Conflict, Security, and Development

More than 1.5 billion people live in countries affected by violent conflict. The World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development examines the changing nature of violence in the 21st century, and underlines the negative impact of repeated cycles of violence on a country or region’s development prospects. Preventing violence and building peaceful states that respond to the aspirations of their citizens requires strong leadership and concerted national and international efforts. The Report is based on new research, case studies and extensive consultations with leaders and development practitioners throughout the world.

Part I: The Challenge

Chapter 1, Repeated violence threatens development, explores the challenge: repeated cycles of organized criminal violence and civil conflict that threaten development locally and regionally and are responsible for much of the global deficit in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Chapter 2, Vulnerability to violence, reviews the combination of internal and external stresses and institutional factors that lead to violence. It argues that capable, accountable, and legitimate institutions are the common “missing factor” explaining why some societies are more resilient to violence than others. Without attention to institutional transformation, countries are susceptible to a vicious cycle of repeated violence.

Part II: Lessons from National and International Responses

Chapter 3, From violence to resilience: Restoring confidence and transforming institutions, presents the WDR framework, or “virtuous cycle.” It compiles research and case study experience to show how countries have successfully moved away from fragility and violence: by mobilizing coalitions in support of citizen security, justice, and jobs to restore confidence in the short term and by transforming national institutions over time. This is a repeated process that seizes multiple transition moments and builds cumulative progress. It takes a generation.

Chapter 4, Restoring confidence: Moving away from the brink, reviews lessons from national experience in restoring confidence by mobilizing ‘inclusive-enough’ coalitions of stakeholders and by delivering results. Collaborative coalitions often combine government and nongovernmental leadership to build national support for change and signal an irreversible break with the past. Restoring confidence in situations of low trust means delivering some fast results, since government announcements of change will not be credible without tangible action.

Chapter 5, Transforming institutions to deliver security, justice, and jobs, reviews national experience in prioritizing foundational reforms that provide citizen security, justice, and jobs—and stem the illegal financing of armed groups. In moving forward institutional transformation in complex conflict settings, case studies emphasize that perfection should not be the enemy of progress—pragmatic, “best-fit” approaches should be used to address immediate challenges.

Chapter 6, International support to building confidence and transforming institutions, turns to lessons from international support to national processes. While registering some notable successes, it argues that international interventions are often fragmented, slow to enter, quick to exit, reliant on international technical assistance, and delivered through parallel systems. The chapter considers why international action has been slow to change. International actors have to respond to their own domestic pressures to avoid risk and deliver fast results. Different parts of the international system—middle-income versus OECD actors, for example—face different domestic pressures, undermining cohesive support.

Chapter 7, International action to mitigate external stresses, provides lessons from international action to combat external security, economic, and resource stresses that increase conflict risk. The stresses range from trafficking in drugs and natural resources to food insecurity and other economic shocks. The chapter also addresses lessons from regional and cross-border initiatives to manage these threats.


Part III: Practical Options and Recommendation

Chapter 8, Practical country directions and options, provides practical options for national and international reformers to take advantage of multiple transition opportunities, restore confidence, and transform institutions in countries facing a range of institutional challenges, stresses, and forms of violence.

Chapter 9, New directions for international support, identifies four tracks for international action. First, to invest in prevention through citizen security, justice and jobs. Second, internal agency reforms to provide faster assistance for confidence-building and longer term institutional engagement. Third, acting at the regional level on external stresses. Fourth, marshalling the knowledge and resources of low, middle, and high-income countries.

Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism, and Anti-Capitalism: Strange Bedfellows?

While much of the world is just now coming to grips with the demise of the old "superpower" system, a confluence of emerging ideologies and population-influence tactics are waiting eagerly in the wings.

Last year, the folks from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia published a report titled "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians," which looked at new ways that totalitarian-like leaders are squelching political freedoms throughout the world through strategic use of media (including social media) and participating in the global marketplace of ideas.

In a number of countries, leaders have ascended not so much with heavy-handed military might, but by using economic, social and political mechanisms to gain international legitimacy and foreign aid. They are not fighting the game; they are playing the game. They are not struggling against democracy, but rather, redefining it to suit their own ambitions.

Undermining Democracy described changes in how authoritarians are doing business, but what about possible changes in the causes theselves - the underlying totalitarian ideologies?

This is precisely what Ernest Sternberg addresses in his latest article: Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For, published in Orbis.

Sternberg coins the term "world purificationism" to characterize this diverse and somewhat diffuse ethos that is more easily identified by what it opposes (imperialist capitalism) than by what it advocates. He identifies "world purificationism" as a social movement whose idealistic vision is the following:

the anticipated defeat of imperial capitalist power in favor of a global network of beneficent culture-communities, which will empower themselves through grassroots participatory democracy, and maintain consistency across movements through the rectifying power of NGOs, thereby bringing into being a new era of global social justice and sustainable development, in which the diverse communities can harmoniously share an earth that has been saved from destruction and remade pristine. (p.65)

That's right. The ideological centerpieces are global justice, environmental protection and economic sustainability. Could it be that the traditionally liberal earth-lovers and environmental evangelists (who Sternberg says "like the followers of totalitarianisms past, .. also see themselves as the vanguard for the highest humanitarian ideals... {and as} exemplars of purity, {and} as progenitors of the utmost in democracy and inter-cultural appreciation") are morphing into a totalitarian social movement? Or perhaps just that they have become willing to permit totalitarianism as a tactic in order to prevent the earth's apocalyptic self-destruction? Are the "disaffected and alienated" being targeted for mobilization against the capitalist powers?

It seems in many ways reminiscent of modern anarchist movement: cohering around common enemies, defining themselves primarily by what they oppose, lacking hierarchical organization, bristling against state-level power, pro-environment, and anti-capitalism.

Sternberg's article is worth a read and the evolving processes of this emerging movement are certainly worth our attention.

