights exemptions throughout the lifetime of sanctions regimes. The European Union should consider its options to address the ability of non-EU actors to abuse EU-originating supply chains and financial services, which represents a considerable sanctions implementation vulnerability. Finally, though US-EU misalignment on sanctions is growing, policy makers must stay seized of the necessity to maintain and improve communications and coordination to prevent current schisms from having serious long-term effects on international security.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Sanctions, European Union, and Brexit
Political Geography:: United States, United Kingdom, and Europe

412. The Impact of US LNG on Russian Natural Gas Export Policy

Author:: Tatianna Mitrova and Tim Boersma
Publication Date:: 12-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
Abstract:: The United States and Russia have long been the world’s largest natural gas producers, but they traditionally have not faced off in direct competition in that market. The United States was expected to become a net importer of natural gas, while Russia’s state-owned Gazprom took a prominent position in the European market. The boom in US shale-gas production changed that. While the United States had been trading gas regionally by pipeline for decades, the shale boom allowed for the export of US liquefied natural gas, putting the two gas giants in competition. Even before the first molecule of US LNG shipped, rising US production had diverted LNG destined for the United States into the European Union. Facing increased competition pushed Russia toward a more market-oriented strategy, with Gazprom adjusting its long-term oil-linked contracts that had previously been the backbone of Russian sales to European customers to use more hybrid formulae. This was just the beginning. After a slow start, the competition brought on by US gas is to a large extent shaping the Russian natural gas strategy in Europe and beyond. For Europe, rising gas competition from new suppliers has both economic and energy security implications. Globally, it is also raising questions about how Gazprom will compete in Asia, where demand is growing and gas suppliers are looking to place future production, as well as in other markets. Understanding how Gazprom will react to US gas is thus a critical economic and geopolitical question for LNG importers and exporters worldwide. In this paper the authors examine how Gazprom will maneuver in global markets under specific circumstances. It opens with a discussion of how the US and Russian gas sectors developed and interacted in the period before shale gas. The paper then examines how Gazprom’s gas trade has been impacted by new US production and what changes may be coming as US exports continue to increase. It finds that the advent of US LNG has already reduced Russian gas revenue, undermined its oil-linked pricing model, forced contract renegotiations and accelerated domestic gas market liberalization and LNG development. The authors argue that Russia is in a good position to defend its market share in Europe and looks at some of the strategies that could be pursued under various market scenarios, including the following: High Asian demand and low oil prices: If oil-linked gas prices were pushed below spot prices, Gazprom would not need to further adjust its pricing policy (as was the case in 2015–2017). In certain situations Gazprom might even limit supplies to drive prices up and increase its rent, becoming the price maker. Such a strategy would be utilized cautiously to avoid demand destruction and prompting new FIDs for new (US) liquefaction capacity. High Asian demand and high oil prices: In this scenario Gazprom’s position would be well served in the short to medium term by strong revenues. In the longer term, however, high prices will attract more competitors to the markets (and prompt new FIDs), so it is important for Gazprom to keep its own prices competitive and to keep the margin of the aggregators, which are supplying the European market, below their margin in Asia. There are already almost no “pure” oil-linked contracts left, and Gazprom in Europe mainly has hybrid pricing, but this scenario will require a more fundamental shift in the pricing, with the share of spot-indexed prices becoming dominant. Low Asian demand and low oil prices: Gazprom may be forced to keep prices for its long-term contracts below short-run marginal costs of US LNG. Gazprom might voluntarily move to completely spot-indexed prices, simultaneously trying not only to find new markets for its gas (both in Asia and in Europe) but also to stimulate new demand. The company would need more flexible and creative marketing, and it would seek to improve the efficiency of its operations, both internationally and domestically. Should Gazprom start to see its market share decline, Moscow could decide to liberalize the pipeline export monopoly, a decision that would make Novatek and Rosneft more powerful players. Low Asian demand and high oil prices: Russia would feel competitive pressure not only from the United States but also from all existing low-cost LNG suppliers like Qatar, which may have to switch to Europe and keep gas prices at a low level. Gazprom would have to engage in this price competition as well, flooding the market using spare capacities and driving the prices down to the level of its short-run marginal costs, which will disincentive US LNG aggregators to offtake their LNG. Gazprom has considerable underutilized upstream capacities and huge spare transportation capacities, allowing it to drive down European prices below the level acceptable for US LNG suppliers. This scenario hurts everyone on the supply side, and it is warranted to ask how long it could be upheld. The study finds that even in scenarios where Gazprom sees gas revenues driven down to 2009 or 2016 levels, this should not prove catastrophic for Russia. For Moscow, facing more competition in Europe is a new situation that Gazprom and decisions makers in the Kremlin will have to deal with. Under normal circumstances, competition between various sources of supply can result in net benefits for the end consumer. In addition, this paper demonstrates that the changes in the global gas market have forced Gazprom to adjust its business practices. However, the increased politization of natural gas in the United States carries a risk of inflamed tensions between Moscow and Washington.
Topic:: Globalization, Natural Resources, European Union, and Gas
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, and Europe

413. Trade Policy Options for ASEAN Countries and Their Regional Dialogue Partners: “Preference Ordering” Using CGE Analysis

Author:: Pradumna B. Rana, Xianbai Ji, Wai-Mun Chia, and Chang Tai Li
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: The withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trump’s “America First” agenda have ignited a second round of interest in mega-free trade agreements in the Asia Pacific region. Countries have been motivated to explore alternative trade policy options. Using national real gross domestic output gains estimated by the GTAP model to construct “preference ordering” for 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members and their six regional dialogue partners, this paper comes up with several findings. First, when multilateral agreements are not possible, countries are better off with a narrower regional trading agreement than without one. Second, in the region, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has higher beneficial impacts than the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Third, for dual-track countries, that is countries that are negotiating both the CPTPP and the RCEP, implementing both agreements is better than each separately. Fourth, as expected, economic impacts of the CPPTP are lower than those of the original TPP12, but all CPPTP members will benefit although to different degrees. Fifth, economic impacts of open regionalism are higher than those of a closed and reciprocal one. Going forward, the paper argues that ASEAN countries and their regional dialogue partners need to adopt a “multi-track, multi- stage” approach to trade policy.
Topic:: Regional Cooperation, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Free Trade, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, and Asia-Pacific

414. Theocracy vs Constitutionalism in Japan: Constitutional Amendment and the Return of Pre-war Shinto Nationalism

Author:: Naoko Kumada
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: This paper offers an understanding of the scope, nature, and context of constitutional change being proposed in Japan today, in internal terms rather than through external reconstruction. Rather than being a mere reaction to “external circumstances”, as portrayed by its apologists and by “realist/rational-reconstructionist” analysis, the movement to amend and replace the Constitution is a project with a history, underpinned by a worldview and driven by an ideology that provide it with its own momentum. The most overlooked aspect of the movement is religion. From the Meiji Restoration until the end of the War, Japan was governed through a religio-political system based on a newly invented State Shintoism. The scope and intent of today’s movement to amend/replace the Constitution cannot be understood without this background in mind. Failure to account for the ideological, cultural, historical, and indeed the constitutional dimensions of the issue seriously underplays the stakes for Japan and its neighbours. The constitutional movement is part of a multi-generational project to restore what its leaders declare to be the “true shape of Japan”, with the pre-war religious ideology and constitutional form that they deem to have been unjustly replaced by the US occupation administration after Japan’s defeat.
Topic:: Imperialism, Reform, Constitution, and Domestic Politics
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, Asia, and Asia-Pacific

415. Indonesian Muslims in a Globalising World: Westernisation, Arabisation and Indigenising Responses

Author:: Martin van Bruinessen
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: In the two decades since the fall of the Suharto regime, one of the most conspicuous developments has been the rapidly increasing influence of religious interpretations and practices emanating from the Middle East and more specifically the Gulf states, leading observers to speak of the “Arabisation” of Indonesian Islam. In the preceding decades, the state had strongly endorsed liberal and development-oriented Muslim discourses widely perceived as “Westernised” and associated with secularism and Western education. Indonesia’s unique Muslim traditions have in fact been shaped by many centuries of global flows of people and ideas, connecting the region not just with the Arab heartlands of Islam and Europe but South Asia and China. What is relatively new, however, is the presence of transnational Islamist and fundamentalist movements, which weakened the established nation-wide Muslim organisations (Muhammadiyah, NU) that had been providing religious guidance for most of the 20th century. The perceived threat of transnational radical Islam has led to renewed reflection on, and efforts to rejuvenate, indigenous Muslim traditions.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, transnationalism, and Secularism
Political Geography:: United States, China, Indonesia, Asia, and Southeast Asia

416. Game of Institutional Balancing: China, the AIIB, and the Future of Global Governance

Author:: Kai He and Huiyun Feng
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has signified a “charm offensive” by China towards multilateral institutions and existing global financial governance. If the rise of China is inevitable, what will the future world look like and what should other countries be prepared for? Borrowing insights from institutional balancing theory and role theory in foreign policy analysis, this project introduces a “leadership transition” framework to explain policy dynamics in global governance with the AIIB as a case study. It suggests that China, the US, and other countries have employed different types of institutional balancing strategies, i.e., inclusive institutional balancing, exclusive institutional balancing, and inter-institutional balancing to compete for influence and interest in the process of establishing the AIIB. A state’s role identity as a “leader,” a “challenger,” or a “follower” will shape its policy choices regarding different institutional balancing strategies in the process of leadership transition in global governance. Institutional balancing is a new form of balancing among states in the future of global governance. China’s institutional rise in global governance might be more peaceful than widely predicted.
Topic:: Regional Cooperation, Infrastructure, Governance, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Asia

417. Pakistan and its Militants: Who is Mainstreaming Whom?

Author:: James M Dorsey
Publication Date:: 10-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:: Pakistani militants of various stripes collectively won just under ten per cent of the vote in the July 2018 parliamentary elections. Some represented long-standing legal Islamist parties, others newly established groups or fronts for organisations that have been banned as terrorists by Pakistan and/or the United Nations and the United States. The militants failed to secure a single seat in the national assembly but have maintained, if not increased, their ability to shape national debate and mainstream politics and societal attitudes. Their ability to field candidates in almost all constituencies, and, in many cases, their performance as debutants enhanced their legitimacy. The militants’ performance has fueled debate about the Pakistani military’s effort to expand its long- standing support for militants that serve its regional and domestic goals to nudge them into mainstream politics. It also raises the question of who benefits most, mainstream politics or the militants. Political parties help mainstream militants, but militants with deep societal roots and significant following are frequently key to a mainstream candidate’s electoral success. Perceptions that the militants may stand to gain the most are enhanced by the fact that decades of successive military and civilian governments, abetted and aided by Saudi Arabia, have deeply embedded ultra-conservative, intolerant, anti-pluralist, and supremacist strands of Sunni Islam in significant segments of Pakistani society. Former international cricket player Imran Khan’s electoral victory may constitute a break with the country’s corrupt dynastic policies that ensured that civilian power alternated between two clans, the Bhuttos and the Sharifs. However, his alignment with ultra-conservatism’s social and religious views, as well as with militant groups, offers little hope for Pakistan becoming a more tolerant, pluralistic society, and moving away from a social environment that breeds extremism and militancy. On the contrary, policies enacted by Khan and his ministers since taking office suggest that ultra- conservatism and intolerance are the name of the game. If anything, Khan’s political history, his 2018 election campaign, and his actions since coming to office reflect the degree to which aspects of militancy, intolerance, anti-pluralism, and supremacist ultra- conservative Sunni Muslim Islam have, over decades, been woven into the fabric of segments of society and elements of the state. The roots of Pakistan’s extremism problem date to the immediate wake of the 1947 partition of British India when using militants as proxies was a way to compensate for Pakistan’s economic and military weakness. They were entrenched by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s and General Zia ul-Haq’s Islamization of Pakistani society in the 1980s. The rise of Islamist militants in the US-Saudi supported war against Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan and opportunistic policies by politicians and rulers since then have shaped contemporary Pakistan.
Topic:: Islam, Religion, Terrorism, United Nations, Violent Extremism, Secularism, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:: Pakistan, United States, and Middle East

418. Iraq After ISIS: The Other Half of Victory Dealing with the Civil Dimension

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The United States, its allies, and international organizations are just beginning to come to grips with the civil dimensions of "failed state" wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, the Sudans, Syria, and Yemen. In each case, it is clear that the civil dimension of the war will ultimately be as important as the military one. Any meaningful form of "victory" requires far more than defeating the current extremist threat in military terms, and reaching some temporary compromise between the major factions that divide the country. The current insurgent and other security threats exist largely because of the deep divisions within the state, the past and current failures of the government to deal with such internal divisions, and the chronic failure to meet the economic, security, and social needs of much of the nation's population. In practical terms, these failures make a given host government, other contending factions, and competing outside powers as much of a threat to each nation’s stability and future as Islamic extremists and other hostile forces. Regardless of the scale of any defeat of extremists, the other internal tensions and divisions with each country also threaten to make any such “victory” a prelude to new forms of civil war, and/or an enduring failure to cope with security, stability, recovery, and development. Any real form of victory requires a different approach to stability operations and civil-military affairs. In each case, the country the U.S. is seeking to aid failed to make the necessary economic progress and reforms to meet the needs of its people – and sharply growing population – long before the fighting began. The growth of these problems over a period of decades helped trigger the sectarian, ethnic, and other divisions that made such states vulnerable to extremism and civil conflict, and made it impossible for the government to respond effectively to crises and wars.
Topic:: Security, War, Fragile/Failed State, ISIS, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Africa, United States, Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sundan

419. Measuring the Impact of Sequestration and the Drawdown on the Defense Industrial Base

Author:: Rhys McCormick, Andrew Philip Hunter, and Gregory Sanders
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The presence of a technologically superior defense industrial base has been a foundation of U.S. strategy since 1945. While the implementation of the budget cuts in the Budget Control Act of 2011 has caused concerns for the industrial base, the resulting debate has been lacking in empirical analysis. The purpose of this research is to measure the impact of the current defense drawdown across all the tiers of the industrial base. This report analyzes prime and subprime Defense Department contract data to measure the impacts of the drawdown by sector to better understand how prime and subprime contractors have responded to this external market shock.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Military Strategy, Budget, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:: United States

420. Distributed Defense New Operational Concepts for Integrated Air and Missile Defense

Author:: Tom Karako and Wes Rumbaugh
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Despite the rising salience of missile threats, current air and missile defense forces are far too susceptible to suppression. Today’s U.S. air and missile defense (AMD) force lacks the depth, capacity, and operational flexibility to simultaneously perform both missions. Discussions about improving AMD usually revolve around improvements to the capability and capacity of interceptors or sensors. Rather than simply doing more of the same, the joint integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) efforts might be well served by new or reinvigorated operational concepts, here discussed collectively as “Distributed Defense.” By leveraging networked integration, Distributed Defense envisions a more flexible and more dispersible air and missile defense force capable of imposing costs and dilemmas on an adversary, complicating the suppression of U.S. air and missile defenses. Although capability and capacity improvements remain essential to the high-end threats, the Distributed Defense concept focuses on creating a new architecture for today’s fielded or soon-to-be fielded IAMD force to boost flexibility and resilience.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Military Strategy, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:: United States

421. Squaring the Circle Connecting Current Operations to Policy Ambition in Syria

Author:: Melissa Dalton
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: 2017 marked a significant shift in the two wars in Syria. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Coalition forces drove ISIS from its self-proclaimed caliphate capital in Raqqa, across northern Syria, and down the Euphrates River Valley. Meanwhile, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, backed by Russia and Iran, secured key population areas and strategic locations in the center and coast, and stretched to the eastern border to facilitate logistics and communications for Iranian-backed militias. In both wars, Syrian civilians have lost profoundly. They also have shown incredible resilience. Still, the outcome of both wars is inconclusive. Although major areas have been cleared of ISIS, SDF and Coalition forces are fighting the bitter remnants of ISIS in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. Enduring security in ISIS-cleared areas now depends on governance and restoration of services. Turkey’s intervention into Syrian Kurdish-controlled Afrin risks pulling the sympathetic Kurdish components of the SDF away from the counterterrorism and stabilization efforts in Syria’s east in order to fight Turkey, a U.S. ally. With a rumbling Sunni insurgency in pockets of Syria’s heartland, Assad and his supporters continue to pummel Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus and threaten Idlib. They are unleashing both conventional and chemical weapons on the remnants of Syrian opposition fighters and indiscriminately targeting civilians. The Trump administration now is attempting to connect the outcome of these two wars. The Obama administration tried similarly but ultimately prioritized the counter-ISIS mission. The drivers of the Syrian civil war and the ISIS war are rooted in the same problem: bad governance. Thus, a sensible resolution of both wars must address Syria’s governance. However, squaring U.S. policy goals with current operations and resources the United States has employed in Syria will require a degree of calibration, stitching together several lines of effort, and committing additional U.S. and international resources. Orchestrating this level of U.S. effort has proven elusive over the last six years.
Topic:: Civil War, Violent Extremism, ISIS, and Civilians
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, Middle East, and Syria

422. Meeting the China Challenge Responding to China’s Managed Economy

Author:: James Andrew Lewis and John J. Hamre
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The U.S.-China relationship is one that neither country can escape. Both benefit from it in important ways. The question for quite some time, though, has been whether China’s economy, international presence, and participation in global institutions would come to look more like our own, or whether it would seek to challenge the order the United States has built and led over the past 70 years. While China’s economic size does not necessarily threaten the United States, China’s willingness to use its economic leverage to forge a global economy closer to its image raises complicated questions considering its lack of transparency. The essays in this volume, written by a diverse group of CSIS scholars, address some of the key issues that currently vex the U.S.-China economic relationship.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Global Political Economy, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, North America, and Asia-Pacific

