Content Type: Working Paper / Political Geography: Iraq / Publication Year: within 25 Years / Topic: War

1. Dispatches: Life Beyond the Borders

Author:: Shano Mohammed
Publication Date:: 08-2023
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:: I was born in March 1991, at the back of a lorry carrying nearly 100 women and children fleeing the horrors of Saddam Hussein’s regime. My life started amid the Kurdish uprising in Iraq, during which my family sought refuge in the Kurdish region of neighboring Iran. Being born under these circumstances, in war-torn, conflict-ridden, indeed blood-soaked Kurdistan, shaped my life and colored my personality in ways that I continue to discover every day. My mother was forced into a marriage at the age of twelve, to an older man, who abused her for sport. My faint memory of home is of the recurring cries, screams, aches, and pains of mother and daughters abused by father and brother, while outside the confines of my so-called home, everyday life teemed with loud explosions and airstrikes. Everyone seemed to proceed with their ordinary lives, but I could not.
Topic:: War, Kurds, and Memoir
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

2. The Human Cost of U.S. Interventions in Iraq: A History From the 1960s Through the Post-9/11 Wars

Author:: Zainab Saleh
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Abstract:: For decades, U.S. policy actions towards Iraq have had devastating consequences for the Iraqi people. This paper situates the U.S. “war on terrorism” in Iraq since 2003 within a longer trajectory of U.S. intervention in that country since the 1960s and shows that we can only understand the full human costs of current interventions when we see them in broader historical context. The author, Zainab Saleh, an assistant professor of anthropology at Haverford College, was born in Iraq and lived there until 1997. Later, she conducted ethnographic research with Iraqis who had migrated to London since the late 1970s. The Iraqis she knew and met felt they were pawns at the mercy of global powers. When the U.S. invaded Iraq and brought down Hussein in 2003, Iraqis saw the United States' true motive as continuing a well-established pattern of pursuing U.S. economic interests in the region. Since the 1960s, Iraqi arms purchases have bolstered American military-industrial corporations and stable access to Middle East oil has secured U.S. dominance in the global economy. The paper tells the story of one Iraqi woman, Rasha, who was forced by the violence in her country to flee to London. Rasha’s displacement and her family’s history of dispossession – her father imprisoned, her family impoverished, friends murdered and her own life threatened – show the deep human effects of decades of U.S. intervention. In 1963, under pretext of protecting the region from a communist threat, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency backed a coup by the Arab nationalist Ba‘th party after Iraq nationalized most of its oil fields. During the 1980s, the United States supported Saddam Hussein’s regime and prolonged the Iran-Iraq War in order to safeguard its national interests in the region, including weakening Iran to prevent it from posing a threat to U.S. power. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, U.S. policy shifted from alignment to “dual containment” of Iraq and Iran, a posture which culminated in the Gulf War of 1991 to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. In the 1990s, the United States justified its imposition of economic sanctions by claiming a goal of disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and protecting allies. In 2003, the U.S. packaged its invasion of Iraq as delivering U.S. values—namely, freedom and democracy—to the Iraqi people. Saleh writes, “The imperial encounter between Iraq and the United States has made life deeply precarious for Iraqis. For decades, they have lived with fear for their own and their family’s lives, the loss of loved ones and homeland, the realities of economic hardship, and the destruction of the fabric of their social lives.”
Topic:: Foreign Policy, War, History, Counter-terrorism, and Military Intervention
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

3. 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

4. Iraq Situation Report

Author:: Patrick Martin
Publication Date:: 04-2017
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for the Study of War
Abstract:: ISIS is waging a renewed offensive campaign in recaptured areas that could exploit vulnerabilities in the Iraqi Government’s ability to respond amidst accelerating political competition before upcoming elections.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: Iraq

5. The Effect of Civilian Casualties on Wartime Informing: Evidence from the Iraq War

Author:: Andrew Shaver and Jacob N. Shapiro
Publication Date:: 02-2016
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:: Scholars of civil war and insurgency have long posited that insurgent organizations and their state enemies incur costs for the collateral damage they cause. We provide the first direct quantitative evidence that wartime informing is affected by civilian casualties. Using newly declassified data on tip flow to Coalition forces in Iraq we find that information flow goes down after government forces inadvertently kill civilians and it goes up when insurgents do so. These results have strong policy implications; confirm a relationship long posited in the theoretical literature on insurgency; and are consistent with a broad range of circumstantial evidence on the topic.
Topic:: War, Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, Information Age, Civilians, and Casualties
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

6. Enabling Others to Win in a Complex World: Maximizing Security Force Assistance Potential in the Regionally Aligned Brigade Combat Team

Author:: Liam P. Walsh
Publication Date:: 12-2015
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: Beginning in 2013, the U.S. Army began an effort to “engage regionally and respond globally.” A central tenant of this strategy, building upon National strategic guidance, is the necessity to build partner capacity. Army units, through the regionally aligned forces concept, may find themselves conducting security force assistance (SFA) missions across the globe as a means to achieve these ways. However, after examining the Army’s SFA mission in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM from 2003-10, it becomes apparent that institutional and organizational shortcomings plagued the Army’s initial efforts in this critical aspect of the campaign. Many of these shortcomings remain in the Army today, particularly within the Army’s core formation—the brigade combat team (BCT). This monograph examines the Army’s role in conducting SFA in Iraq, drawing key lessons for the Army’s experience there, and then provides recommendations as to how the Army can better optimize the BCT to conduct SFA, while still retaining its core mission to fight and win America’s wars.
Topic:: National Security, War, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:: Iraq and United States of America

7. The Human Terrain System: Operationally Relevant Social Science Research in Iraq and Afghanistan

Author:: Dr. Christopher Sims
Publication Date:: 12-2015
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: The Human Terrain System embedded civilians primarily in brigade combat teams (BCTs) in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2007 and 2014 to act as a collection and dispersal mechanism for sociocultural comprehension. Set against the backdrop of the program’s evolution, the experiences of these social scientists clarifies the U.S. Army’s decision to integrate social scientists at the tactical level in conflict. Based on interviews, program documents, material from Freedom of Information Act requests, and secondary sources, this book finds a series of limiting factors inhibiting social science research at the tactical level, common to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Complexity in integrating civilians into the military decision-making cycle, creating timely research with a high level of fidelity, and making granular research resonate with brigade staff all contributed to inhibiting the overall effect of the Human Terrain System. Yet, while high operational tempo in contested spaces complicates social science research at the tactical level, the author argues that there is a continued requirement for a residual capability to be maintained by the U.S. Army.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, War, Military Strategy, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, and United States of America

8. The State of Iraq

Author:: Marina Ottaway and Danial Kaysi
Publication Date:: 02-2012
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:: Within days of the official ceremonies marking the end of the U.S. mission in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved to indict Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges and sought to remove Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq from his position, triggering a major political crisis that fully revealed Iraq as an unstable, undemocratic country governed by raw competition for power and barely affected by institutional arrangements. Large-scale violence immediately flared up again, with a series of terrorist attacks against mostly Shi'i targets reminiscent of the worst days of 2006.
Topic:: Security, Political Violence, Democratization, Development, Ethnic Conflict, Terrorism, War, Fragile/Failed State, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, Arabia, and Kurdistan

9. Iraq After US Withdrawal: US Policy and the Iraqi Search for Security and Stability

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman and Sam Khazai
Publication Date:: 07-2012
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: Iraq is in an ongoing struggle to establish a new national identity, and one that can bridge across the deep sectarian divisions between its Shi'ite s and Sunnis and the ethnic division s between its Arabs and its Kurds and other minorities. At the same time, it must build a new structure of governance, economic, and social order after a period of dictatorship, war, sanctions, occupation and civil conflict that began in 1979 and has continued ever since. It must cope with a steadily growing population, and diversify an economy that is so dependent on petroleum exports that they provide some 95% of its government revenues. This struggle can still end in a new round of serious civil conflict and even in the division of the country. At the same time, Iraq does have great potential and its political divisions and ongoing low - level violence do not mean it cannot succeed in establishing stability, security, and a better life for its people.
Topic:: Democratization, Peace Studies, War, Counterinsurgency, and Self Determination
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

10. The Coming Turkish-Iranian Competition In

Author:: Sean Kane
Publication Date:: 06-2011
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:: The two rising powers in the Middle East—Turkey and Iran—are neighbors to Iraq, its leading trading partners, and rapidly becoming the most influential external actors inside the country as the U.S. troop withdrawal proceeds. Although there is concern in Washington about bilateral cooperation between Turkey and Iran, their differing visions for the broader Middle East region are particularly evident in Iraq, where a renewal of the historical Ottoman-Persian rivalry in Mesopotamia is likely as the dominant American presence fades. Turkey aims for a robust Iraqi political process in which no single group dominates, sees a strong Iraq as contributing to both its own security and regional stability, and is actively investing in efforts to expand Iraqi oil and gas production to help meet its own energy needs and fulfill its goal of becoming the energy conduit from the Middle East to Europe. Iran prefers a passive neighbor with an explicitly sectarian political architecture that ensures friendly Shiite-led governments; sees a strong Iraq as an inherent obstacle to its own broader influence in the region and, in the nightmare scenario, once again possibly a direct conventional military threat; and looks askance at increased Iraqi hydrocarbon production as possible competition for its own oil exports. Baghdad meanwhile believes that it can become a leader in the Middle East but is still struggling to define an inclusive national identity and develop a foreign policy based on consensus. In its current fractured state, Iraq tends to invites external interference and is subsumed into the wider regional confrontation between the Sunni Arab defenders of the status quo and the “resistance axis” led by Shiite Iran. Turkey has an opening in Iraq because it is somewhat removed from this toxic Arab-Persian divide, welcomes a strong Iraq, and offers the Iraqi economy integration with international markets. Ankara could now allay Iraqi Shiite suspicions that it intends to act as a Sunni power in the country and not allow issues on which Turkish and Iraqi interests deviate to set the tone for their relationship. The U.S. conceptualization of an increased Turkish influence in Iraq as a balance to Iran's is limited and could undermine Turkey's core advantages by steering it towards a counterproductive sectarian approach. A more productive U.S. understanding is of Turkey as a regional power with the greatest alignment of interests in a strong, stable, and selfsufficient country that the Iraqis want and that the Obama administration has articulated as the goal of its Iraq policy. On the regional level, a strong and stable Iraq is a possible pivot for Turkish and Iranian ambitions, enabling Ankara and hindering Tehran. Washington may well have its differences with Turkey's new foreign policy of zero problems with its neighbors, but the Turkish blend of Islam, democracy, and soft power is a far more attractive regional template than the Iranian narrative of Islamic theocracy and hard power resistance. The United States should therefore continue to welcome increased Turkish-Iraqi economic, trade, and energy ties and where possible support their development as a key part of its post-2011 strategy for Iraq and the region.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Economics, Imperialism, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

