March 10, 2010
Council on Foreign Relations // Center for Preventive Action

Abstract:

Somalia has been a failed state for the better part of two decades; bereft of central government, cantonized into clan fiefdoms, and wracked by deadly spasms of violence. Repeated efforts to create a viable national government have failed. For the United States, the principal concern, especially since 9/11, has been the fear that Somalia might become a safe haven for al-Qaeda to launch attacks in the region and even conceivably against the U.S. homeland. U.S. efforts to prevent that from happening, however, have been counterproductive, alienating large parts of the Somali population and polarizing Somalia’s diverse Muslim community into “moderate” and “extremist” camps. Several indigenous militant Islamist groups have emerged and grown stronger in recent years. One coalition, headed by a radical youth militia known as the Shabaab, now controls most of southern Somalia and threatens the survival of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG)—the latest UN-brokered effort to establish a functioning authority in the capital city of Mogadishu....

March 10, 2010
International Organization for Migration // Tracking of Returns Project // Government of Southern Sudan

Abstract:

The March 2005 report of the Sudan Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) estimated that approximately four million people had been displaced from (or within) Southern Sudan by the 1983 to 2005 civil war between northern and southern Sudan. Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in January 2005, IOM calculates that both North-South and South-South return movements stand at 2 million. The estimated numbers of return by year are 744,080 in 2006, 732,369 in 2007, 362,049 in 2008 and 161,501 in 2009. Since the beginning of IOM’s involvement in the tracking project, IOM has physically tracked 260,827 returnees during their return journey of which around 77,000 are state organised returnees (En-route Tracking); the system has also captured 1,256,859 returnees in their villages of return (Area of Return Tracking). From this data, in combination with other village level data gathered through IOM’s Village Assessment Programme, IOM estimates the total number of successful returns since the CPA until the end of December 2009 to be 2 million returnees. This figure takes into account secondary displacement (i.e. people not remaining in their place of return) of an estimated of more than 200,000 individuals. Based on the estimated figure of 2m returnees, IOM estimates, Northern Bahr el Ghazal has received the largest number of returns with an estimated 450,000 returnees (22 %) followed by Southern Kordofan with 275,000 returnees (14%). Western Bahr el Ghazal and Eastern Equatoria states received the lowest number of returnees with 60,000 returnees and 55,600 returnees respectively....

March 9, 2010
Heinrich Böll Stiftung

Abstract:

If economics is the original dismal science, then climate change could be its understudy. Hardly a day goes by without a new scientific report revealing more worrying news about the rapid progress of climate change. Reports on climate change typically make for grim bedtime reading – full of worrying statistics and doomsday scenarios. Sometimes it feels like the only question left is whether the rising sea levels, tornadoes or forest fires will get you first. As the meteorological picture comes into focus, campaigners have begun to argue that climate change holds potentially serious implications for international security. The basic argument is that climate change – by redrawing the maps of water availability, food security, disease prevalence and coastal boundaries – will reduce the available food and water, increase migration, raise tensions and trigger new conflicts....

March 5, 2010
Chr. Michelsen Institute

Abstract:

The international discourse on gender and peacebuilding presupposes a common agenda among all women across religion, ethnicity and class in any given post-conflict situation. This brief challenges this position by exploring the attitudes and priorities of Muslim female activists in Sudan. Disunited and politicized, they have multiple and competing priorities rather than a common gender-based agenda.

March 5, 2010
Women's Iniatives for Gender Justice

Abstract:

First published in June 2008, Making a Statement: A Review of Charges and Prosecutions for Gender-Based Crimes before the International Criminal Court, is a collection of statements and commentaries written by the Women’s Initiatives from 2005-2008 in response to the opening of investigations, the unsealing of warrants of arrest, and the charges brought by the Office of the Prosecutor in each of the four situations. Making a Statement, Second Edition includes an updated chart of all of the charges for gender-based crimes requested by the Prosecutor through February 2010, as well as new statements by the Women’s Initiatives regarding the opening of the second trial in the DRC Situation and the Confirmation Decision in the case against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo. The Second Edition of Making a Statement includes an updated chart of all of the charges for gender-based crimes requested by the Prosecutor to date, as well as the charges confirmed and not confirmed by the Pre-Trial Chambers. It includes new statements by the Women’s Initiatives in relation to the commencement of the ICC’s first trial and the Confirmation Decision in the case against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo. In that same case, the Women’s Initiatives was the first international women’s rights organisation invited to file an amicus curiae brief before the ICC....