Sternberg, E. (2010). Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For Orbis, 54 (1), 61-86 DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2009.10.006

Understanding Support for Militancy in Pakistan

Stability in Pakistan is in the fundamental interest of (at least most of) the global security community. And militancy is widely regarded as the most serious and present threat to that stability. Pew regularly conducts and reports on surveys of Pakistani public opinion. Policymakers and analysts also have their own set of working assumptions. As with all policy decisions our understanding and assumptions about the problem will affect, if not drive, our strategy and intervention. A recent study by Jacob N. Shapiro, an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Codirector of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, and C. Christine Fair, Assistant Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University casts doubt upon some of the most common assumptions about support for militancy in Pakistan. It is based on survey data from less than a thousand Pakstanis and carries its own set of limitations, but it nevertheless raises some very important questions.

METHOD:

The study is based on survey data from a representative sample of urban Pakistanis. Survey development was done jointly by United States Institute of Peace and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), and was conducted by A.C. Nielsen Pakistan.

Nine hundred seven (907) face-to-face interviews were conducted with urban Pakistanis in nineteen cities between September 12 to September 28, 2007. This was before President Pervez Musharraf declared a six-week state of emergency on November 2007 and three months before the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The sample was designed to be broadly representative of urban Pakistani adults aged eighteen and older. The overall response rate was 35 percent. (p.94)

How did they measure support for militancy?

Because Pakistanis are understandably reluctant to say they support groups such as al-Qaida when being questioned by someone noting their answers on a clipboard, we could not directly inquire about support for militant groups. Instead, we asked our respondents about the extent to which the activities of the following six groups posed a threat to “the vital interests of Pakistan in the next ten years”: Sindhi nationalists in Pakistan; Mohajir nationalists in Pakistan; Baluch nationalists in Pakistan; Islamist militants and local Taliban in the FATA and settled areas; al-Qaida; and askari tanzeems in Pakistan. (p. 96)

The study sought to examine empirically the notion that "support for militancy" is a dichotomous phenomenon among Pakistanis; that is that militancy is a "homogeneous phenomenon" and a tactical monolith; you're either for it or against it.

Analysts tend to describe militancy in Pakistan as a homogeneous phenomenon, or they tend to focus on a particular group presumed responsible for a particular attack. Popular accounts generally fail to note the differences across Pakistan’s militant groups, typically casting them all as al-Qaida affiliates. Because understanding the variation in support across militant groups requires at least understanding the potentially salient differences between them, this section describes key differences between the three groups of greatest concern to Western analysts: al-Qaida, the Taliban, and the diverse “askari tanzeems,” (militant groups), which claim to focus mostly on the Kashmir issue but are also involved in sectarian violence. (p. 85)

They then outlined four commonly held assumptions about militancy in Pakistan to be investigated empirically in the survey data.

Most discussions of the politics of militancy in Pakistan rest on a series of four widely accepted views about who supports militancy and why. The first is that poverty is a root cause of support for militancy, or at least that poorer and less educated individuals are more prone to militants’ appeals. This is a view that is held within and without Pakistan. The second is that personal religiosity and support for sharia law are strongly correlated with support for Islamist militancy. The third is that support for political goals espoused by legal Islamist parties predicts support for militant organizations. The fourth is that those who support democracy—either in terms of supporting democratic processes such as voting or in terms of valuing core democratic principles—oppose Islamism and militancy. (p.89)

Shapiro and Fair's results run counter to each of the popular assumptions. They found the following:

• Pakistanis are discriminating connoisseurs of militancy, and are selective in their support.

..support for militant organizations is not correlated across different types of militant groups. This finding suggests that Pakistanis distinguish among providers of political violence.

• Poverty and economic performance - at least at a national level - did not predict support for militancy.

...there is no clear connection between subjective or objective measures of economic strength and lower levels of support for the Taliban and al- Qaida. Contrary to common expectations, we found that respondents who come from economically successful areas or who believe Pakistan is doing well relative to India economically are more likely to support askari tanzeems. Thus, popular prescriptions that Pakistanis will support normalization of relations with India when they feel confident in their country’s economic and other measures of national power are not supported by these findings. (p. 115-116)

• Religious fervor itself did not appear to drive support for militancy.

.... religiosity is a poor predictor of support for militant organizations. A preference for more sharia law does not predict support for militant organizations. What does predict such support is a desire for change—positive or negative—in the perceived role of sharia in Pakistan. Similarly, identifying strongly as a Muslim does not predict support for Taliban militants fighting in Afghanistan or for al-Qaida. Although Islamic identity does predict support for askari tanzeems, the correlation disappears once we control for respondents’ support for other groups. Whatever the common factor driving support for all these militant organizations is, it is not religion per se. {italics added} Rather, underlying political considerations appear to be what is driving support.

• Faith in or support for democracy is not strongly related to Taliban support.

... we found no discernible relationship between respondents’ faith in democracy or support for core democratic rights and their disapproval of the Taliban or al-Qaida. These findings suggest that the much-heralded call for democratization as a palliative for militancy may be unfounded.(p. 116)

STUDY LIMITATIONS:

The study samples only urban Pakistanis (36% of the population). While urban areas may be the hub for militant recruiting, the results may not represent the views of rural Pakistanis.

The authors note that studying "support for militancy" addresses only the demand side of the problem, not the supply side. They also insightfully observe that no empirical data currently exist "that support the presumption—inherent in most surveys of Pakistanis’ views on these and related subjects—that decreases in the demand for support for militancy translates into a reduction of Islamist violence."

IMPLICATIONS:

• Support for militancy is Pakistan may be more nuanced and complex than many analysts so far have suggested.
• Further empirical research may support efforts to better understand and address the root causes of militant support.
• Further research and analysis should systematically study the outcome/effects/impacts of policies and actions on both the supply of and demand for violence. That research should include examinations of how reductions or changes in the demand for support for militancy affect actual rates of Islamist violence.

US efforts to counter militant support have so-far emphasized economic development, and democratization, in the context of religious fervor. The authors conclude with this somewhat provocative notion:

Taken together, these results suggest that commonly prescribed solutions to Islamist militancy—economic development, democratization, and the like—may be irrelevant at best and might even be counterproductive.

Shapiro, J., & Fair, C. (2010). Understanding Support for Islamist Militancy in Pakistan International Security, 34 (3), 79-118 DOI: 10.1162/isec.2010.34.3.79

Economic Development for a Secure and Stable Africa

The Strategic Studies Institute (the U.S. Army War College's institute for geostrategic and national security research and analysis) has recently released a new report that explains why the U.S. has a National interest in Africa, and how economic development will be a key to any success we hope to have there.

