Middle East & North Africa

Pakistan - The Most Dangerous Place in the World Dr Larry P Goodson Op-Ed by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Pakistan is the most dangerous foreign policy problem facing the United States for five major reasons. First, Pakistan is a nuclear country, with at least 60 nuclear warheads (according to both journalistic and unclassified U.S. Government sources), a regular supply of fissile material with which to make more, multiple delivery systems, and a history as a known proliferator. Pakistan developed nuclear weapons because of its long and bloody history with its bigger next-door neighbor, India, to which it has lost four major military conflicts since 1947. They have not squared off again since the Kargil Conflict of 1999, and the world holds its breath over their next spat."

Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq Dr Phil Williams Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "Although organized crime has been the neglected dimension of the conflict in Iraq, both criminal enterprises and criminal activities have had a profoundly debilitating impact. Organized crime inhibited reconstruction and development and became a major obstacle to state-building; the insurgency was strengthened and sustained by criminal activities; sectarian conflict was funded by criminal activities and motivated by the desire to control criminal markets; and more traditional criminal enterprises created pervasive insecurity through kidnapping and extortion. Organized crime also acted as an economic and political spoiler in an oil industry expected to be the dynamo for growth and reconstruction in post Ba’athist Iraq."

Challenges and Opportunities for the Obama Administration in Central Asia Dr Stephen J Blank Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In this monograph, Dr. Stephen Blank argues that a winning strategy in Afghanistan depends as well upon the systematic leveraging of the opportunity provided by that road and a new coordinated nonmilitary approach to Central Asia. That approach would rely heavily on improved coordination at home and the more effective leveraging of our superior economic power in Central Asia to help stabilize the region so that it provides a secure rear to Afghanistan. In this fashion we would help Central Asia meet the challenges of extremism, of economic decline due to the global economic crisis, and thus help provide political stability in states that are likely to be challenged by the confluence of those trends."

Preventing Iraq from Slipping Back into Sectarian Chaos Dr W Andrew Terrill Op-Ed by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "It is at least possible, if not likely, that different choices on two key 2003 U.S. decisions would have allowed the United States to withdraw most of its troops from Iraq well before the present date. The two decisions that are now widely understood to have been disastrous mistakes are the dissolution of the Iraqi Army and the decision to pursue harsh punitive actions against vast numbers of former Ba’ath party members beyond the leadership of Saddam’s regime. Both decisions alienated Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and opened the door for a strong al-Qaeda presence in Iraq..."

New NATO Members: Security Consumers or Producers? Dr Joel R Hillison Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "In reading the headlines recently, one would assume that all of our North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies are shirking their commitments to the alliance and relying on the United States to do the heavy lifting in places like Afghanistan. But the reality is more nuanced. The contributions of NATO members vary greatly from country to country, and not all NATO allies can be characterized as free riders. While burden-sharing debates have been an enduring feature of NATO since its founding in 1949, they have become more heated in recent years as the U.S. military finds itself over-stretched in Afghanistan and Iraq and facing tough budgetary decisions due to the recent economic crisis."

Provincial Reconstruction Teams: How Do We Know They Work? Dr Carter Malkasian, Dr Gerald Meyerle Monograph by US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "The first provincial reconstruction team (PRT) stood up in January 2003 in the city of Gardez. A novel concept, PRTs combined civilian and military personnel into a single entity with the purpose of improving security, governance, and economic development. The idea was that PRTs would be able to get into areas where there was little or no presence on the part of the Afghan government or the development community and jumpstart reconstruction. In short order, the PRTs blossomed: seven more were established in 2003 and 11 were added to the list in 2004. Today there are 26 in Afghanistan: 12 under U.S. commanders and 14 under commanders from another country within the Coalition."

Russia and Arms Control: Are There Opportunities for the Obama Administration? Dr Stephen J Blank Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "As the Obama administration took office, Russo-American relations were generally acknowledged to be at an impasse. Arms control issues feature prominently in that conflicted agenda. Indeed, as of September 2008, the Bush administration was contemplating not just a break in arms talks but actual sanctions, and allowed the bilateral civil nuclear treaty with Russia to die in the Senate rather than go forward for confirmation. Russian spokesmen make clear their belief that American concessions on key elements of arms control issues like missile defenses in Europe are a touchstone for the relationship and a condition of any further progress towards genuine dialogue."

Russia, China, and the United States in Central Asia: Prospects for Great Power Competition and Cooperation in the Shadow of the Georgian Crisis Dr Elizabeth Wishnick Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute "An overview of changing U.S. Central Asia policy over the past 5 years reveals an effort to respond to changing developments on the ground, most recently the Georgian crisis, but also the “color” revolutions, the Andijan events in Uzbekistan and its subsequent decision to end U.S. basing rights at Karshi Khanabad, Kazakhstan’s economic rise, and leadership change in Turkmenistan. At the same time, the worsening security situation in Afghanistan and growing insecurity about energy supplies has heightened U.S. interest in security and economic cooperation in Central Asia. "

Understanding Africa: A Geographic Approach COL Laurel J Hummel, Amy Richmond Krakowka Study by the US Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership "Immediately following the 2008 U.S. presidential election, which occurred around the time this book was being compiled, a fracas occurred within the media surrounding some post-election campaign gossip that the Republican party’s vice-presidential candidate had revealed during debate and briefing preparations that she did not understand that Africa was a continent, and instead believed it to be a single state. Whether that rumor was true or false is quite beside the point: the larger issue, arguably, is that many people found it even at least somewhat plausible that a person with a high school diploma—let alone a college degree—granted in the U.S. might not know that Africa is a continent."