March 10, 2010
Council on Foreign Relations // International Institutions and Global Governance Program

Abstract:

If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) did not exist today, the United States would not seek to create it. In 1949, it made sense in the face of a potential Soviet invasion to forge a bond in the North Atlantic area among the United States, Canada, and the west European states. Today, if the United States were starting from scratch in a world of transnational threats, the debate would be over whether to follow liberal and neoconservative calls for an alliance of democracies without regard to geography or to develop a great power concert envisioned by the realists to uphold the current order. The United States is not, however, starting from scratch, and NATO should not disappear. While the bonds across the Atlantic may be frayed, they are stronger than those tying the United States to other parts of the world. Common history and values matter, as do the resources (both financial and military) that Europe possesses. The NATO allies share a common interest in preventing disruptions to the global economy, including attacks on freedom of navigation. As a community of democracies, the member states are threatened by forces such as Islamic extremism and the rise of authoritarian states. For the United States, the alliance is a source of legitimacy for actions in places like Afghanistan. For Europe, NATO is a vehicle for projecting hard power....

March 9, 2010
United States Government Accountability Office

Abstract:

The U.S. government’s reliance on contractors, including the State Department’s and Department of Defense’s (DOD) use of private security contractors in Iraq, has been well documented. We and others have examined many of the challenges the government faces using contractors in Iraq, including issues related to the scope of private security contractors’ activities, the challenges in providing sufficient oversight, the appropriate accountability processes, and difficulties in conducting background screenings of foreign national contractor employees. (A list of related GAO products can be found at the end of this report.) What has not been so well examined is the comparative cost of using civilian employees or military members versus the cost of using contractors, particularly private security contractors, during contingency operations such as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Generally, when costs have been discussed, the focus has been on the daily rate paid to contractor employees, rather than on the total costs of using State Department or DOD personnel. However, in October 2005, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a study that compared the cost of using military personnel, federal civilians, or contractors to provide logistic support for overseas operations....

March 9, 2010
International Relations and Security Network

Abstract:

New data from centrist Democratic pollsters shows President Barack Obama and the party losing ground on national security with key voters, and they urge him to toughen up his rhetoric on terrorism, but it’s a prescription that ignores an important point the president has been trying to make. The poll, conducted by veteran Democratic political consultants Stan Greenberg and Jeremy Rosner, found that President Obama had strong personal approval ratings among voters in most areas of national security - higher indeed than his approval rating overall, which was 47 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving. Conducted in late February, the poll surveyed 851 adults who voted in 2008 and said they were likely to do so again in 2010. More than half of the likely voters approved of the president’s handling of Afghanistan (58 percent to 37 percent disapproving); national security (57 percent to 40); “leading America’s military” (57 percent to 38); fighting terrorism (54 percent to 41); and Iraq (54 percent to 40). These numbers, though still strong, are down from the 60 percent plus territory they were in when the pollsters ran their survey in May last year. Nonetheless, the president’s approval ratings are currently in negative territory on only two national security issues: Iran (42 percent approving to 49 percent disapproving) and the “prosecution and interrogation of terrorism suspects.”...

March 8, 2010
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Abstract:

[...] Facing comparatively few restrictions, U.S. legal residents and citizens can travel abroad, connect with terrorist groups to gain explosives or weapons training, and return here to plan and execute attacks. Particularly troubling are homegrown extremists who possess facility with both American and foreign cultures, including language skills. Such multi-cultural familiarity could allow them to operate freely both at home and overseas and to elude—far more easily than foreign nationals—U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. Combating these tendencies requires action at the local, state, and federal levels. Local governments, supported by federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, must continue to build strong partnerships with Muslim communities. This type of cooperation is important because the friends and family of suspected extremists often are the best resources for law enforcement officials. The federal government also must continue to support official partnerships among local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Such efforts—embodied in Joint Terrorism Task Forces and fusion centers—are crucial to apprehending domestic extremists because they combine local expertise (knowledge of neighborhoods and communities) with federal expertise (national intelligence and counterterrorism tools) to form a comprehensive approach to the threat. Policymakers and officials at the national level also must address two key issues that play heavily in the five cases discussed here. First, they must consider new ways to interdict the growing trend of “Internet radicalization.” Many of last fall’s suspects connected with transnational terrorist recruiters via the Internet; stopping this sort of activity is crucial to stemming domestic extremism in the United States. Second, several of those arrested last fall seemed to harbor the belief that the United States is at war with Islam. This is a “narrative” that al Qaeda and other global terrorist groups actively promulgate; it holds that U.S. counterterrorism efforts signify a “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam. The United States must continue to work to puncture this narrative. White House officials already have discarded phrases like “war on radical Islam.” But ultimately, the United States needs to go further than this, because al Qaeda seizes on more than just U.S. rhetoric to galvanize support for its agenda; the group also points to America’s military presence in Muslim countries as evidence for its preferred narrative. The United States, then, should consider how to balance the need to combat global terrorism with the drawbacks of large-scale, direct military intervention. Doing so will require the United States to forge stronger partnerships with states plagued by extremist violence....