Security and Stability in Africa: A Development Approach

by Lieutenant Colonel Clarence J. Bouchat (USAF, Ret.).

Brief Synopsis:

The security and stability of Africa has recently become an important national issue readily seen in the increased time, effort, and resources now devoted to the continent by such new organizations as the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM). This paper seeks to overcome centuries of ignorance and misunderstanding about the conditions and people of Africa by discussing the fundamental issues of economic development and political governance through which enduring stability and security might be obtained. Written as a primer for military and government staff members who may be unfamiliar with Africa but are assigned duties that involve participation in African affairs, this paper explains the historic and modern importance of Africa to American national interests. This report offers solutions in terms of improving African stability and security and a framework of several key issues which should give policymakers the knowledge they need to work in a constantly changing and very challenging environment.

Download the full report free HERE

Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, & Iran: The Importance of Connections

Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, & Iran: The Importance of Connections

Fighting continues in the Northwest between Yemeni government-backed forces (also supported by Saudi forces) and Yemeni Shi’a insurgents, led by the al-Houthi clan. The area around Sa'ada has been the major hot spot, and apparently allegiances in the local area are divided. Often these splits occur along tribal lines. The militants want to lay claim to an area – beyond the reach of the Yemeni government – where they can practice religion and promulgate official doctrine in a manner of their choosing.

This off-and-on struggle has endured for at least the past 5 years, but this is about as bad as it’s ever been. It has produced nearly 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) so far. Some are fleeing Southward … where al-Qa’ida has recently renovated its terrorist-training franchise.

So - there are a number of inter-related problems here that reach far beyond Yemen itself. Here’s a quick glimpse:

If You Push Them, They Will Come… To Al-Qa’ida:

Violent extremists across the globe, particularly in the past decade, have increasingly deployed service-oriented diplomacy in their recruitment efforts. This approach has been wildly successful for Hizb’allah . They penetrate ungoverned spaces, set up social services (from medical clinics to core infrastructure) that local government lacks capacity or willingness to provide, and they build goodwill by taking on the role of “provider.” In some areas, they have so much control that they function like a proxy government, even collecting taxes from the citizens. When your young child is dying and your government shrugs its shoulders, and someone is there offering to help – that someone looks like a friend for life. That’s the plan. Now, hundreds of thousands of refugees are running away from their government in the Northwest and into Southern regions, which are heavily influenced by al-Qa’ida. If AQ becomes the port in the storm, we can plan to watch as the recruit tally steadily rises.

Yemen May Not Be a Gem, But It Might Be Kind of a Big Deal:

The neighborhood is a significant part of the challenge here. Not only are IDPs flocking to Southwest Yemen from the North, but they are coming just as steadily from across the pond in Somalia – a nation with its own set of governance and Islamist militancy troubles. A significant number of the recruits in AQ’s new South Yemen training campus are Somali. Southwest Yemen and Northeast Somalia lie directly across the Gulf of Aden from each other. That interstitial space – heavily plagued right now by Somali-based pirates – is a major shipping portal. One does not enter the Red Sea, except through that gateway. Nor can West-Coast Saudi Maritime traffic enter the Gulf of Aden except through that gateway. Piracy, pervasive but not yet highly organized off Somalia’s coast, has already cost millions of dollars. If an AQ/Shabaab coalition boosted the effort, it’s probably fair to say that would not help the World economy.

Saudi Arabia and Iran Both Have Dogs in the Fight:

Because the Houthi-affiliated militants several weeks ago stepped across the line into Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom launched a counteroffensive to push them back (and to support Yemen’s government-backed forces). Some in Yemen say this has added fuel to the insurgency, because even more are ready to fight against the Saudis than to fight for the Houthis. Saudi presence and activity lingers in NW Yemen, much to the dismay of Iran. Iran is still a bit miffed that 3-4 years ago the Saudi’s also stuck their nose in an international dispute when Israel launched a major offensive against Hizb’allah. Saudi supported Israel – and it’s probably no secret that there is some affinity between Hizb’allah and Iran. ‘Nuff said. Yemen, in fact, claims that Iran is now supporting the Houthi-affiliated insurgency, and that they (and also Hizb’allah) have been the main source for militant training. The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center also thinks that Africa - East Africa in particular - is an important target for Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s ambitious foreign policy. Though most analysts see no major worry for a full-scale proxy war, having Saudi Arabia and Iran both join in the game - and on opposing sides - is -- let’s say “unlikely to facilitate regional peace.”

The concern here is clearly about more than two terribly impoverished, and under-governed countries. The current human rights challenges facing this area are certainly significant, but the economic and global security stakes may ultimately be even higher.

-Randy Borum

Toward a Criminology of Genocide

In the most recent issue of the journal Theoretical Criminology (November 2009, Volume 13, No. 4 -Sage Publications), a special section is devoted to Criminology's potential contributions to the study and prevention of genocide.

Nicole Rafter of Northeastern University sets the stage for the series of articles that follow. She uses as a platform for the discussion the 2009 book: Darfur and the Crime of Genocide by John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond {Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xxii plus 269 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-51567-2 (hbk), 978-0-521-73135-5 (pbk)}, inviting four scholars of genocide and security issues to review the text and comment on its implications. All four reviewers offer generally positive appraisals, and seem to agree that the book has a strong theoretical and empirical grounding and makes a number of important contributions to the study of genocide. Rafter's lead-in offers the following introduction:

Slowly and belatedly, criminology is incorporating genocide as one of the crimes it can and must try to account for. Many criminologists are, in fact, anxious to include genocide in their theorizing and teaching, but they have lacked an example, a road map to guide them through this difficult terrain. Darfur and the Crime of Genocide offers that guide. To bring it to the attention of other criminologists, I invited four scholars to review the book and assess its potential for the evolving criminology of genocide. The reviews are followed by a response in which John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond react not only to the reviewers, but also to a challenge to the propriety of their attempt to intervene in African politics. In a number of ways, the following contributions mark a milestone in the development of criminological thought. (p. 475)