11. Lessons from Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq

Author:: John K. Naland
Publication Date:: 10-2011
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:: Embedded provincial reconstruction teams (ePRTs) were small State Department- led units inserted into U.S. combat brigades in Iraq from 2007 to 2010 to support military counterinsurgency efforts at the local level. During major combat operations in 2007 and into 2008, ePRTs provided important support to military counterinsurgency efforts. As U.S. combat units wound down these efforts and withdrew from towns and cities, ePRTs did useful-but harder to quantify-work in mentoring local officials. Combat brigades and ePRTs generally worked well together. However, some units were unsure of how best to employ civilians. The military and civilians also sometimes had differing views on issues of short-term versus long-term goals. Despite problems, ePRT veterans believe that they had a positive effect in both supporting military counterinsurgency efforts and helping local Iraqi officials prepare for self-reliance. Interviewees identified a variety of operational problems that detracted from ePRT mission accomplishment. The Iraq ePRTs are now history, but as the United States continues to use civil-military teams in Afghanistan, these observed lessons need to be learned and acted upon.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Security, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Arabia

12. The Effect of Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq

Author:: Radha Iyengar, Luke N. Condra, Joseph Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro
Publication Date:: 10-2010
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC)
Abstract:: A central question in intrastate conflicts is how insurgents are able to mobilize supporters to participate in violent and risky activities. A common explanation is that violence committed by counterinsurgent forces mobilizes certain segments of the population through a range of mechanisms. We study the effects of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan to quantify the effect of such casualties on subsequent insurgent violence. By comparing uniquely detailed micro-data along temporal, spatial, and gender dimensions we can distinguish short-run 'information' and 'capacity' effects from the longer run 'propaganda' and 'revenge' effects. In Afghanistan we find strong evidence that local exposure to civilian casualties caused by international forces leads to increased insurgent violence over the long-run, what we term the 'revenge' effect. Matching districts with similar past trends in violence shows that counterinsurgent-generated civilian casualties from a typical incident are responsible for 1 additional violent incident in an average sized district in the following 6 weeks and lead to increased violence over the next 6 months. There is no evidence that out-of-area events—errant air strikes for example—lead to increased violence, nor is there evidence of short run effects, thus ruling out the propaganda, information, and capacity mechanisms. Critically, we find no evidence of a similar reaction to civilian casualties in Iraq, suggesting the constraints on insurgent production of violence may be quite conflict-specific. Our results imply that minimizing harm to civilians may indeed help counterinsurgent forces in Afghanistan to reduce insurgent recruitment.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, War, Conflict, Violence, War on Terror, Civilians, and Casualties
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East

13. US Withdrawal and Iraqi Security Forces: The Need for Continuing Aid

Author:: Anthony H. Cordesman and Adam Mausner
Publication Date:: 05-2010
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:: The security arena will face the most drastic changes in U.S.-Iraqi strategic relations over the next two years. Iraq must assume all responsibility for its internal and external security once the United States withdraws by December 31, 2011, unless it invokes the terms of the Strategic Agreement to seek additional US aid. Iraq must both deal with its own insurgents and with problems in its relations with neighboring countries like Iran, Syria, and the Gulf states. This makes the continued improvement of all elements of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) vital both to Iraq and to the stability of the region, during the period of US withdrawal in 2010-2011 and in the years that follow.
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

14. Private Contractors in Conflict Zones: The Good, the Bad, and the Strategic Impact

Author:: T.X. Hammes
Publication Date:: 10-2010
Content Type:: Working Paper
Abstract:: In Iraq and Afghanistan, the use of contractors reached a level unprecedented in U.S. military operations. As of March 31, 2010, the United States deployed 175,000 troops and 207,000 contractors in the war zones. Contractors represented 50 percent of the Department of Defense (DOD) workforce in Iraq and 59 percent in Afghanistan. These numbers include both armed and unarmed contractors. Thus, for the purposes of this paper, the term contractor includes both armed and unarmed personnel unless otherwise specified. The presence of contractors on the battlefield is obviously not a new phenomenon but has dramatically increased from the ratio of 1 contractor to 55 military personnel in Vietnam to 1:1 in the Iraq and 1.43:1 in Afghanistan.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Privatization, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

15. Loose Ends: Iraq's Security Forces Between U.S. Drawdown and Withdrawal

Publication Date:: 10-2010
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: Much is at stake in the never-ending negotiations to form Iraq's government, but perhaps nothing more important than the future of its security forces. In the seven years since the U.S.-led invasion, these have become more effective and professional and appear capable of taming what remains of the insurgency. But what they seem to possess in capacity they lack in cohesion. A symptom of Iraq's fractured polity and deep ethno-sectarian divides, the army and police remain overly fragmented, their loyalties uncertain, their capacity to withstand a prolonged and more intensive power struggle at the top unclear. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken worrying steps to assert authority over the security apparatus, notably by creating new bodies accountable to none but himself. A vital task confronting the nation's political leaders is to reach agreement on an accountable, non-political security apparatus subject to effective oversight. A priority for the new cabinet and parliament will be to implement the decision. And a core responsibility facing the international community is to use all its tools to encourage this to happen.
Topic:: Security, War, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arab Countries

16. The U.S. Senate and Iraq: Who Changed their Views, and Why?

Author:: Andrew Bennet and Andrew Loomis
Publication Date:: 10-2010
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for International Peace and Security Studies
Abstract:: Focusing on the evolving views of the 77 U.S. Senators who voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002, we seek to explain why some political leaders changed their views markedly from 2002 to 2008 and others did not. We argue that in view of the great preponderance of evidence that the initial premises of U.S. intervention in Iraq were not fulfilled, Bayesian updating cannot by itself explain the persistence of divergent views on Iraq. It is also puzzling that a half-dozen senators persisted in their support of Bush's position on Iraq even though this may have contributed to their electoral defeat. We use a combination of political and psychological variables, including ideology, party affiliation, safety of the senator's seat, military service, cognitive style, and presidential aspirations to explain why some senators changed their public positions on Iraq within a year, others did so by 2006, still others in 2007, and some changed very little in more than five years. We combine these variables into a typological theory and test it against a qualitative analysis of 20 senators' views on Iraq. We conclude that our model is relatively successful in predicting not only when senators' views changed but what rationales they gave for why their initial expectations were not borne out. We also note several senators who prove important anomalies for our model, including Senators Lieberman, who was the only Democrat who did not move toward opposing Bush's policies, and McCain, who thus far has not moved toward the political center on Iraq despite having effectively secured his party's nomination.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Arabia

17. Iraq, its Neighbors, and the Obama Administration: Syrian and Saudi Perspectives

Publication Date:: 02-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:: The top concern for both Riyadh and Damascus remains blowback from Iraq: the ascendance of ethnic and sectarian identity and the spread of Islamist militancy. The need to contain this threat is the dominant force that shapes their relations with Iraq. Both Syria and Saudi Arabia have a vital interest in ensuring that Iraq's emerging political order is inclusive of Sunni Arab Iraqis, who have not yet been fully incorporated into Iraqi institutions. Syria and Saudi Arabia do not look at Iraq in isolation, nor do they assign it top priority among their foreign policy concerns. For them, Iraq is merely one element in a comprehensive view encompassing other regional players (including the U.S. and Iran) and other regional crises, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lingering resentment and bitterness toward Washington is now mixed with intense curiosity and modest optimism about President Barack Obama. Saudis still bristle when recalling how the Bush Administration sidelined Riyadh on Iraqi matters; as do Syrians, who believe the previous administration was intent on isolating and undermining Damascus. Iraq remains very much isolated in its neighborhood. Recent Progress on regional cooperation notwithstanding, these two neighbors are still focused more on containment than engagement.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Ethnic Conflict, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, Arabia, and Syria

18. Dysfunction and Decline: Lessons Learned From Inside al-Qa'ida in Iraq

Author:: Brian Fishman
Publication Date:: 03-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: Al-Qa`ida in Iraq (AQI) is a shadow of its former self, primarily because broad sectors of Iraq's Sunni population rejected it after more than three years of active and tacit cooperation. Anger over AQI's brutal radicalism infused the Sunni backlash against jihadists, but AQI also made two fundamental strategic overreaches that exacerbated its alienation from Sunnis in Iraq. First, it incited a sectarian backlash from Iraqi Shi'a without the means to defend Iraq's Sunnis from the onslaught it provoked. Second, AQI created a formal political entity, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), to dominate Iraq after a U.S. withdrawal without adequate support from Iraq's Sunni population.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