423. What Is the U.S. Trade and Development Agency?

Author:: Daniel F. Runde and Romina Bandura
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is a small independent federal agency whose mission is to help American “companies create U.S. jobs through the export of U.S. goods and services for priority development projects in emerging economies.” USTDA links American businesses to export opportunities in emerging markets by funding activities such as project preparation and partnership building in sectors including transportation, energy, and telecommunications. Since it was established 25 years ago, the agency has generated a total of $61 billion in U.S. exports and supported over 500,000 American jobs. In connecting American business to such opportunities, USTDA also links American technology’s best practices and ingenuity with U.S. trade and development policy priorities. USTDA is an instrument to enable American-led infrastructure development in emerging economies and, therefore, frequently sees increasing competition from government-backed Chinese firms and the challenge they can pose to American commercial engagement under the flag of One Belt, One Road (OBOR). OBOR is paving the way for Chinese engineering, procurement, and construction companies to prepare and develop infrastructure projects in OBOR countries in a way that favors Chinese standards, thereby exerting significant pressure to select Chinese suppliers. This creates a potentially vicious cycle—the more China builds, the faster their standards become the international norm, and, ultimately, this cycle could foreclose export opportunities for U.S. businesses and harm American competitiveness in global infrastructure development. U.S. exporters are increasingly requesting USTDA intervention at the pivotal, early stages of a project’s development, to compete in markets, such as the OBOR countries, where they frequently face Chinese competition. Of note, 40 percent of USTDA’s activities in 2016 were in OBOR countries across South and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Although there are other agencies that may seem to do work similar to USTDA, there are various aspects that make it a unique agency. This paper provides a brief description of USTDA, its origin and evolution, the impact on the U.S. economy and its proactive collaboration across U.S agencies. Finally, it offers a set of recommendations for USTDA on how to improve its operations and strengthen its role in the developing world.
Topic:: Development, Energy Policy, Communications, Infrastructure, Trade, and Transportation
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Middle East, Asia, and North America

424. Managing Fragility and Promoting Resilience to Advance Peace, Security, and Sustainable Development

Author:: James Michel
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: “Fragility”—the combination of poor governance, limited institutional capability, low social cohesion, and weak legitimacy—leads to erosion of the social contract and diminished resilience, with significant implications for peace, security, and sustainable development. This study reviews how the international community has responded to this challenge and offers new ideas on how that response can be improved. Based on that examination, the author seeks to convey the importance of addressing this phenomenon as a high priority for the international community. Chapters explore the nature of these obstacles to sustainable development, peace, and security; how the international community has defined, measured, and responded to the phenomenon of fragility; how the international response might be made more effective; and implications for the United States.
Topic:: Development, Governance, Fragile States, and Social Cohesion
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus

425. How the Blockchain Can Help Venezuela’s Future Recovery Promoting Sound Policy Foundations for Venezuela’s Postcrisis Recovery and Reform

Author:: Moises Rendon
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Nicolas Maduro’s misguided attempt to create a government-controlled and natural resource-backed cryptocurrency (“Petro”) is nothing more than a desperate effort to try to facilitate international finance while avoiding U.S. sanctions on new debt issuance. However, there remains the potential for blockchain platforms to empower Venezuelans through legitimate means during the country’s future recovery. These benefits can extend to future government institutions, the private sector, and nonprofit organizations. Blockchain technology can radically shape the rebuilding of Venezuela during a “Day After” scenario for the better.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Sanctions, Cryptocurrencies, and Recovery
Political Geography:: United States, South America, Venezuela, and North America

426. The Return of Political Warfare

Author:: Seth G. Jones
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy outline a U.S. shift from counterterrorism to inter-state competition with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. However, U.S. policymakers need to be prepared for much of this competition to occur at the unconventional level, since the costs of conventional and nuclear war would likely be catastrophic. U.S. strategy is evolving from a post-9/11 focus on counterterrorism against groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State to competition between state adversaries. As the National Defense Strategy notes, “Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.”1 This shift has significant implications for the U.S. military, since it indicates a need to improve U.S. capabilities to fight—and win—possible wars against China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea if deterrence fails. Though it is prudent to prepare for conventional—and even nuclear—war, the risks of conflict are likely to be staggering. Numerous war games and analyses of U.S. conflicts with Russia in the Baltics, China in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, and North Korea on the Korean peninsula suggest the possibility of at least tens of thousands of dead and billions of dollars in economic damages. In addition, these conflicts could escalate to nuclear war, which might raise the number of dead to hundreds of thousands or even millions. According to one analysis, for example, a U.S. war with China could reduce China’s gross domestic product (GDP) by between 25 and 35 percent and the United States’ GDP by between 5 and 10 percent. The study also assessed that both countries could suffer substantial military losses to bases, air forces, surface naval forces, and submarines; significant political upheaval at home and abroad; and huge numbers of civilian deaths.2 These costs and risks will likely give Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and even Pyongyang pause, raising several questions. Will these high costs deter the possibility of conventional and nuclear war? If so, what are the implications for the United States as it plans for a rise in inter-state competition? The Cold War offers a useful historical lens. NATO planners prepared for a possible Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. The U.S. military, for example, deployed forces to the Fulda Gap, roughly 60 miles outside of Frankfurt, Germany, as one of several possible invasion routes by Soviet and other Warsaw Pact forces. NATO also planned for nuclear war. The United States built up its nuclear arsenal and adopted strategies like mutually assured destruction (MAD). The concept of MAD assumed that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. The threat of such heavy costs deterred conflict, despite some close calls. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the two superpowers nearly went to war after a U.S. U-2 aircraft took pictures of Soviet medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) under construction in Cuba. But Washington and Moscow ultimately assessed that direct conflict was too costly. Deterrence held. Instead, the United States and Soviet Union engaged in intense security competition at the unconventional level across Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Both countries backed substate groups and states to expand their power and influence. Under the Reagan Doctrine, for example, the United States provided overt and covert assistance to anticommunist governments and resistance movements to roll back communist supporters. The Soviets did the same and supported states and substate actors across the globe. In addition, the Soviets adopted an aggressive, unconventional approach best captured in the phrase “active measures” or aktivnyye meropriatia. As used by the KGB, active measures included a wide range of activities designed to influence populations across the globe. The KGB established front groups, covertly broadcast radio and other programs, orchestrated disinformation campaigns, and conducted targeted assassinations. The Soviets used active measures as an offensive instrument of Soviet foreign policy to extend Moscow’s influence and power throughout the world, including in Europe. Unlike the Cold War, the United States confronts multiple state adversaries today—not one. As the National Defense Strategy argues, the United States is situated in “a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory” where “the central challenges to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers.” But based on the likely costs and risks of conventional and nuclear war with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, much of the competition will likely be unconventional—and include what former U.S. State Department diplomat George Kennan referred to as “political warfare.” The term political warfare refers to the employment of military, intelligence, diplomatic, financial, and other means—short of conventional war—to achieve national objectives. It can include overt operations like public broadcasting and covert operations like psychological warfare and support to underground resistance groups.3 The United States’ adversaries today are already engaged in political warfare. Russia, for instance, utilizes a range of means to pursue its interests, such as technologically sophisticated offensive cyber programs, covert action, and psychological operations. Moscow has conducted overt operations like the use of RT and Sputnik, as well as semitransparent and covert efforts. It has also become increasingly active in supporting state and substate actors in countries like Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, and Libya to expand its influence in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and even North Africa. Finally, Russia is attempting to exploit European and transatlantic fissures and support populist movements to undermine European Union and NATO cohesion, thwart economic sanctions, justify or obscure Russian actions, and weaken the attraction of Western institutions for countries on Russia’s periphery. Iran is using political warfare tools like propaganda, cyber attacks, and aid to substate proxies to support its security priorities, influence events and foreign perceptions, and counter threats. Tehran is also assisting state and substate actors in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. Iran supports Shia militia groups in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, and Houthi rebels in Yemen. In the South China Sea, China is pouring millions of tons of sand and concrete onto reefs, creating artificial islands. It is also conducting a sophisticated propaganda campaign, utilizing economic coercion, and using fleets of fishing vessels to solidify its assertion of territorial and resource rights throughout the Pacific. Finally, Beijing is targeting the U.S. government, its allies, and U.S. companies as part of a cyber-espionage campaign. With political warfare already alive and well with the United States’ state adversaries, there are several implications for U.S. defense strategy. First, U.S. policymakers need to be prepared for significant inter-state competition to occur at the unconventional level, since the costs and risks of conventional and nuclear war may be prohibitively high. This should involve thinking through trade-offs regarding force posture, procurement, acquisition, and modernization. A U.S. military that predominantly focuses on preparing for conventional or nuclear war with state competitors—by modernizing the nuclear triad, building more resilient space capabilities, acquiring more effective counter-space systems, equipping U.S. forces with high-technology weapons, and emphasizing professional military education (PME) to fight conventional wars—may undermine U.S. unconventional readiness and capabilities. Second, even organizations that already engage in some types of political warfare—such as U.S. Special Operations Command and the U.S. intelligence community—will need to continue shifting some of their focus from counterterrorism to political warfare against state adversaries. This might include, for example, providing more aid to the Baltic States to conduct an effective resistance campaign against unconventional action by Moscow. Or it might involve aiding proxies in countries like Syria and Yemen to counter Iranian-backed organizations. It could also include improving the border security capabilities and effectiveness of Ukrainian military and police units against Russian-backed rebels. Third, the United States should invest in resources and capabilities that allow the military and other U.S. government agencies to more effectively engage in political warfare—and to provide agencies with sufficient authorities to conduct political warfare. One example is improving capabilities to conduct aggressive, offensive cyber operations. Other examples might include advanced electronic attack capabilities, psychological warfare units, security force assistance brigades, and precision munitions. Recognizing that other powers routinely conduct political warfare, George Kennan encouraged U.S. leaders to disabuse themselves of the “handicap” of the “concept of a basic difference between peace and war” and to wake up to “the realities of international relations—the perpetual rhythm of struggle, in and out of war.” Kennan’s advice may be even more relevant today in such a competitive world.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, and Counter-terrorism
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, China, Europe, Asia, and North Korea

427. Enhanced Deterrence in the North A 21st Century European Engagement Strategy

Author:: Heather A Conley
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Twenty-five years of relative calm and predictability in relations between Russia and the West enabled European governments largely to neglect their military capabilities for territorial defense and dramatically redraw Northern Europe’s multilateral, regional, and bilateral boundaries, stimulating new institutional and cooperative developments and arrangements. These cooperative patterns of behavior occurred amid a benign security environment, a situation that no longer obtains. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its military incursion into eastern Ukraine, its substantial military modernization efforts, heightened undersea activity in the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea, and its repeated air violations, the region’s security environment has dramatically worsened. The Baltic Sea and North Atlantic region have returned as a geostrategic focal point. It is vital, therefore, that the United States rethink its security approach to the region—what the authors describe as Enhanced Deterrence in the North.
Topic:: Security, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Modernization
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Europe, North Atlantic, Northern Europe, Crimea, and Baltic Sea

428. Seven Chinas A Policy Framework

Author:: David Kelly
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The debate about China’s changing role in global affairs is often framed as a dichotomous choice between a peacefully rising China that seeks to be a constructive stakeholder and an increasingly dangerous China that is challenging the status quo, both in terms of its norms and the place of the United States. The reality is more complicated. There are not only signs of both elements, but the foundations shaping Chinese behavior is multifold. Most international relations scholars examine China through one or another version of realism or liberalism. David Kelly, head of research at China Policy, offers an alternative approach that examines the nature of Chinese identity, or rather, Chinese identities, plural, and how they exhibit themselves in Chinese foreign policy. Using his renowned skills in reading Chinese-language official documents and the broader commentary, Kelly teases out seven narratives that Chinese tell themselves and the world, and he provides a codebook for explicating shifting Chinese behavior in different arenas. Kelly concludes that some of these narratives facilitate cooperation, but most point toward deep-seated tensions between China and the West in the years ahead. 
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Globalization, Imperialism, and Conflict
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, North America, and Asia-Pacific

429. A Role for Social Protection Investments to Support Food and Nutrition Security

Author:: Reid Hamel
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Social protection programming, such as cash transfers and vouchers provided at the individual or household level, has become increasingly prominent as a tool to combat food insecurity worldwide. Advantages of a social protection approach include the ability to target and reach the most vulnerable segments of society and to provide direct support for basic needs without reliance on complex causal pathways.The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) invests relatively little in social protection despite its flagship initiative, Feed the Future, which seeks to mitigate food insecurity and to reduce the prevalence of stunting in 12 countries (formerly in 19). Ghana’s LEAP (Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty) program represents an exception to the U.S. investment pattern. In partnership with UNICEF, USAID/Ghana has made noteworthy investments in the expansion of the LEAP cash transfer program to add a new eligible group of beneficiaries: pregnant women and children under one year old. The intention to intervene during pregnancy and the first year of life is motivated by a growing understanding that good nutrition during this window is critical to physical and cognitive health and human development outcomes that last a lifetime. This report explores the development of Ghana’s LEAP program since 2008; its current coverage, successes, and challenges; and opportunities for both the government of Ghana and donor partners to spearhead continuous improvements for program outcomes and resource efficiency.
Topic:: Development, Poverty, Social Policy, and Development Aid
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, North America, and Ghana

430. Oversight and Accountability in U.S. Security Sector Assistance

Author:: Melissa Dalton and Hijab Shah
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: With the range of security challenges confronting the United States in the 21st century, characterized by competition by both state and nonstate actors, the importance of working with allies and partners to address common challenges is paramount. Deeper examination of the relative effectiveness of U.S. security sector assistance and how it must nest in a broader foreign policy strategy, including good governance, human rights, and rule of law principles, is required. Improving oversight and accountability in U.S. security sector assistance with partners are at the core of ongoing security assistance reform efforts to ensure that U.S. foreign policy objectives are met and in accordance with U.S. interests and values. This report examines key areas in security sector programming and oversight where the U.S. Departments of Defense and State employ accountability mechanisms, with the goal of identifying ways to sharpen and knit together mechanisms for improving accountability and professionalism into a coherent approach for partner countries.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Diplomacy, and Human Rights
Political Geography:: United States and North America

431. Countering Adversary Threats to Democratic Institutions

Author:: Suzanne Spaulding
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: This report, informed by a CSIS-convened Experts Group, calls for a whole-of-nation approach to address the threat to, and improve the resilience of, the country's democratic institutions. The report proceeds in four sections. First, it outlines the nature of the threat posed by the Russian government, building upon what Russia has done in other countries, as well as in the United States. The second section describes how technology has magnified this threat. The third section examines essential elements of a "National Strategy to Counter Russian and Other Foreign Adversary Threats to Democratic Institutions." The final section is a call for action.
Topic:: Science and Technology, Military Strategy, Democracy, and Resilience
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Europe, and North America

432. The Revolution in Civil-Military Affairs

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The U.S. has learned many lessons in its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—most of them the hard way. It has had to adapt the strategies, tactics, and force structures designed to fight regular wars to conflicts dominated by non-state actors. It has had to deal with threats shaped by ideological extremism far more radical than the communist movements it struggled against in countries like Vietnam. It has found that the kind of “Revolution in Military Affairs,” or RMA, that helped the U.S. deter and encourage the collapses of the former Soviet Union does not win such conflicts against non-state actors, and that it faces a different mix of threats in each such war—such as in cases like Libya, Yemen, Somalia and a number of states in West Africa. The U.S. does have other strategic priorities: competition with China and Russia, and direct military threats from states like Iran and North Korea. At the same time, the U.S. is still seeking to find some form of stable civil solution to the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—as well as the conflicts Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and West Africa. Reporting by the UN, IMF, and World Bank also shows that the mix of demographic, political governance, and economic forces that created the extremist threats the U.S. and its strategic partners are now fighting have increased in much of the entire developing world since the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, and the political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. The Burke Chair at CSIS has prepared a working paper that suggests the U.S. needs to build on the military lessons it has learned from its "long wars" in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries in order to carry out a new and different kind of “Revolution in Civil-Military Affairs,” or RCMA. This revolution involves very different kinds of warfighting and military efforts from the RMA. The U.S. must take full advantage of what it is learning about the need for different kinds of train and assist missions, the use of airpower, strategic communications, and ideological warfare. At the same time, the U.S. must integrate these military efforts with new civilian efforts that address the rise of extremist ideologies and internal civil conflicts. It must accept the reality that it is fighting "failed state" wars, where population pressures and unemployment, ethnic and sectarian differences, critical problems in politics and governance, and failures to meet basic economic needs are a key element of the conflict. In these elements of conflict, progress must be made in wartime to achieve any kind of victory, and that progress must continue if any stable form of resolution is to be successful.
Topic:: Civil Society, United Nations, Military Strategy, Governance, Military Affairs, and Developing World
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Iraq, Middle East, West Africa, Somalia, and Sundan