The first of the four reviews is provided by Joachim J. Savelsberg (Genocide, criminology, and Darfur, Theoretical Criminology 2009 13: 477-480.) who praises the fact that the authors apply "a sociologically based criminology to genocide scholarship... and impressively link empirical social science with the jurisprudence of genocide." He highlights several key contributions, but particularly notes the merit of their "theory of offending" in genocide, which he summarizes in the following way:

A nutshell version highlights the knowledge-related factors: precipitating conditions, especially (1) land competition and supremacist ideology produce Arab versus Black identities (or socially constructed racial groups) and thereby provide a vocabulary of motives and neutralization; they motivate (2) individualized racial intent (‘race’ as a vocabulary o motive) further promoted by field commanders with high levels of ‘social efficacy’ (as Ross Matsueda puts it) and ties to (and support from) the Sudanese government; and lead, via (3) frenzied collective action in which the yelling of racial epithets produces collectivized racial intent at the meso-level, back to (4) the macro-level with its patterns of a genocidal state as an endogenous system (that is, not explained by long-standing hatred or a defensive reaction to insurgency). (p 478)

The next review comes from Bruce Hoffman, the well-known scholar on extremism and international security (Mobilizing criminology: The boundaries of criminological science and the politics of genocide, Theoretical Criminology 2009 13: 481-485.). Hoffman describes how the book's authors use and discuss the 2004 Atrocities Documentation Survey (ADS) as an empirical basis for their arguments. The ADS was a study of 1136 Darfur refugees in UN Displacement Camps, commissioned by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to document the nature and scope of the Darfur atrocities and whether these atrocities should be characterized as a genocide. Hoffman comments specifically on their use of ADS data to derive mortality estimates, and its comparison to estimates from public health surveys :

The authors argue that the survey reflects a ‘criminological’ approach, not a ‘public health’ approach, to violence: unlike public health surveys that primarily emphasize mortality within displacement camps due to disease and living conditions, criminological surveys incorporate full measures of the violence that caused individuals to become refugees. The two methodological approaches reflect contrasting political stances toward humanitarian intervention. Public health approaches refer to displacement as ‘complex humanitarian emergencies’, a term that conceals and neutralizes responsibility for mass violence but facilitates humanitarian access to refugees. Criminological approaches, in contrast, seek to advance a human rights perspective by investigating violence as crime, potentially resulting in decreased access for aid organizations. (p. 483)

The next review by Hadar Aviram, titled: Mass atrocity and criminology (Theoretical Criminology 2009 13: 487-493.) offers an over-arching critique, but also highlights a potentially intriguing facet of the book; how it explicates the role of dehumanization in genocidal crimes:

Hagan and Rymond-Richmond also emphasize, through shocking and heartbreaking interview quotes, another dimension of the Darfur horror: the vicious, dehumanizing animus behind the attacks (Ch. 1 and p. 119). This raises the important question of the uniqueness of genocide. Dehumanization of the victim has been acknowledged as a feature that accompanies much ‘regular’ crime, not even just violent crime; it is not a phenomenon unique to genocidal settings, but in this latter context it manifests itself in a particularly chilling way. (p.490)

Next up, Ross L. Matsueda (Toward a new criminology of genocide: theory, method, and politics, Theoretical Criminology 2009 13: 495-502.) offers support for the discipline of Criminology to turn its attention to the crimes of genocide, but thinks its should perhaps focus more on legal remedies and responses. He also offers some additional theories or viewpoints that might guide the author's sociologically-driven analysis.

Hagan and Rymond-Richmond have convincingly argued for a new criminology of genocide and have provided an exemplary empirical study for the new enterprise. They have shown that, for genocide, it is not enough to examine social disorganization (weak organization against crime), but rather, attention must be paid to organization in favor of crime, as it dynamically unfolds through collective action. Such action is intertwined with conventional organization in complex, historically specific ways. But the criminology of genocide must go further and critically evaluate the limitations of legal responses to genocide, examine the politics behind definitions of genocide, and demystify the political dynamics in which economically dominant nation-states at times seek to manipulate international legal institutions and principles so that their parochial interests are portrayed as the interests of all. (p. 500)

Finally, the book's authors, John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond respond to and comment on the four reviews (Criminology confronts genocide: whose side are you on?
Theoretical Criminology 2009 13: 503-511.). They begin with the general assertion that "it's about time" criminology invested in the study of genocide.

It took criminology a long time to address some of its most important topics, for example, white-collar crime. It took criminology even longer to confront its more deadly neglected topics, namely genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Yet as we begin to study genocide it rapidly becomes apparent that our discipline brings a rich array of theories and methods to this crucial task. (p. 503)

They go one to address the critical objections and suggestions raised by each of the reviewers, including some concerns about how and the extent to which they focus on "race" in their analyses.

Race is a complex social construction and there is good reason to ask whether its role in our analysis is essential, or alternatively whether we might assign race too much importance when a discussion of ethnicity instead might better suffice. Matsueda and Hoffman point to the complexity of racial conflicts and Aviram suggests the nuance and legal advantage of a focus on ethnicity, while Savelsberg reminds us that the way we apply a concept such as race in the social and legal analysis of genocide can have profound implications for the collective memory of groups involved in the conflict. (p.506)

They also acknowledge how focusing on race and focusing on ethnicity can have different implications for analyzing genocide:

We also think it is important to consider the contrasting implications of applying the concepts of ethnicity and race in Darfur. The concept of ethnicity tends to be more pluralistic than the binary construction of race, while ethnicity also incorporates more self-imposed as contrasted with other-imposed designations than race. The concept of ethnicity therefore can be more complex and subjective in its understanding, while conceptions of race can be more rigidly and narrowly socially constructed. However, we argue that it is precisely the simplification, rigidity, and narrowness involved in deadly applications of social constructions of race during mass atrocity that can be especially important in explaining the resulting genocide, and we argue this can be especially well demonstrated using the Chad survey of Darfur’s refugees – a historic survey of genocide as it happened in ‘real time’ in Africa. (p.506-507)

They conclude with the following:

Criminology should not wait to confront genocide in the full depth and breadth of all its scholarly, legal, and moral dimensions. (p.510)

Genocide, of course, is only one of the potential areas of security-related scholarship that might benefit from criminology's attention. Another article in the same issue of the Journal deals with the issue of torture and coercive interrogation (Michael Welch, American ‘pain-ology’ in the war on terror: a critique of ‘scientific’ torture , Theoretical Criminology 2009 13: 451-474). Though the principal aim of that article is to debunk and critique the use of social and behavioral science research to justify these coercive techniques, the most comprehensive analysis of that research literature to date (Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art -Foundations for the Future) is not even cited and only cursorily mentioned once as an aside.