19. What can Europe do in Iraq?

Author:: Richard Gowan, Heinrich Boell Stiftung, and Daniel Korski
Publication Date:: 02-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:: Relations between the European Union (EU) and Iraq have normalized over the last couple of years. But despite committing more than € 900 million to reconstruction efforts since 2003 and having set up a European Commission office in Baghdad in 2005, the European bloc will need to step up its engagement if the country is to manage forthcoming challenges, such as integrating the “Sons of Iraq” into the Iraqi security forces, holding provincial elections, and maintaining security while President Obama leads a drawdown of US combat forces.
Topic:: Peace Studies, War, and International Security
Political Geography:: Iraq, Europe, Middle East, and Arabia

20. Private Military and Security Companies: A Framework for Regulation

Author:: James Cockayne and Emily Speers Mears
Publication Date:: 03-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Peace Institute
Abstract:: In late 2008, seventeen states, including the US, UK, China, Iraq, and Afghanistan, endorsed the Montreux Document on Pertinent International Legal Obligations and Good Practices for States Related to Operations of Private Military and Security Companies During Armed Conflict. This provides important guidance to states in regulating Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs). But there is a need to do more, to provide increased guidance to industry and ensure standards are enforced.
Topic:: Security, International Law, Privatization, Treaties and Agreements, and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, China, Iraq, and United Kingdom

21. In her own words: Iraqi women talk about their greatest concerns and challenges

Publication Date:: 03-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:: The plight of women in Iraq today has gone largely ignored, both within Iraqi society and by the international community. For more than five years, headlines have been dominated by political and social turmoil, the chaos of conflict and widespread violence. This has overshadowed the abysmal state of the civilian population's day-to-day lives, a result of that very turmoil and violence.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Human Rights, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

22. Iraq and the Kurds: Trouble Along the Trigger Line

Publication Date:: 07-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: As sectarian violence in Iraq has ebbed over the past year, a new and potentially just as destructive political conflict has arisen between the federal government and the Kurdistan regional government in Erbil. This conflict has manifested itself in oratory, backroom negotiations and military manoeuvres in disputed territories, raising tensions and setting off alarm bells in Washington just as the Obama administration is taking its first steps to pull back U.S. forces. A lasting solution can only be political – involving a grand bargain on how to divide or share power, resources and territory – but in the interim both sides should take urgent steps to improve communications and security cooperation, run joint military checkpoints and patrols in disputed territories and refrain from unilateral steps along the new, de facto dividing line, the so-called trigger line.
Topic:: Political Violence, Ethnic Conflict, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Washington, Middle East, Arabia, and Kurdistan

23. Hybrid Threats: Reconceptualizing the Evolving Character of Modern Conflict

Author:: Frank G. Hoffman
Publication Date:: 04-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: America's ongoing battles in Afghanistan and Iraq have highlighted limitations in our understanding of the complexity of modern warfare. Furthermore, our cultural prism has retarded the institutionalization of capabilities needed to prevail in stabilization and counter-insurgency missions.
Topic:: War and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, and America

24. An Israeli Strike on Iran

Author:: Steven Simon
Publication Date:: 11-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: Successive Israeli governments have held that a nuclear weapons capability in the region, other than Israel's own, would pose an intolerable threat to Israel's survival as a state and society. Iran's nuclear program—widely regarded as an effort to obtain a nuclear weapon, or put Tehran a “turn of a screw” away from it—has triggered serious concern in Israel. Within the coming year, the Israeli government could decide, much as it did twenty-eight years ago with respect to Iraq and two years ago with respect to Syria, to attack Iran's nuclear installations in order to delay its acquisition of a weapons capability.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Power Politics
Political Geography:: Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Tehran, and Syria

25. Perspectives from Fragile Crescent: A South Asia Crisis Simulation

Author:: Steven J. Tomisek, Christopher S. Robinson, and Kenneth Kligge
Publication Date:: 02-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Abstract:: The Obama administration has arguably inherited the toughest national security environment since the end of World War II. Instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan has propelled South Asia to the top of a U.S. national security agenda already crowded with a long list of major problems that includes North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. The political, security, and economic trends in Afghanistan and Pakistan have taken a turn for the worse, as the two countries confront an increasingly violent Taliban-led insurgency and al Qaeda–linked militant jihadist groups. To make matters even worse, Pakistan's relations with India have been damaged by the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Topic:: Political Violence, National Security, War, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:: Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Iran, South Asia, North Korea, and Mumbai

26. Enhancing Full-Spectrum Flexibility: Striking the Balance to Maximize Force Effectiveness in Conventional and Counterinsurgency Operations

Author:: William D. Anderson, Jr.
Publication Date:: 04-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:: With the United States currently engaged in difficult and taxing counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, renewed emphasis has been focused upon the country's cap abilities and priorities vis - à - vis this type of warfare. Within the military, the Air Force has been especially and increasingly criticized for being too enamored with a Cold - War era conventionally minded force structure and for not shifting aggressively to meet the threats of COIN - style conflicts that many predict will be pervasive throughout the Global War on Terror.
Topic:: Political Violence, Terrorism, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

27. MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform

Author:: Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt, and Berit G. Fitzsimmons
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Academy of Political Science
Abstract:: Mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles offer an excellent case study for investigating the current debate over the Pentagon's approach to developing and fielding irregular warfare capabilities. MRAPs first gained prominence for their ability to protect U.S. forces from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and because the Pentagon did not deploy them en masse to Iraq until almost 5 years of fighting had passed. More recently, following extraordinary efforts to field more than 10,000 MRAPs quickly, the program has been criticized as wasteful and unnecessary.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Nationalism, and War
Political Geography:: United States and Iraq

28. Iraqi Security Forces after U.S. Troop Withdrawal: An Iraqi Perspective

Author:: Najim Abed Al-Jabouri
Publication Date:: 08-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Abstract:: As U.S. Armed Forces draw down in Iraq, there is increasing concern about the possibility of resurgent ethnic and sectarian tensions. Many Iraqis believe that the United States may be making a grave mistake by not fully using its remaining leverage to insulate the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) from the political influence of the incumbent Iraqi sectarian political parties. U.S. efforts to rebuild the ISF have focused on much needed training and equipment, but have neglected the greatest challenge facing the forces' ability to maintain security upon U.S. withdrawal: an ISF politicized by ethno-sectarian parties. These ties pose the largest obstacle to the ISF in its quest to become genuinely professional and truly national in character.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Arabia

29. Land, Property, and the Challenge of Return for Iraq's Displaced

Author:: Deborah Isser and Peter Van der Auweraert
Publication Date:: 04-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:: Iraq has experienced several waves of mass displacement over the last forty years that have left complex land and property crises in their wake. As security has improved and some of the nearly five million displaced Iraqis have begun to come home, resolution of these issues are at the fore of sustainable return.
Topic:: Political Violence, Ethnic Conflict, Migration, Religion, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

30. Conflictos bélicos y gestión de la información: una revisión tras la guerra en Irak y Afganistán

Author:: Manuel R. Torres Soriano and Javier García Marín
Publication Date:: 09-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:: Existe un acuerdo casi unánime entre aquellos estudiosos que han investigado la compleja realidad de la guerra: el creciente papel que tiene la gestión de la información pública en el desarrollo de los conflictos bélicos (Libicki, 1995; Alberts et al., 2001, Armistead, 2004). Esta preponderancia se manifestó en algunos de los conflictos de la década de los noventa, como la llamada Guerra del Golfo, y en los de la antigua Yugoslavia y Kosovo. A pesar de que en ellos la gestión de la información jugó un papel destacado en la estrategia de los contendientes, el desenlace de estos conflictos estuvo vinculado a los tradicionales elementos del “poder duro”, según la distinción de Josehp Nye (1990). Sin embargo, en los últimos años, hemos podido asistir a un acelerado incremento de la importancia del componente “inmaterial” de la guerra. La generalización y sofisticación de las nuevas tecnologías de la información, junto con la aparición de una nueva tipología de conflicto caracterizado por la asimetría en la naturaleza y fines de los contendientes, han situado a la dimensión informativa de los conflictos en el lugar central de toda reflexión sobre la naturaleza de las guerras del presente y el futuro.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, War, and Insurgency
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and Maryland

31. Bush, Clausewitz, and the Grand Strategic Imperative: Keeping Political Ends Primary

Author:: Bryan Groves
Publication Date:: 01-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Department of Social Sciences at West Point, United States Military Academy
Abstract:: As President George W. Bush relinquishes the reigns as Commander-in-Chief to President Barak Obama, it is fitting to reflect on how the country will remember President Bush in years to come. Whether or not one agrees with his decision to commit U.S. forces to military action against Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party regime in Iraq, it is clear that Bush's legacy will largly be determined by how Iraq turns out--whether as a stable, free, and peace-loving democracy or something short of that. There is certainly plenty of room for continued improvement in the conditions on the ground and ample time for the political, security, and economic situation to yet deteriorate. Yet, since "The Surge" and the change in U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, developments in Iraq have taken a fundamentally and undeniably positive turn.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Democratization, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

32. Iraq's Provincial Elections: The Stakes

Publication Date:: 01-2009
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: On 31 January, Iraqis will head to the polls in fourteen of eighteen governorates to elect new provincial councils. The stakes are considerable. Whereas the January 2005 elections helped put Iraq on the path to all-out civil war, these polls could represent another, far more peaceful turning point. They will serve several important objectives: refreshing local governance; testing the strength of various parties; and serving as a bellwether for nationwide political trends. In several governorates, new parties or parties that failed to run four years ago may oust, or at least reduce the dominance of, a handful of dominant parties whose rule has been marred by pervasive mismanagement and corruption. This in itself would be a positive change with far-reaching consequences as the nation braces for parliamentary elections later in 2009.
Topic:: Civil Society, Civil War, Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, Islam, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

