Strategic Studies Institute

Security Force Assistance is analyzed, and some specific recommendations designed to improve U. S. performance are provided. While SFA may be a new term, the activities themselves are familiar ones related to how the Department of Defense works to train, advise, and assist foreign partners' security establishments to accomplish common objectives. The United States has demonstrated serious SFA deficiencies in recent years. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has noted, the United States is likely to remain actively and broadly engaged in SFA for many years to come. The need for comprehensive improvement encompasses DoD military and civilian efforts and requires thoughtful integration with broader whole of government approaches.

The Spratly Islands warrant better understanding by U. S. policymakers in order to discuss nuanced responses to the region's challenges. To attain that needed understanding, legal aspects of customary and modern laws are explored to analyze the differences between competing maritime and territorial claims, and why and how the parties involved stake rival claims or maritime legal rights. Throughout the policies of the United States are examined through its conflicted interests in the region. Recommendations for how the United States should engage these issues, a more appropriate task than trying to solve the disputes outright, are then offered.

In one way or another, these papers from the Strategic Studies Institute's annual conference on Russia in May 2012 included in this book all point to the internal pathologies that render Russian security a precarious affair at the best of times. As the editor suggests, the very fact of this precariousness makes Russia an in--herently unpredictable and even potentially danger--ous actor, not necessarily because it will actively at--tack its neighbors, though we certainly cannot exclude that possibility, but rather because it may come apart trying to play the role of a great power in Eurasia or elsewhere. As we all know, that outcome happened in 1917 and in 1989-91, with profound implications for international security and U. S. interests.

An apparent lack of interest by Russia in Sub-Saharan Africa over recent years masks persistent key strategic drivers for Moscow to re-establish lost influence in the region. A preoccupation with more immediate foreign policy concerns has temporarily interrupted a process of Russia reclaiming relationships that were well-developed in the Soviet period in order to secure access to mineral and energy resources which are crucial to Russia's economic and industrial interests, as well as both existing and new markets for military arms contracts. Russian policy priorities in Africa provide both challenges and opportunities for the U. S. nuclear nonproliferation, as well as energy security for the United States and its European allies. Russian development of key resources in southern Africa should be observed closely. Russian trade with the region is significantly underdeveloped, with the exception of the arms trade, which Russia can be expected to defend vigorously if its markets are challenged, including...

Understanding the political economy of Nigeria is needed to reveal the root causes of its many ethnic, religious, economic, and political problems and address them for the long term. The pressures now weighing on Nigeria could literally fracture the state along deep fault lines if rampant corruption and partisanship continues. As mutually important partners for both of our interests in Africa, the United States should assist in specific but indirect ways to help Nigerians overcome their political economic problems. Within such assistance, the role of the U. S. military is particularly delicate but needed through focused aid to specific programs and sharing of expertise, all best managed through employing units that are regionally aligned to Nigeria or West Africa.

The U. S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), newest of the six U. S. Department of Defense geographical combatant commands (CCMDs), was created in 2007 amid great controversy in both Africa and the United States over its location and mission. Over the last 5 years, AFRICOM has matured greatly, overcoming much of the initial resistance from African stakeholders through careful public messaging, and addressing most U. S. interagency concerns about the Command's size and proper role within the U. S. national security/foreign policy community. This Letort Paper describes the geostrategic, operational, and intellectual changes that explain why AFRICOM was created, and debunks three myths about AFRICOM: that it was created to "exploit" Africa's oil and gas riches, "blocks" China's rise in Africa, and that France "opposes" AFRICOM. The author concludes by raising five issues important to AFRICOM's future: 1) allocated forces to carry out short-term training engagements in Africa;...

This monograph examines the potential utility of history as a source of education and possible guidance for the U. S. Army. The author considers the worth in the claim that since history (more accurately termed the past) is all done and gone, it can have no value for today as we try to look forward. This point of view did not find much favor here. The monograph argues that although history does not repeat itself in detail, it certainly does so roughly in parallel circumstances. Of course, much detail differs from one historical case to another, but nonetheless, there are commonly broad and possibly instructive parallels that can be drawn from virtually every period of history, concerning most circumstances. Contents: Should the U. S. Army Learn From History? Understanding the Past: A Foreign Country? Persisting Concerns and Enduring Hazards A Familiar Past? Parallels and Analogies What Changes and What Does Not? What Can the U. S. Army Learn From History? Recommendations for the U. S. Army