Criminology does, indeed, have much to offer to understanding and addressing National/International Security issues. It is encouraging to see some of them beginning to be addressed in the pages of its peer-reviewed journals.

Rafter, N. (2009). Darfur and the Crime of Genocide by John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond: a symposium: Introduction Theoretical Criminology, 13 (4), 475-475 DOI: 10.1177/1362480609345440

If Al Qa’ida's in the Market for a New Place, Yemen Looks Like a Nice Neighborhood

Within the next ten years Yemen could either become a serious concern to the US or a success story in proactive intervention, according to CNAS (Center for a New American Security) analysts Andrew Exum and Richard Fontaine. Yemen is a relatively small, impoverished, and politically messy country lying along Saudi Arabia’s southern border and stretching along the Gulf of Aden, just across from the Horn of Africa.

It would be a very dangerous base for transnational terrorist groups and a hazardous spot for instability in an region of great geopolitical importance. The entire world has a stake in not seeing Yemen go to the bad guys.

Over the past year, concern about Yemen’s future has become increasingly widespread. On the human rights front, the UN and the Red Cross are worried that the flood of citizens running to get away from clashes between government forces and Shi'ite rebels (mostly in and around Sa'ada in the North) is drastically overcrowding the aid camps. Yemen is already the poorest nation in the Arab world. There are already nearly 200,000 internally displaced persons from the conflict, and hundreds more are flooding in every day. One family tents are occupied by 3-4 families.

On the political front, the armed conflict is likely to get worse before it get any better. The Northern fighting has started spilling over into Saudi Arabia. That’s bad news for a bunch of reasons. The rebels say that Saudi Arabia has been enabling Yemeni troops, so they took control of a strip of Saudi border territory, leading the Saudi government to launch a counteroffensive. In the South, fighting is more sporadic, but support for secession is beginning to swell.

Al Qa’ida, as usual, is also stirring the pot. They are shouldering up alongside the Yemenis (and Saudis) to quash the Shi'ite rebel threat in the North, while attempting to build their own infrastructure in the South. U.S. military and intelligence officials have confirmed that AQ has recently opened a new training camp housing over 400 fighters in Yemen’s southern Abyan province. Most of the fighters are Yemeni, Saudi, or Somali.

Exum and Fontaine point to three emerging trends in Yemen that may also make for a more volatile climate. First, that Yemen who derives most of its national revenue from taxes on oil production, has been suffering marked declines in petroleum production. So much so that some analysts believe it may fall to zero in the next seven years. And they apparently have no economic back-up plan.

Second, Yemen’s population is expected to double in the next 25 years (but without concurrent economic growth to support it). The nation’s unemployment rate is 40%, and 46% of its 7.4 million primary school age children do not attend school. Many have to work to help support their families. The population is very young – nearly half are under the age of 15. The youth bulge has been a troubling demographic trend in areas of the world – like Yemen- already plagued by problems with violent extremism.

Third, Yemen is about to run out of ground water resources. A huge majority of their water is currently used in agriculture in ways that are highly, highly inefficient. The water crisis will have further detrimental effects on the economy, development, and human security.

Yemen appears to be poised to cultivate a new generation of young people, raised in poverty without job skills or education, knowing only war in their surroundings, to live in an abject economic climate without hope for future opportunity, where even basic life-sustaining resources such as water are scarce, but violent extremism is abundant. That can’t be good. Exum and Fontaine conclude:

This confluence of political, ideological, economic, and environmental forces will render Yemen a fertile ground for the training and recruitment of Islamist militant groups for the foreseeable future.

They believe that the:

United States should implement a comprehensive strategy that marries counterterrorism support, development assistance, diplomatic pressure, and efforts at political reconciliation.

They discuss their strategy in a bit more depth in the full Policy Brief, On the Knife’s Edge: Yemen’s Instability and the Threat to American Interests By Andrew M. Exum and Richard Fontaine.

30 November 2009 - ADDENDUM:

Christian Science Monitor
Ben Hancock

Saudi Arabia said Saturday it has cleared a mountain foothold used by Yemeni rebels along the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border, in what appeared to be part of a larger battle against Al Qaeda's expansion.

The rebels, called Houthis, are followers of the Zaidi sect of Shiite Islam, and the Saudis believe both that they have ties to Shiite-dominated Iran and have Al Qaeda members within their ranks. Saudi Arabia fears they may destabilize Yemen, posing a major security threat to the world's largest oil exporter, reports Reuters.

Read the full article HERE.

Peace Operations in Africa: Seven Challenges, Any Solutions?

Peace Operations in Africa:
Seven Challenges, Any Solutions?

African Centre for for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes

As of 30 June 2009, the African continent is home to 10 military peace operations. Six of these are United Nations (UN) missions – in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), Chad/Central African Republic (CAR) (MINURCAT), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (MONUC), Liberia (UNMIL), Sudan (UNMIS) and Western Sahara (MINURSO). One mission is a hybrid UN-African Union (AU) operation in Darfur, Sudan (UNAMID). The other three missions are the AU operation in Somalia (AMISOM); the Economic Community of Central African States (CEMAC) operation in CAR (MICOPAX); and the Special Task Force in Burundi, run by South Africa. These operations involve over 73 000 uniformed peacekeepers and represent approximately 70% of the UN’s worldwide deployments. As these figures demonstrate, Africa occupies a special place in the world’s attempts to maintain international peace and security. But peacekeepers on the continent also face a wide range of complex problems, which have dramatically affected their ability to bring stable peace to Africa’s war zones. This short article analyses seven of the most fundamental challenges facing peace operations on the continent. None of these challenges are new but, while some of them are theoretically amenable to short-term solutions, others have no easy answers. The latter group of challenges will require the world’s governments to come to a consensus on the problems that peace operations are supposed to fix, and what expectations they can reasonably be expected to meet.