33. Iraq after the Surge I: The New Sunni Landscape

Publication Date:: 04-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: Against the odds, the U.S. military surge contributed to a significant reduction in violence. Its achievements should not be understated. But in the absence of the fundamental political changes in Iraq the surge was meant to facilitate, its successes will remain insufficient, fragile and reversible. The ever-more relative lull is an opportunity for the U.S. to focus on two missing ingredients: pressuring the Iraqi government to take long overdue steps toward political compromise and altering the regional climate so that Iraq's neighbours use their leverage to encourage that compromise and make it stick. As shown in these two companion reports, this entails ceasing to provide the Iraqi government with unconditional military support; reaching out to what remains of the insurgency; using its leverage to encourage free and fair provincial elections and progress toward a broad national dialogue and compact; and engaging in real diplomacy with all Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria included.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, and Syria

34. Iraq after the Surge II: The Need for a New Political Strategy

Publication Date:: 04-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: Against the odds, the U.S. military surge contributed to a significant reduction in violence. Its achievements should not be understated. But in the absence of the fundamental political changes in Iraq the surge was meant to facilitate, its successes will remain insufficient, fragile and reversible. The ever-more relative lull is an opportunity for the U.S. to focus on two missing ingredients: pressuring the Iraqi government to take long overdue steps toward political compromise and altering the regional climate so that Iraq's neighbours use their leverage to encourage that compromise and make it stick. As shown in these two companion reports, this entails ceasing to provide the Iraqi government with unconditional military support; reaching out to what remains of the insurgency; using its leverage to encourage free and fair provincial elections and progress toward a broad national dialogue and compact; and engaging in real diplomacy with all Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria included.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Syria

35. Learning the Right Lessons from Iraq

Author:: Benjamin H. Friedman, Harvey Sapolsky, and Christopher Preble
Publication Date:: 02-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: Foreign policy experts and policy analysts are misreading the lessons of Iraq. The emerging conventional wisdom holds that success could have been achieved in Iraq with more troops, more cooperation among U.S. government agencies, and better counterinsurgency doctrine. To analysts who share these views, Iraq is not an example of what not to do but of how not to do it. Their policy proposals aim to reform the national security bureaucracy so that we will get it right the next time.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

36. "The Kitsch of War: Misappropriating Sun Tzu for an American Imperial Hypermasculinity

Author:: L.H.M. Ling and Ching-Chane Hwang
Publication Date:: 04-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
Abstract:: Sun Tzu seems more popular than ever. The Bush Administration attributes its successful invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to tactics in The Art of War such as “shock and awe” and “decapitation.” However, neither exists in Sun Tzu's manual. More seriously, this misappropriation reinforces an imperial hypermasculinity in US foreign policy given its neoliberal logic of “conversion or discipline” for Self/Other relations. Rival camps of imperial hypermasculinity arise in reaction, thereby rationalizing the US Self's resort to such in the first place. Locking the world into ceaseless rounds of hostility between opposed enemies, we argue, contradicts Sun Tzu's purpose. The Art of War sought to transform, not annihilate, the enemy as mandated by the cosmo-moral, dialectical world order that governed Sun Tzu's time. In misappropriating Sun Tzu, then, the Bush Administration turns The Art of War into mere kitsch.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, War, and Political Theory
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

37. Middle East Perspectives: Conference Proceedings from Gstaad, Switzerland

Author:: Shai Feldman, Shahram Chubin, Abdulaziz Sager, and David L. Aaron
Publication Date:: 09-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:: The Middle East and its security remains a vital ingredient in international security. The region's tensions, conflicts and stability are of fundamental concern to a wide range of actors, whose interests or proximity make it a priority. The novelty today is the increasing inter-relations of these conflicts and instability and the limitations of outside power influence. This, together with the appearance of new actors in the region, namely India and China, seems likely to transform diplomacy in the future. Regional dynamics, which are increasingly resistant to outside power influence or control, continue to shape the strategic environment. These dynamic forces, ranging from terrorism, sectarianism, and on-going conflicts, intersect and add to the region's instability and fragmentation. The conflict zone (from the Levant to Iran) overlaps the “energy ellipse” (in the Gulf), that is, the dependence of much of the world on this region for energy supplies. Superimposed on this is the related feature of the region, namely the emergence in the GCC of the 'super rich' states, carving out a new niche and economic identity with their newfound wealth. The region is thus complex: unstable, vulnerable, and wealthy in parts. Weak, shattered, or embryonic states (Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine) co-exist with strong states like Egypt, cautious ones like Saudi Arabia, and ambitious ones, notably Iran. What seems clear from the perspective of 2008 is the continuing need for international engagement, combined with a recognition that this engagement must be constructive and cannot substitute for local initiatives or substitute for local forces, which at best, can only be harnessed, not controlled.
Topic:: Security, Ethnic Conflict, Oil, and War
Political Geography:: China, Iraq, Middle East, India, Palestine, Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Egypt

38. Business as Usual: An Assessment of Donald Rumsfeld's Transformation Vision and Transformation's Prospects for the Future

Author:: Mark G. Czelusta
Publication Date:: 06-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies
Abstract:: Donald Rumsfeld's vision of a transformed United States military has been discussed by many and understood by few. It is no surprise that this lack of understanding has resulted in both significant simplifications and sweeping generalizations, to include the Reuters headline noted above. Even the term, “Rumsfeld's Transformation,” accounts for neither the historical influences that led to his vision, nor the multiple components of this transformational effort.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Asia

39. Private Military Companies in the US Stabilization Operation in Iraq

Author:: Marcin Terlikowski
Publication Date:: 08-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:: In the last two decades, the issue of private military companies and the privatization of the sphere of international security, have been addressed by political decision-makers in many countries, military experts, as well by the media and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It seems that the controversies and sometimes very categorical opinions which have emerged concerning these issues have several sources. Firstly, the relatively sudden appearance of a new type of non-public actor in the military sphere, which traditionally was the exclusive activity of the state, was associated with consternation caused by negative connotations with historic, still pre-Westphalian international order where significant roles were played by private armies and other mercenary forces (e.g. condottieres, corsairs). Secondly, the activities of these types of firm have caused a number of problems. For example, to this day, not all the circumstances have been explained regarding the participation by several firms in conflicts in Africa and the Balkans in the 1990s, while the media are still reporting various irregularities and incidents involving such enterprises. Thirdly, this specific business has developed with enormous dynamism, continuously generating profits and extending both the geographical scope of activities and the profile of the services provided.
Topic:: Security and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Arabia

40. Just Deserts in Iraq: American Vengeance for 9/11

Author:: Linda J. Skitka and Peter Liberman
Publication Date:: 10-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
Abstract:: In January 2002 national survey data, we find a strong relationship between Americans' desire to avenge 9/11 and their bellicosity toward Iraq, even after controlling for the perceived terrorist threat, left right ideology, and approval of U.S. political leaders. This effect could have been due to suspicions of Iraqi complicity in 9/11 stemming from prior enemy images of Iraq, or to the effects of anger and desires for revenge on out-group antipathy, displaced blame, and optimistic assessment of war risks. We test the out group antipathy hypothesis and find evidence that anti-Arab and anti-Muslim antipathy partially mediated vengefulness's effect on bellicosity. Vengeance, in turn, was boosted by retributiveness (proxied by rightwing authoritarianism) and patriotism. While perceptions of the Iraqi threat probably assumed greater importance over the course of the following year, additional survey data shows that even as war approached, most supporters acknowledged it would satisfy a desire for revenge.
Topic:: Islam, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, Middle East, and Arabia

41. What NATO can learn from "the surge" in Iraq

Author:: Christopher M. Schnaubelt
Publication Date:: 10-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: NATO Defense College
Abstract:: What a difference 30,000 additional troops and a new strategy make. A few years ago, Afghanistan was commonly viewed as the model of a successful intervention while many politicians, military analysts, and pundits believed that the war in Iraq was being irretrievably lost. Yet today— although conditions still have a long way to go before normalcy has been achieved—the progress in Iraq following “the surge” directed by President Bush in January 2007 is widely recognized. All the indicators of violence: attacks against Iraqi infrastructure and government organizations; small arms, mortar and rocket attacks, and casualties among Iraqi civilians, Iraqi Security Forces, and Coalition Forces have sharply declined since July 2007. The situation has gone from being generally perceived as on the brink of disaster to being a success story (albeit belated and costly).
Topic:: NATO, Terrorism, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

42. Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and "Other Means"

Author:: Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman
Publication Date:: 10-2008
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:: Iran has a robust program to exert influence in Iraq in order to limit American power-projection capability in the Middle East, ensure the Iraqi government does not pose a threat to Iran, and build a reliable platform for projecting influence further abroad. Iran has two primary modes of influence. First, and most importantly, it projects political influence by leveraging close historical relationships with several Shi'a organizations in Iraq: the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), the Badr organization, and the Dawah political party. Second, Iran uses the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Qods Force (QF) to provide aid in the form of paramilitary training, weapons, and equipment to various Iraqi militant groups, including Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) and the Special Group Criminals (SGCs). Iran also projects influence through economic initiatives and various religious programs. Iranian influence in Iraq is inevitable, and some of it is legal and constructive. Nonetheless, Iranian policy in Iraq is also duplicitous. Iran publicly calls for stability while subverting Iraq's government and illegally sponsoring anti‐government militias.
Topic:: International Political Economy and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Iran, and Middle East

43. After the Surge: The Case for U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq

Author:: Steven Simon
Publication Date:: 09-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: When this Council Special Report (CSR) was first issued in February 2007, the debate over the surge was raging. President George W. Bush had only announced his intention to deploy additional troops. Democrats and Republicans rushed to the barricades either to deplore or to defend it. This report, however, saw the surge as inevitable—since its opponents were powerless to stop it—and, more importantly, as beside the point.
Topic:: Defense Policy and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

