CSIS Reports – serie

In the last few years, issues related to human rights, including encouraging the democratization of Muslim societies from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, have acquired great importance in shaping the character of U.S.-Muslim relations and U.S. policy toward Muslim countries. An important impetus behind this development were the tragic events of 9/11, which demonstrated the destructive potential of militant groups that use a distorted interpretation of Islam as justification for their actions. These events also led to a greater realization by the United States--and the West--that a lack of democracy and lack of respect for human rights have been contributory factors to the rise of militant Islam.Consequently, in its approach toward the Muslim world, the United States has emphasized the themes of human rights and democracy. Within the Islamic world, too, both secular and moderate Islamists have begun focusing on issues related to human rights. Although many conservative Muslims believe that Islam is incompatible with Western notions of democracy and human rights, reformist Muslim thinkers and activists maintain that a proper reading of Islamic injunctions and the ethical values underpinning those injunctions shows there is no such incompatibility. Complicating the debate is the fact that many Muslims--secular as well as conservative and reformist--doubt the seriousness of the U.S. commitment to the cause of human rights and democracy in the Muslim world, believing that the United States applies human rights' standards selectively to suit its strategic and economic interests. Irrespective of the validity of these charges, they are part of the context of the U.S.-Muslim dialogue on human rights. And it is this complex dialogue that this volume seeks to advance.

To the extent that the security and stability of close hemispheric neighbors impinge on the security and well-being of U.S. citizens, the United States is obliged to promote regional law enforcement reforms. If not, other countries such as China and Iran may be willing to do that, perhaps in ways the United States might not like, potentially putting American interests and lives at risk. Police reform is a hugely complicated undertaking, in which there are no easily transferable formulas for success. This report examines police reform in the Americas and suggests a strategic approach--considering trends, the threat environment, available resources, institutional strengths and weaknesses, and leadership--that will permit U.S. assistance to be successful.

This report traces the evolution of Hamas’s health care services from the movement’s origins to its current role as the de facto government of Gaza. The analysis focuses primarily on the impact of Palestinian divisions on the development of Gaza’s health sector since Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in June 2007, and it examines how regional trends in 2011 have influenced internal Palestinian dynamics that will likely shape Gaza’s health care sector and the Palestinian population more broadly in the future. Finally, the report examines the U.S. policy implications of Hamas’s successful management of health services in Gaza.

Potential sales of billions of dollars of energy equipment produced by U.S. companies are at stake in the major economies of the region. They are expected to import as much as $16 billion worth of energy products over the next few years to power their economic growth. But unless the United States launches new initiatives to snare sizable shares of this investment, U.S. companies are unlikely to be major players in all this trade.

The police are one of the most critical institutions of the state. This is particularly true in nations emerging from conflict, which are characterized by insecurity and high levels of crime. Without security, governments cannot begin rebuilding their economies and improving the lives of their citizens. As a result, they will continue to struggle for legitimacy, and a return to conflict will remain an ever-present risk. For citizens, a police officer is the symbolic representation of state authority. Their view of the state and their acceptance of its authority are partially shaped by their interactions with the police. The aim of this report is to look at what the United States has been doing to help reform or transform the police in three African states: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan. It provides recommendations of what could be done better, or differently, based on an assumption that the federal budget for overseas policing will remain small. The findings are based on meetings with policymakers and other experts in Washington, D.C., as well as interviews with program implementers, government officials, police, and civil society representatives in all three countries.

In the two decades since the dissolution of the USSR, Russian and Western experts, human rights activists, and journalists have become accustomed to the political violence of the North Caucasus. Terrorist bombings and acts of sabotage in Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Chechnya are perceived as somehow intrinsic to the region. But a recent tragedy in the Volga region suggests that this sort of violence—and the Islamist terrorists who perpetrate it—may not be confined to the Caucasus. With these attacks and counterattacks, the problem of inter-Islamic tensions in the Volga region suddenly became real. To examine this increasingly serious situation, this report sheds light on the ideological sources and resources of radicalism in the Volga region, nonofficial Islamic movements’ support among the regional population, and opportunities for the potential growth of different forms of Islamist activities. It describes the origins of different nonofficial Islamic movements, as well as their post-Soviet development, ideology, and relationship with the authorities and official Muslim clergy. The report also offers practical approaches both for Russian domestic policy and for the U.S.-Russia security cooperation agenda.

Economics is critical to Asia-Pacific affairs and to U.S. interests there. The region accounts for roughly half of global GDP and trade and includes some of the world’s fast-growing economies. American growth and jobs increasingly depend on trade and investment with Asia, and many of the rules of the global economic system over the coming decades will be shaped there. Effective U.S. economic policies in the region are thus an essential complement to other dimensions of the rebalancing strategy, reinforcing and being reinforced by the military, diplomatic, and political elements. In an effort to provide practical assistance to U.S. policymakers grappling with these challenges, the CSIS Asia Team prepared short papers on a number of key economies of the Asia region: China, India, Japan, Korea, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). These papers, presented here, are intended to offer practical advice to Obama administration policymakers as they set a strategic course for economic relations with these important countries over the next four years.