Read the full report HERE

Monitoring Sudan

Security is Sudan is vital, but remains elusive. The U.S. has become increasingly mindful of the need to monitor social and political situations around the Horn of Africa and to encourage greater stability. Key security interests for U.S. and the global community include buffering the expansion of terrorist safehavens - recall that Sudan graciously hosted Usama bin Laden when he was rejected by the Saudi government - and quelling a legacy of ethnic violence and human rights abuses.

Sudan is a major player in the East African region, but they are not a unified front. The North and South continue to be engaged in a protracted struggle, and to function largely as separate and adversarial political entities. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) provided a stopgap measure, and set the stage for elections to occur in February 2010. But Southern Sudan is still plagued by very deep challenges that do not provide an environment conducive to legitimate and peaceful elections. There is civil unrest between Southern communities, violent opposition and threat from militia groups, and charges that the North is obstructing the CPA.

With scheduled elections just four months away, Sudan deserves the attention of the global security community. A wonderful source of information is The Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) Project, a component project of the well-known "Small Arms Survey." I have provided a their project description below and would encourage you to visit the site and perhaps subscribe to their free email alerts.

The Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) is a multi-year research project administered by the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. It has been developed in cooperation with the Canadian government, UNMIS, UNDP, and NGO partners. Through the active generation and dissemination of timely empirical research, the project supports violence reduction initiatives, including disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes, incentive schemes for civilian arms collections and security sector reform and arms control interventions across Sudan. The HSBA also offers policy-relevant guidance on redressing insecurity. The objectives of the project are the following:

* to investigate international, regional, and domestic transfers of arms;
* to assess domestic small arms stockpiles and inventories;
* to map and assess origins, motivations, and distribution of armed groups;
* to measure the scale and distribution of mortality, morbidity, and victimization; and
* to examine local security arrangements and demand for weapons.

The project publishes its findings regularly in two separate formats, Issue Briefs and Working Papers, as well as in occasional op-eds and practitioner articles. Publications are available in English, Arabic and French (in the case of research on the Central African Republic and Chad), and they maintain an excellent listing of Sudan-related web links.

Peace and Conflict 2010

The Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM)- an interdisciplinary research center at the University of Maryland- has just released the latest edition of its biennial publication, Peace and Conflict 2010. For nearly 30 years, CIDCM researchers have sought ways to understand and address conflicts over security, identity, and distributive justice.

The first edition of Peace and Conflict in 2001 documented a global decline in armed conflict from its peak in the early 1990s. They linked that decline to the ascendance of democratic regimes and the rising success of international efforts at containing and negotiating settlements to many serious armed conflicts, most of them civil wars.

In 2008, it appeared the subsidence of armed conflict and the surge in democracy had stalled and begun to reverse. The Peace and Conflict report pointed to a persistent “conflict syndrome” of instability and state failure that cripples the poorer regions of the world despite all efforts of the advanced industrial democracies and international organizations to take remedial action. The armed conflicts and mass atrocities of the last 15 years left in their wake weakened states, economies in shambles, and human suffering and dislocation on a large scale.

Peace and Conflict 2010 examines more closely the legacies of wars within states and the prospects for rebuilding them. Although much has been written in the four previous volumes of Peace and Conflict about active conflict, several chapters in this volume emphasize the challenges countries face as they enter the period immediately following the cessation of armed violence—a period widely referred to as the post-conflict transition.

While the overall number of active conflicts worldwide was declining in the early 1990s—a result of many conflict terminations in that period—other conflicts were becoming active. Joseph Hewitt (Chapter 3) takes a closer look at those that became active and reveals why a focus on post-conflict transitions is especially warranted. Strikingly, of the 39 different conflicts that became active in the last 10 years, 31 were conflict recurrences—instances of resurgent, armed violence in societies where conflict had largely been dormant for at least a year. Only eight were entirely new conflicts between new antagonists involving new issues and interests.

These sobering numbers serve as a reminder that many of the destabilizing dangers of the conflict syndrome initially highlighted in Peace and Conflict 2008—now reinforced in Peace and Conflict 2010—continue to pose serious challenges during the post-conflict phase, underscoring the urgency for identifying appropriate policy responses during post-conflict reconstruction.

SOURCE: Center for International Development and Conflict Management // University of Maryland

Sudan At-A-Glance

Background
(Source CIA World Factbook):

• Gained independence from the UK in 1956

• Two long civil wars over the ensuing 40 years. The second one left 2 million dead and 4 million displaced.

• Ruled mainly by military regimes favoring Islamic-oriented governments

• Conflicts arise because ruling power – principally Muslim Arabs - is concentrated in the north, but the southern populace is largely non-Muslim, non-Arab.

• The North/South Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in January 2005, granted the southern rebels autonomy for six years.

• A separate conflict in the western region of Darfur in 2003, has left 200,000-400,000 dead and 2 million displaced.

• The UN took command of the Darfur peacekeeping operation from the African Union on 31 December 2007.

• As of early 2009, peacekeeping troops were struggling to stabilize the situation, which has become increasingly regional in scope, and has brought instability to eastern Chad, and Sudanese incursions into the Central African Republic.

• Sudan also has faced large refugee influxes from neighboring countries, primarily Ethiopia and Chad.

• Humanitarian assistance in severely hindered by armed conflict, poor transport infrastructure, and lack of government.

Capital: Khartoum

Total Area: 2,505,813 sq km – Largest country in Africa. (slightly more than one-quarter the size of the US)

Population: 41,087,825 - -40.7% under the age of 15.

Major infectious disease risk: VERY HIGH

Ethnic groups: Black 52%, Arab 39%, Beja 6%, foreigners 2%, other 1%

Religions: Sunni Muslim 70% (in north), Christian 5% (mostly in south and Khartoum), indigenous beliefs 25%

Languages: Arabic (official), English (official), Nubian, Ta Bedawie, diverse dialects of Nilotic, Nilo-Hamitic, Sudanic languages

Literacy: 61.1% of people age 15 and over can read and write.

