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11. Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment

Author:
Teresa Val
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
EastWest Institute
Abstract:
Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment is intended to serve as an analytical tool for policymakers and an impetus for joint U.S.-Russia action. The report provides an overview of the security situation and peace process in Afghanistan, taking into account U.S. and Russian policies, priorities and interests; surveys the militant terrorist groups in and connected to Afghanistan and explores the security interests of various regional stakeholders vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Challenges relating to border management, arms trafficking and terrorist financing in Afghanistan are also briefly addressed.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Counter-terrorism, and Peace
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Russia, United States, Europe, Middle East, and North America

12. China in Latin America: Major Impacts and Avenues for Constructive Engagement

Author:
Margaret Myers and Rebecca Ray
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Over the past two years, U.S. officials have sought to highlight China’s negative effects on the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region’s development and stability, whether to U.S. or Latin American audiences. As U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a trip to Mexico City in October 2018, "China has invested in ways that have left other countries worse off." Pompeo and other U.S. officials have also taken this message elsewhere in the region, cautioning against the effects of Chinese engagement on LAC governance, security, regulatory capacity, and financial stability, and in a rage of other areas. For Latin Americans, though, relations with China aren’t so black and white. China may be an imperfect partner for LAC, as many in the region will attest, but it is an increasingly important one. After nearly two decades of enhanced Chinese economic engagement with the region, LAC governments and economic sectors rely heavily on China’s economic partnership and inputs. China is LAC’s second most important trading partner, second most important source of mergers and acquisitions foreign direct investment, and top source of development finance. For South America, China’s importance is even more pronounced: It became the top export destination for South American goods in 2010. China’s effects on regional development are also mixed, as we demonstrate below. China’s contributions to the region’s economic growth are well-documented, but Chinese demand for raw materials has also accentuated regional dependence on these commodities, in a process of “re- primarization” in South American economies, with troubling implications for the region’s long-term development prospects. Chinese investments have transformed the energy sectors in some countries, but the environmental effects of hydroelectric and other projects will be long-lasting in certain cases. To achieve a wide range of development objectives—economic, environmental, and social—LAC must depend on increasingly well-planned and coordinated engagement from all of its major economic partners and donor nations, including China. This is especially true in times of growing uncertainty, as the region grapples with humanitarian and migration crises, growing populist tendencies, relentless corruption, and climate change, among other factors.
Topic:
Security, Corruption, Imperialism, International Cooperation, Governance, and Regulation
Political Geography:
United States, China, Asia, Latin America, and North America

13. Just the Facts: A Selected Annotated Bibliography to Support Evidence-Based Policymaking on Women, Peace and Security

Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Our Secure Future
Abstract:
On March 8, 2000, Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury remarked in his International Women’s Day statement at the United Nations Security Council, …members of the Security Council recognize that peace is inextricably linked with equality between women and men. They affirm that the equal access and full participation of women in power structures and their full involvement in all efforts for the prevention and resolution of conflicts are essential for the maintenance and promotion of peace and equality.i Later that year, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed the landmark resolution (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security. UNSCR 1325 is the first formal recognition of the critical role of women in effective conflict resolution and peacebuilding. The mandate requires attention to gender equality in all aspects of international peace and security decisionmaking. The vision of UNSCR 1325 is to fundamentally change often exclusionary peace and security approaches so that they are fully inclusive and sensitive to the needs and capacities of the entire population. Historically, gender inequality has remained outside the sphere of consideration for many security actors and policymakers. Unlike any other foreign policy agenda, Women, Peace and Security (WPS) originated from a global constituency of non-state actors—women. As a result, WPS promotes nonviolent, human rights–based approaches to peace and security decision-making. This approach explicitly acknowledges equality between men and women as intrinsic to achieving lasting peace.
Topic:
Security, Women, Peace, and WPS
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

14. Women’s Participation and the Fate of Nonviolent Campaigns: A Report on the Women in Resistance (Wire) Data Set

Author:
Erica Chenoweth, Conor Seyle, and Sahana Dharmapuri
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Our Secure Future
Abstract:
The Women, Peace and Security agenda is a transformative policy mandate with a global constituency. It provides policymakers with the tools to end cycles of violent conflict, create more equitable peace processes, and promote gender equality on a global, national, and local scale. Passed in October 2000, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325) underscores women’s agency, voice, and capacities as intrinsic to creating more effective international peace and security–related policies. Since 2000, more than 80 countries have adopted national action plans and policies to robustly implement the Women, Peace and Security agenda. In 2017, the US Congress adopted the Women, Peace, and Security Act to incorporate the principle of gender equality into US foreign policy. As the global agenda on Women, Peace and Security is increasingly implemented, the transformational role of women as direct actors in issues of peace and security is becoming more obvious. This is certainly true in the case of formal institutions, where women are increasingly represented in higher positions internationally. It is also true in less formal, official domains: women have been at the forefront of civil resistance movements throughout history, and they have been visible leaders in contemporary nonviolent resistance movements from Sudan to Algeria and beyond.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Women, Peace, and Nonviolence
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