44. NATO and 21st Century War

Author:: Samuel Grier
Publication Date:: 10-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: NATO Defense College
Abstract:: There is an expectation that the West, and the United States in particular, faces catastrophe in Iraq and Afghanistan. Confronted with significant casualties arising from the employment of asymmetric warfare by determined adversaries, the United States and its NATO and Coalition partners have found decisive solutions to both conflicts elusive. Similarly, the challenges confronting Iraqis are daunting, and according to the recently released declassified Key Findings of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, dependence on Coalition forces as an essential stabilizing element in Iraq will continue.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East

45. Winning is Everything: The Presidency of George W. Bush

Author:: Richard E. Hartwig
Publication Date:: 10-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política
Abstract:: After the events of 9/11/01, the United States rallied around President George W. Bush. An administration that was initially weak and semi-legiti-mate came to directly control the executive and legislative branches of government and gradually strengthen its influence over the judiciary. Bush and the Republican majority in Congress attained hegemony domestically as well as internationally. Having acquired the power to ignore the rules, they often proceeded to do so. A semi-idealistic “winning is everything” approach to foreign policy led the United States into a quagmire in Iraq. An unempirical “winning is everything” approach to domestic policy, which often distorts the rules (law, science, and standard economics) and ignores the “referees” (the GAO, the CBO, the IMF), has created potentially disastrous medium and long-term problems for the United States.
Topic:: Government, Politics, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: United States and Iraq

46. Jordan: Little presence outside WEF

Publication Date:: 06-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Media Tenor International
Abstract:: Coverage on the Middle East continues to be very prominent in many countries, particularly the United States, where close to 80% of all its international coverage is devoted to the region. In German television, other European countries together received the same volumes as the Middle East. This is a very high ratio, considering that German troops are only involved in Afghanistan, and not in other Arab countries. Coverage on the Middle East is considerably subdued in South African television when compared to other measured countries, perhaps because events in Europe received considerably more attention. German television committed the largest share of its coverage to international news (44%), followed by the United States and Britain (37%), while Arab television dedicated 29% of its coverage to the international arena. The lowest share of international focus was in South African television news (24%).
Topic:: Political Violence, Islam, Terrorism, War, and Mass Media
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Europe, Middle East, and Arabia

47. Strategy, National Interests, and Means to an End

Author:: Stephen D. Sklenka
Publication Date:: 10-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: This paper focuses on the interrelationship among national interests, stated ends, means to achieve those ends, and the strategies required to tie all of them together into a cohesive and effective vision for the commitment of U.S. forces. The introduction addresses the current U.S. debate regarding proposed actions in the Iraq War and postulates that the lack of true strategic discussion, particularly by our national leadership who instead prefer to focus on far less appropriate discussions such as tactics and techniques, inhibits the development of a comprehensive and effective overarching vision and ultimately is to blame for the setbacks that the U.S.-led coalition has experienced in Iraq. This lack of strategic foresight, however, is not surprising and has become endemic to American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. The fact that so much of U.S. post-Cold War foreign policy involves interventions merely exacerbates the difficulties a lack of strategic foresight engenders. The U.S. inability—or unwillingness—to connect strategic ends and appropriate means to accomplish clearly defined goals has occurred so often over the past 15 years that one could make a credible argument that it has become a disturbing and pervasive characteristic of the modern American way of war.
Topic:: Cold War, Development, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

48. "I'm just talking about the law”: Guantánamo and the Lawyers

Author:: Marten Zwanenburg
Publication Date:: 05-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:: “Because the legal advice was we could do what we wanted to them there” (22). This is how a top-level Pentagon official, in David Rose's Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights explains why detainees held by the United States have been detained at Guantanamo Bay. It is just one illustration of the important role that lawyers have played in the “War on Terror”—a role, along with factors that have or that may have influenced it, that forms the topic of this essay.
Topic:: Government, Human Rights, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

49. Making Sense of a Senseless War

Author:: J. Peter Pham
Publication Date:: 04-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Human Rights Human Welfare (University of Denver)
Abstract:: In a report on the United Nations-supervised disarmament process in Sierra Leone, veteran Washington Post correspondent Douglas Farah described the pathos of the ragged Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighters: many were barely into their teens, straggling into a processing center in the diamond-rich eastern district of Kono with little more than ill-fitting rags draped over their emaciated bodies (Farah 2001). There was little evidence that these broken youths had, just a short while earlier, been part of one of the most brutal and effective insurgencies in the world, one whose strategy was predicated on terror in its most primordial expression. Farah's piece was headlined, “They Fought for Nothing, and That's What They Got,” a succinct description of a conflict that struck many as senseless, despite its heavy toll in lives and property.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

50. More Troops for Iraq? Time to just say "No"

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 01-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Few outside the administration would contest that the mission's “measurables” are miserable. The progress in Iraq reconstruction has been glacial and the security situation has steadily deteriorated, despite a great expenditure of time, money, and lives. But why? Critics have variously targeted the administration's strategy, planning, priorities, and level of effort – which suggest that there might be a better way. And, indeed, the administration now claims to have discovered one.
Topic:: Defense Policy and War
Political Geography:: United States and Iraq

51. No good reason to boost Army, Marine Corps end strength

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 01-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: President Bush's request to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 personnel follows on the heels of similar proposals by Congress members of both parties. Despite the bipartisan appeal of this idea, it is not at all clear what problem it is intended to solve or how it is supposed to solve it. Advocates may believe that America's troubles in Iraq provide reason enough to “grow” the Army and Marine Corps. But this view misconstrues both the lessons of that war and America's true security needs.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Government, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and America

52. Is The “Surge” Working? Some New Facts

Author:: Michael Greenstone
Publication Date:: 09-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Brookings Institution
Abstract:: There is a paucity of facts about the effects of the recent military “Surge” on conditions in Iraq and whether it is paving the way for a stable Iraq. Selective, anecdotal and incomplete analyses abound. Policy makers and defense planners must decide which measures of success or failure are most important, but until now few, if any, systematic analyses were available on which to base those decisions. This paper applies modern statistical techniques to a new da ta file derived from more than a dozen of the most reliable and widely-cited sources to assess the Surge's impact on three key dimensions: the functioning of the Iraqi state (including civilian casualties); military casualties; and financial markets' assessment of Iraq's future. The new and unusually rigorous findings presented here should help inform current evaluations of the Surge and provide a basis for better decision making about future strategy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

53. Iraq Trip Report

Author:: Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack
Publication Date:: 08-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Brookings Institution
Abstract:: From July 17-25 we travelled extensively in central, western and nor thern Iraq. The trip was sponsored by the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I) command and so afforded unparalleled access to U.S. and Iraqi military personnel. We spoke at length with the four principal American division commands in those sectors, as well as nearly half of the brigade commanders and their staffs, as well as several battalion and even company commanders. We also met with senior U.S. personnel from the Detainee Forces command, and from the training command known as MNSTCI, as well as a number of Iraqi police and army officers. Similarly, MNF-I saw to it that we were able to meet with key civilian personnel in a variety of PRTs/EPRTs, the U.S. Ambassador, the President's Special Envoy, the CIA station, the US AID mission, and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq. Both through our own contacts and those of the military, we also were able to meet with a number of the senior most members of the current Iraqi government (including President Talabani, Vice President 'Abd al-Mahdi, Foreign Minister Zebari, Deputy Prime Minister Salih, and National Security Adviser ar-Rubaie).
Topic:: Conflict Resolution and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

54. WHERE IS IRAQ HEADING? LESSONS FROM BASRA

Publication Date:: 06-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: Amid the media and military focus on Baghdad, another major Iraqi city – Basra – is being overlooked. Yet Basra's experience carries important lessons for the capital and nation as a whole. Coalition forces have already implemented a security plan there, Operation Sinbad, which was in many ways similar to Baghdad's current military surge. What U.S. commanders call “clear, hold and build”, their British counterparts earlier had dubbed “clear, hold and civil reconstruction”. And, as in the capital, the putative goal was to pave the way for a takeover by Iraqi forces. Far from being a model to be replicated, however, Basra is an example of what to avoid. With renewed violence and instability, Basra illustrates the pitfalls of a transitional process that has led to collapse of the state apparatus and failed to build legitimate institutions. Fierce intra-Shiite fighting also disproves the simplistic view of Iraq neatly divided between three homogenous communities.
Topic:: International Relations, Security, Civil War, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

55. Engaging Islamists and Promoting Democracy: A Preliminary Assessment

Author:: Mona Yacoubian
Publication Date:: 09-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:: Parliamentary elections across the Middle East have led to a wave of Islamist victories. Islamist parties typically boast leaders who are young and dynamic, with strong ties to the community; their party organizations brim with energy and ideas, attracting those who seek change. The U.S. government has quietly engaged moderate Islamist parties for several years. U.S. engagement has been most successful where democratic reform is already underway and where the government is genuinely committed to political opening. Other factors include the Islamist parties' political sophistication, popular credibility, and openness to working with U.S. organizations. A successful Islamist engagement strategy both empowers individuals and strengthens institutions to yield greater transparency, more accountability, and shifts toward greater moderation. Of the three cases addressed in this paper—Morocco, Jordan, and Yemen—Morocco appears to hold the greatest promise for U.S. engagement with moderate Islamists. Meanwhile, Jordan and Yemen offer important though limited instances of success. U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East affects the ability of U.S. organizations to promote democracy there. At times, Islamist parties have cut off contact with U.S. democracy promoters to protest specific aspects of U.S. foreign policy, such as the war in Iraq. Ultimately, U.S. engagement of moderate Islamists must be understood within the broader political context of the ideological battle in the Muslim world over the place of Islam in public life. Moderate Islamist parties that reject violence and practice democratic ideals are an important counterweight to Islamist extremism, and their work should be encouraged.
Topic:: Democratization, Islam, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Middle East, Yemen, Jordan, and Morocco