The war in Afghanistan has led the United States and its International Security Assistance Force

Of the many factors that have contributed to China’s industrial development and technological rise, the role of government policy has been impossible to ignore. Policies adopted by the central and local governments in China continue to exert enormous influence on industry in China. While China has been gradually moving to a development model that increasingly stresses market mechanisms over central planning, the state still intervenes in significant ways. It is therefore helpful to understand the policymaking process and how this process impacts the development of firms and industries, as well as how it affects the overall direction of China’s industrial development. This report gives an overview of the players, processes, and tools that comprise Chinese policymaking. Although this focuses on industrial policy, many of the descriptions and conclusions are applicable to the broader policy spectrum.

At this time it is impossible to know when, or the conditions under which, North and South Korea might be reunified. This exploratory report, though, analyzes the current demographic characteristics of the two countries and sets out potential scenarios given conditions that might exist during and following reunification. The South Korean government clearly prefers that an economic integration precede political integration; a complete collapse of the North Korean government is the least desired outcome. The demographic outlook for a unified peninsula will be closely tied with the pace and form of political and economic integration. For the purpose of this paper, it is assumed that the process will be gradual and peaceful, as desired by the South Korean government and the international community--what Holger Wolf has termed the “gradualist scenario.” While analysis to date has examined military, economic, and geopolitical dimensions of the reunification process and end state, it is also critical for planners and policymakers to understand the current and potential demographic dynamics of the peninsula.

As the U.S.-India relationship continues to deepen, some misconceptions unfortunately linger about the forces driving India’s economic growth. Over the course of a year-long lecture series, the CSIS Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies invited key business leaders to discuss the issues facing some of the foundational, albeit underexplored, sectors of the emerging Indian economy. Infrastructure, energy, health care, and manufacturing are all top priorities for India’s leaders. The policies affecting these sectors will have long-lasting implications for India’s growth trajectory. The business leaders who delivered public remarks for this project outlined some of those choices and their importance. You will find their respective analyses and recommendations compiled in this report.

At the beginning of 2011, security defined the U.S.-Mexico relationship, and it was the issue that most observers thought would shape Mexico’s 2012 presidential, state, and local elections. Only two of Mexico’s three main parties, the National Action Party (PAN) and Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), had well-known positions on security and on themes such as economic liberalization, rule of law, and reform of the energy sector. After the election, changes began to occur. A labor bill that Calderon introduced in the new Congress passed both chambers largely intact with the new president-elect’s support, setting the stage for multipartisan cooperation. Similarly, in December, Congress enacted a constitutional change in education, and a supermajority of states seems destined to approve it. It remains to be seen whether that sense of compromise among Mexico’s three dominant parties will prevail for other key initiatives, including telecommunications, taxes, energy reform, and public safety. Yet, where there was uncertainty about the course Mexico would take leading up to the 2012 elections, the new administration has committed itself to the principles of effective government, with public opinion playing a supporting role.

U.S. leadership in global health advances core U.S. interests. It fulfills shared humanitarian values by saving and enhancing lives. It strengthens health security against common and emerging threats. And it promotes stability and prosperity in far-flung communities in the developing world who strive for better health and better lives for their families. For all these reasons, supporting global health should remain a U.S. government and budget priority—and as the second Obama administration and incoming Congress commence their work, this collection of essays offers pragmatic, informed guidelines for seizing the opportunities ahead. The volume analyzes seven important dimensions of a complex, widening U.S. global health agenda: HIV/AIDS; malaria; polio eradication; women’s health; health security; health diplomacy; and multilateral partners. Each essay catalogs and interprets the past four years’ developments in its respective focal area, charting the measurable health impacts for which the United States can claim at least partial credit, and highlighting persistent problems and challenges. The essays conclude with concrete recommendations on how the United States can achieve the best results in the next four years in promoting the improvement of health, especially among the world’s most vulnerable citizens.

Over the last decade, the U.S. Navy has gone beyond disaster response to substantially enlarge its scheduled, preplanned humanitarian engagement in the Pacific, the Americas, and Africa. After an expansionary period that began with the 2005 response to the Indian Ocean tsunami, intensifying budget pressures are now triggering spirited debate within the Department of Defense (DoD) about the true value of these “soft power” missions, which utilize scarce personnel, funding, and assets that otherwise would be dedicated to more traditional and more easily measured and justified “hard power” missions. To help frame and inform this complex debate, CSIS launched in June 2012 an independent study of U.S. Navy humanitarian assistance, chaired by Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S. Navy (retired). While in different ways each military service has made remarkable humanitarian contributions, the Obama administration’s strategic rebalance to Asia and the accompanying emphasis on the Pacific makes a study of U.S. Navy strategic engagement particularly timely. Ideally, the issues presented by naval humanitarian assistance will have implications and lessons for other DoD engagement activities.