15. If You Want Improved Security Outcomes You Have Tools

Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Our Secure Future
Abstract:
THE GLOBAL FRAGILITY ACT OF 2019 Requires the U.S. government – in collaboration with civil society – to develop a 10-year strategy to enhance stability and to reduce violence and fragility globally. “The President...shall establish a comprehensive, integrated, ten-year strategy...to contribute to the stabilization of conflict-affected areas, address global fragility, and strengthen the capacity of the United States to be an effective leader of international efforts to prevent extremism and violent conflict. The strategy shall focus on addressing long-term causes of fragility and violence, and shall…address the long-term underlying causes of fragility and violence through participatory, locally led programs, empowering marginalized groups such as youth and women, inclusive dialogues and conflict resolutions processes, justice sector reform, good governance across all sectors, community policing and civilian security, and inclusive and accountable service delivery.”
Topic:
Security and WPS
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

16. US Leadership on Women and Foreign Policy: Recommendations for the 116th Congress

Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Our Secure Future
Abstract:
Passed unanimously in October 2000, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (UNSCR 1325) underscores women’s agency, voice, and capacities as intrinsic to creating better policies and more equitable peace agreements.1 UNSCR 1325 was drafted and adopted by the UN Security Council with significant leadership from women-led civil society groups around the world. It has been followed by seven other resolutions (UNSCRs 1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106, 2122, and 2242), which make up the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (WPS).2 WPS is a transformative policy mandate with a global constituency. It provides policymakers with the tools to end cycles of violent conflict, create more equitable peace processes, halt inequalities between men and women, and promote gender equality on a global, national, and local scale.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, Women, Peace, and WPS
Political Geography:
United States and Global Focus

17. U.S. Security Coordination and the “Global War on Terror”

Author:
Jeannette Greven
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
The U.S. Security Coordinator (USSC) mission in Jerusalem was created in 2005 to help implement security sector reform within the Palestinian Authority (PA). With a single-minded focus on “counterterrorism,” Washington considered the USSC an ancillary mechanism to support U.S. diplomatic and political efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite upending long-standing U.S. policy and cutting all other forms of aid to the Palestinians, the Trump administration has maintained the USSC in the run-up to the “Deal of the Century.” This article draws on original interviews with security personnel responsible for enacting USSC interventions. It uses their insights to highlight how the mission tethered Israeli political aims to its remit, and the distorting ramifications that have ensued for Palestine and the Palestinians. In uncovering the full parameters of Washington’s securitization policy, this history also points to the ways in which the PA has consequently been woven into the U.S.-led “global War on Terror.”
Topic:
Security, Sovereignty, International Security, Military Affairs, Negotiation, and Settler Colonialism
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, Palestine, and Jerusalem

18. Special Document File: The Erasure of the Nakba in Israel's Archives

Author:
Seth Anziska
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
A 2019 investigation by the Israeli NGO Akevot and Haaretz newspaper has uncovered official suppression of crucial documents about the Nakba in Israeli archives. The Journal of Palestine Studies is publishing print excerpts and a full online version of the buried “migration report,” which details Israel’s depopulation of Palestinian villages in the first six months of the 1948 war, a document that clearly undermines official Israeli state narratives about the course of events. In methodical fashion, this report provides contemporaneous documentation of Israeli culpability in the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and the systematic depopulation of so-called Arab villages in the first six months of the war. Alongside a discussion of key revelations in the newly available document, this introduction situates the broader pattern of erasure within historiographical debates over 1948 and questions of archival access. It examines how accounts of Israel’s birth and Palestinian statelessness have been crafted in relation to the underlying question: who has permission to narrate the past?
Topic:
Security, Migration, Population, Ethnic Cleansing, Settler Colonialism, and State Building
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

19. Power, Politics, and Community: Resistance Dynamics in the Occupied Golan

Author:
Munir Fakher Eldin
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
In 1967, Israel occupied the western section of Syria’s Golan Heights, expelling some 130,000 of its inhabitants and leaving a few thousand people scattered across five villages. Severed from Syria, this residual and mostly Druze community, known as the Jawlanis, has been subjected to systematic policies of ethno-religious identity reformulation and bureaucratic and economic control by the Israeli regime for half a century. This essay offers an account of the transformation of authority, class, and the politics of representation among what is now the near 25,000-strong Jawlani community, detailing the impact of Israeli occupation both politically and economically. During an initial decade and a half of direct military rule, Israel secured the community’s political docility by restoring traditional leaders to power; but following full-on annexation in 1981, new forces emerged from the popular resistance movement that developed in response. Those forces continue to compete for social influence and representation today.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, National Security, Population, Occupation, Ethnic Cleansing, and Settler Colonialism
Political Geography:
United States, Israel, and Palestine

20. China Global Security Tracker, No.5

Author:
Helena Legarda
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Institute for Strategic Studies
Abstract:
Presenting China as a 'responsible power' – Beijing releases first major defense white paper in four years
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Science and Technology, and Military Spending
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Europe, Canada, Taiwan, France, and North America