56. Iraq and the Gulf States: The Balance of Fear

Author:: Jon B. Alterman
Publication Date:: 08-2007
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:: Iraq's Persian Gulf neighbors supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq in order to preserve the status quo—a weak and self-absorbed Iraq—rather than to impose a new one. However, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and its aftermath have not brought stability to the Gulf States as much as they have shifted the most serious challenges from external threats (of a hostile Baghdad) to internal threats (the threat of conflict spillover from Iraq). Kuwait fears the growth of Iranian influence in Iraq and the possibility that Iraqi Shia unrest will spill across its own borders. Although many Kuwaitis question the wisdom and capacity of the United States in managing Iraq's internal problems, Kuwait has provided significant support to U.S. military action in Iraq and the country's reconstruction efforts. Qatar has supported U.S. military actions in Iraq by hosting the U.S. Central Command but still maintains the perception of nonalignment. For example, Doha hosts prominent former Iraqi Baathists, not to mention Saddam's own family members. The interest of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Iraq is secondary to its concern over Iran, with which it has a long-standing dispute over ownership of three islands in the Gulf. The unresolved dispute with Tehran over the islands heightens the UAE's concerns about the rising Iranian influence in Iraq. To bolster its relationship with the United States, the UAE offered training to hundreds of Iraqi troops and police recruits in 2004–2005, hosted the first Preparatory Group Meeting for the International Compact with Iraq in September 2006, and funded reconstruction efforts in Iraq through the United Nations and the World Bank. On post-Saddam regional security issues, member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) seem to be more “market takers” than “market makers,” showing little inclination to shape the nature of a larger and potentially more powerful neighbor. Instead, they are focused on immediate choices for calibrating a proper relationship with Washington in a way that accommodates many other important relationships.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Kuwait, Tehran, Baghdad, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Persia

57. Counterinsurgency and Political Control. US Military Strategies Regarding Regional Conflict, INEF-Report 81

Author:: Jochen Hippler
Publication Date:: 01-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for Development and Peace
Abstract:: With US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting rather ruthless counter- insurgency campaigns, the topic of in surgency and counterinsurgency is of pressing relevance. At the same time, questions of internal violence in developing countries have generally been high on the political and academic agenda in the context of “failed” and “failing states”.
Topic:: Defense Policy and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Middle East, and Asia

58. Mapping the Jihadist Threat: The War on Terror Since 9/11

Author:: Kurt M. Campbell and Willow Darsie
Publication Date:: 08-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Aspen Institute
Abstract:: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously bemoaned the challenges of measuring success in a long twilight struggle with Islamic fundamentalists. There are the “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” that confront the United States in the most unfamiliar set of foreign policy challenges in the country's history. In addition to the difficulties of establishing “metrics” – as Rumsfeld would put it – in our war on terror, there is also the intrinsically related and perhaps more vexing question of how the global ideological virus of Islamic fundamentalism is morphing and evolving. An influential and well-funded cohort of radicalized Islamists, seizing upon an unyielding interpretation of religious text (a kind of Koranic original intent), has been at war with the West for nearly a generation, and the pace of operations globally is accelerating. According to recently released U.S. government reports, there has been a sharp surge in the number of global terrorist attacks in recent years, a tally substantially comprised of incidents initiated by Islamist instigators. Taken in its totality with all its many manifestations, the jihadist challenge stretches from the Taliban strongholds in the rugged Afghan mountains and the dense jungle hideouts of the Philippines, to the ornate mosques of Saudi Arabia, from a quiet neighborhood in Leeds, England to, just possibly, a place near you.
Topic:: Islam, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

59. Fast Forward to the Past? The Line in the Sand from Iraq to Iran

Author:: Ramesh Thakur
Publication Date:: 08-2006
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Centre for International Governance Innovation
Abstract:: In this paper, Ramesh Thakur examines the implications of the Iraq War for the UN, shows how the goals being pursued in Iraq have been undermined by the means, and argues that the liberation of the people from Saddam Hussein's brutal regime was a collateral benefit amidst much damage to principles, institutions and relations. His thesis is that the Iraq War has complicated the international community's efforts to fashion a robust collective response to the nuclear challenge posed by Iran. The war's legacies include diminished Western credibility in highlighting an Iran threat, narrower policy options in responding to the nuclear challenge, and an Iran that is simultaneously politically stronger in Iraq, richer due to rising oil prices, and more emboldened and motivated on national security.
Topic:: United Nations and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Iran, and Middle East

60. After Intervention: Public Security Management in Post-Conflict Societies - From Intervention to Sustainable Local Ownership

Author:: Anja H. Ebnöther and Philipp H. Fluri
Publication Date:: 08-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Austrian National Defence Academy
Abstract:: The transition from interventionist (military) peace-keeping to local (civilian) ownership of public security management has proved not only to be a severe challenge for most peace-keeping operations and their civilian administrators, but also a reason for such operations being prolonged at tremendous cost. In many cases, peace-keeping operations and/or other international agents rapidly became part of the local economy, and thus contributed to the preservation of the status quo rather than to a sustainable process leading toward local governance; meanwhile local police organs - often remnants of the winning force in the antecedent conflict - remained tribal or clannish in their approaches and interests. They could thus hardly be seen as enforcement agencies of a law which remains equally applied to all citizens.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Security, Development, International Organization, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Balkans

61. CIAO: War Crimes: The Posse Gathers

Author:: Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith
Publication Date:: 12-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Foreign Policy In Focus
Abstract:: Diverse forces are assembling to bring Bush administration officials to account for war crimes. Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Mother for Peace, insists: “We cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.” Paul Craig Roberts, Hoover Institution senior fellow and assistant secretary of the treasury under Ronald Reagan, charges Bush with “lies and an illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA agents, with war crimes against Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture centers” and calls for the president's impeachment. Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and former president of the American Society of International Law, declares: “These policies make a mockery of our claim to stand for the rule of law. [Americans] should be marching on Washington to reject inhumane techniques carried out in our name.
Topic:: International Relations, Government, Peace Studies, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Washington

62. Insurgency: Modern Warfare Evolves into a Fourth Generation

Author:: Thomas X. Hammes
Publication Date:: 01-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Abstract:: On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat in Iraq. While most Americans rejoiced at this announcement, students of history understood that it simply meant the easy part was over. In the following months, peace did not break out, and the troops did not come home. In fact, Iraqi insurgents have struck back hard. Instead of peace, each day Americans read about the death of another soldier, the detonation of deadly car bombs, the assassination of civilians, and Iraqi unrest.
Topic:: International Relations, Politics, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, America, and Middle East

63. Charting the Winds of Change: America and the Middle East, 2005

Author:: David Makovsky, Ehud Yaari, Paul Wolfowitz, Barham Salih, Mohsen Sazegara, Ahmed Nazif, Habib Malik, Hassan Abu-Libdeh, Rola Dashti, Terje Roed-Larsen, and Meir Shitrit
Publication Date:: 05-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:: Over the past eighteen years, a major shift has occurred in relations between Israel and the Palestinians. In the wake of the Oslo process, the possibility for peace is real.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Iran, and Middle East

64. Counter-Terrorism in Somalia: Losing Hearts and Minds?

Publication Date:: 07-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: Nearly four years after 9/11 , hardly a day passes without the "war on terrorism" making headlines, with Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia and now London holding centre stage. But away from the spot light, a quiet, dirty conflict is being waged in Somalia: in the rubble-strewn streets of the ruined capital of this state without a government, Mogadishu, al-Qaeda operatives, jihadi extremists, Ethiopian security services and Western-backed counter-terrorism networks are engaged in a shadowy and complex contest waged by intimidation, abduction and assassination. The U.S. has had some success but now risks evoking a backlash. Ultimately a successful counter-terrorism strategy requires more attention to helping Somalia with the twin tasks of reconciliation and state building.
Topic:: Terrorism and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Africa, United States, Iraq, Indonesia, Middle East, London, and Somalia

65. Observations on Local Insurgents and Foreign Fighters in Iraq: an Interview with Mark Edmond Clark

Author:: Mark E. Clark
Publication Date:: 05-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:: CIAO: There has been considerable discussion lately among analysts of U.S. foreign policy on the insurgency in Iraq. Although you have not dealt with the local insurgents or foreign fighters operating in Iraq, previously you managed to observe up close the preparations made by Serbian nationalist groups in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and by Yugoslav military, security services, and Serbian nationalist paramilitary groups in the Kosovo-Metohija province of Serbia for long-term insurgencies against the U.S. and NATO. Using that expertise, and your knowledge of events in Iraq, could you share some thoughts on the insurgency in Iraq?
Topic:: War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Middle East, Arabia, Kosovo, and Serbia

66. The Role of Small Arms during the 2003-2004 Conflict in Iraq

Author:: Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Les Roberts, and Richard Garfield
Publication Date:: 09-2005
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Small Arms Survey
Abstract:: Iraq underwent a particularly deadly war with neighbouring Iran during the 1980s with perhaps a million deaths occurring. Following the Persian Gulf war of 1991, more than 60,000 Iraqis were believed to have been killed by the government in retaliation for perceived support of the US-led coalition during the conflict. The level of violence within Iraq has not been well recorded in recent years and, in fact, no survey or census-based estimate of crude mortality has been made in Iraq since 1997 and the last estimate of mortality in children under five years of age was a UNICEF-sponsored demographic survey of 1999.
Topic:: International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

67. A Way Out of the Mesopotamian Morass? The Case for a Partitioned Iraq

Author:: Ivan Eland
Publication Date:: 10-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Independent Institute
Abstract:: The United States has plunged into an Iraqi swamp. The swashbuckling victory in the first Gulf War led to the most egregious sin that can be made in the military affairs—hubris and underestimation of the enemy. The U.S. and Soviet superpowers made the same mistake respectively in Vietnam in the sixties and seventies and Afghanistan in the eighties. But as those quagmires fade from memory, government officials apparently have to relearn the same lessons.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Democratization, and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, Soviet Union, and Vietnam