433. Russia’s National Oil Champion Goes Global

Author:: Edward C. Chow and Andrew J. Stanley
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: After the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia was roiled by political and economic chaos, many state-owned assets were privatized based on political connections and corrupt practices. The oil sector was a particularly attractive, but by no means the only, target for these privatizations. By the end of the 1990s, almost all of Russia’s oil production was privately owned. In spite of continued nontransparency, the oil sector began to resemble a competitive market with private investors introducing Western technology, financial accounting, and operating and management practices. It also started to attract major foreign investments. The remaining state oil assets were managed by a sleepy state enterprise named Rosneft that, in spite of its name (Russian Oil), produced less than 5 percent of Russia’s oil. Today, majority state-owned Rosneft produces almost half of Russia’s oil. Its daily oil production of 4.6 million barrels, according to its last reported quarterly results, is double that of the world’s largest oil company by market capitalization, ExxonMobil, which last reported daily liquids production of 2.3 million barrels. Rosneft’s rapid rise coincided with the rule of Vladimir Putin, who first became president of Russia in 2000. Its production increases were built largely on the backs of controversial acquisitions of assets previously held by private companies such as Yukos, TNK-BP, and Bashneft. Rosneft’s acquisition spree accelerated after Putin’s close associate and Russia’s then-deputy prime minister Igor Sechin became chairman of its board of directors in 2004. Sechin left government in 2012 to take over as Rosneft’s chief executive officer. Rosneft’s board of directors is now chaired by former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Rosneft’s transformation as Russia’s national oil champion is consistent with Putin’s policy of regaining state control over the commanding heights of the Russian economy, which is more reliant on oil income today than the Soviet Union ever was. Rosneft is Russia’s largest taxpayer and contributed a quarter of government revenue in 2014. Until recently, Rosneft concentrated mainly on consolidating its dominance over the domestic oil patch. It is also Russia’s leading refiner and is increasing natural gas production for direct sales to domestic gas users, producing 67 billion cubic meters in 2016. In 2014, Russia was hit by the twin shocks of a global oil price collapse and Western economic sanctions enacted after its aggression against Ukraine in the Donbas region and annexation of Crimea. These developments affected Rosneft severely since it involved the value of the commodity it produces and sells and restricted Rosneft’s access to international financing when it was heavily indebted from the aforementioned acquisitions. A normal company might hunker down, repair its balance sheet, and wait for external conditions to improve. Instead Rosneft has done the exact opposite and expanded its international business aggressively. As part of the 2014 U.S.-led sanction efforts, Igor Sechin, as the leading figure of Russia’s largest petroleum company and his having “shown utter loyalty to Vladimir Putin,” was directly sanctioned. Further Russian sanctions enacted by Congress in 2017 called on the U.S. Department of the Treasury to submit a detailed report on senior political figures, oligarchs, and parastatal entities as determined by their “closeness to the Russian regime and their net worth.” While the unclassified version of the report released to Congress on January 29 included Igor Sechin, the report was poorly received and largely regarded as nothing more than a “rich list” by Russian experts. However, the report also contains classified annexes, including a list of parastatal entities and supporting analysis, which by definition would have included Rosneft. Although Rosneft’s rapid international expansion is too recent to assess definitely, this paper describes some of Rosneft’s overseas ventures and explores possible motivations, economic and political, behind them.
Topic:: Energy Policy, Oil, Foreign Direct Investment, Sanctions, Gas, Transparency, and Private Sector
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Europe, and Eastern Europe

434. Trump’s 2019 Missile Defense Budget: Choosing Capacity over Capability

Author:: Tom Karako and Wes Rumbaugh
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: President Trump’s 2019 budget request includes $12.9 billion for missile defense programs, including $9.9 billion for the Missile Defense Agency and about $3 billion in modernization in the military services, building upon the acceleration initiated in the $323 million FY 2017 Above Threshold Reprogramming and the FY 2018 Budget Amendment of $2.0 billion. The proposed budget continues the recent trend of procurement consuming a greater portion of overall missile defense spending, reflecting a choice for prioritizing near-term capacity over longer-term capability. With the exception of two new Pacific radars and a modest effort for tracking hypersonic threats, the request includes strikingly few changes to the program of record. The submission fails to address past shortfalls for more research and development of new missile defense technologies and capabilities, most significantly with its lack of real movement toward a space-based sensor layer for tracking and discrimination, as opposed to merely missile warning. Pursuit of more advanced capabilities will require substantial programmatic changes in the 2020 budget, or with a budget amendment later this year, if such capabilities are recommended by the forthcoming Missile Defense Review. On February 12, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its budget request for FY 2019, which included a total of $12.9 billion for missile defense-related activities. The proposed topline for the Missile Defense Agency comes in at $9.9 billion, comprising $2.4 billion for procurement, $6.8 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E), $500 million for operations and maintenance (O&M), and $206 million for military construction (MILCON). The $9.9 billion request is a 26 percent increase from the FY 2018 budget request of $7.9 billion. Funding for ballistic missile defense within the services includes about $3 billion, largely for the procurement of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) and Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) interceptors. Overall, the budget reflects a near-term focus on capacity of existing programs, even at the expense of capability improvements. In its current form, the request boosts funding for all four families of interceptors. For homeland missile defense, this includes the continued improvements to the capacity and reliability of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system by continuing to deploy an additional 20 interceptors, several testing spares, and a new missile field at Fort Greely, Alaska. The request also deepens the magazines for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Aegis, and Patriot interceptors, continuing a procurement-heavy trend from last year.1 The focus on capacity does not answer the question, however, how missile defense efforts will be adapted to the new reality of great power competition described by the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy.2 One of the few new muscle movements in the entire budget is the addition of two radars in the Pacific for discriminating long-range missile threats to the homeland. The idea of a discrimination radar for Hawaii had been publicly floated over the past two years, and had previously been part of the yet-unpassed appropriations marks from the House and Senate appropriations committees. The Hawaii radar is scheduled for a 2023 deployment, with an additional radar deployed by 2024 at a yet-undisclosed location. The two radars will cost approximately $2.5 billion over the course of the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). The inadequacy of the request lies not with the top line, but rather with the capabilities and strategy that the top line fails to prioritize. Although these radars would be useful to close the near-term Pacific midcourse gap against limited ballistic missile threats to the homeland, such funds must be weighed against the opportunity cost for larger improvements in capability provided by a space-based sensor layer that could provide substantially more capable birth-to-death tracking and discrimination on a more global scale and against a wider diversity of threats. The choice for capacity over capability reflects a near-term time horizon, but further delay in more advanced technologies will carry costs at a later time. In sum, the administration’s budget request for FY 2019 prioritizes near-term readiness against limited but growing ballistic missile threats from sources such as North Korea. This choice, however, falls short of connecting missile defense efforts to the reality of renewed great power competition as articulated in the National Defense Strategy. The inadequacy of the request lies not with the top line, but rather with the capabilities and strategy that the top line fails to prioritize. The 2019 request’s modesty of ambition is manifested by low funding for more advanced programs, such as boost-phase intercept, space-based sensors, and volume kill. Should the forthcoming Missile Defense Review address some of these issues and recommend programmatic changes, their implementation may have to wait until the 2020 budget, unless a budget amendment of some kind prioritizes them for the coming fiscal year.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Budget, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, Asia, and North America

435. A National Machine Intelligence Strategy for the United States

Author:: William A Carter and William Crumpler
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Machine Intelligence (MI) is poised to create profound changes to our lives, jobs, and economy. In breadth and scale of impact, MI will rival or exceed past technological revolutions while potentially altering centers of economic power and regional and global influence. Many countries are already making significant policy decisions to prepare for the impact of MI and are investing in MI research and development to outpace allies and competitors across economic and national security dimensions. If the United States wants to avoid being left behind in the “MI Revolution” we need to develop a coordinated national strategy that covers research and development, industrial specialization, and the social impacts of these technologies. This report offers a framework for determining which guiding principles should shape U.S. policy in response to the growth of MI applications in defense, education, health care, and the economy. The authors offer recommendations for how the United States can maintain a competitive advantage in MI and navigate the risks and challenges associated with it.
Topic:: Intelligence, Science and Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Industrialization
Political Geography:: United States and North America

436. Russia's New Nuclear Weapons: Whoever Dies with the Most Toys Wins?

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Whatever his other limitations, Vladimir Putin has shown he is a master in exploiting Russian nationalism and American and European sensitivities. His latest gambit—publicizing new Russian nuclear systems—several of which are still developmental, may have key components that are untested, or do not yet exist—give him political credibility in asserting Russian national strength in a Russian election year, and emphasize the one key area where Russia remains a leading global super power: its possession of nuclear weapons. The key question is whether they represent any real change in the nuclear balance, Russian and U.S. ability to pose an existential threat to the other state, and mutual assured destruction. If they do not, they are more technological status symbols or “toys” than real threats, although the proliferation of such weapons might allow smaller nuclear powers like Iran and North Korea to defeat today’s missile and air defense systems and technologies. An analysis of the actual content of his speech, the changing nuclear and conventional balance between the superpowers—the U.S., Russia, and China, the global balance of deployed nuclear weapons, the shifts taking in US and Russian balance since the Cold War, and as a result of START, the full range of new U.S. and Russian nuclear programs, and of what Putin did and did not say about Russia's new programs, provides a very different picture from the one Putin portrayed in his speech. It shows that Putin focused on the "toy factor" in emphasize technology over any real world aspects of the balance, arms control, and war fighting.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Nationalism, Military Strategy, Authoritarianism, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, China, Europe, and Asia

437. Contested Seas Maritime Domain Awareness in Northern Europe

Author:: Kathleen H. Hicks
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Northern Europe, and specifically the Baltic and Norwegian Seas, has been the site of increasingly provocative and destabilizing Russian actions. The country’s use of a range of military, diplomatic, and economic tools to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its allies highlights the need to monitor and understand Russian activity. The region is characterized by complex factors like unique geographic features, considerable civilian maritime traffic, the presence of advanced Russian and Western military capabilities, and strategic proximity to Russia and the Kola peninsula, home to the Russian Northern Fleet. While the Norwegian and Baltic Seas do differ in key ways, they are linked by the emerging risk posed by Russia’s long-range strike capabilities. Responding to Russian challenges across the competitive space requires a deep understanding of the Northern European maritime environment. Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), defined by the United States as the effective understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment of a nation or region, is an exceptionally broad concept. At its core, MDA has three functions: the collection of raw data, the analysis of that data, and the action of disseminating information to and coordinating among the different components of the framework. In order to provide security in Northern Europe, NATO and its allies must use MDA frameworks to understand and respond to the challenges above, on, and underneath the sea, as well as the surrounding land environment. While some constructive work has been done to address the evolving Russian threat, NATO and its partners must make changes to their current MDA capabilities to evolve alongside with it. Russia presents three challenges of particular concern to the MDA efforts in Northern Europe: maritime hybrid warfare, electronic and cyber warfare capabilities, and long-range strike systems. Maritime Hybrid Warfare—The Russian military is experienced and effective in its use of hybrid warfare, seen in Syria, Crimea, and Northern Europe. The ambiguity possible in the maritime domain lends itself well to this strategy. Russia uses three specific approaches in this realm: deception through different types of vessels including civilian ships, deniable forces like the amphibious and light infantry that easily navigate the complex Baltic and Norwegian Seas, and the country’s well-developed and diverse force for seabed warfare. Cyber and Electronic Warfare—Russia’s advanced EW capabilities have the potential to hinder information gathering and dissemination methods, which are both vital functions of MDA. These capabilities are challenging for military personnel but potentially devastating in civilian contexts, especially as civilian networks and technology (like GPS) are far less secure. Long-Range Strike Capabilities—New challenges for NATO and Northern European partners have emerged with Russia’s development of a long-range precision strike complex. The weapons, now being mounted on new and existing Russian naval vessels, give these vessels the option to stay in the Barents or White Seas and strike targets across Northern Europe. This, combined with air force capabilities based on the Kola Peninsula and in Kaliningrad, presents threats unlike any seen by NATO before. These capabilities require NATO and its partners to use MDA frameworks to monitor launch platforms across the domain. The modern history of MDA begins in the United States, with Homeland Security Presidential Directive – 13 (HSPD-13) / National Security Presidential Directive – 41 (NSPD-41) issued in 2004 by President George W. Bush. The document lays out core interests for the United States to enhance security in the maritime domain and creates a cooperative framework to support MDA operations across different spheres. At the same time, the European concept of maritime security awareness was built upon the U.S. definition of the challenge, placed within the context of rising illicit traffic in the Mediterranean. A weakness of the original MDA and Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA) concepts is that many of the associated capabilities and frameworks are focused on civil maritime issues. Given the global proliferation of advanced military capabilities, like antiship cruise missiles, NATO and its partners require a holistic understanding of the maritime environment that focuses on everything from civil maritime actions to high-end military operations and even issues associated with the maritime environment. A key implication of the heightened maritime threat environment is the need to improve the integration of and attention to undersea aspects of MDA. Antisubmarine warfare (ASW), a traditional strength of Western naval intelligence and operations, has atrophied since the end of the Cold War. Today, Russian submarines with conventional long-range missiles pose a threat to NATO. ASW must be integrated with MDA to address these concerns. Comprehensive understanding of the undersea realm should extend beyond ASW. Russia’s amphibious special forces and combat swimmers threaten more than just military targets, including civilian vessels and undersea cables, which are an integral part of MDA. ASW technology can be useful in countering these and other threats. In the Norwegian Sea, the biggest challenge for NATO is detecting advanced ultra-quiet submarines. This issue is sharpened by dramatically depleted stockpiles of sonobuoys, a constant need for increasingly advanced sonobuoy technology, and an American unwillingness to share highly classified information about the undersea domain. NATO would benefit from an apparatus like the ASW Operations Centers (ASWOC), used most prominently during the Cold War to streamline ASW operations. Integration of platforms is a challenge in the Baltic Sea as well, largely because Sweden and Finland are not NATO states, making data sharing challenging. Frameworks like Sea Surveillance Co-Operation Baltic Sea (SUCBAS) and the Maritime Surveillance (MARSUR) project facilitate the work of regional states to address these issues but more must be done. Additionally, NATO monitoring of the Baltic region is largely domain specific and suffers from not examining the maritime domain holistically. The alliance and its partners should also act to focus on resiliency to continue to operate in the face of jamming and nonkinetic attacks from Russia. The key to enhancing MDA capabilities in Northern Europe is the integration of frameworks across the maritime domain. Cooperation between NATO states and allies is vital to understanding the complex environment. The CSIS study team has identified seven recommendations of particular importance: Create a Baltic Sea MDA analytic center at the Baltic Maritime Component Command (BMCC) at Rostock, Germany; Empower a small analytic team at the BMCC to focus on maritime hybrid issues; Develop a training course for military intelligence officers on best practices for Baltic Sea MDA analysis; Create a classified Baltic Sea data environment that can incorporate both NATO and partner states; Develop a multinational operational framework for the Baltic Sea; Integrate subsurface sensors and antisubmarine warfare into a comprehensive MDA framework; and Acquire significant stockpiles of advanced sonobuoys and associated acoustic processing systems. These priority recommendations are presented in detail in Chapter 4 of the report, along with others. Collectively, their implication would markedly enhance security in Northern Europe by closing identified gaps and ensuring capabilities for collection, analysis, and action in MDA.
Topic:: Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Maritime
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Europe, North Atlantic, North America, Western Europe, Baltic Sea, and Norwegian Seas

438. Perspectives on Taiwan Insights from the 2017 Taiwan-U.S. Policy Program

Author:: Bonnie S. Glaser and Matthew Funaiole
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The papers in this compendium were written by the 10 members of the 2017 CSIS Taiwan-U.S. Policy Program (TUPP) delegation. TUPP provides a much-needed opportunity for future leaders to gain a better understanding of Taiwan through first-hand exposure to its politics, culture, and history. Each participant was asked to reflect on his or her in-country experience and produce a short article analyzing a policy issue related to Taiwan. These papers are a testament to the powerful impact that follows first-hand exposure to Taiwan.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:: United States, China, Taiwan, Asia, and Asia-Pacific

439. The Other Side of the North Korean Threat: Looking Beyond Its Nuclear Weapons and ICBMs

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The United States, South Korea, Japan—and every other state affected by the stability and security of Northeast Asia—has a strong incentive to find a way to end North Korea's nuclear threat and its development and deployment of ICBMs. At the same time, no one can afford to forget that North Korea poses a much wider range of threats from its conventional forces and shorter-range missiles—particularly as it develops ballistic and cruise missiles with precision strike capabilities. U.S. diplomacy and strategy cannot afford to focus solely on nuclear weapons, particularly when North Korea has the option of developing biological weapons with the same lethality as nuclear weapons. The U.S. cannot afford to ignore the conventional threat that North Korea poses to South Korea—a threat that could inflict massive casualties on South Korean civilians as well as create a level of conventional war that could devastate the South Korean economy.
Topic:: Security, Nuclear Weapons, Political stability, and Biological Weapons
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Asia-Pacific

440. Venezuela’s Crisis Is Now a Regional Humanitarian Disaster

Author:: Moises Rendon and Mark L Schneider
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Issue Venezuela has been subjected to an unprecedented man-made humanitarian crisis, including extreme food and medicine shortages, thousands of children dying of malnutrition, and malnourished people contracting formerly eradicated diseases. While Venezuela’s dictatorial regime has repeatedly rejected humanitarian aid from the outside, the country’s humanitarian, economic, social, and institutional collapse, along with fierce political repression, have caused 1.2 million Venezuelans to flee the country over the past two years, with hundreds of thousands more and possibly millions expected to flee in the future. Our Recommendations Encourage the United States and other like-minded countries to provide leadership on the diplomatic and assistance fronts to help respond to this crisis. Work to build consensus within the international community on the urgency of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis and to agree on steps to address the crisis, including convening a high-level task force. Develop a comprehensive policy response that includes immediate relief efforts on Venezuela’s border with Colombia and within Venezuela using innovative mechanisms due to the current limited humanitarian access. Provide immediate technical assistance to help estimate the level of need and identify available resources. Support and engage civil society and local actors, including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and entrepreneurs, as well as the Venezuelan diaspora community, to help limit the suffering of the Venezuelan people. Encourage host countries to grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans and create a broader burden-sharing arrangement in the region for processing those seeking refuge, following the recent guidelines by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Support the use of innovative technology tools, such as blockchain and digital currencies, to facilitate distribution of aid within and beyond Venezuela.
Topic:: Health, Poverty, United Nations, Food, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:: United States, South America, and Venezuela