One year ago CSIS convened the Executive Council on Development—a bipartisan group of leaders from government, business, nongovernmental organizations, and philanthropy—to explore how the U.S. government and private sector can work together to support the economic success of developing countries. In their final report, “Our Shared Opportunity: A Vision for Global Prosperity,” the Council provides a targeted set of recommendations for the U.S. government and private sector, calling for a greater reliance on business, trade, and investment tools to achieve better development outcome.

Since World War II, the Arctic has been a region of geostrategic importance to the United States. As unprecedented environmental transformation occurs in the Arctic, this region will increase in significance. When historians look back at this critical opportunity to develop U.S. Arctic policy, we do not want the question to be posed, “Who lost the Arctic?” but rather, “How did the United States win the Arctic?” Crafting U.S. policy toward the Arctic, however, is a complex and challenging undertaking. Arctic policy must respond to the economic, environmental, security, and geopolitical concerns that confront the region. When the Barack Obama administration came into office in January 2009, it accepted and left unchanged the recently adopted Arctic strategy of the George W. Bush administration. In its second term, it is now time for the Obama administration to enhance U.S. Arctic policy by updating and prioritizing National Security Presidential Directive 66/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25 (NSPD-66/HSPD-25), improving interagency cooperation, enhancing U.S. international and public diplomacy related to the Arctic, and increasing the focus of senior U.S. officials. These activities must begin now if the United States is to prepare for and fully maximize its chairmanship of the Arctic Council beginning in 2015.

Every three weeks, a major political crisis begins somewhere in the world. The United States intervenes in less than a fifth of them. But that is still a new U.S. intervention about every two months. And almost all of them are civilian interventions; less than a third involve the military. CSIS has released a new dataset of “potential transitions” worldwide, covering responses to 758 political crises between 1989 and 2010, including 134 civilian and military interventions. The report describes the dataset and presents the results of the initial analysis. Its recommendations focus on the disconnect between the high demand for civilian power and the support civilian institutions have for responding to such crises, and on the importance of caution and moderation when deciding whether and how to intervene.

At the beginning of the 1990s, China intensified its Asia policy. While the United States was waging a war on terrorism in the Middle East, China tried to engage countries in Asia through its diplomatic “charm offensive” or “smile diplomacy.” However, since President Barack Obama took office in 2008, the United States has shown interest in Asia with renewed vigor. This pivoting toward Asia by both China and the U.S. has thus provided countries in the region with significant challenges and opportunities. China and the U.S. have naturally impinged on each other, and this has also been the case for both multilateral and mini-lateral regional institutions. China has valued the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) + 3 as a main vehicle for cementing cooperation in East Asia, while downplaying a broader version of a regional institution, the East Asia Summit (EAS), as a forum for talks. Though the U.S. was a latecomer to those institutions, it upholds the EAS as one of the defining institutions among the various and multilayered institutions in Asia. A similar picture may be drawn with respect to trilateral cooperation between China, Japan, and Korea (CJK) versus Korea, Japan, and the U.S. On the economic side, as well, many would like to compare the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and Tran-Pacific Partnership (TPP) from the perspective of China-U.S. rivalry.

The ability to access and economically develop vast amounts of America’s unconventional natural gas resources, especially large shale gas formations, has altered our national view on energy and has subsequently changed the discourse at the federal, state, and local levels. Since 2008, when the economic viability of shale gas resources first became widely recognized, policymakers and industry leaders have worked to better understand the nature of this resource; the risks and opportunities associated with its production, transport, and use; and the potential strategic implications of the United States’ new energy reality. The paradox of the U.S. unconventional gas story is that the technologies and industry practices that made it possible have been decades in the making; the public policy and commercial landscape is vastly different from just a few years ago; and the story of this remarkable resource development is still in its infancy. In an attempt to capture the current state of play with respect to resource development, operational practices, risk identification and mitigation, impacts assessment and identify strategies that allow this valuable resource to be prudently developed, the CSIS Energy and National Security Program undertook this Unconventional Gas Initiative. Over the course of the past year, the authors were able—in concert with industry and nongovernmental organization (NGO) supporters—to work with a wide array of regulators, policymakers, environmental, industry and financial groups, academics and community stakeholders to capture the latest understanding of the unconventional gas development picture and develop themes and findings in the hope of facilitating an informed discussion on a path forward.