68. The Iraqi Insurgency & Iraq Security Force Development

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 07-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Progress toward a stable peace in Iraq and the withdrawal of US troops begins with the painful recognition that America's recent troubles are largely self-inflicted. This is due principally to the adoption of mission objectives that far exceed what is necessary or pragmatic.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Government, Politics, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, America, and Middle East

69. Radical Departure: Toward A Practical Peace in Iraq

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 07-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: The key to enabling total US troop withdrawal from Iraq within 400 days is achieving a political accord with Sunni leaders at all levels and with Iraq's neighbors - especially Syria and Iran. The proximal aim would be to immediately lower the level of conflict inside Iraq by constricting both active and passive support for the insurgency, inside and outside the country. This would allow the United States to shift resources to the training mission and to adopt other de-escalatory measures - most importantly: a withdrawal time line. The strategic price of this diplomatic initiative would be a return to self-governance in Sunni areas, a guaranteed level of representation for these areas in the national assembly, an end to broad-brush measures of de-Baathification, an amnesty for most indigenous insurgents and for most former Baathists, and a de-escalation of the US confrontation with Syria and Iran regarding a range of issues. In conjunction with these diplomatic initiatives, the United States would announce a tentative time line for withdrawal of its troops from Iraq -- associated with training milestones. Also: US forces would end major offensive sweeps inside the country, adopt a defensive posture, and shift the emphasis of their activity to training Iraqi security forces. Finally: the Iraqi government would re-activate portions of the old army -- partly as a confidence-building measure, but also in order to (i) rob insurgent organizations of their recruiting base, (ii) augment the power of the new Iraqi security forces, and (iii) produce a better ethnic balance in the new forces (which are currently dominated by Kurds and Shiites). As new forces increase in capacity, US forces would be removed, further reducing a stimulus of insurgent action. Four hundred days - 57 weeks - is sufficient time to complete several Iraqi training cycles, including field exercises for many units at the battalion and brigade levels. Some division level training also can occur. Given sufficient resources (24,000 training personnel), 100,000 Iraqi security personnel can receive remedial training and another 80,000 new personnel can be trained and exercised during this period. Together with the full provision of all appropriate equipment, this development effort can yield Iraqi security forces that are several times more capable than those it controls in mid-2005. After thirteen months, the only foreign military assets remaining in Iraq would be a small monitoring and training mission with a security detail: less than 10,000 foreign civilian and military personnel in all. US troops should constitute no more than one-third of the military component -- that is, approximately 2,000 troops. This mission should be conducted under a three-year UN mandate and joint NATO-international command. In addition, the United States might maintain a 25,000-person rapid reaction task force in the region, but outside either Iraq or Saudi Arabia.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Government, Politics, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

70. Disappearing the Dead: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Idea of a "New Warfare

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 02-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: Among those endeavors that a state or a people may undertake, none is more terrible than war. None has repercussions more far-reaching or profound. Thus, a grave responsibility to one's own nation and to the global community attends any decision to go to war. And part of this responsibility is to estimate and gauge the effects of war, including the collateral damage and civilian casualties that it incurs.
Topic:: Defense Policy and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and Middle East

71. The War in Iraq: Justified as Humanitarian Intervention?

Author:: Kenneth Roth
Publication Date:: 04-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Abstract:: I am particularly honored to give a lecture in Fr. Ted's name. For the longest time you have been one of my heroes for your vision about the role of civil society in addressing global security issues. I often think of Human Rights Watch as part of the tradition that led to the Kroc Institute and the various institutions that you have built at Notre Dame. To me, these institutions represent a determination to see civil society play this important role, not simply by picketing or demonstrating, but by bringing the highest levels of academic achievement, deep concern with ethics, a commitment to activism, and a healthy distrust of government monopoly in these important areas. I feel proud to share in the tradition that you have established so beautifully here at Notre Dame and privileged to give this lecture today.
Topic:: International Relations, Human Welfare, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

72. Can Iraq Be Democratic?

Author:: Patrick Basham
Publication Date:: 01-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: Is Iraq capable of moving smoothly from dictatorship to democracy? This paper contends that the White House will be gravely disappointed with the result of its effort to establish a stable liberal democracy in Iraq, or any other nation home to a large population of Muslims or Arabs, at least in the short to medium term.
Topic:: Democratization and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

73. Why German-US Relations Still Matter to the Transatlantic Alliance—One Year after War in Iraq

Author:: Michaela C. Hertkorn
Publication Date:: 12-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:: A declaration on NATO transformation of October 6, 2002 stated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needed to be “capable of taking action whenever the security of its members was threatened, upon the basis of the United Nations Charter. By making it clear that there is no safe haven for those who would threaten our societies or for those who would harbor such people” the deterrent element of Alliance strategy was strengthened. The North Atlantic Council should decide actions on a case-by-case basis. Where NATO as a whole was not engaged, allies willing to take action should be able to make use of NATO assets, procedures and practices. The declaration stressed high priority goals essential to the full range of Alliance missions including the defense against terrorism. This new initiative was to be based on firm national commitments with specific target dates. National commitments should be made transparent for parliamentary monitoring and oversight. Priority should be given to projects maximizing multi-nationality, and which had the potential to become common NATO assets. NATO and European Union capabilities initiatives needed to be mutually reinforced and thoroughly harmonized through permanent co-ordination mechanisms and procedures in a spirit of openness. NATO should redouble its efforts to reduce the fragmentation of defense procurement efforts through the pooling of military capabilities, co-operative acquisition of equipment and common funding. It should reduce to a minimum the obstacles for the sharing of technology. The alliance had to be able to act wherever NATO' s interests were threatened, creating coalitions under NATO' s own mandate, as well as contributing to mission-based coalitions, concerning both, old and new threats. NATO General Secretary, Lord Robertson referred to the experience NATO had with post-conflict stabilization, as in Kosovo and Macedonia. On October 8, 2002 Robertson declared, an enormous number of security issues on the Euro-Atlantic agenda required the greatest possible communication and coordination among Europeans and North Americans. The November 2002 Prague Summit would be a transforming event for the Alliance. It covered a wide range from terrorism, NATO' s military command arrangements and headquarters structure, to a further development of Partnership. The most visible issues referred to enlargement and improvements to NATO' s military capabilities. The question of capabilities concerned the member countries of NATO and of the European Union (EU). Because each nation had only one set of forces, it was necessary to make the best use possible of the scarce resources, avoiding duplication and overlaps. The message was very clear: the European Capabilities Action Plan and NATO' s Prague Capabilities Commitment needed to be coherent. Work in full transparency on capabilities issues was imperative, if EUNATO impasse was to be avoided or ended.
Topic:: Terrorism and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Europe, Kosovo, Germany, United Nations, and Macedonia

74. Nonlethal Weapons and Capabilities

Author:: Paul X. Kelley, Richard L. Garwin, and Graham T. Allison
Publication Date:: 02-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:: In the four weeks of “major conflict” in Iraq that began on March 19, 2003, U.S. forces demonstrated the power of training, transformation, and joint operations. However, the ensuing support and stability phase has been plagued by looting, sabotage, and insurgency. Wider integration of existing types of nonlethal weapons (NLW) into the U.S. Army and Marine Corps could have helped to reduce the damage done by widespread looting and sabotage after the cessation of major conflict in Iraq. Incorporating these and additional forms of nonlethal capabilities more broadly into the equipment, training, and doctrine of the armed services could substantially improve U.S. effectiveness in achieving the goals of modern war. Nonlethal weapons and capabilities have much to offer also in the conduct of war, in the prevention of hostilities, and in support of homeland defense. Indeed, a force using nonlethal weapons and capabilities has the potential of achieving combat and support goals more effectively than would a force employing only lethal means. How to achieve these benefits is the subject of this report.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Defense Policy, and War
Political Geography:: United States and Iraq

75. Operation Iraqi Freedom: Theater Air and Missile Defense History

Author:: Howard B. Bromberg
Publication Date:: 05-2004
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for Defense Information
Abstract:: Although we did not fully realize it at the time, our planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and our role in the Global War on Terrorism actually started within minutes after the attack on the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, the command began assuming roles in three major operations which culminated over nineteen months later with the Coalition victory in removing the Regime of Saddam Hussein and freeing the Iraqi people and the region from his threats.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

76. Unproven: The Controversy over Justifying War in Iraq

Author:: David Cortright, Alistair Millar, George A. Lopez, and Linda M. Gerber
Publication Date:: 06-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:: The failure of U.S. and British forces in Iraq to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction has sparked controversy on both sides of the Atlantic and in the wider international community. Two contending explanations have been offered for why the Bush administration made apparently questionable claims about weapons of mass destruction. The first alleges an intelligence failure. The best analysts in the CIA simply had no foolproof way of discerning what Saddam had. They gave the administration a wide-ranging set of estimates, from benign to worst-case, and, given the way bureaucracies behave, the president's advisors adopted the worse case scenario. The second claim, more odious in form and substance, is that the administration inflated and manipulated uncertain data, possibly even requesting that material sent to it be redone to fit preconceived notions. The Bush administration has gone to great pains to reassert that it stands by its previous pronouncements that prohibited weapons will be located in due time.
Topic:: International Relations, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

77. Hidden Costs of War

Author:: William D. Hartung
Publication Date:: 03-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:: The Bush administration's war on terrorism and its proposed military intervention in Iraq have sparked the steepest increases in military and security spending in two decades. Since September 11, 2001, the federal government has approved over $110 billion in increased military spending and military aid. Spending on national defense is slated to reach $399 billion in the Fiscal Year 2004 budget, and to rise to over $500 billion annually by the end of this decade. These vast sums do not include the costs of the ongoing war in Afghanistan or a war with Iraq. Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of the Fiscal Year 2003 Pentagon budget is being set aside for anti-terror activities and homeland security.
Topic:: Security, Economics, Government, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Iraq, and Middle East