441. A Tale of Three Coal Markets Common Challenges and Unique Attributes of U.S., Chinese, and Indian Markets

Author:: Jane Nakano and Sarah Ladislaw
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The United States, China, and India together constitute about 70 percent of global coal consumption and 64 percent of global coal production. Each country is an important contributor to the global coal supply and demand picture and yet each stands at a very different stage in its relationship with coal. The history of coal in the United States is predicated on a long-term decline in its share of the electricity fuel mix, but deep regional socioeconomic ties give the fuel an outsized role in national energy politics. Coal makes up 15 percent of the total U.S. energy mix and 30 percent of the electric power mix while the power sector accounts for about 90 percent of coal use in the United States. Over the years, electricity demand has flattened thanks to strong efficiency gains. Moreover, the abundance of inexpensive natural gas and rapid decline in renewable energy costs have significantly diminished the competitiveness of coal-fired power generation. Unlike in China and India, the U.S. coal fleet is in contraction as a wave of retirements is underway, with little evidence of reversal, indicating that the current downturn appears structural and not cyclical. After a recent period of decline and bankruptcy for the U.S. industry, a political movement to revitalize the coal sector has emerged from the current presidential administration. Notwithstanding the renewed political support, however, the regulatory uncertainty clouds a future pathway for a coal power resurgence. The notion of economic and energy security benefits long associated with the use of coal has effectively disappeared in one of the largest producer and consumer markets for coal in the world. China is far and away the largest coal consumer and has built coal-fired power generation capacity at an unprecedented rate over the past couple of decades. As it enters a new phase of development, China seeks to reduce the role of coal in its economy both to mitigate the environmental impacts of coal production and use but also to harness its domestic power consumption to drive its competitive advantage in things like solar, wind, and nuclear power generation. China has concrete targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ambitious plans, such as a nationwide emissions trading system, that can influence the pace and scope of shift in its power supply mix. Despite these government targets and the ongoing industrial structural reform that can reduce coal’s dominance in the electric power sector, the trajectory for coal use remains significantly subject to the future of state-owned enterprises and economic liberalization. In contrast to the United States and China, India is a fast-growing market for coal where economic development and universal energy access goals often override concerns about environmental pollution and climate change. India also sees enormous opportunity in renewable energy development—for the positive environmental attributes, the potential commercial opportunities, and the ability to lessen reliance on imported sources of energy like oil, gas, and coal. The Indian central and state governments have set up ambitious policies to foster a greater share of renewable energy in the electric power mix. The growth in renewable power-generation capacity shows early indications that renewables as an indigenous resource have the potential to challenge not only coal’s economic advantage but also its energy security value propositions as an indigenous resource, warranting close attention for some potentially valuable lessons for power-sector management in other developing economies where renewables increasingly beat out coal. How India will calibrate its desire to phase out coal imports despite the quantitative and qualitative issues its domestic supply has is another issue with major implications for both global coal markets and the future of its power supply mix, particularly solar and wind. Even as each market navigates a unique set of circumstances surrounding the role of coal-fired power generation, the availability of midstream infrastructure looms large as a universally important determinant of the competitiveness of coal resources, and thus the fuel hierarchy. Railways are the dominant mode for transporting coal in China and the capacity constraints continue to intensify, disadvantaging domestic resources to imports. Midstream is also a major topic in the United States, where a lack of west coast export terminals limits the U.S. ability to take advantage of continued demand growth in Asia. Low utilization rates also reflect the headwinds facing coal-fired power generation in all three countries. For example, U.S. coal-fired power generation experienced a 20 percent decrease in coal fleet utilization rates and a 12 percent decrease in the generation capacity from 2015 to 2016. Also, while China is expected to add another 200 GW of new coal-power capacity by 2020, the utilization rate of 47.5 percent for the thermal power fleet in 2016 indicates a complex nexus between capacity investment and power demand in the country, where the capacity growth does not give a solid indication of electric power output or fuel consumption. The local air pollution and climate implications of coal-fired power generation in each country also depend on the age of their fleet and capital stock turnover. The perceived future direction of coal in each country impacts the willingness of investors to upgrade or build new, more efficient plants. Whereas the ever-weakening coal-power demand in the United States is diminishing investor appetite for new coal plants with higher efficiency, lower emissions (HELE) technology, the capacity expansion in China is enabling the modernization of its fleet that includes more HELE plants. The pace and scope of modernization for India’s coal fleet, which is much younger yet remains low efficiency and high emissions today, will be an important indicator for its future emissions profile. Lastly, various noneconomic forces at play can generate a tension between the needs of a changing electricity market and the political-economic pressures of expanding coal-power capacity. The coal sector enjoys a powerful narrative on its socioeconomic benefits like jobs and tax revenues for coal-mining communities, but enabled by technology advancements, the emerging focus on values like flexibility in the power sector has elevated attributes of many alternative sources of electricity, including renewables and natural gas in the United States. Likewise, the Chinese expansion of coal capacity appears to be misaligned not only with the projected level of power demand growth but also with government efforts to expand alternative sources of electricity, thus raising the risk of stranded or severely underutilized coal plant assets.
Topic:: Energy Policy, Natural Resources, Renewable Energy, and Coal
Political Geography:: United States, China, India, and Asia

442. U.S. Strategy, the JCPOA Iranian Nuclear Arms Agreement, and the Gulf: Playing the Long Game

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Few recent American foreign policy decisions have been as divisive as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear arms control agreement with Iran. Advocates of the agreement have focused far too exclusively on its potential benefits. Opponents equally exclusively on its potential faults. Both sides tend to forget that any feasible arms control agreement between what are hostile sides tends to be a set of compromises that are an extension of arms races and potential conflicts by other means. As a result, imperfect agreements with uncertain results are the rule, not the exception. President Trump has made it clear that he opposes the agreement and would like to terminate it. His dismissal of Rex Tillerson as Security of State, and his replacement by Mike Pompeo – along with his dismissal of General H.R. McMaster and replacement with John Bolton – indicate that President Trump may well seek to terminate the agreement in the near future – action which might or might not have significant bipartisan support. He faces a May 5th to decide whether to again waive economic sanction against Iran, a decision which comes up for renewal every 120 days.
Topic:: Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, Deterrence, and JCPOA
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, Iran, Middle East, and Israel

443. Security Implications of China’s Military Presence in the Indian Ocean

Author:: Zack Cooper
Publication Date:: 04-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The issue: China’s increased military presence in the Indian Ocean should not come as a surprise. China is following in the traditional path of other rising powers; it is expanding its military operations to match its interests abroad. The security implications of China’s push into the Indian Ocean region are mixed. In peacetime, these efforts will certainly expand Chinese regional influence. In wartime, however, China’s Indian Ocean presence will likely create more vulnerabilities than opportunities. China’s military forays into the Indian Ocean have triggered a series of warnings. The term “string of pearls” was first used to refer to Chinese basing access in the Indian Ocean by a 2004 report for the U.S. Department of Defense. That report suggested China’s growing regional presence could “deter the potential disruption of its energy supplies from potential threats, including the U.S. Navy, especially in the case of a conflict with Taiwan.” Other scholars have warned that Beijing seeks to “dominate” the Indian Ocean region. Others suggest that the Chinese government is simply following its expanding trading interests and seeking to secure its supply lines against disruption. Although China’s presence in the Indian Ocean may permit it to increase its regional influence, Chinese facilities and forces would be highly vulnerable in a major conflict. Thus, the security implications of China’s push into the Indian Ocean region are mixed. In peacetime, these efforts will certainly expand Chinese regional influence. In wartime, however, China’s Indian Ocean presence will likely create more vulnerabilities than opportunities.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Imperialism, Military Strategy, and Maritime
Political Geography:: United States, China, India, Taiwan, Asia, and Indian Ocean

444. Pakistan’s Gwadar Port: A New Naval Base in China’s String of Pearls in the Indo-Pacific

Author:: Gurmeet Kanwai
Publication Date:: 04-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Issue The development of Gwadar Port is a key element of the greater China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It speaks to both the strength of the China-Pakistan relationship and the reach of China’s grand strategy. With Pakistan’s two other major ports operating near capacity with no room for expansion, projects in Gwadar promise to eventually handle one million tons of cargo annually, while also providing significant industrial, oil, and transportation infrastructure. Though a “monument of Pakistan-China friendship,” there are misgivings on both sides about CPEC, including the safety of Chinese workers, the resentment of Baloch nationalists, and the growing debt trap created by the project. The prospect of the PLA Navy in Gwadar poses greater security questions, as it forms another link in China’s efforts to expand its maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific region. The members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad,” comprised of India, Japan, Australia, and the United States, should counter China’s strategic outreach by networking with other like-minded countries on cooperative security frameworks to ensure a free, open, prosperous, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.
Topic:: Security, Oil, Regional Cooperation, Global Political Economy, and Trade
Political Geography:: Pakistan, United States, Japan, China, Middle East, India, Asia, and Australia

445. Who’s Afraid of Russian Gas? Bridging the Transatlantic Divide

Author:: Nikos Tsafos
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Issue Russian energy has divided the transatlantic alliance for over 60 years. Tensions normally just simmer, but they flare up when a new project is proposed, especially after a political crisis. In the 1960s, it was the prospect of increased Soviet oil exports following the Cuban missile crisis. In the 1980s, it was more Soviet gas for Western Europe after the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and martial law had been declared in Poland. Today, it is the proposed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its war against Ukraine (among other actions). Disagreements are natural in a broad alliance with diverse interests and perspectives. But it is now almost impossible to discuss Russian gas with any sense of calm (increasingly true for all things related to Russia). Russian initiatives are infused with perceptions and fears that range from the simple and legitimate to the obscure and far-fetched. In reality, arguments about Russian gas are rarely about Russian gas; they are about history, strategy, and geopolitics. Gas is just the spark. The end result is confusion and discord at a time when the transatlantic alliance has enough problems—without needing to add gas to the fire. It is time to separate Russian gas from the broader Russia agenda. Doing so will boost energy security, protect and strengthen the transatlantic alliance, and allow us to focus where the West can resist Russian power more meaningfully. This argument rests on three propositions. First, that energy does not give Russia as much power as we usually assume; second, that an antagonistic strategy is unlikely to be sustained or succeed in bringing about change, whether in energy or geopolitics; and third, that the best response to Russian gas is a set of policies that Europe should pursue anyway and that are unrelated to Russia. In short, we need to radically rethink Russian gas; how much it matters; and what the United States and Europe should do about it.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Energy Policy, Natural Resources, Gas, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Europe, and North America

446. Mapping the U.S.-Canada Energy Relationship

Author:: Andrew J. Stanley
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: he United States and Canada are each other’s largest energy trading partners as measured by the value of energy commodity trade, which in 2017 stood at U.S.$95 billion. The energy relationship between the two countries extends beyond just the trade of commodities, encompassing a variety of common, though not always identical, economic, security, and environmental priorities. In March 2018, the CSIS Energy and National Security Program undertook a project with the Embassy of Canada in the United States to create a physical map depicting the U.S.-Canada energy trade relationship. The following CSIS brief explains the various aspects of the energy trade relationship using this map, as well as highlights some of the important issues in the development of this partnership moving forward.
Topic:: Energy Policy, Environment, Regional Cooperation, and Trade
Political Geography:: United States, Canada, and North America

447. Rebooting U.S.-China Trade Ties: “Enter Ye Through the Narrow Gate”

Author:: Christopher K Johnson
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Nearly two weeks after the U.S. “Trade Avengers” unleashed during their visit to Beijing what one reasonably could call “trade shock and awe” with a very aggressive—if thoroughly researched and well-crafted—set of demands targeting the yawning U.S. trade deficit with China and the core of that country’s throaty industrial policy, China this week is taking its turn with the visit of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo member and Vice Premier Liu He, President Xi Jinping’s economic point man who is almost universally described as a thoughtful, pragmatic, and mild-mannered policy academic. In the interim, voices from a wide swath of official Washington have sounded the alarm about the dangers of Chinese influence operations and the presence of alleged subversives, while President Trump himself seemed to cast aside these growing concerns by suggesting via Twitter that he would ask the Commerce Department to overturn its action against the Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE—long a focus of the U.S. security community for suspected cyber espionage activity and irrefutable violations of U.S. law—in response to protests that reportedly emanated directly from President Xi. With such frenetically sustained action in such a short period of time, the fog of war seems particularly thick at the moment. As such, it seems like a good time to slow down and have a think about how we got here, what actually is going on, and, with a little bit of luck, perhaps think about some ways to craft a viable way forward. Just like milestone birthdays in one’s personal life, important political anniversaries also can incline the mind toward reflection. Next year, of course, marks the fortieth anniversary of the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between the United States and China. As such, much breath and a lot of ink have been devoted to analyzing the course of the bilateral relationship over that nearly half-century. Although certainly not a universal opinion, it seems fair, if perhaps overly reductionist, to suggest that the general conclusion among a substantial number of U.S. officials, policy analysts, and journalists has been that the consistent U.S. policy emphasis on engagement with China during those forty years was, at the end of the day, a sham. In this rendering, naïve groups of senior policymakers in succeeding U.S. administrations and in most of the U.S. China-watching community were hoodwinked by wily CCP leaders who talked the talk of integrating into the so-called U.S.-led rules-based international order, but all the while they had a secret master plan to instead subvert that order and challenge U.S. primacy throughout the globe. In a slightly less menacing (if no less absurd) version of this narrative, China was, indeed, headed generally toward this hoped for integration under the stewardship of deceased paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and his handpicked successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao until Xi Jinping arrived and, through a ruthless consolidation of power, decided instead to change course in what now regularly is referred to in shorthand as Xi’s “authoritarian turn.” But this conclusion seems utterly wrongheaded when examined in the light of hard facts. On the Chinese side of the equation, for example, Deng Xiaoping may have appeared warm and cuddly when donning his cowboy hat during his famous 1979 visit to the United States, but he could be just as ruthless and grasping as any other authoritarian leader. Deng’s exceptionally courageous and dogged pursuit of the policies of reform and opening certainly are worthy of praise, but they cannot, and therefore should not, be separated from the fact that he was content to sit idly by as Chairman Mao’s loyal lieutenant as Mao decimated his political rivals during the Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957-59) and the Great Leap Forward (1958-62). Nor should we forget that Deng used every ounce of his massive personal prestige with the People’s Liberation Army to, with steely determination, rally his many reluctant commanders to execute the brutal Tiananmen crackdown of June 4, 1989. Similarly, Xi Jinping is no Jack-in-the-Box-like figure who has pulled a fast one with a sharp directional turn in the last couple of years made all the more stark after his sweeping consolidation of power at last fall’s 19th Party Congress. In fact, it is this author’s contention, as supported by a large body of written work and public commentary, that everything Xi has done over the last five years was abundantly clear, whether explicitly or in embryonic form—from the moment he was introduced to the world as China’s new top leader in the fall of 2012, as encapsulated in his call for his country to pursue the “China Dream” set on a foundation of “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” This by no means suggests the United States should express support for, or even acquiescence in, Xi’s policies, but only that it should not be reacting with the borderline hysteria that now seems to be gripping Washington.
Topic:: Security, Diplomacy, Global Political Economy, and Trade Wars
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, and North America

448. Developing a Containment Strategy in Syria

Author:: Seth G. Jones
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Issue Some U.S. policymakers have argued that the United States should withdraw its military forces from Syria. But the United States has several interests in Syria: Balancing against Iran, including deterring Iranian forces and militias from pushing close to the Israeli border, disrupting Iranian lines of communication through Syria, preventing substantial military escalation between Israel and Iran, and weakening Shia proxy forces. Balancing against Russia, including deterring further Russian expansion in the Middle East from Syrian territory and raising the costs—including political costs—of Russian operations in Syria. Preventing a terrorist resurgence, including targeting Salafi-jihadist groups like the Islamic State and al Qaeda that threaten the United States and its allies. Our Recommendations: Based on U.S. interests in Syria, Washington should establish a containment strategy that includes the following components: Retain a small military and intelligence footprint that includes working with—and providing limited training, funding, and equipment to—groups in eastern, northern, and southern Syria, such as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Coordinate with regional allies such as Jordan and Israel to balance against Iran and Russia and to prevent the resurgence of Salafi-jihadists. Pressure outside states to end support to Salafi-jihadists, including Turkey and several Gulf states. As the war in Syria moves into its seventh year, U.S. policymakers have struggled to agree on a clear Syria strategy. Some U.S. policymakers have argued that the United States needs to withdraw its military forces from Syria. “I want to get out,” President Trump said of the United States’ military engagement in Syria. “I want to bring our troops back home.”1 Others have urged caution, warning that a precipitous withdrawal could contribute to a resurgence of terrorism or allow U.S. competitors like Iran and Russia—along with their proxies—to fill the vacuum.2 In addition, some administration officials have argued that the Islamic State has been decimated in Syria and Iraq. The National Security Strategy notes that “we crushed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq.”3 But between 5,000 and 12,000 Islamic State fighters remain in Syria and continue to conduct guerrilla attacks, along with between 40,000 and 70,000 Salafi-jihadist fighters in Syria overall.4
Topic:: Civil War, Terrorism, Military Strategy, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Syria

449. Restoring the Eastern Mediterranean as a U.S. Strategic Anchor

Author:: Jon B. Alterman, Heather A Conley, and Donatienne Ray
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: U.S. strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean is long overdue for revision. Policies, priorities, and activities girded by U.S.-led alliance structures were developed to stabilize Europe and deter Soviet aggression at the dawn of the Cold War. Seventy years later, they are no longer fit for purpose. However, the region remains a linchpin for an array of vital U.S. interests. In the last decade alone, regional conflicts and state fragmentation have caused millions of migrants and internally displaced to flee their homes, creating one of the largest migration crises since World War II. The arrival of an unprecedented number of migrants has triggered political backlash and polarized domestic politics in Europe and in the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of the littoral states in the Eastern Mediterranean have faced destabilizing economic crises that have created deep political and strategic vulnerabilities. Significant natural gas deposits discovered off the coasts of Israel, Cyprus, and Egypt could boost regional economic prospects as a potential energy-producing region, but a divided Cyprus, historical animosities, as well as a lack of infrastructure connectivity hinder this regional economic potential.
Topic:: Imperialism, Military Strategy, Infrastructure, Fragile/Failed State, Military Intervention, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, Middle East, Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, and Mediterranean