Government type: Government of National Unity (GNU) - the National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) formed a power-sharing government under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

Legal system: Based on English common law and Islamic law; Islamic law applies to all residents of the northern states regardless of their religion; however, the CPA establishes some protections for non-Muslims in Khartoum

Judicial branch: Constitutional Court of nine justices; National Supreme Court; National Courts of Appeal; other national courts

Economy: Crude oil export since 1999. Oil production quadrupled between 1999 and 2003. Unlike most oil producing states, Western oil companies have minimal presence. Agricultural production remains important, because it employs 80% of the work force and contributes a third of GDP. Estimated GDP- $87.27 billion (2008). 40% of population below the poverty line (2004).

Communications: Internet users-1.5 million (2007); Cell phones- 7.464 million; 3 TV stations

Military: Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF): Land Forces, Navy, Sudanese Air Force (Sikakh al-Jawwiya as-Sudaniya), Popular Defense Forces; Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA): Land Forces (2009)

Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs): 5.3 - 6.2 million (civil war 1983-2005; ongoing conflict in Darfur region) (2007)

Human Trafficking: Sudan is a source country for men, women, and children trafficked internally for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation; Sudan is also a transit and destination country for Ethiopian women trafficked abroad for domestic servitude. Sudanese women and girls are trafficked within the country, as well as possibly to Middle Eastern countries for domestic servitude. They are also trafficked to rebel organizations and militias in Sudan, Uganda, and Democratic Republic of Congo.

International Challenges

• Sudan’s decades of civil conflict have penetrated its neighboring states

• As of 2006, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda provided shelter for over half a million Sudanese refugees, which includes 240,000 Darfur residents driven from their homes by Janjawid armed militia and the Sudanese military forces.

• Sudan accuses Eritrea of supporting Sudanese rebel groups.

• Ongoing border disputes with Ethiopia, exacerbated by civil and ethnic fighting in eastern Sudan

• Border/sovereignty disputes between Sudan and Kenya about the "Ilemi Triangle."

• Periodic violent skirmishes with pastoral Sudanese residents along the border with the Central African Republic over water and grazing rights.

Domestic Challenges

Sudan faces major challenges on all fronts:

• Darfur crisis continues to plague the West

• Civil and ethnic fighting, intermixed with border disputes, affect the East

• Deep, enduring disputes continue between factions in the North and South

These are complex and diverse problems, not a monolithic challenge. Wrapped around the political, ethnic, and religious differences is increasing competition for the nation’s vital, but scarce resources such as oil and water.

The Darfur crisis has garnered the most public attention and become the public face of the turbulent nation, but the problems facing other regions are certainly non-trivial. South Sudan, for example, remains one of the most underdeveloped regions in the world. The lack of strong governance and health infrastructure and the proliferation of weapons have created a pervasive climate of disorder and insecurity. Not quite as bad as in neighboring Somalia, perhaps, but certainly troubling. The Small Arms Survey project (an independent research project of the Graduate Institute of International Studies) recently conducted their Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) in Sudan southern “Lake States” region.

The HSBA – focusing on the impact of “small arms” - characterizes the situation in the Lake States (which, of course, may not generalize to the entire South of Sudan) as follows:

• Lakes State residents are heavily armed. More than one-third (35 per cent) of respondents admitted that they or someone in their compound possessed a firearm. Among respondents reporting weapons ownership, the most commonly held arms included AK-47 automatic assault rifles (31 per cent),

• Almost two-thirds of respondents believe that communities are over-armed. Sixty-three per cent believe that there are too many guns in the community, with the primary group considered over-armed being civilians (31 per cent), followed by youth (19 per cent), criminals (16 per cent), and ex-combatants (13 per cent).

• Contrary to expectations, fewer than half of respondents feel that their personal security has improved since the signing of the CPA. Well under half of respondents claimed to feel safe walking alone at night or to another village Even more dramatically, one-third reported feeling unsafe walking alone during the day.

• Violent insecurity is pervasive—with robbery and fights most commonly reported. More than half of all households reported having been robbed and involved in a physical fight with someone from outside their compound since the signing of the CPA. Robberies, armed attacks, and intentional fatal injuries were most commonly attributed to conflicts over livestock. Violent deaths were also frequently linked to ‘fights with enemies’, usually over cattle, grazing land, and water sources. Within compounds, such fights were most commonly associated with ‘disobedience’ or, more likely, domestic and intimate partner violence.

• Only about one-quarter of those who died from violent attacks received medical treatment. Because of the great distances that must be travelled to reach medical facilities—often five to six hours—most (74 per cent) people who died from injuries were not able to seek medical treatment after being wounded.

Looking to the Future

The 2005 North/South Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), provided a 6 year interim solution. We are already four years into that term. The country is now having to think about how they will proceed – how will elections be handled (which as we see in Afghanistan, can be quite complex) and how will their outcomes be received (which as we see from Iran, can be a less-than-straightforward process).

The U.S. Institute of Peace has been trying to think about Sudan’s future. They held three workshops in April-May of this year with at least 20 Sudan experts focused on understanding the obstacles and opportunities for preventing political violence in Sudan through 2011.

They outline the following summary of those deliberations:

• Absent a change in current trends, further political violence in Sudan will be hard to avoid.
• Lack of governance capacity in the South and failure to resolve key issues between the North and South are important factors that can lead to political violence surrounding the referendum, slated for 2011, on whether the South secedes or remains part of a united Sudan.
• The parties need a shared sense of confidence about post-2011 futures.
• The North should be encouraged to cooperate in the referendum process and accept the outcome.
• The Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) should devote more energy and resources to governance and service delivery rather than building military capability.
• The international community needs an assistance strategy focused on enhancing the GOSS’s capacity to deliver services through local governments.
• The United States and the international community should pressure and assist the parties to promptly pass referendum legislation and address fundamental issues (e.g., oil and boundaries) before the referendum.

The "New" Authoritarianism

Remember the old days of the iron-fisted dictator?

Using the blunt instruments of fear and force, they dominated all within their purview, but were largely marginalized by the rest of the civilized world.

Welcome to a new era of the globally-savvy despot.

Sure, the authoritarian rulers of today still use some of the old-school, tried-and-true tactics - they undermine the rule of law by rewarding loyalists and intimidating dissidents - but they apparently have also learned to strike smarter, not just harder.