A contradiction sits at the core of U.S. biological threat prevention policy. Despite the U.S. government accepting the scientific and industrial costs of a domestic biosecurity system, it has not committed the diplomatic and financial resources needed to successfully promote the global adoption of similar systems. While the safety and security of biological pathogens within the United States are important national goals, their pursuit has the potential to impede another crucial goal: a robust research and commercial enterprise. To make matters worse, domestic policies are insufficient to fully protect U.S. citizens, since they provide limited protection from attacks launched with pathogens brought into the United States from abroad. Biosecurity has become a global problem. With the rapid spread of technology and know-how, attacks that originate from less-regulated locales outside the United States are becoming increasingly serious risks to U.S. national security. This means that the United States is bearing the full costs of domestic bio threat prevention without attaining the benefits of a thorough global prevention system.

Recent years have seen a considerable shift in the sources of financial assistance for global health activities. With the private sector as well as emerging economies joining the more developed nations as major players, the balance of power is changing, leading to a momentous shift in perceptions of “global health.” Japan has yet to adopt a comprehensive approach that acknowledges the new global health reality. With political changes, natural disasters, and a sluggish economy dominating the policy scene in recent years, there has been little appetite among decision-makers to develop -- in a practical sense – more effective ways to strategically support global health activities in facilitating a greater impact of Japan’s foreign policy. Japan must develop a comprehensive perspective of global health in order to maximize aid effectiveness and to promote transparency in order to boost the overall effectiveness of the country’s initiatives and benefit the people of Japan, as well.

This report was produced by the CSIS Nuclear Consensus Working Group (NCWG) to assist the Obama administration in forging, during its second term, an enduring consensus about the U.S. nuclear posture. The report includes (1) seven individual statements from nuclear thinkers and practitioners across the “broad middle” of the spectrum of opinion on the role and value of U.S. nuclear weapons, the U.S. nuclear posture needed for this defined role, and a political strategy for sustaining the recommended posture; (2) a consensus statement signed by eight members of the NCWG; (3) A description of the process used by the NCWG to forge the signed statement, which includes the lessons learned from the facilitation process; and (4) A case study covering 2008-2012, which provides both a chronology of past attempts to broker consensus about the U.S. nuclear posture and the working group’s assessment of the lessons learned.

There are currently real pressures on U.S. ground forces to define their contingency future. For example, there is a perceived decline in plausible conventional warfighting scenarios, and many see maintaining large standing ground capabilities solely as a hedge against uncertainty as cost-prohibitive in an era of declining resources. As U.S. officials will undoubtedly want to consider the widest possible range of military options in the event of future crises, this study endeavors to identify ground force options that are most important to the security of core U.S. interests in two key regions of the world: the Middle East and South Asia; and the Asia Pacific. It is meant to help the Department of Defense define future challenges risk as it relates to ground forces and identify and classify specific qualitative risks that could undermine future operational success. While the study focuses on U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) and U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM), its findings are likely relevant worldwide.

Satellite imagery and geospatial analysis tools offer an unprecedented opportunity to harness new technologies in order to help resolve boundary disputes. The South China Sea in Focus: Clarifying the Limits of Maritime Dispute uses these tools to provide a first and necessary step toward tackling the overlapping maritime disputes in the South China Sea: determining which waters are and are not in dispute under international law. The report opens with a set of geographic information system (GIS)–based maps that provide an easily understandable benchmark against which policymakers and academics can judge the claims and actions of the South China Sea claimants. More detailed color maps and methodological information follow for those who want to dig deeper into the claims and the report’s conclusions.

Arctic Economics in the 21st Century explores the key economic dynamics at play in the rapidly changing Arctic region. This report evaluates both the economic benefits of an increasingly open Arctic region and the costs of exploring the riches of the American Arctic. It frames an economic strategy built upon six critical economic components: mineral resources, oil and gas development, shipping, fisheries, tourism, and finally, the regional infrastructure required to support and sustain the first five components. The report analyzes the increasingly prominent role of the private sector in Arctic development and its interplay with the potentially diminished traditional role of governments in the region.

This report is the culmination of a two-year project examining the complex relations among Turkey, Russia, and Iran in an effort to better understand these countries’ perceptions in the post-Cold War world and the conditions and interests that cause international political alignments among them. It surveys the undercurrents of these relationships in a political, economic, and energy supply and demand context and assesses the geostrategic and regional impact of these dynamics through a series of case studies on developments in the Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asia. The report is meant to provide U.S. policymakers with practical recommendations for calibrating and balancing relations with each of these three countries, while taking into account the interests of other major actors. It integrates independent analysis by CSIS scholars with perspectives from Turkish, Russian, and Iranian counterparts obtained through extensive field research and two international workshops held in Ankara and Moscow.