450. Shield of the Pacific: Japan as a Giant Aegis Destroyer

Author:: Tom Karako
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Several decades ago, former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone once described his country as a “big aircraft carrier” from which to defend against Soviet aircraft.1 Although such an analogy fails to capture the richness and depth of the U.S-Japan alliance, it did say something important about Japan’s unique geographic and strategic position. Today’s air and missile threats in the Asia-Pacific region are different, as is the joint U.S.-Japanese defense posture to meet them. Given a handful of changes underway, however, one might instead say that Japan is shaping up to be a giant Aegis destroyer group of sorts. A vision of much more robust air and missile defense capability in the Asia-Pacific region hinges upon the forthcoming acquisition of Aegis Ashore sites in Japan. Japan’s intent to acquire two such sites was announced in December 2017, a decision supported by 66 percent of the Japanese population, according to one recent poll.2 But the potential significance of Japanese Aegis Ashore deployments has not yet been widely understood. Combined with military forces in other domains, these sites will be the foundation of more robust air and missile defenses against North Korea and form a base upon which to adapt to more sophisticated future threats, including China. Assuming the approval process for the foreign military sales comes along well, this development has broad implications for the United States and America’s allies.3 The road to more layered missile defense goes in part through Aegis Ashore, and the road to innovative Aegis Ashore deployments probably goes through Tokyo. The U.S. Navy’s Aegis Combat System has evolved considerably since the first Aegis ship deployed in 1984. Some 90 Aegis ships are currently operated by the United States, and five other countries have Aegis ships as well: Australia, Norway, South Korea, Spain, and Japan. The word “Aegis” refers to the shield of the ancient god Zeus, and Aegis ships have long provided fleet air defense, strike, and antisubmarine warfare. Over the past decade, 35 American and 4 Japanese Aegis ships have also acquired a ballistic missile defense mission. The most recent configurations are capable of executing the integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) mission, with simultaneous air defense and ballistic missile defense operations.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and Asia-Pacific

451. The Korean Civil-Military Balance

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: President Trump's cancellation of the summit with North Korea is a warning as to just how difficult it is to bring any kind of stability to the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia. It is also a warning that the U.S. cannot focus on the nuclear issue and ICBM, rather than the overall military balance in the Koreas and the impact that any kind of war fighting can have on the civil population of South Korea and the other states in Northeast Asia. The nuclear balance is an all too critical aspect of regional security, but it is only part of the story and military capability do not address the potential impact and cost of any given form of conflict.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Conflict
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

452. Southeast Asia Financial Integration and Infrastructure Investment: What Role for the United States?

Author:: Murray Hiebert
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Issue Southeast Asia has come a long way since the devastating financial turmoil of 1997 and has set up mechanisms to avoid the next shock. But in case a future crisis hits, it would be useful for the U.S. government to say upfront if it would support International Monetary Fund (IMF) support. Some in the Trump administration have said they oppose IMF bailouts. The newest opportunity—and challenge—to Southeast Asia’s financial system is the bursting onto the scene of fintech firms. These companies are meeting the urgent needs of underserved populations. Yet their activities outstrip the ability of traditional regulators to govern their activities and protect consumers. China’s Belt and Road Initiative could play a mighty role in meeting infrastructure needs in Southeast Asia if it is done right. But so far Beijing has said little about what it envisions the impact of its projects to be. “Will that spending help people who need it most?” asks Jonathan Hillman of CSIS’ Reconnecting Asia Project. “Will it go into viable projects…? Will it help or hurt climate change?” “[I]n countries where public debt is already high, careful management of financing terms [for infrastructure projects] is critical,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said during a conference in Beijing. “This will protect both China and partner governments from entering into agreements that will cause financial difficulties in the future.”
Topic:: Infrastructure, Global Political Economy, Integration, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, and Southeast Asia

453. Australia and the United States An Alliance for the Twenty-first Century

Author:: Amy Searight and Michael J. Green
Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: On August 21–22, 2017, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) organized a conference in Sydney, Australia—Australia and the United States: An Alliance for the 21st Century—in cooperation with the United States Studies Centre (USSC) at the University of Sydney and the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia. The conference was generously supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of State. This conference gathered together key thinkers from both countries at an important time for the Australia-U.S. alliance. The scope of cooperation between Australia and the United States has never been greater—extending well beyond traditional defense, intelligence, and diplomatic engagement—and the alliance enjoys healthy support among policymakers and the wider public in both countries. Bilateral economic, social, and cultural ties are broad and deep. The two countries are working closely together to defeat the threat posed by ISIL and other terrorist networks in the Middle East and globally, and to ensure the Asia-Pacific region remains stable and prosperous. Yet the Australia-U.S. alliance faces growing external and internal challenges. The United States, Australia, and other allies confront rising threats in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, and globally from terrorism, financial instability, pandemic diseases, and other transnational challenges. Revisionist powers are seeking to reshape regional security dynamics and carve out spheres of influence, jeopardizing the liberal rules-based order that has supported American and Australian security and prosperity for more than half a century. The risks of miscalculation and conflict are growing, as is the prospect of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, allied resources available to meet these problems are constrained by slow economic growth across the developed world and the cost of supporting aging populations. Now, economic dislocation and stagnant wages are generating a wave of populist and protectionist sentiment in many parts of the world that risks undermining governance and a return to zero-sum, mercantilist economic policies—while U.S. political divisions and some policy choices are exacerbating allies’ concerns about the future of American global leadership. Many of these issues are playing out in the contemporary Australian debate, with a range of senior political figures and commentators calling for Australia to distance itself from the United States and recent opinion polls suggesting doubts about U.S. staying power as well as growing affinity for China. This is broadly consistent with polling from the region that suggests that China’s growing economic clout and military capabilities are driving expectations that China will supplant the United States as the predominant power in the Asia Pacific. These trends raise new questions about the future of the alliance in domestic, bilateral, and international contexts that we must address. They also highlight: the increasingly complex challenges facing U.S. and Australian alliance managers; the importance of not taking the alliance for granted; a requirement for fresh ideas about the alliance; and the need to engage a broader range of stakeholders, including a new generation of strategic thinkers in Australia and the United States. The Sydney conference brought together a group of about 40 participants—including 10 young next-generation leaders from Australia—for a two-day discussion on the opportunities and challenges facing the Australia-U.S. alliance across geopolitical, security, and economic issues. It focused on identifying key takeaways and formulating practical recommendations to improve the Australia-U.S. alliance’s capacity to adapt to changing dynamics, both globally and in the Indo-Pacific region, and to ensure support for the alliance well into the twenty-first century. Participation was by invitation and the discussions were off the record.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Regional Cooperation, Counter-terrorism, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:: United States, Australia, and Asia-Pacific

454. The Uncertain Iraqi Election: The Need for a New U.S. Strategy

Author:: Anthony H Cordesman
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Iraqi election in May 2018 has both highlighted Iraq's political uncertainties and the security challenges the United States now faces in Iraq and the Middle East. What initially appeared to be a relative honest election gradually emerged to have involved massive potential fraud, and forced a manual recount of the results of a failed electronic voting system. Its results have cast Iraq's ability to form an effective post-ISIS government into serious doubt, along with its ability to carry our follow-up provincial and local elections in October. At the same time, even the initial results of the election raised serious concerns over the level of future U.S. confrontation with Iran. The United States faced grave uncertainties regarding Iran's influence in Iraq even when it seemed that Iraq's existing Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, was likely to win the election. The election's uncertain results, and U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA nuclear agreement, now virtually ensure that a far more intense struggle for influence will take place in Iraq and the rest of the region.
Topic:: Elections, Democracy, ISIS, Election watch, and JCPOA
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Iran, and Middle East

455. The Escalating Conflict with Hezbollah in Syria

Author:: Seth G. Jones
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Issue: Hezbollah and Iran have accumulated a substantial amount of weapons and fighters in Syria that pose a threat to the United States and its allies in the region. In response, Israel has conducted a growing number of strikes against Iranian, Hezbollah and other targets in Syria. An escalating war has the potential to cause significant economic damage, lead to high numbers of civilian casualties and internally displaced persons, and involve more countries in the region than did the 2006 Lebanon War. The stakes are high, making it critical for Washington to help prevent such an escalation.
Topic:: Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Syrian War, and Hezbollah
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, Middle East, Israel, and Syria

456. Successfully Countering Russian Electoral Interference

Author:: Heather A Conley
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: On Friday, May 5, 2017—just two days before the second and final round of the French presidential elections—gigabytes of data hacked from Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign team were released online. Months earlier an orchestrated disinformation campaign against the Macron presidential campaign had already begun. The so-called Macron Leaks—a combination of real emails and forgeries—could have been yet another example of a long list of attempts by Russia to interfere in a high-stakes transatlantic election. But the 2017 French presidential election may be the exception that proves the rule: it is the most clearly failed attempt. The Kremlin neither succeeded in interfering with the presidential election nor in dividing French society. As the United States prepares to hold nationwide elections on November 6, 2018, the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, has already warned in February of this year that “We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States.” Calling Russian influence “pervasive,” Director Coats further noted that “The Russians have a strategy that goes well beyond what is happening in the United States,” he said. “While they have historically tried to do these types of things, clearly in 2016 they upped their game. They took advantage, a sophisticated advantage of social media. They are doing that not only in the United States but . . . throughout Europe and perhaps elsewhere.” Because the United States is not well prepared for future elections, it is necessary to study the past. This is why the 2017 French presidential election is a particularly important election to study and why we highlight French scholar Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer’s groundbreaking report on the Macron Leaks.1 Drawing in part upon the work of CSIS visiting fellow Boris Toucas,2 Vilmer’s forthcoming report will examine what happened during the French presidential election; who orchestrated the affair; how it was successfully countered; and what lessons can be learned. This Brief, which is part of the forthcoming CSIS comprehensive report, sums up the main lessons learned. Myriad structural factors, luck, as well as effective anticipation and reaction by the Macron campaign staff, government and civil society, and especially the mainstream media, combined to successfully resist Russian malign influence.
Topic:: Intelligence, National Security, Elections, and Interference
Political Geography:: Russia, United States, Europe, and France

457. Intellectual Property and the International Trade Commission An Examination of the Role of the ITC in Protecting IP Rights

Author:: William Alan Reinsch and Jonathan Robinson
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 has been a powerful tool for protecting U.S. intellectual property (IP) rights and the U.S. market from unfair competition for nearly 100 years. The statute empowers the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban imports of goods that inappropriately use U.S. intellectual property. Since it was last amended in 1988, however, new issues have emerged with the law and the Commission’s role in enforcing its provisions. As the economy modernizes and intellectual property enters the digital realm, we examine the ITC and its role in enforcing IP rights and suggest possible ways the ITC can modernize its operations to better confront the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Topic:: Intellectual Property/Copyright, Digital Economy, Trade, and Modernization
Political Geography:: United States and North America

458. The U.S., NATO, and the Defense of Europe: Underlying Trends

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 07-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The Trump Administration has adopted an "America First" strategy, and taken aggressive stands on NATO burden sharing, trade, the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran, and the treatment of refugees that have led many in Europe to question its support for NATO and the Transatlantic Alliance. At least some European security experts talk about the U.S. as it was backing away from the NATO alliance, and a split between the United States and Europe that will force Europe to create its own approach to creating military and other security forces. Many aspects of the Trump Administration's approach to foreign policy are as controversial in the U.S. as in Europe, and President Trump has proved to be an exceptionally volatile and combative leader who can express himself in extreme terms and suddenly change his positions. However, it but it is important to note the underlying realities that shape the new U.S. strategy, the U.S. military role in the NATO alliance, and Europe's own divisions and failures to create effective forces. The current tensions between the U.S. and given European powers should not lead Europeans - or Americans and Russians for that matter – to ignore the fact that the U.S. remains fully committed to a strong Transatlantic alliance, that its forces and capabilities are critical to European security, and the Trump Administration's FY2019 budget to Congress will greatly increase the contribution that U.S. forces make to NATO and Transatlantic Security.
Topic:: Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, North Atlantic, North America, and Western Europe

459. Enhancing the U.S.-Indonesia Strategic Partnership

Author:: Brian Harding and Andreyka Natalegawa
Publication Date:: 07-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The United States and Indonesia are natural partners. Despite our geographic distance, we have striking similarities. We are large, diverse, and democratic societies. We both seek an international order in the Indo-Pacific region based on rules that enable all countries to have a voice. Our shores each span two oceans, imbuing our countries with a deep maritime heritage and culture that shapes how we approach the world. When each plays its natural role as a leader in regional affairs, both parties benefit. In recognition of the great mutual benefit that a close U.S.-Indonesia partnership could bring, Presidents Barack Obama and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched a comprehensive partnership in 2010 to build closer government-government, economic, and people-people ties between our two countries. Critically, the agreement created a framework for collaboration across a multitude of government departments and ministries under a joint commission co-chaired by the U.S. secretary of state and the Indonesian minister of foreign affairs. In 2016, under President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), the comprehensive partnership was elevated into a strategic partnership, further signaling the relationship’s importance to both countries. Yet despite having many common interests and recent high-level efforts to push the relationship forward, U.S.-Indonesia relations are not meeting their potential. Bilateral economic interaction is limited compared to the size of our economies. Official interaction is often bureaucratic and rarely strategic. And people-people relations, including of education exchanges, are minuscule considering that Indonesia and the United States are the third- and fourth-most-populated countries in the world. President Donald Trump’s political ascent has also created additional headwinds for U.S.-Indonesia relations. Candidate-Trump’s statements regarding the Muslim world caused unease in Indonesia and his policies as president toward Israel and Palestine have damaged Indonesian views of the United States. In Asia, the Trump administration’s framing of great-power competition with China and the administration’s nontraditional economic statecraft have created uncertainty in Jakarta. From Washington’s perspective, the Jokowi administration’s relative disinterest in playing a leading role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and in the broader Indo-Pacific region has dampened enthusiasm in some quarters for investing in the relationship. Recognizing the importance of both the U.S.-Indonesia relationship and its continued underperformance, on May 3, 2018, the CSIS Southeast Asia Program convened a first annual bilateral, track 1.5 strategic dialogue in Washington, D.C., to inject new momentum into the relationship and to begin building deeper connectivity between policy experts in the two countries. This report outlines conclusions and recommendations that surfaced during the dialogue. However, the report reflects the opinions of the authors, and does not necessarily reflect those of the dialogue participants.
Topic:: International Cooperation, Culture, Maritime, and Economic Cooperation
Political Geography:: United States, Indonesia, North America, and Indo-Pacific

460. Back from the Brink: A Threatened Nuclear Energy Industry Compromises National Security

Author:: Michael Wallace, Amy Roma, and Sachin Desai
Publication Date:: 07-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The U.S. commercial nuclear energy industry helps the U.S. government meet several key national security objectives. But the industry is struggling to survive. We are not the first to say this and we will not be the last. We are also not the first to call for U.S. government support for this struggling industry—but this call to action is different. We are urging U.S. government action—not with the focus of protecting the commercial sector, but with a focus to protect U.S. government interests impacted by the decline in the commercial nuclear energy sector. This is a key distinction and warrants attention at the highest level of government. This paper is not intended for those in the nuclear energy industry. They know the issues. It is intended for the U.S. government and the U.S. public—to explain the reasons why U.S. government action is critical at this moment, and to explain how we can move forward in a manner that best protects our country’s national security. But what are these national security objectives and how are U.S. government and national security interests undermined by a decline in the commercial nuclear energy sector? In this paper we explain the critical importance of the U.S. commercial nuclear energy industry in support of U.S. defense, research, economics, geopolitics, and international nonproliferation. We walk through how the U.S. commercial nuclear energy industry arose out of and with the support of the U.S. government—and how President Eisenhower’s reasons for bringing nuclear energy to the world in the 1950s are the very same reasons that the United States needs to continue to do so today. We unravel the web of interconnections between the commercial nuclear energy industry and achieving U.S. government and national security goals. And we explain the impact that a declining commercial nuclear energy sector has on achieving those crucial goals. Moreover, we set forth a recommended path forward to come “back from the brink” and preserve critical commercial nuclear energy sector assets—including technology, knowhow, people, and influence—before they are lost forever, and U.S. national security is damaged as a result. This industry must survive—and it can if the U.S. government and private industry work together, recognizing the government and civilian integrated nuclear infrastructure moving forward. Notably, the response must be U.S. government led to take the approach that is best for the country, rather than any particular company or technology. We recommend five core U.S.-government-led actions to move forward that focus.
Topic:: Security, Energy Policy, National Security, and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:: United States and North America

461. Iran Sanctions at the Halfway Point

Author:: Sarah Ladislaw and Frank A. Verrastro
Publication Date:: 08-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: On May 8, President Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement endorsed by Iran, the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Concurrent with that action, Section 1245 of the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2012 (NDAA) was reactivated, along with other U.S. sanctions under the Iran Freedom and Counter-proliferation Act (IFCA), the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), and the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 (ITRSHRA). Departments and agencies are implementing these sanctions with 90-day and 180-day wind down periods, after which time the applicable sanctions come back into full effect.1 Since May, administration officials from several agencies have been travelling around the world to explain the rationale for the decision to pull out of the JCPOA and persuade countries to comply with the sanctions program. Earlier this week (following the end of the first 90-day wind down period), the administration announced that on August 7 sanctions would be reimposed on: Iran’s automotive sector; Activities related to the issuance of sovereign debt; Transactions related to the Iranian rial; Iran’s trade in gold and other precious metals; Graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used in industrial processes; The acquisition of U.S. bank notes by the government of Iran.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Sanctions, and JCPOA
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, Middle East, and Israel