March 8, 2010
International Relations and Security Network

Abstract:

As Afghanistan contracting surges, US agencies fail to coordinate, inviting waste and abuse. In the past eight years, the United States has allocated $51 billion to rebuild and stabilize Afghanistan. But tracking that money sometimes seems as challenging as finding the leaders of the Taliban. No one keeps an exact count of the number of private contractors working in Afghanistan -- even though Congress ordered that be done more than two years ago. There’s no central list of all the contracts now in force. Government auditors cannot determine with confidence if the reconstruction money is being properly spent or meets the stated objectives. And efforts to improve coordination among the key U.S. agencies managing the money -- the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development -- have lagged at best. That is the picture that emerges from dozens of interviews with auditors, contractors, congressional aides and inspectors general, who echo the findings of independent government reports over the past decade. Without rigorous record-keeping, they say, the contracting process is vulnerable to waste, duplication of effort and fraud....

March 10, 2010
Small Wars Journal

Abstract:

This paper presumes the effectiveness of the program [Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund that would facilitate the demobilization and reintegration of Taliban and other insurgent fighters back into Afghan society] and then assesses the logically probable effects. I present the case for the numerous negative effects that could follow from the successful implementation of the proposed Fund. The primary difficulty is that the development of this Fund, with its narrow focus on incentives targeted towards Taliban fighters, has, on the face of it, overlooked the possible ramifications that it could have within civilian society as well as the potential response of the insurgency. This range of neglected considerations is the focus of this paper. In particular, I emphasize how the program could possibly swell the ranks of the insurgency, further disillusion Afghan society towards the ISAF effort, waste coalition resources even while the insurgency persists, result in more vicious Taliban tactics, and distribute the insurgency throughout Afghanistan. I conclude with some policy recommendations that call for temperance in actions surrounding this program....

March 10, 2010
United Nations Development Programme // Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan // Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research Surveys, Kabul

Abstract:

From July 9th to July 21st, 2009, the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) Surveys conducted a survey of public opinion for UNDP-Afghanistan on the subject of Police Performance and Public Safety perceptions. The main purpose of this study was to provide insight into the opinions of the people of Afghanistan with regard to various policing issues. ACSOR interviewed 5,156 Afghan respondents (2,827 males and 2,329 females), age 18 or older, across all 34 provinces of the country. In Afghanistan, security is the responsibility of several different groups. These include, but are not limited to, local law enforcement officials, Afghan National Police (ANP), Afghan National Army (ANA) and the National Department of Security (NDS). While questions pertaining to the security of Afghanistan as a whole are addresed, the majority of the questions focused on police in regard to local performance....

March 10, 2010
Crisis States Research Centre // London School of Economics // Development Studies Institute

Abstract:

Karachi is not only the largest metropolis of Pakistan and its commercial hub, it is also known as a ‘mini-Pakistan’. This is a reference to the ethnic and religious diversity of Karachi’s population. The paper begins with a description of the conflict and violence that has become associated with Karachi. Trends and patterns in conflict and non-state violence are identified here, as outcomes that require explanation. The second section provides relevant background information on the city’s placement within the national polity and economy. Some of the main explanations for Karachi’s trends and patterns of conflict and violence − relating to ethnic identity, organisations, economic frustration, and political conspiracies − are reviewed in the third section. The role of external factors such as migration and the influences of the war in Afghanistan are also highlighted. An alternative approach focusing on two incontrovertible aspects of Karachi’s urbanity – migration and informality − is outlined in the fourth section. It is proposed here that the analysis of conflict and violence in Karachi can benefit from an understanding of the very processes that made Karachi an open city in the first place....

March 10, 2010
United States Government Accountability Office

Abstract:

The illicit drug trade remains a challenge to the overall U.S. counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. Afghanistan produces over 90 percent of the world’s opium, which competes with the country’s licit agriculture industry, provides funds to insurgents, and fuels corruption in Afghanistan. Since 2005, the United States has allotted over $2 billion to stem the production, consumption, and trafficking of illicit drugs while building the Afghan government’s capacity to conduct counternarcotics activities on its own. In this report, GAO (1) examines how the U.S. counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan has changed; (2) assesses progress made and challenges faced within the elimination/eradication, interdiction, justice reform, public information, and drug demand reduction program areas; and (3) assesses U.S. agencies’ monitoring and evaluation efforts. To address these objectives, GAO obtained pertinent program documents and interviewed relevant U.S. and Afghan officials. GAO has prepared this report under the Comptroller General’s authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative....