They have realized the power of the Internet, the media, and the global marketplace. They do not just blackout information, they carefully manipulate it. And they use the pathways of globalization to exert market influence for economic and political gain, and to leverage international legitimacy and foreign aid. Even if the leaders' temperaments and styles of governance are unpopular or distasteful, it is difficult to deny their effects on foreign policy, global security and economy.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia - organizations that know quite a bit about public influence - convened a group of experts to analyze the ways in which five influential countries --China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Venezuela -- impede democratic development both within and beyond their borders. Their research resulted in the new report just released today, "Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians," which explores the common traits of these regimes and how they are largely responsible for the recent overall decline in political freedom throughout the world.

Here are some highlights and key findings from the report:

Capsule Summary: Pivotal authoritarian regimes have adapted and modernized their repressive methods and are undermining democracy in updated, sophisticated, and well funded ways. The result is a disruptive and serious new challenge to the emergence of an international system based on the rule of law, human rights, and open expression.

• Democracy Redefined: Leading authoritarian regimes are working to reshape the public understanding of democracy. A redefined and heavily distorted version of the concept is communicated to domestic audiences through state-dominated media.

• Internet Under Threat: The leading authoritarians—particularly in China, Iran, and Russia—are using advanced and well-funded techniques to subvert legitimate online discourse, often using loyal commentators and provocateurs.

• Authoritarian Foreign Aid: These regimes are using soft-power methods to advance their interests internationally, particularly through billions of dollars in no-strings attached development aid.

• Rules-Based Organizations Under Siege: At the regional and international level, these authoritarian regimes are undercutting or crippling the democracy-promotion and human rights efforts of rules-based organizations including the United Nations,

• Illiberal Education—Tainting the Next Generation: By either actively promoting or encouraging the presentation of history through a strongly nationalistic or extremist lens, authoritarian regimes are inculcating in the next generation attitudes of hostility toward democracy and suspicion of the outside world.

Common Traits:

While there are indisputably major differences among this group of countries, the analysis in Undermining Democracy reveals important common traits. Each of the fi ve is ruled by a relatively small in-group—usually with a limited degree of internal rivalry—that uses the power and wealth of the state primarily to serve its own interests, and secondarily to ensure either the explicit or passive support of the masses. In keeping with this oligarchic power structure, each is also promoting or enabling antidemocratic standards and values, both at home and abroad. An absence of institutional accountability leads to repressive and arbitrary governance, and to entrenched, rampant corruption. Finally, the lack of built-in corrective mechanisms like genuinely competitive elections, free media, independent civil society organizations, and the rule of law make these systems inherently unstable, as basic problems and irresponsible policies are allowed to fester and grow into major crises.

Conclusion:

During the height of the Cold War, there was little ambiguity about the nature and designs of the dominant authoritarian states. The current environment presents a murkier picture. Modern authoritarian governments are integrated into the global economy and participate in many of the world’s established fi nancial and political institutions. And while they tolerate little pluralism at home, they often call for a “multipolar” world in which their respective ideologies can coexist peacefully with others.

Conflict Horizon - Issue #1

Here are a few resources, pointers and backgrounders to stay apprised on what's happening in conflict hot spots around the globe:

ICG-CrisisWatch N°70, 1 June 2009
International Crisis Group

International Crisis Group regularly monitors and reports on global conflicts. They have now published their update for June, 2009.

Nine actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and none improved in May 2009, according to CrisisWatch. Somalia was rocked by intense fighting as an alliance of anti-government Islamist factions launched a large-scale offensive in and around Mogadishu, and Crisis Group identifies a Conflict Risk Alert for June. In Pakistan the army’s heavy offensive against the Taliban continued, leading to a massive humanitarian crisis with more than 2.4 million displaced. Tensions between Chad and Sudan escalated following an assault by Chadian rebels from bases across the border in Darfur, prompting retaliatory air strikes by Chadian forces on Sudanese soil. Read the full report HERE

Jihadists attack Somalia: Al-Qaeda on the march
Economist.com

Barely supported by the West, Somalia's new government may buckle under the latest wave of jihadist assaults. Only a few months after Somalia’s latest “transitional” government was set up amid a rare burst of albeit cautious optimism, Somali radicals linked to Al-Qaeda are gaining strength, while moderate Islamists are losing ground. A fresh flow of foreign fighters is also said to be heading for Mogadishu as suicide bombings have increased. When Ethiopia invaded Somalia with American encouragement in 2006, the aim was to fend off any kind of Islamist threat to Ethiopia and to catch the handful of Al-Qaeda people sheltering in the country. The invasion and the ensuing air raids destroyed the first incarnation of Somalia’s jihadists but the second seems to be proving stronger and fiercer. Read the full report HERE

Caucasus jihad: Terror tactics back on the horizon?
The Long War Journal

Recent attacks in the Caucasus and statements by the leader of the Caucasus Emirate indicate the jihadist movement is reverting back to the use of terror tactics that plagued the second war of Chechnya. This potential return to terror tactics may be an attempt to implicate the governing elites as illegitimate and incapable of effective rule or security over the region, in response to Moscow's claims that the insurgency is officially defeated. Read the full report HERE

The Strategic Debate Over Afghanistan
Stratfor

After U.S. airstrikes killed scores of civilians in western Afghanistan this past week, White House National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones said the United States would continue with the airstrikes and would not tie the hands of U.S. generals fighting in Afghanistan. At the same time, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus has cautioned against using tactics that undermine strategic U.S. goals in Afghanistan — raising the question of what exactly are the U.S. strategic goals in Afghanistan. A debate inside the U.S. camp has emerged over this very question, the outcome of which is likely to determine the future of the region. Read the full report HERE

Security in Mexico. Implications for U.S. Policy Options
RAND

Violence in Mexico has spiked over the past four years and is increasingly affecting the United States. In response, both the Mexican government and the U.S. government are searching for ways to improve security in Mexico. This monograph examines the security situation in Mexico and assesses its impact on the United States. In addition, it outlines a number of policy options that the United States can consider in its efforts to assist the Mexican government in improving internal security in Mexico. Read the full report HERE