462. Terrorism: U.S. Strategy and the Trends in Its “Wars” on Terrorism

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 08-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The United States has now been at war in Afghanistan for some seventeen years and been fighting another major war in Iraq for fifteen years. It has been active in Somalia far longer and has spread its operations to deal with terrorist or extremist threats in a wide range of conflicts in North and Sub-Saharan in Africa, South Asia, and South East Asia. In case after case, the U.S. has moved far beyond counterterrorism to counterinsurgency, and from the temporary deployment of small anti-terrorism forces to a near "permanent" military presence. The line between counterterrorism and counterinsurgency has become so blurred that there is no significant difference. The national academic consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has just issued new trend data on terrorism that are updated through the end of 2017. When they are combined with other major sources of data on terrorism, they provide the ability to trace the history of U.S. "wars" against terrorism in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. They show the results of America's "long wars" of attrition where it is increasingly unclear that the United States has a strategy to terminate them, or has the capability to end them in ways that create a stable and peaceful state that can survive if the United State should leave. The resulting graphics and maps are provided in the full text of the report on which this summary is based, and which is available on the CSIS website here. This summary both summarizes how the trends in such data reveal the patterns in terrorism and impact on U.S. strategy. The key conclusions, and an index to these graphics, are provided in this summary.
Topic:: Imperialism, National Security, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, and War on Terror
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Africa, United States, South Asia, Asia, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa

463. Don’t Give Up Yet: There’s Still a Chance to Salvage Eastern Syria

Author:: Melissa Dalton
Publication Date:: 08-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton assemble their own senior Middle East teams, a number of U.S. interests hang in the balance in Syria: the enduring defeat of ISIS and al-Qaeda in the Levant; the vulnerability of neighboring Iraq to extremist disruption; the return of Syrian refugees; the mitigation of Iranian influence; the need to both compete and cooperate with Russia to end the civil war; and the security of regional partners and allies. U.S. values are also at stake: the conflict has precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions, with over 500,000 civilians dead and 12 million displaced. The U.S. ability to shape high-level outcomes in Syria is limited. Russia and Iran have outmaneuvered the United States there. With their backing, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is extending his control throughout Syrian territory—most recently via an offensive on southwestern Syria, previously the site of a “de-escalation zone” agreed between the United States, Russia, and Jordan, precipitating immense civilian displacement. Assad’s consolidation of extremists in Idlib amongst civilians raises the specter of another slaughter like Aleppo in 2016. The UN-backed Geneva process is moribund, though still worth supporting, while the United States has limited influence in the Astana and Sochi processes, which are also demonstrating limited returns. More broadly, Assad is already also brutally shaping the facts on the ground regarding “reconstruction” through forcible movement of populations, demographic engineering, constricting property rights, and predatory governance that favors loyalists. In his meeting with President Putin, President Trump reportedly discussed Syria, although there was no official joint summary of the summit. The discussion may have included options for drawing down U.S. forces in Syria in exchange for Russia convincing Iran to minimize its presence in Syria. However, Russia lacks the will and leverage over Iran to fulfill such a bargain. The national picture is bleak. Zooming into the Syrian map more closely, one subnational enclave currently outside of Assad’s control has taken some steps towards stability. Eastern Syria still offers leverage to salvage a marginally but meaningfully better outcome for U.S. interests and the Syrian population. In the weeks ahead, the United States should: take stock of the sources of leverage in eastern Syria; articulate its goal for translating these sources of leverage into a defined political endstate; develop this stated goal into a broader stabilization operational framework; and then execute “the art of deal” in developing a burden-sharing plan to support these objectives.
Topic:: Civil War, Fragile/Failed State, Al Qaeda, Refugees, ISIS, and Displacement
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

464. The Evolution of U.S. Defense Posture in North and West Africa

Author:: Alice Hunt Friend
Publication Date:: 08-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: What is the U.S. military presence in North and West Africa, and how did it evolve? The Defense Department is considering adjustments to its North and West Africa posture in response to a fatal ambush on a U.S. special operations forces team in Niger last fall.1 Without some historical context, it is difficult to assess if these adjustments reflect substantial changes in U.S. presence, and how they might affect U.S. Africa policy in the future. This brief provides such context.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Imperialism, Military Strategy, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, North Africa, and West Africa

465. Keep Calm and Carry On: The Terrorist Threat in the United Kingdom

Author:: Seth G. Jones
Publication Date:: 08-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The August 14 attack in London is the latest reminder that terrorism persists in the West more than a decade and a half after September 11, 2001. The United States continues to face a threat from right-wing, left-wing, and Islamic extremists, despite comments from some U.S. policymakers that terrorist groups have been defeated. Perhaps the most significant lesson from the London attack, however, is the resilience of the British public. They kept calm and carried on. The attacker was Salih Khater, a UK citizen from Birmingham who was in his late twenties. He drove a silver Ford Fiesta into a crowd of pedestrians and cyclists in London and then crashed it into a security barrier outside the Houses of Parliament. Eyewitness accounts were chilling. “I heard lots of screams and turned round,” remarked Barry Williams. “The car went on to the wrong side of the road to where cyclists were waiting at lights and ploughed into them.”1 The tactic—a vehicle used as a weapon—is all too familiar. Terrorists in the West have increasingly resorted to simple tactics, such as vehicles and knives, to kill civilians. Compared to previous incidents in the United Kingdom, Salih Khater’s August 14 attack was second-rate. He had been meandering around London for several hours, which suggests that the incident was not carefully planned. His tiny Ford Fiesta was no match for the barriers around the Houses of Parliament that are designed to stop attacks from 18-wheelers. And Khater failed to kill anyone, though he did injure several people. UK security agencies have conditioned their public to be prepared for plots and attacks. The United Kingdom’s recently-published counterterrorism strategy, CONTEST, argues that the country faces a significant, multidimensional threat from terrorists. According to data from the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, there were more failed, foiled, and completed attacks in the United Kingdom than anywhere else in the European Union in 2017.2 There were also more terrorist-related arrests in the UK in 2017 than in any previous year since 2001.3 Between December 2013 and May 2018, British intelligence and law enforcement agencies thwarted 25 plots from extreme Islamic groups.4 Most of these plots were inspired by the Islamic State and its ideology, rather than directed by Islamic State operatives.5 On March 22, 2017, for example, British-born Khalid Masood drove a sports utility vehicle into pedestrians crossing Westminster Bridge in London, killing three people. Masood then took two carving knives out of his vehicle and stabbed police officer Keith Palmer, killing him outside of Parliament. On May 22, 2017, Salman Abedi detonated an improvised explosive device in the foyer of Manchester Arena, killing 22 people; 10 of them were under 20 years old. On June 3, 2017, three men—Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane, and Youssef Zaghba—drove a van into London Bridge, killing two people. They then jumped out of the van and killed six more people using large knives. On September 15, 2017, an 18-year old Iraqi asylum seeker named Ahmed Hassan detonated a bomb using triacetone triperoxide (TATP) on a District line train at Parsons Green Underground station in London. Thirty people were treated for burn and other injuries.6 Right-wing terrorism has also been on the rise in the United Kingdom. On June 19, 2017, Darren Osborne, a 47-year old British man, drove a van into Muslim worshippers near Finsbury Park Mosque, London, killing one person.7 On June 23, 2017, Marek Zakrocki, a known supporter of the far-right party Britain First, drove a vehicle into an Indian restaurant in London, injuring several people. He was armed with a kitchen knife and a baton-torch, and he told police: “I’m going to kill a Muslim. I’m doing this for Britain. This is the way I am going to help the country. You people can’t do anything. I am going to do it my way because that is what I think is right.”8 While there have been relatively few terrorist attacks in the United States recently, the United Kingdom—and Europe more broadly—have faced a more severe threat. The number of jihadist-related terrorist attacks in the European Union peaked in 2017 with 33 failed, foiled, and completed attacks. This number was up from 13 in 2016, 17 in 2015, and 2 in 2014. The geographic distribution of attacks also expanded. European Union countries experiencing jihadist-related terrorism now includes such countries as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
Topic:: National Security, Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, and Europe Union
Political Geography:: United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and England

466. The U.S. Defense Budget in FY2019: Underlying Trends

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:: 08-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The report draws on a wide range of official sources and is designed to provide an overview of official reporting on major trends rather than make an independent analysis. The U.S. provides a vast amount of detail on its annual budget request for military and international affairs spending – much of it in graphic, tabular, and summary form. The material presented here is an attempt to pick the key materials to show where the U.S. is focusing its military spending, how it relates to its strategy, how major force improvements will affect U.S. capabilities, and how the U.S. is dealing with its strategic partners and potential threats. However, the user should be aware that much of the material presented is often uncertain and is not comparable from source to source. There also is no easy or single way to summarize the trends in the U.S. defense budget. The materials that go into just the unclassified portions of the Department of Defense’s annual submission of President’s budget request to Congress, and the subsequent Congressional review of that request, run well over several thousand pages. It is also critical for the reader to understand that only the portion of the report dealing with the National Defense Authorization Act (pages 24-43) represents the final result of Congressional action and the FY2019 budget signed by the President, and not all of the portions of reference action by the key Committees involved were approved in exactly the form shown in the final bill signed by the President. Much of the material is drawn from sources that precede the final Congressional markup because the Department never updates most of the tables and charts in the Department of Defense request until the following year and new budget submission. The material presented also shows that different sources define total defense spending in different ways, and include different expenditures and convert current to constant dollars in different ways. More importantly, most sources report in terms of “Budget Authority” (BA) – the total money the Congress authorizes in a given Fiscal Year that can be spent over a period of years. This is the best estimate of what the Congress is actually approving. However, some sources in terms of “Budget Outlays” (BO) – only the money that can be spent in 12-month period of that U.S. Fiscal Year. (Which begins on 1 October of the year the Congress acts upon, and ends on 30 September of the following year). This is the best way of assessing the impact of spending on how well the budget is balanced, the size of the deficit, and impact on the federal debt. Budget projections for future years present other problems. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provides detailed estimates of how the President’s budget request – and the final budgets the Congress authorizes – will impact over time. Many such estimates precede Congressional action on the budget, and it then takes several months for the CBO to estimate the probable future trends in the total federal budget and impact of the final Congressionally approved levels of U.S. defense spending on that total federal budget and the U.S. GDP. This often creates major lags in official estimates of the trends in every aspect of federal spending, the budget deficit, and the national debt. More broadly, the Department of Defense has effectively abandoned any serious effort to create a program budget, and to provide a realistic estimate of the cost of the Future Year Defense Program beyond the fiscal year directly under review. It essentially rolls forward current activities and plans to make estimates of the next four years that are based on the spending levels in the budget year under review. It bases such estimates largely on input categories such as personnel, O&M, RDT&E, and procurement. The Department of Defense does not report expenditures by major mission or command. The Department defines “strategy” largely in terms of broad concepts and goals. It does not tie its “strategy” to net assessments of the balance in terms of threats and strategic partners, to specific force plans, to specific actions and schedules, to specific costs, or to measures of success and effectiveness. Unclassified reporting in “PPB” – or planning, programming, and budgeting– form has become a functional oxymoron. The Congress does hold strategy hearings and directs studies of key strategic issues, but these efforts rarely address any of the practical details of any aspect of the nature and cost of U.S. strategy. Similarly, the outyear estimates of military spending by the Department of Defense, OMB, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) focus on a “baseline” that assumes the United States does not actually use its military forces in any operational form. The limited estimates provided for future Overseas Contingency Operations are “placeholders” and not actual estimates. This is partly inevitable given the inability to predict the future, but it creates a practical problem in a country whose civil plans call for major future increases in mandatory spending on retirement, medical case, and welfare. This means the official U.S. projections of civil spending rise relative to military spending in ways history indicates will be highly unrealistic.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Budget
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, Middle East, and North America

467. Structural Dissonance: The U.S.-PRC Defense Relationship, 1979-1989

Author:: Eric B. Setzekorn
Publication Date:: 10-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: In the decade between U.S. diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 and the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) pursued a military engagement policy with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The 1979-1989 U.S.-PRC defense relationship was driven by a mutually shared fear of the USSR, but U.S. policymakers also sought to encourage the PRC to become a more deeply involved in the world community as a responsible power. Beginning in the late 1970s, the U.S. defense department conducted high level exchanges, allowed for the transfer of defense technology, promoted military to military cooperation and brokered foreign military sales (FMS). On the U.S. side, this program was strongly supported by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who worked to push skeptical elements in the U.S. defense bureaucracy. By the mid-1980s, this hesitancy had been overcome and the defense relationship reached a high point in the 1984-1986 period, but structural problems arising from the division of authority within the PRC’s party-state-military structure ultimately proved insurmountable to long-term cooperation. The 1979-1989 U.S.-PRC defense relationship highlights the long-term challenges of pursuing military engagement with fundamentally dissimilar structures of political authority.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Cold War, Diplomacy, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:: United States, China, Europe, Asia, Soviet Union, and North America

468. Resourcing Green Technologies through Smart Mineral Enterprise Development

Author:: Salem Ali, Perrine Toledano, Nicolas Maennling, Nathaniel Hoffman, and Lola Aganga
Publication Date:: 02-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:: Much has been written in recent years about the urgency to develop new technologies that meet ambitious targets for more efficient energy infrastructure with reduced reliance on fossil fuels. There has also been growing recognition that mineral scarcity can hamper the speed of key technologies being developed. The dominance of China as a global supplier of many technology minerals and the Chinese government’s ability to constrain supply has led to a focus on the international trade dimensions of the challenge. The United States, Japan, the European Union and South Korea have all been keenly focused on securing mineral supply for their domestic industries through a range of initiatives. These efforts have included the World Trade Organization dispute resolution mechanism; research investment in alternative and more widely available materials where possible; and considering strategic stockpiles of minerals from internal sources that harken back to Cold War era strategies for material security. In this report, we argue that a neglected area in addressing the mineral scarcity challenge is the private sector’s current trajectory for geological mineral exploration of key minerals and innovative initiatives on material efficiency and recycling where possible. We term this approach Smart Mineral Enterprise Development (SMED) which entails a partnership between public and private entities to consider pathways whereby public sector data sharing on geology can be coupled with research innovations in the private sector both upstream and downstream of mineral supply. Just as smart energy grids harness efficiencies in electricity supply and demand through a dynamic process of communication, SMED processes can do the same for key technological bottlenecks in mineral supply. We focus on cobalt to highlight the bottlenecks; identify alternative supply sources based on current exploration and recycling technologies; propose ways in which the international legal framework could be adapted to promote investments in critical minerals; and consider ways by which the public sector can assist the private sector in developing a SMED process that would bring forth more efficient and effective entrepreneurial activity to meet our green technology needs.
Topic:: Climate Change, Energy Policy, Science and Technology, Natural Resources, European Union, Green Technology, and Electricity
Political Geography:: United States, China, Europe, Asia, and South Korea

469. Representing American Values and Interests in China

Author:: Terry Branstad
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: When I welcome visitors to the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence in Beijing, they often comment on a black-and-white photo of my first meeting with Xi Jinping. In the picture, the members of the 1985 Chinese agriculture delegation to Iowa stand calmly behind my desk, peering into the camera, as Xi Jinping stands unobtrusively to my right. Some visitors ask, “Ambassador Branstad, did you know this young man would become President of China?” Indeed, I did not—I treated him with the same Iowa hospitality with which I welcome all my guests. His importance as a rising leader of China, though, became increasingly apparent over the course of six gubernatorial visits I made to China during the subsequent 30 years. The same is true of U.S.-China relations. Today, I have the honor of representing the United States in the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world, one that we absolutely have to get right. During President Donald Trump’s November 2017 state visit to China, the President identified three priority tasks for the two nations’ relationship. First, work with the Chinese government to address the North Korean nuclear and missile threat. Second, seek a more balanced and reciprocal trade and investment relationship. And third, partner with Chinese authorities to reduce the flow of illicit opioids from China to the United States. Each task presents its own unique challenges and opportunities.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Nuclear Power, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, and North Korea

470. Redefining Success for the Trump-Kim Summit

Author:: Richard N. Holwill
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: A meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un (KJU), the Supreme Leader of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), can be a success even if it fails to achieve President Trump’s announced goal: an end to the DPRK nuclear weapons program. This meeting starts by giving KJU one of his long-sought goals. It will, in effect, be more than a meeting. It will be a “summit” and will confer on KJU the status of the leader of a legitimate government. President Trump would be wise to redefine success. He should not fall into the trap of saying that success will be defined by a “denuclearization agreement.” While that should be a long-term goal, it will not happen at this meeting. Still, the summit will be successful if it produces a process that can lead to a substantial reduction of tension on the Korean Peninsula. This is not to say that an agreement on denuclearization is off the table. Rather, it is to recognize that these talks could present a framework for negotiation that would be very valuable, even if they will fall short of a nuclear disarmament accord. To understand the difficulty of reaching a nuclear arms agreement, we need only look at the way the two leaders speak about denuclearization. Each appears to define it differently. President Trump applies the term to nuclear weapons in the DPRK. KJU speaks of it as applying to the entire Korean Peninsula. He will argue that, if he must allow a meaningful verification regime, so must U.S. forces in South Korea.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, Deterrence, and Denuclearization
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, Asia, South Korea, and North Korea

471. Diplomacy in Defense of Democracy

Author:: Madeleine Albright
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: I would like to share some reflections on the challenges facing democracy and democratization. But I would like to begin on a personal note. I received my master’s degree some 50 years ago this spring. Like today, it was an era of great turbulence. Our best and brightest civilian leaders had involved America in a distant war. Our soldiers were in an impossible position, bogged down inside an alien culture, unable to distinguish friend from foe. Here at home, America was divided along geographic, racial and cultural lines. Overseas, critics called our policies arrogant, imperialistic and doomed to fail.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Civil Society, Democracy, and Social Media
Political Geography:: United States and North America