March 9, 2010
Physicians for Human Rights

Abstract:

In recent months Bangladeshi authorities have waged an unprecedented campaign of arbitrary arrest, illegal expulsion, and forced internment against Burmese refugees. In this emergency report Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) presents new data and documents dire conditions for these persecuted Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. PHR's medical investigators warn that critical levels of acute malnutrition and a surging camp population without access to food aid will cause more deaths from starvation and disease if the humanitarian crisis is not addressed....

March 10, 2010
Council on Foreign Relations // International Institutions and Global Governance Program

Abstract:

If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) did not exist today, the United States would not seek to create it. In 1949, it made sense in the face of a potential Soviet invasion to forge a bond in the North Atlantic area among the United States, Canada, and the west European states. Today, if the United States were starting from scratch in a world of transnational threats, the debate would be over whether to follow liberal and neoconservative calls for an alliance of democracies without regard to geography or to develop a great power concert envisioned by the realists to uphold the current order. The United States is not, however, starting from scratch, and NATO should not disappear. While the bonds across the Atlantic may be frayed, they are stronger than those tying the United States to other parts of the world. Common history and values matter, as do the resources (both financial and military) that Europe possesses. The NATO allies share a common interest in preventing disruptions to the global economy, including attacks on freedom of navigation. As a community of democracies, the member states are threatened by forces such as Islamic extremism and the rise of authoritarian states. For the United States, the alliance is a source of legitimacy for actions in places like Afghanistan. For Europe, NATO is a vehicle for projecting hard power....

March 5, 2010
Royal United Services Institute Journal

Abstract:

The demands of counter-insurgency have sparked much discussion about the need for army reform. But it is also the case that government, as a whole, must adapt to the present campaign. Britain has lagged behind the US in this regard, and it is not clear that sufficient political will exists in the UK for real change. However, British capacity is only ever the first step: ultimately, what matters for successful stabilisation is the capability and legitimacy of the host government.

March 5, 2010
European Council on Refugees and Exiles

Abstract:

This research paper focuses on the European Union funding priorities in four Eastern European countries neighbouring the EU (Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine) for refugee protection, migration management and border reinforcement, which has been completed by the Eastern Europe project funded by the EU's Aeneas programme. The research was undertaken from Autumn 2007 to Spring 2008, with a final update in November 2008. The focus of the research is on EU's funding programmes in 2004-2007.

March 4, 2010
Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism

Abstract:

The Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism maintains a searchable database on all suicide attacks from 1981 to 2001 and additional years will be added. The database includes information about the location of attacks, the target type, the weapon used, and systematic information on the demographic and general biographical characteristics of suicide attackers. The database expands the breadth of the data available in English using native language sources (e.g., Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, Tamil) that are likely to have the most extensive relevant information. The database allows filtering by location, group, campaign, target type, weapon and gender....

March 4, 2010
Aspen Atlantic Group

Abstract:

General McCrystal’s report to NATO governments offers a remarkably candid critique on allied efforts in Afghanistan to date. Many of the deficiencies identified result from the offhanded manner in which the United States and its allies backed into their current commitments. Despite a decade of hard won experience in the Balkans, none of the salient lessons from the NATO missions in Bosnia and Kosovo were originally applied in Afghanistan. Those guidelines included the importance of applying decisive force from the beginning, the need to quickly establish a secure environment and ensure public safety, and the importance of engaging neighboring states, particularly those inclined to be unhelpful. For the first several years after the fall of the Taliban, the U.S. and the rest of the international community comprehensively ignored all these lessons. The Bush administration eventually reversed all of its early policies in Afghanistan, but this change of heart came too late to fundamentally alter the inadequate structures for international engagement there. In addition to divided command, there is also an invidious division of responsibilities. Some allied governments are prepared to have their soldiers fight and die to secure contested areas of Afghanistan, others are not. The latter allies sometimes charge that the United States had engaged a ‘bait and switch’ maneuver, in which countries were recruited to do peacekeeping and then once committed to Afghanistan were asked to engage in counterinsurgency, or worse yet, counterterrorism. To remedy this situation, contributions that Europe could make would be to match American efforts in Afghanistan across the board. No one in Washington or Europe thinks this is remotely likely. The second best option is to at least strengthen the machinery that ties American and European efforts together. Unifying American and NATO command arrangements, appointing a prestigious European envoy for the region with real control over EU assets, and establish a joint U.S.-EU mechanism to backstop the PRTs would go far in remedying current deficiencies....