Assessing the People's Liberation Army in the Hu Jintao Era - April 2014 This volume provides unique insights into the PLA's achievements over the span of Hu Jintao's tenure as Central Military Commission Chair from 2002 to 2012. This period saw a remarkable growth in capabilities and a critical expansion in the military's missions. The PLA increased its adoption of information technologies and advanced sensors into its modernization efforts. The PLA also improved its ability to carry out joint training and missions other than war. Reflecting developments in the Chinese Communist Party, the PLA also experienced important changes in its political focus and mission. Most significantly, Hu Jintao introduced the "historic missions," which oriented the PLA toward a much greater international mission than it had previously undertaken. Why buy a book you can download for free? We print this book so you don't have to. First you gotta find a good clean (legible) copy and make sure it's the latest version (not always easy). Some documents found on the web are missing some pages or the image quality is so poor, they are difficult to read. We look over each document carefully and replace poor quality images by going back to the original source document. We proof each document to make sure it's all there - including all changes. If you find a good copy, you could print it using a network printer you share with 100 other people (typically its either out of paper or toner). If it's just a 10-page document, no problem, but if it's 250-pages, you will need to punch 3 holes in all those pages and put it in a 3-ring binder. Takes at least an hour. It's much more cost-effective to just order the latest version from Amazon.com This book includes original commentary which is copyright material. Note that government documents are in the public domain. We print these large documents as a service so you don't have to. The books are compact, tightly-bound, full-size (8 1/2 by 11 inches), with large text and glossy covers. 4th Watch Publishing Co. is a HUBZONE SDVOSB. https: //usgovpub.com

The U. S. Department of Defense (DoD) is moving forward with a broad set of innovation initiatives designed to effectively posture the U. S. military for the coming decades. One sub-set of initiatives, the Third Offset, is focused on leap-ahead technologies and capabilities that may offset competitor parity in critical domains. In support of the Army's examination of the Third Offset, the U. S. Army War College conducted a 6-month project employing faculty and student researchers to study the potential impact of the DoD's Third Offset Strategy on the Army. The study team examined the Third Offset Strategy from a strategic perspective. Ultimately, the study is designed to help the Army understand the influence of the Third Offset capabilities on the character of warfare and the implications of these capabilities for the Army and Landpower. This understanding may then help inform decisions in research and development, as well as leader development, training, and organizations.

Russia is once again at the front and center of the security agenda of the United States. With many now seeing Russia as one of the most important threats, if not the number one threat to the United States and its allies, there is much debate about how to counter possible threats, where Russia might strike next, and how to deter Russian aggression. The war in Ukraine and Russia's intervention in Syria, combined with its extensive program of exercising for war, lends policy urgency to this debate. In this Letort Paper, Dr. Andrew Monaghan, a Brit¬ish academic and long-term scholar of Russia based at Chatham House in London, reflects on the view from Moscow. In so doing, he illustrates the increasingly obvious gulf in how security is perceived in Western capitals and in Moscow. Importantly, he emphasizes that the Russian leadership faces numerous doubts and difficulties-to include doubting that, in Clause¬witzian terms, Russia is able to withstand the test of war. This is both the root of the emergency measures that the Russian leadership is implementing across the system, from the economy to the political system and the military, and the root of the major investment pro¬gram to modernize the military that was under way even before the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014 and led to a sharp deterioration in Russia's relations with the United States and the West more broadly. This Letort Paper also serves to complement and even supersede the debate in the West about Russian "hybrid" war by looking at Russian actions through the lens of state mobilization, drawing attention to important features of Russia's evolving conventional warfighting capacity.

Since World War II, the relationship between Turkey and the United States has been characterized by complexity and flux; there have been periods of remarkable cooperation, even when significant disagreements existed. Relations between the two countries are never merely bilateral, for the two are also linked to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). The relationship between those two organizations is also complicated because of differing core purposes and somewhat differing memberships. Current Turkey-U. S. diplomatic and military relations are more strained than in recent years, but both countries recognize how vital it is to address issues of mutual importance. In mid-2007 the Atlantic Council, Strategic Studies Institute, and German Marshall Fund of the United States jointly organized a conference to discuss the current state of U. S.-Turkish-EU ties and to consider how those relations might be repaired and enhanced. Participants included an impressive collection of diplomats, academics, and policy analysts with extensive knowledge and relevant experience. This conference report provides an overview of the enduring issues that must be addressed if Turkey-U. S. relations are to move beyond current roadblocks and begin to realize their full potential. Since the conference that served as the basis of this report took place, the political environment in Turkey has changed, and several of the issues, such as the use of Iraq as a staging area by Kurdish insurgents, have continued to evolve. Such dynamics reveal the importance of the ideas surfaced in each of the conference presentations and the need to continue addressing the issues identified. Such work should prove valuable to policymakers of both countries in their efforts to improve this vital relationship.