472. An Opportunity for President Trump to Lead

Author:: William C. Eacho
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: Every day, in countries around the planet, government employees are working on plans that will reduce greenhouse emissions, as each nation promised to do at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. Here in Washington? No one has such an assignment. Global leadership used to be an American staple. In fact, we were in the vanguard a couple of years ago when 195 nations assembled in Paris to finalize the climate change accord. In a 180-degree reversal, President Donald Trump opted to withdraw from this pact. But since the rules do not allow that withdrawal to become official until November 4, 2020, there is time for our government to regain its leadership role as the world struggles to meet this fundamental challenge. And the President can do so in a way that strengthens the global competitiveness of the U.S. economy. How? Ask almost any economist what is the quickest, most efficient and least expensive way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and he or she will say, “a carbon tax.” Carbon has benefited from a subsidy from day one. Yes, fossil fuels have played a critical role in U.S. prosperity, but they also have driven up the rates and severity of lung cancer, asthma, heart disease and other ailments. In addition, they are the leading cause of climate change, which scientists have concluded is running up the frequency and intensity of wildfires, superstorms and other natural disasters. Yet the price we pay for carbon does not cover any of these costs; all of us pick up that tab. If the price of carbon incorporated such costs, then clean energy sources such as the wind, the sun and nuclear energy could compete on a level playing field. It is true that tax incentives have helped renewable sources develop, and loan guarantees have helped nuclear energy, but each has had less help than fossil fuels have received in direct and indirect subsidies. And yet despite the unlevel playing field, renewables have been a tremendous source of job growth in recent years. Solar now employs over 260,000 in the United States, enjoying a double-digit rate of growth in recent years, and wind energy employs over 100,000. Wind already provides 30 percent of Kansas’ electricity. Though Governor Sam Brownback is a longtime member of the GOP’s right flank, he is a true believer in renewables. Wind energy has drawn $7 billion in capital investment to the state and supports, directly or indirectly, 5,000 to 6,000 jobs.
Topic:: Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, Natural Resources, and Green Technology
Political Geography:: United States and North America

473. U.S.-Nepal Relations: Leveraging Operational Efficiencies to Achieve Our Objectives

Author:: Alaina B Teplitz
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Abstract:: Nepal, that mythical Shangri-La nestled in the Himalayas, has long captured the hearts and imaginations of Americans. In the 70 years since the United States established formal relations with the erstwhile hermit kingdom, Nepal has seen dramatic socio-economic progress—often stemming from its partnership with the United States. But in many ways, it still remains under-developed, fragile and vulnerable. As the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu celebrated the 70th anniversary of our partnership in 2017, we pursued a dozen month-long campaigns around today’s policy objectives to highlight our historical collaboration and leverage this retrospective to draw attention to the need for further progress. Combining diplomatic engagements and public events targeted at thought leaders and policy leaders, our campaigns moved forward our shared U.S.-Nepali priorities. As the U.S. government revisits its approach to the Indo-Pacific region and new Nepali leaders form what promises to be the country’s first multi-year government in decades, we now face a unique opportunity to advance our mutual objectives of a stable, prosperous Nepal that is a robust partner of the United States. Coming at the same time as potential adjustments to foreign affairs budgets and staffing, Embassy Kathmandu is reorganizing how we do business to improve our effectiveness, find efficiencies and enhance our focus on an agenda that delivers results. Rather than organize ourselves by the agency that pays our salary, we have structured our unified U.S. government team according to what each unit is doing. Our interagency Integrated Country Strategy (ICS) Teams—co-chaired by section chiefs from separate agencies and physically co-located within the chancery—have designed common strategies for how the U.S. Embassy intends to pursue major objectives and coordinate approaches, as well as explicitly identifying those nice-to-pursue efforts that limited staffing or resources require relegating to the back burner. Through action plans, each ICS Team identifies strategic, impactful and tangible targets to achieve each year—institutionalizing best practices from our 70th anniversary campaigns to sustain meaningful progress toward our goals. As the stakes and challenges facing U.S. diplomacy continue to grow, Embassy Kathmandu is using the strategic opportunity that current U.S.-Nepal relations offer to develop a proof of concept for how a 21st century embassy can organize our people and operations to maximum effect.
Topic:: Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, and Nepal

474. Twenty Years of Morocco’s Development

Author:: Edward M. Gabriel
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: Twenty years ago, I arrived in Morocco as the new U.S. Ambassador. It was the beginning of a close-up view of the changes going on in Morocco for the next two decades. During my first meeting with King Hassan II, shortly after my arrival, he wasted no time in addressing Morocco’s agenda with the United States, challenging me on our nation’s positions, especially in regard to his Kingdom’s existential issue regarding sovereignty over the Sahara. This unexpected candid and warm exchange set the tone for regular meetings throughout my tenure during which concerns and grievances were voiced in private, rather than aired publicly. King Mohammed VI would continue this practice with me after his father’s death. My first few months in the country also coincided with the beginning of the first government of Alternance, led by opposition leader Abderrahmane El Youssoufi—a watershed moment for Morocco that many political analysts mark as the beginning of significant democratic reform and economic liberalization in Morocco after years of a strong-armed approach to governing and limited civil rights. Abderrahmane El Youssoufi, whose political activities had previously resulted in two years in jail and then 15 years of exile, became Prime Minister after his party, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), won the most seats in the November 1997 elections. Since then, the international community has confirmed Moroccan elections as occurring in a fair and transparent manner. In 1998, the unemployment rate in the country was 17 percent and growing, with youths making up a disproportionate percentage of the population. Women lacked equal rights with men. The percentage of the population living at or below the poverty line for lower middle-income countries was around 28 percent, and more than half of the entire adult population was illiterate, with rates among rural women much higher. Electricity in the country reached only around 60 percent of the population, and almost a quarter did not have access to potable water. Infant mortality rates were 23 percent higher than the regional average, and maternal mortality ratios were nearly double the regional average. Overall, the micro-economic picture was in dire shape. The economy was too dependent on agriculture, accounting for 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and heavily reliant on rainfall. Infrastructure was lacking throughout the country, and environmental degradation was widely apparent throughout the cities and the countryside, presenting a challenge to the growth of tourism. Of particular note, the northern part of Morocco was completely neglected after a series of militant actions created an irreparable rift between King Hassan and his citizens there. In contrast to the micro-economic indicators, by 1998 King Hassan had established a strong macro-economic climate: a low ratio of debt to GDP, a low budget deficit and an open, competitive economic system. He adopted International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank reforms that, had Morocco been a member of the European Union, would have qualified it for inclusion in the Monetary Union. Upon his death in 1999, King Hassan left the country unified, with a very strong nationalistic belief in country and King, a reasonably performing economy and, most important, with a solid commitment in its support for U.S. objectives regarding counterterrorism and economic openness, and in promoting peace in the Middle East. Twenty years later, where is Morocco today? Where is it headed tomorrow?
Topic:: Agriculture, Development, Diplomacy, Education, Democracy, Decentralization, and IMF
Political Geography:: Africa, United States, North Africa, and Morocco

475. Grooming Tomorrow’s National Security Leaders: State’s Partnership with the National Defense University

Author:: Michael A. Hammer
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: The Ambassadors Review
Institution:: Council of American Ambassadors
Abstract:: America’s ability to lead in the world depends on a strong economy at home, unparalleled military might and a skilled diplomatic corps. And for the United States to remain the preeminent global power, it is essential that we educate and prepare the next generation of national security leaders: —leaders who are strategic in every sense: creative, innovative, technologically savvy, flexible, inclusive, ethical and resilient; —leaders who commit to life-long learning to stay current and who venture to look beyond the horizon; —leaders who are voracious consumers of information and effective communicators; —humble leaders who always seek to do better than the status quo. The new National Security Strategy recognizes the critical role of the State Department’s proclaiming that “across the competitive landscape, America’s diplomats are our forward-deployed political capability, advancing and defending America’s interests abroad.” Therefore, to remain relevant and in order to continue to succeed, State’s finest need professional development. Whether to lead peace negotiations or trade talks, combat terrorism or cyberattacks, promote democratic values or defend human rights, engage media or youth, we must ensure that rising officers are knowledgeable of history, well-versed on theory, fluent in current practice and in-tune with future trends. But as they are caught in high-stress jobs with little time to reflect, where should our best talent go to grow their skills and enhance their ability to think critically and lead effectively? The answer is right here in Washington D.C., the National Defense University (NDU) at Fort McNair.
Topic:: National Security, Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:: United States and North America

476. An Ironic Outcome: The United States — Even under Trump — Is Closer to Meeting Its Emission Targets Than Canada

Author:: Jeff Rubin
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:: Even though US President Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, the country remains much closer to hitting the 2020 emission targets pledged by the previous administration of Barack Obama than Canada is of meeting the targets originally proposed by the government of Stephen Harper. The significant difference in emission performance is the result of the very different trajectories of energy-related emissions in the two countries. In the United States, such emissions have fallen steadily over the last decade as natural gas has usurped coal’s once dominant role in the US power sector. North of the border, oil sands emissions continue to be the fastest-growing source of emissions in Canada as emission-intensive in situ oil sands production continues to increase despite unfavourable economics.
Topic:: Climate Change, Environment, Oil, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:: United States, Canada, and North America

477. Making Enhanced CACs the Rule: A Proposed Amendment of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

Author:: Gregory Makoff
Publication Date:: 09-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:: The recent rise in sovereign debt litigation in the US Federal Court System is an unintended consequence of the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 related to an unanticipated shift of the international sovereign debt market from a narrow loan market to a global bond market. Collective action clauses (CACs) — developed in 2003 and “enhanced” in 2014 — are, in theory, an effective contract-based tool to facilitate orderly debt restructurings and control the holdout creditor problem. However, compliance by countries is voluntary and may not be sustained. To assure sustained compliance and to reduce the future incidence of holdout creditor litigation, the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act should be amended to provide that only bonds with enhanced CACs will be subject to suit and enforcement in the US courts.
Topic:: Debt, Legal Theory, Credit, and Global Bond Market
Political Geography:: United States and North America

478. The Rise of Mega-Regionalism: Revealing Canada’s Blind Spots

Author:: Jeremy de Beer
Publication Date:: 10-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:: The era of global multilateralism in international trade is coming to an end. The World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) Doha Round, which sought to reduce multilateral trade barriers, has been declared “dead and buried” according to certain scholars. New WTO reform efforts may be rekindled; however, the world has shifted toward international economic regionalism. The WTO defines regional trade agreements as reciprocal preferential trade agreements between two or more partners (whether or not from the same region), of which almost 300 are in force. While these agreements can be called bilateral, free, regional or preferential trade agreements, there is a more important issue than naming.
Topic:: International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, World Trade Organization, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:: United States, Canada, and North America

479. Crisis in the WTO: Restoring the Dispute Settlement Function

Author:: Robert McDougall
Publication Date:: 11-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:: The impasse in the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the appointment of new members of the Appellate Body is just one symptom of crisis in cooperation on trade. Driven by skepticism about multilateralism and binding dispute settlement, and by a growing strategic and economic rivalry with China, the current US administration has elevated longstanding US concerns about WTO dispute settlement to new heights. The inability of WTO members to exercise their collective authority to interpret the meaning of their WTO commitments has meant that the Appellate Body is effectively not subject to any checks and balances. As other WTO members blocked US efforts to negotiate more member control, the United States increasingly turned to unpopular unilateral mechanisms, culminating in the current block on new appointments as part of its more disruptive trade policy. Assuming the United States will eventually return to rules-based trade, restoring the WTO dispute settlement system to full capacity and enhancing its legitimacy will likely require some changes. This might include improving mechanisms for political oversight, diverting sensitive issues from adjudication, narrowing the scope of adjudication, improving institutional support and providing members more say over certain procedures. Preserving compulsory, impartial and enforceable dispute settlement in the WTO will require an accommodation of different perspectives on how the system should function. Achieving this, in whatever form, will contribute to maintaining and even strengthening multilateral cooperation on trade.
Topic:: International Trade and Finance, World Trade Organization, Global Political Economy, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:: United States, China, Asia, and North America

480. The Marketization of Citizenship in an Age of Restrictionism

Author:: Ayelet Shachar
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Abstract:: Tough action and rhetoric are the stamp of U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policy. The decision in September 2017 to revoke the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—a program that shields young undocumented immigrants (“Dreamers”) from removal, granting them an opportunity to complete school, enroll in college, volunteer for the armed services, or join the workforce—proved to be the most contentious in a groundswell of executive orders, directives, memos, and wide-ranging enforcement efforts to curtail unauthorized presence.1 Critics describe such sweeping measures as amounting to an anti-immigrant crusade. Supporters, meanwhile, applaud them as taking the handcuffs off immigration enforcement officers and border patrol agents. With the rising tide of restrictionism and the government’s tough-on-immigration approach under the rubric of a “nation of laws,” it is easy to lose sight of the only immigration program that has been renewed and extended under the Trump administration: the EB-5 program, or the “golden visa.”2 The contrast between the DACA “Dreamers” and the EB-5 “Parachuters” reveals the sharp edge, and deep injustices, of current policies. In 2017 the president signed into law and renewed the extension of the EB-5 program, which offers the world’s wealthy a coveted path to securing lawful permanent residence (LPR) status, jumping the queue and gaining an easy pass through the otherwise increasingly bolted gates of admission. The price tag for securing a green card via the EB-5 program ranges from $1 million to a “discounted” rate of $500,000 if funds are for specially designated rural areas or areas of high unemployment.3 The American golden visa, like comparable schemes in other desirable destination countries, caters to the global 1 percent. It treats money transfers—in large quantities—as a currency for acquiring entry visas, residence permits, and, ultimately, citizenship itself. Unlike the Dreamers, who now face the risk of deportation from the only country they have ever known as home, these visa applicants have no prior “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”4 Instead, they gain a privileged route to enter the United States and remain lawfully in the country based on their ability to transfer capital across borders. The contrast between the DACA “Dreamers” and the EB-5 “Parachuters” reveals the sharp edge, and deep injustices, of current policies. The former have already become part of the fabric of the United States—including its society and economy—through their ongoing, peaceful, and productive presence, yet the sword of deportation continues to hang over their heads. On the other hand, the latter benefit from expedited and simplified pathways to obtain full-fledged legal membership, even if they fail to establish any tangible connections to their new home country. The intrusion of market logic into the sovereign act of defining “who belongs” raises significant justice and equality concerns that require closer scrutiny. The United States is not alone in testing, blurring, and eroding the state-market boundary regulating access to membership. A growing number of countries are putting their visas and passports up for sale. The proliferation of these programs is one of the most significant developments in citizenship and immigration practice in the past few decades, yet it has received scant attention in the literature. In the following pages, I begin to address this lacuna by identifying the core legal and normative puzzles associated with this new trend, which I will refer to as the marketization of citizenship to highlight a dual transformation: the commodifying of access to membership and the hollowing out of the “status, rights, and identity” components of citizenship.5 Marketization is never merely an economic process; it is also deeply political, as it reshapes and reengineers the boundaries of and interactions between states and markets, voice and power, the inviolable and the mercantile. The intrusion of market logic into the sovereign act of defining “who belongs” raises significant justice and equality concerns that require closer scrutiny, both empirical and normative—the remit of this essay. I treat these new developments as a productive site to explore foundational questions about the character of citizenship and its transformation in today’s world. I begin by tracing the global surge in the marketization of citizenship, providing illustrative examples, before turning to explore the official rationales for the EB-5 and exposing their shortcomings. Moving from the positive to the normative, I develop several lines of critique that seek to show that this new trend is uniquely threatening to notions of citizenship reflecting the horizon of equality and participation, regardless of which theories of state and society—liberal, civic republican, or democratic—inform them.
Topic:: Migration, Immigration, Citizenship, and Borders
Political Geography:: United States and North America

481. Access to Capital for Urban Innovators: Report to the Bank of America Charitable Foundation

Author:: Aspen Institute
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: Urban innovators share a commitment to using new approaches, and often new technologies, to tackle long-standing challenges that seem unsolvable to others and that affect a large number of cities. Despite urban innovators’ insightful ideas on new ways to solve metropolitan areas’ most difficult challenges, many lack access to critical resources, tools, and funding. These access to capital hurdles most severely affect women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color, who historically have lacked opportunities for creating their own ventures, building wealth, and achieving financial empowerment. Throughout 2016 – 2017 the Aspen Institute Center for Urban Innovation worked with partner programs and organizations to demonstrate the sustainable impact urban innovators have when they have access to the capital necessary to start, grow, and stabilize their organizations and businesses. We learned from entrepreneurs, leaders of support organizations, government officials, and funders from capital-heavy places such as Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston, but also from places starting to garner more attention for their innovation-friendly cultures such as Buffalo, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. The Access to Capital for Urban Innovators report highlights the lessons learned from several convenings and programs focused on strategies to eliminate barriers to resources for women entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color. We heard firsthand what urban innovators need to achieve success, and put forth principles and ideas on ways different sectors can improve their cities’ economy and become centers of inclusive prosperity
Topic:: Science and Technology, Finance, Urban, and Innovation
Political Geography:: United States and North America

482. Digital Transformation

Author:: Aspen Institute
Publication Date:: 07-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: The digitalization of the U.S. economy will transform the products businesses sell and the ways they can interact with customers. Thank you for registering to download our white paper on the changing U.S. economy.
Topic:: Digital Economy, Economy, Business, and Digitalization
Political Geography:: United States and North America

483. Grooming the next Generation of Foreign Policymakers: Women, Peace and Security in Practice

Publication Date:: 04-2018
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Our Secure Future
Abstract:: The Problem: There is a need to groom the next generation of policymakers on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. This is due to a rising demand in international affairs-related careers that require gender and WPS expertise, and the passage of the 2017 Women, Peace and Security Act which mandates enhanced professional training and education on Women, Peace and Security. However, trainings and educational programs on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) are created in silos such as academia, military, government, etc., and are often ad hoc. The Solution Strengthen the Women, Peace and Security community of educators and practitioners. Regular collaboration across sectors can help map the field, inventory strategies to professionalize the field, and encourage institutions to offer more training and educational programs on WPS on a regular basis. Key Takeaway from the Experts Policymakers, practitioners, and scholars identified a key first step: in order to professionalize the field, it is necessary to establish an agreed-upon set of “minimum core competencies” for Women, Peace and Security to groom the next generation of policymakers and leaders.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Gender Issues, Women, Peace, and WPS
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus

484. Women, Peace & Security: By the Numbers

Publication Date:: 05-2018
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Our Secure Future
Abstract:: There is a growing body of evidence that shows us that women’s participation yields positive results. Whether in governance, in peace processes, or serving as peacekeepers, increasing the number of women at the table can reduce corruption, increase trust, and create sustainable peace.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Gender Issues, Women, Peace, and WPS
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus

485. What You Should Know about the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017

Author:: Sahana Dharmapuri, Jolynn Shoemaker, and Sarah Williamson
Publication Date:: 04-2018
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Our Secure Future
Abstract:: The Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017 is a major milestone for US law. It recognizes that women are on the frontlines of international security challenges as powerful agents of change to create stability and peace. The law mandates women’s meaningful participation in international peace and security.
Topic:: Security, United Nations, Women, Peace, and WPS
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus

486. What Is the Status of Women’s Health and Health Care in the U.S. Compared to Ten Other Countries?

Author:: Sara R. Collins, Shanoor Seervai, Roosa Tikkanen, and Munira Z. Gunja
Publication Date:: 12-2018
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:: Women in the United States have long lagged behind their counterparts in other high-income countries in terms of access to health care and health status. This brief compares U.S. women’s health status, affordability of health plans, and ability to access and utilize care with women in 10 other high-income countries by using international data.
Topic:: Health, Health Care Policy, Women, and Reproductive Health
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus

487. The Response of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to the Crisis of Soviet Jewish Émigré Dropouts (Noshrim) in the 1970s

Author:: Fred Lazin
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: The JDC is an American Jewish organization that assists overseas Jewish commu- nities in distress. It is responsible to “American Jewry” and those organizations that fund it. Bauer (1974, 19) argued that the JDC has been guided by its founding “pledge of impartiality – it steers clear of political involvements” and takes pride in being “probably the only really non-partisan organization in Jewish life.” This paper examines the role of the JDC in caring for Soviet émigrés who left on visas for Israel but chose to resettle elsewhere. They were known as “dropouts” (Noshrim in Hebrew). It also deals with the JDC policy toward recently settled Russian Jews who left Israel to resettle elsewhere. In its work with Soviet Jewish emi- gres did the JDC serve the interests of the Israeli government, its donors and or the emigres? Did the JDC abide by its pledge of impartiality? Did the JDC try to force them to resettle in Israel against their wishes? The paper focuses on the spring of 1976 when the number of dropouts outnumbered those resettling in Israel. This led to a joint committee of Israelis and American Jews to coordinate a response. The ‘freedom of choice’ debate ensued; should So- viet Jews resettle in Israel or have the freedom to choose where to resettle? The findings here are based on archival records in the JDC, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), the CJF (Jewish federations) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC). The author also conducted interviews and reviewed secondary sources. The paper should contribute to a better under- standing of the JDC and its past ties to Israel and the American Jewish community.
Topic:: Migration, Religion, Culture, Judaism, Displacement, and NGOs
Political Geography:: United States, Middle East, Israel, and North America

488. Understanding the Dispute over the Treatment of Products Exported to the European Union from the Occupied Territories in the Context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Author:: Oskar J. Chmiel
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:: Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:: While the European Union (EU) does not recognize any legal Israeli sovereignty over the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, it does not grant preferential access to the EU market for goods produced in the Israeli settlements in this area, contrary to the preferential treatment for goods produced in Israel. This situation is different, however, as regards the United States (U.S.) trade policy, which does not make any distinction between goods pro- duced in Israel and in the Occupied Territories, since it grants the preferential access to both. Furthermore, the currently suspended negotiations of the super-regional trade agreement called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), spurred the enacting of a law that set the principal negotiating objectives of the U.S. regarding commercial partner- ships, which included some provisions to discourage politically motivated economic actions against the State of Israel. As TTIP embraced the free trade agreement between the EU and the U.S., the EU differentiation policy could become problematic for the two partners, which despite the failure of the negotiations, revealed much about economic diplomacy. Conse- quently, this article attempts to show the different approaches adopted by the two trading powers, in order to deal with the dispute over the treatment of products exported to the EU from the Occupied Territories.
Topic:: Territorial Disputes, European Union, Investment, Trade, and Transatlantic Relations
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and North America

489. The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States

Author:: Seth G. Jones
Publication Date:: 11-2018
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Right-wing extremism in the United States appears to be growing. The number of terrorist attacks by far-right perpetrators rose over the past decade, more than quadrupling between 2016 and 2017. The recent pipe bombs and the October 27, 2018, synagogue attack in Pittsburgh are symptomatic of this trend. U.S. federal and local agencies need to quickly double down to counter this threat. There has also been a rise in far-right attacks in Europe, jumping 43 percent between 2016 and 2017.
Topic:: Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Domestic Politics, and Far Right
Political Geography:: United States

490. The WIIS Gender Scorecard: Washington, DC Think Tanks - 2018

Author:: Chantal de Jonge Oudraat and Soraya Kamali-Nafar
Publication Date:: 09-2018
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Women In International Security (WIIS)
Abstract:: For over 30 years, Women In International Security (WIIS) has worked to advance the role of women in national and international security. While much progress has been made, the number of women occupying prominent positions in foreign and defense policy remains limited. As a result, the role of women in decision making in foreign and defense policies is under-developed. Indeed, while women constitute 40 percent of the Foreign Service officer corps, they hold only one-third of the chief of mission positions.1 Women make up 33 percent of the Department of Defense civilian staff and 18 percent of the DOD active duty officer corps, and they remain grossly under-represented at the highest ranks—less than 8 percent have the rank of general or flag officer.2 Women also remain under-represented as expert commentators in the media. Women accounted for just 24 percent of foreign affairs and national security experts invited to speak on major political talk shows.3 Manels— that is, event panels with only men—remain common in the United States, including in Washington, DC.4
Topic:: Gender Issues, Intelligence, National Security, Women, and Think Tanks
Political Geography:: United States

491. Gender Parity in Peace Operations: Opportunities for U.S. Engagement

Author:: Luisa Ryan and Shannon Zimmerman
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Women In International Security (WIIS)
Abstract:: At the UN Peacekeeping Defense Ministerial Conference, Canada announced the launch of the Elsie Initiative on Women in Peace Operations. Through tailored technical support, the initiative aims to help troop-contributing countries recruit and retain female soldiers. It is one of the first initiatives to directly address the lack of female personnel at the deploying country level. As one of the co-hosts of the 2017 UN Peacekeeping ministerial, the United States is in a strong position to partner in the work of the Elsie Initiative. By so doing, it can entrench the concept of gender parity in its current UN peacekeeping training programs and deployments and better lead knowledge-sharing efforts with partner militaries. The Elsie Initiative also gives the United States an opportunity to reinforce partnerships that enhance global security while bolstering its leadership in gender parity and UN reform. Efforts such as the Elsie initiative to improve the effectiveness of peace operations will directly benefit US national interests by strengthening alliances and enabling recipient countries to take an increasing role in providing for collective and regional security.
Topic:: Gender Issues, United Nations, Peacekeeping, and Women
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus

492. Spring 2018 edition of Strategic Visions

Author:: Alan McPherson
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Journal Article
Journal:: Strategic Visions
Institution:: Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University
Abstract:: Contents News from the Director .................................. 2 Spring 2018 Colloquium ............................ 2 Cuba in War and Peace ............................... 3 Spring 2018 prizes ....................................... 3 TURF-CreWS Papers....................................4 Fall 2018 Colloquium Preview ................ 4 Final Words.....................................................5 Note from the Davis Fellow........................... 6 News from the CENFAD Community ......... 7 Profile of Dr. Eileen Ryan ............................... 9 The U.S. Military’s 2018 National Defense Strategy .............................................................. 12 Book Reviews .................................................. 17 Doyle, Don. H., ed. American Civil Wars: The United States, Latin America, Europe, and the Crisis of the 1860s.... 17 McAdams, A. James. Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party ....................................... 20 Judith L. Van Buskirk, Standing in Their Own Light: African-American Patriots in the American Revolution ................... 22 Burnidge, Cara Lea. A Peaceful Conquest: Woodrow Wilson, Religion, and the New World Order. ..................... 24
Topic:: Civil War, Communism, Diplomacy, Military Affairs, and Woodrow Wilson
Political Geography:: United States, Latin America, and Global Focus

493. Soft vs Hard Governance for Labour and Environmental Commitments in Trade Agreements: Comparing the US and EU Approaches

Author:: Vandana Gyanchandani
Publication Date:: 08-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Trade and Economic Integration, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:: Three methodologies are used to enforce labour and environmental commitments in the US and EU trade agreements: cooperative, sanctions and composite. In-depth analysis of the scope of commitments, level of protection, institutional framework as well as types of informal and formal dispute processes elucidates the pros and cons of such methodologies. Sanctions approach weakens cooperation by misjudging the complexity of domestic policy adjustments through transnational governance. Cooperative mechanism within the NAAEC's composite design emerges as the best approach: Submission on Enforcement Matters (SEM). As it provides for an independent secretariat supported by civil society group and factual records as a sunshine remedy to review citizen submissions. However, the process is constrained by political clout, lack of managerial capacity and legal dilemmas around informal lawmaking (IN-LAW) procedures.
Topic:: Economics, Environment, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Labor Issues, Sustainable Development Goals, and Global Political Economy
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, Global Focus, and European Union

494. Trade linkages and firm value: evidence from the 2018 US-China "trade war"

Author:: Yi Huang, Chen Lin, Sibo Liu, and Heiwai Tang
Publication Date:: 04-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for Trade and Economic Integration, The Graduate Institute (IHEID)
Abstract:: On March 22, 2018, Trump proposed to impose tariffs on up to $50 billion of Chinese imports leading to a significant concern over the "Trade War" between the US and China. We evaluate the market responses to this event for firms in both countries, depending on their direct and indirect exposures to US-China trade. US firms that are more dependent on exports to and imports from China have lower stock and bond returns but higher default risks in the short time window around the announcement date. We also find that firms' indirect exposure to US-China trade through domestic input-output linkages affects their responses to the announcement. These findings suggest that the structure of US-China trade is much more complex than the simplistic view of global trade that engendered Trump's "Trade War" against China.
Topic:: Economics, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Global Political Economy, Trade Wars, and Exports
Political Geography:: United States, China, and Asia

495. Debating the Quad

Author:: Euan Graham, Chengxin Pan, Ian Hall, Rikki Kersten, Benjamin Zala, and Sarah Percy
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:: In this Centre of Gravity paper, six of Australia’s leading scholars and policy experts debate Australian participation in the ‘Australia-India-Japan-United States consultations on the Indo-Pacific’ - known universally as the ‘Quad’. A decade since its first iteration, the revival of the Quad presents significant questions for Australia and the regional order. Is the Quad a constructive partnership of the region’s major powers to safeguard regional stability, uphold the rules-based order and promote security cooperation? Is it a concert of democracies seeking to contain China? Or is it an emerging strategic alignment that risks precipitating the very confrontation with China it seeks to avoid? Or is it something else entirely? Euan Graham opens the debate by arguing that the Quad represents a rare second chance for Australia to cooperate with regional powers who have a shared interest is the maintenance of stability in Asia through the preservation of a balance of power. In addition to constraining China’s strategic choices beyond its maritime periphery, Dr. Graham argues that the Quad’s revival aims to send a concerted strategic signal to China along the four compass points of the Indo-Pacific region, but sufficiently restrained to avoid significant blowback from Beijing. Chengxin Pan responds that instead of forcing China to change tack, the Quad, by exacerbating China’s strategic vulnerability, will achieve precisely the opposite: prompting it to further strengthen its military capabilities. Dr. Pan argues that the nature of China’s challenge to the existing regional order is actually geoeconomic in design, as evidenced by the Belt and Road Initiative. To meet this challenge, however, the Quad’s military response is far from the right answer or an effective alternative. Ian Hall next argues that the Quad is neither a proto-alliance nor an instrument for containing China. Given that these states have so far failed to advance a coherent and coordinated line on Chinese initiatives to transform the region, Dr. Hall notes that the Quad offers something more prosaic and evolutionary: a forum for discussion and information exchange intended to lead to better policy coordination between like-minded states with a stake in the rules-based order. Rikki Kersten notes that the Japanese government wants Quad 2.0 to be seen as a Japanese initiative because it aspires to lead an ethical endeavour that reaches beyond the Asia-Pacific region. This represents a stepchange in post-war Japanese foreign and security policy thinking. Japan under Abe is seeking to harness rising insecurity to underpin its own regional leadership credentials and enhance the geographical scope of its security policy ambition. Benjamin Zala responds that the potential risks associated with sending containment-like signals to Beijing in the short-term and the potential for misperceptions over ambiguous commitments during a future crisis in the longer-term clearly outweigh the benefits of the current vague aspiration to cooperation with no clear purpose. Dr. Zala also warns against blurring the lines between formal military alliances and strategic partnerships like the Quad which increase the odds of miscalculation during times of power transition. Finally, Sarah Percy rounds out the debate by arguing that discussions of the Quad’s high politics have thus far obscured the more practical and interesting questions about how it might function and contribute to maritime security. Dr. Percy notes that that the day-to-day operations of most navies are focused on the more proximate security challenges posed by maritime crime. The Quad would yield tangible and possibly lasting benefits from such cooperation.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Military Affairs, and Maritime
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, India, Asia, and Australia

496. When Islamophobia Turns Violent: The 2016 U.S Presidential Elections

Publication Date:: 11-2018
Content Type:: Special Report
Institution:: The Bridge Initiative, Georgetown University
Abstract:: This report highlights trends and patterns surrounding Islamophobia since the start of the 2016 U.S. presidential election cycle. It does so in the broader context of hatred, violence and social hostilities confronting Muslims as a minority faith group in contemporary America and with a particular focus on acts and threats of violence. Since 2015, the Bridge Initiative has been chronicling Islamophobic political rhetoric by each presidential candidate irrespective of his or her party affiliation while finding Republican candidates to be the worst offenders to date. In this publication, however, we aim to contextualize such statements nationally and internationally while also exploring potentially violent effects. To that end, we examined two distinct but overlapping time periods: January 2015 through December 2015 (entire duration of 2015) and March 2015 through March 2016 (2016 presidential election season).
Topic:: Political Violence, Islam, Public Opinion, Elections, Islamophobia, Violence, and Voting
Political Geography:: United States

497. Avoiding a Nuclear Wild, Wild West in the Middle East

Author:: Henry Sokolski
Publication Date:: 03-2018
Content Type:: Video
Institution:: James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Abstract:: With the recent visit of Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, there is keen interest in finalizing a civil nuclear cooperative agreement. Trump officials have also said they intend to renew or strike additional civil nuclear deals with Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey. How necessary and economically competitive is nuclear power in the Middle East for desalination and producing electricity compared to non-nuclear alternatives? In the Saudi case, is a Russian, Chinese, or French reactor sale likely? What are the nonproliferation implications of allowing Riyadh to enrich and reprocess, either now or in the future? Speaker: Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, and Former Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the Cheney Pentagon.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus

498. Syrians in the USA: Solidarity Despite Political Rifts

Author:: Basma Alloush
Publication Date:: 12-2018
Content Type:: Research Paper
Institution:: Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
Abstract:: The Syrian American diaspora has been actively engaged in the Syrian uprising through the provision of humanitarian assistance and the entry into political advocacy work. Yet, the Syrian diaspora in the U.S. does not represent a homogenous population group nor a unified political position. On the contrary, assessing the dynamics of the diaspora since 2011 reveals important transformations within diasporic groupings, with the 2011 uprising acting as a catalyst for the emergence of new fractures. Through a mixture of desk research and interviews with key members of the Syrian American diaspora, this paper investigates the evolution of the community and discusses the potential role of the diaspora in a post-conflict Syria. By assessing current and evolving trends within the diaspora from 2011, it is possible to shape future reconstruction plans to effectively include the Syrian American diaspora.
Topic:: Civil War, Diaspora, and Immigration
Political Geography:: United States, Middle East, Syria, North America, and Damascus

499. Using wage boards to raise pay

Author:: Arindrajit Dube
Publication Date:: 12-2018
Content Type:: Policy Brief
Institution:: Economics for Inclusive Prosperity (EfIP)
Abstract:: During the past 40 years, the United States has experienced a sharp and sustained rise in wage and income inequality. The high level of inequality in the United States reflects both a disconnect between (1) average wages and productivity, and (2) top and bottom wages.
Topic:: Economics, Labor Issues, Income Inequality, Labor Policies, Wage Subsidies, Economic Policy, and Economic Theory
Political Geography:: United States

500. Alternative East Asian Nuclear Futures, Volume I: Military Scenarios

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: The 13 chapters contained in this book’s two volumes were prompt-ed by a single inquiry in 2012 from the MacArthur Foundation. Was there any way, I was asked, to further clarify the economic and nonproliferation downsides if further production of civilian pluto-nium proceeded in East Asia? My initial reply was no. So much already had been done.But the more I thought about it, two things that had yet to be at-tempted emerged. The first was any serious analysis of just how bad things could get militarily if Japan and South Korea acquired nuclear weapons and North Korea and Mainland China ramped up their own production of such arms. Such nuclear proliferation had long been assumed to be undesirable but nobody had specified how such proliferation might play out militarily. Second, no serious consideration had yet been given to how East Asia might be able to prosper economically without a massive buildup of civilian nucle-ar power. Since each of the key nations in East Asia—China, the Koreas, and Japan—all would likely exploit their civilian nuclear energy infrastructure to acquire their first bombs or to make more, such inattention seemed odd.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, Nuclear Power, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, North Korea, and Global Focus

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