78. The Progress of UN Disarmament in Iraq: An Assessment Report

Author:: David Cortright, Alistair Millar, George A. Lopez, and Linda M. Gerber
Publication Date:: 01-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Fourth Freedom Forum
Abstract:: After two months of increasingly intensive inspection activity, UN weapons monitors in Iraq, by their own account, have achieved considerable progress in establishing the disarmament process mandated in Security Council Resolution 1441 (2002). During his 27 January update to the Security Council, UN inspections chief Dr. Hans Blix reported that "Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far" with UN inspectors. "It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access." Although Baghdad has not fully disclosed its weapons activities as required by UN resolutions, and many unanswered questions remain, weapons inspectors have established an effective disarmament verification system in Iraq. They have asked for the "unified resolve" of the Security Council to support an ongoing inspection process. In contrast with the experience of UN weapons monitors during the early 1990s, the inspectors with the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have received unfettered access to Iraqi facilities and have been able to conduct more than 350 on-site inspections. They are employing the world's most advanced technology for detecting nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and are installing an ongoing monitoring system that will provide permanent surveillance of Iraq's weapons activities.
Topic:: United Nations, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

79. Sustaining Global Democratization: Nation Building and Intervention

Publication Date:: 02-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:: This panel on global democratization is part of an ongoing ISD effort to focus policy debate on a topic of growing importance. The first in this series of panel discussions was held shortly after 9/11, and was entitled "Sustaining Global Democratization: a priority now more than ever". That title could serve well for this panel also, as the connected issues of democratization and nation building are more timely and urgent than ever. In the new National Security Strategy, the President commits the U.S. to "extend the benefits of freedom across the globe." Democratization is no longer on the fringes of the policy debate. Uppermost on the agenda of policy maker and analyst are the open questions relating to Afghanistan, Iraq and the West-Bank/Gaza. How our democracy promoting goals are to be pursued and achieved in these and other cases is far from clear. Panelists today and at subsequent forums will bring the benefit of their wide experience to these issues. The problems that we discuss are global in nature. Today's panel will for the most part focus on the Middle East. Other regions will be the focus of attention at subsequent forums.
Topic:: Security, Democratization, and War
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, Iraq, Middle East, and Gaza

80. Establishing a Stable Democratic Constitutional Structure in Iraq: Some Basic Considerations

Publication Date:: 05-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Public International Law Policy Group
Abstract:: As the situation in Iraq continues to stabilize, the people of Iraq will turn to the task of reconstituting an Iraqi state. One of the first steps in this process will be to design, agree upon, and implement a new constitutional structure. While drafting a new constitution is a difficult and contentious process for any country, the challenges are substantially magnified for Iraq given its complex mosaic of ethnic and religious identities, the history of repression under Saddam Hussein, the necessary presence of American forces, and Iraq's complex relations with its neighboring states.
Topic:: Democratization, Development, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, and Arabia

81. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: How the US-EU Battle over Article 98 Played Out in Croatia and Macedonia

Author:: Kristina Balalovska and Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski
Publication Date:: 09-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Wilson Center
Abstract:: In the first half of 2003, postcommunist East European countries became pawns in two disputes between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). The first, broadly covered by the Western media, was the clash over the US-led invasion of Iraq. The second was over the jurisdiction of the newly established International Criminal Court (ICC). Although the latter skirmish was less noticed in the wider world, it was in many ways the more significant of the two. In both cases, the small states of East and Central Europe were forced to choose between the conflicting demands of the EU and US. Unlike the battle over the Iraq war, EU member states were united on the point of not granting the US immunity in the ICC. Moreover, it was impossible to walk a tightrope between Europe and the US in the ICC case because it required decisive action, whereas on the question of whether or not to invade Iraqi, some postcommunist countries were able to lend tacit support to both sides. Finally, a lot more was at stake in the ICC issue, since both the US and the EU threatened defecting countries with concrete sanctions.
Topic:: Government, International Organization, Politics, War, and Sanctions
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Europe, and Macedonia

82. The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict

Author:: Carl Conetta
Publication Date:: 10-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Project on Defense Alternatives
Abstract:: The motivating premise of this study is that nations cannot wage war responsibly or intelligently without careful attention to its costs. The broader context in which "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was conducted -- that is, the campaign against terrorism -- makes attention to the repercussions of war even more urgent. Effective action against terrorism depends in fair part on an effort to win hearts and minds. Success in this effort turns significantly on issues of legitimacy and responsible action, especially with regard to the use of force. And the first principle of responsible action is to take account of its effects.
Topic:: Human Welfare and War
Political Geography:: Iraq and Middle East

83. Mini-Nukes and Preemptive Policy: A Dangerous Combination

Author:: Charles V. Peña
Publication Date:: 11-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: Currently, the United States relies on conventional bunker-busting bombs—such as the GBU-28, which was used in both Afghanistan and Iraq—to destroy hardened, underground targets. Legislation is pending in Congress that would provide funding for research—but not engineering or development—for low-yield, earth-penetrating nuclear weapons for targets that cannot be destroyed by conventional bunker busters.
Topic:: Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

84. Casualties of War: Transatlantic Relations and the Future of NATO in the Wake of the Second Gulf War

Author:: Christopher Layne
Publication Date:: 08-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: The Cato Institute
Abstract:: The Iraq War represents a turning point in transatlantic relations. Euro-American ties have been ruptured, and never again will be the same. But the growing estrangement between the European powers and the United States is tied primarily to the nature of power in the international system and to America's dominant role in the world today.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, NATO, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and America

85. Europe between Brussels and Byzantium: Some Thoughts on European Integration

Author:: Niall Ferguson
Publication Date:: 11-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Institute of European Studies (IES), UC Berkeley
Abstract:: There is, in theory, a plausible role for the European Union as the partner of a militarily assertive United States: the peacekeeper that follows in the wake of the peacemaker. The war in Iraq, however, has raised the possibility of a diametrically different role for Europe: as a potential imperial rival to the United States. There is no need to invoke the memory of either Rome or Byzantium to make the case that Europe is capable of spoiling America's unipolar party. The successful conclusion of accession agreements with ten new member countries – not to mention the sustained appreciation of the euro against the dollar since Kennedy's article appeared – have seemingly vindicated this analysis. So too, in the eyes of some commentators, has the vociferous and not wholly ineffectual opposition of at least some E.U. member states to American policy in Iraq. If the U.S. has an imperial rival today, then the E.U. appears to be it.
Topic:: International Relations and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Europe, Rome, and Brussels

86. Options to Finance the Additional War Costs

Author:: Leonard E. Burman and Jeff Rohaly
Publication Date:: 09-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Urban Institute
Abstract:: The President has requested an additional $87 billion to finance the war and reconstruction costs in Iraq. Commentators and some members of Congress have expressed an interest in options to offset these additional costs so as not to add on to the burgeoning budget deficit, which CBO estimates to be $480 billion in fiscal year 2004. This note considers four options to raise approximately enough revenue to finance the additional war costs. The estimates are approximate because they do not account for additional tax avoidance that higher rates might provoke, a significant factor in official revenue estimates.
Topic:: Government, Political Economy, and War
Political Geography:: United States and Iraq

87. Toward a European Strategy for Iraq

Author:: Giacomo Luciani and Felix Neugart
Publication Date:: 03-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Chatham House
Abstract:: The Iraq crisis has been a disaster for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union (EU). Member countries are very visibly split in their position towards the war against the regime in Baghdad. EU institutions have been unable to agree on more than the unconditional implementation of the relevant United Nations resolutions leaving the door open for widely diverging interpretations. The challenge of the Iraq crisis does not bode well for the future of a cohesive European Foreign Policy, and the CFSP requires a fresh approach.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, and War
Political Geography:: Iraq, Europe, Middle East, Arabia, and United Nations

88. Iraq Policy Briefing: Is There An Alternative To War?

Publication Date:: 02-2003
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: The policy dilemmas posed by the Iraqi crisis are much more acute, and the issues much more finely balanced, than most of those publicly supporting or opposing war are prepared to acknowledge. There is still broad international agreement about the objectives to be pursued: ensuring that Iraq does not constitute a threat, disarming it of the weapons of mass destruction it still retains (as demanded by Security Council Resolution 1441), and improving the condition of the Iraqi people (as demanded both by common decency and the Iraqi people themselves). But following the inspectors' reports to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003 and the extraordinary scale of the worldwide anti-war demonstrations over the following days, achieving international consensus on how to achieve these objectives appears as difficult as ever.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, United Nations, and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Arabia

89. War with Iraq?

Author:: Peter Van Ness, Hugh White, Stuart Harris, Amin Saikal, and Peter C. Gration
Publication Date:: 11-2002
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:: What curious path has brought us to this point? Just over a year ago, terrorists from the amorphous transnational Al Qaeda network killed thousands of Americans and other nationals by flying planes into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania. Today, the United States is preparing to launch a war against the state of Iraq, emphasising the grave and imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, but animated also by a long-standing goal of 'regime change'. What explains this 'statising' of the so-called 'war against terrorism'? What risks does it pose for regional and world order?
Topic:: Security, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, and Middle East

90. Voices From The Iraqi Street

Publication Date:: 12-2002
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: International Crisis Group
Abstract:: As this briefing paper went to press, all eyes were on the United States and United Nations, the weapons inspectors, war preparations and the Iraqi regime's posture toward them. Yet, as has been true throughout this crisis, the unknown variable in the equation is the view of the Iraqi population. Living under a highly repressive and closed regime and bereft of genuine means of expression, the Iraqi people have largely appeared to the outside world as passive bystanders in a crisis that is bound to affect them more than anyone else. Speculation about how Iraqis view the current crisis has varied widely, with assessments often tailored to buttress political arguments regarding the wisdom of a U.S.-led war.
Topic:: Security and War
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, Arabia, and United Nations

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS