Foreign Policy: The Latest From New America

Revenge of the Drones

American Strategy — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:00:00 -0400

As a result of the unprecedented 41 drone strikes into Pakistan authorized by the Obama administration, aimed at Taliban and al Qaeda networks based there, about a half-dozen leaders of militant organizations have been killed--including two heads of Uzbek terrorist groups allied with al Qaeda, and Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban--in addition to hundreds of lower-level militants and civilians, according to our analysis.[1]

Pakistani Capabilities for a Counterinsurgency Campaign: A Net Assessment

adminn — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:35:00 -0400

Executive Summary

Guantanamo: Who Really 'Returned to the Battlefield'?

American Strategy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:03:00 -0400

As President Obama receives formal recommendations in the coming months on issues surrounding the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it is crucial that policymakers and the public have an accurate picture of the threat to the United States posed by those detainees already released. Contrary to recent assertions that one in seven, or 14 percent, of the former prisoners had "returned to the battlefield," our analysis of Pentagon reports, news stories, and other public records indicates that the number who were confirmed or suspected to be involved in anti-U.S.

U.S. vs. Japan: Residential Internet Service Provision Pricing

OTI — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:53:00 -0400

The following chart lists the price, download and upload speeds of residential Internet services in the U.S. and Japan.

Revitalizing U.S. Democracy Promotion

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:33:00 -0400

Over the past several years, the cause of democracy promotion has been at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. Along with heightened rhetorical attention to democratization, the Bush administration's so-called Freedom Agenda brought increased resources for democracy promotion activities and created new programs (including the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Middle East Partnership Initiative) geared toward spurring democracy and encouraging good governance.

Bold Action for the G20 Summit

Economic Growth — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:11:00 -0400

With the London Summit rapidly approaching, I urge participants to take bold steps to address the fundamental structural issues in global finance that have, in part at least, led to the current economic crisis. I recognize that there remains a debate between those who believe that the current economic environment compels a dramatic rethink of the foundations, systems and structures upon which the global economy operates, and those who believe that such sweeping reforms are both unnecessary and politically

Foreign Policy Implications of the Financial Crisis

Economic Growth — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:30:00 -0500

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of this committee for the honor of addressing you today. Mr. Chairman, it is a tribute to your leadership that this roundtable is being convened in recognition of the centrality of economic and financial issues to American foreign policy.

U.S. Weapons at War 2008

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:00:00 -0500

The United States, which entered into over $23 billion in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreements in fiscal year (FY) 2007 and $32 billion in FY 2008 (see table 1), is the world's largest arms supplier. U.S. exports range from combat aircraft to Pakistan, Morocco, Greece, Romania, and Chile to small arms and light weapons to the Philippines, Egypt, and Georgia. In 2006 and 2007, the United States sold weapons to over 174 states and territories, a significant increase from the beginning of the Bush administration when the number of U.S. arms clients stood at 123.[1] While many of these sales were relatively small deals licensed commercially by the State Department, a number of important new states were added or restored to the U.S. client list, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, East Timor, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.

U.S. Weapons at War 2008 (Executive Summary)

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:50:00 -0500

The United States is the world's leading arms exporting nation, accounting for over 45 percent of all weapons transferred globally in 2007.

Changing the Culture of Pentagon Contracting

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:42:00 -0500

While the U.S. military has long relied on private contractors, the outsourcing of key national security functions has increased dramatically over the past five and a half years. From intelligence gathering and logistical support to personal security services, training, and operational support tasks, the efforts of contractors are now integral to the success of America's security and stabilization missions around the world. Since the beginning of the Iraq War, one dollar out of every five has been spent on private contractors. By most estimates, there are more private contractors in Iraq than uniformed military.

Numerous observers have raised questions about the legal accountability of contractors and the efficacy of utilizing private actors in an active battle space, but few studies have examined the culture of contracting and the larger failure of the military to effectively account for and integrate contractors into U.S. military planning, training, and operations. This report in intended to help policymakers, both in the executive and legislative branches as well as the uniformed military, develop solutions to the growing challenge of integrating contractors more effectively into U.S. national security operations.

A failure to accept the inevitability of contractors as a key element of the military force structure has contributed to inertia and an abdication of responsibility for managing the interaction between government departments and private contractors. While it is important to acknowledge that in recent years there have been significant improvements in oversight of private contractors, particularly by the Department of Defense, serious systemic and institutional problems persist.

A cultural shift is required in which civilian and military leaders take steps to fully integrate private contractors not only into the force structure but also into mission requirements. Without this sort of institutional change, the problems we have experienced in connection with contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue, significantly retarding the military's ability to adjust to the evolving security challenges of the 21st century.

The U.S. government should:

Transition away from the use of private security contractors in the battle space and build up the capabilities of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the military police to take on security responsibilities. As this transition takes place, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act should be expanded to govern the actions of private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan not currently covered by the Uniform Code of Military Justice; improved training of security contractors, vetting of third-country nationals, and third-party accreditation of contractors should be instituted; and interagency coordination between the military and other government agencies should be strengthened.

Move away from reliance on the flawed and widely misunderstood term "inherently governmental" in deciding how and when to use private contractors, and instead focus on the question of core competencies and mission success. Congress should permit government agencies to use broad discretionary leeway in determining where and how contractors should be used. Congress should establish red-lined activities that must not be outsourced and require the military to maintain a "resident capacity" for any function it outsources, particularly as it relates to the ability to conduct proper contractual oversight.

Designate a high-ranking official in each branch of the military to conduct a top-to-bottom review of how that branch interacts with contractors and where there are areas for greater or lesser reliance on contractors.

Strengthen the contractor and acquisition workforce so that it is better equipped to make contracting decisions and to conduct robust oversight and management of contractors. In addition, the Army should develop and support its newly created contracting career field for enlisted personnel and officers.

Create a clear chain of command from Secretary of Defense through the Joint Chiefs of Staff and service departments that lays out the responsibilities for contracting and holds commanders accountable for the integration of contractors into the Total Force.

Integrate contractor oversight into officer training in all branches of the military.

Include contingency contracting as an "area of emphasis" in the 2010 QDR.

Create and sustain an enforcement arm of the FBI to conduct overseas investigations of private contractors as well as an extraterritorial U.S. attorney to prosecute criminal behavior.

How Not to Lose Afghanistan (and Pakistan)

American Strategy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:24:00 -0400

In late May, some 40 Pakistani journalists received a summons to an unusual press conference held by Baitullah Mehsud, the rarely photographed leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who is accused of orchestrating the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, sending suicide bombers to Spain earlier this year, and dispatching an army of fighters into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and NATO forces in recent months. Surrounded by a posse of heavily armed Taliban guards, Mehsud boasted that he had hundreds of trained suicide bombers ready for martyrdom.

It was an extraordinarily brazen public performance for a man who is supposedly in hiding.[1] The press conference was held in a school in South Waziristan, on Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan. And it wasn't secret: according to two of the journalists who attended, reporters were given 24 hours' notice of the event and were able to call in news from the meeting on their satellite phones.

Soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders were on the run. Now they are running free. Neighboring Pakistan seems unable or unwilling to clamp down on leading militants on its territory, and jihadist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan have occurred with alarming frequency in the past year. More Pakistani citizens died as a result of militant violence in 2007 than in the previous five years combined. Similarly, in Afghanistan's eastern provinces, attacks are up by 40 percent in the last several months, and more American soldiers are now dying in Afghanistan than in Iraq. According to U.S. intelligence reports, Al Qaeda has regrouped along the porous Afghan-Pakistan border.

The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan has grabbed the attention of American politicians across the political spectrum. Both presidential candidates have recently called for a significant increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. But simply throwing more soldiers at the problem won't help unless the next occupant of the White House abandons our current stopgap approach with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan and initiates a "strategic reset" of the sort that helped the U.S. military dampen the violence in Iraq.

This strategic reset has two major components. First, recognizing the peril that would ensue from Afghanistan's descent once more into a failed state, the United States must overhaul its approach to the insurgency there by building up the size of the Afghan army and police, and embedding the best American advisers in their ranks. It must fix the problems in the NATO mission, decouple the Taliban from the drug trade, embark on effective reconstruction, end coalition air strikes that kill civilians, and block the Taliban's freedom of movement throughout much of the country.

Controlling the Taliban is tied directly to the second component of a strategic reset: a new approach toward Pakistan. As much as Pakistan suffers at the hands of Islamist insurgents, the country's powerful military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has tolerated the Taliban, which it views as a backup force for asserting control of Afghanistan if the United States suddenly decides to cut and run. Therefore, in order to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the United States must start dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan as one region, not as separate entities.

Afghanistan: A Model Victory or Model Disaster?

For American interventionists, Afghanistan was supposed to be the model: a quick war and a thorough renovation of the country's infrastructure and political system. Instead, Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a bigger mess than Iraq. Yet it commands a comparative fraction of the budget and attention paid to the latter. Unless that changes, the model victory will turn into a model disaster.

We should be clear about what would constitute a realistic victory in Afghanistan. Even our most concerted efforts will not turn it into Belgium, but we can prevent it from becoming a safe haven for Al Qaeda, stop the Taliban from threatening the population, bring security to much of the countryside (particularly the key roads), and wean farmers away from the poppy trade by expanding the legitimate economy. The achievement of these goals would set the country back on the road to relative peace and prosperity, where it was headed in the 1970s before the Soviet invasion.

By 2002, the Taliban had been routed from control of Afghanistan and were little more than a nuisance; today, they are much more than that. They are now supported by a growing cast of foreign fighters, including Arabs, Uzbeks, Punjabi Pakistanis, and even Europeans, according to Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.[2]They have been encircling Kabul and ambushing convoys of supplies on their way to the capital with an eye to isolating the government. They have appeared in force in the neighboring Wardak province. In August, the Taliban killed 10 French soldiers in Sarobi, only 30 miles from Kabul. Such operations are beginning to convince the population that international forces are losing control of the country.

As Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently observed-in a masterful piece of understatement-Afghanistan has been an "economy of force" operation since the fall of the Taliban.[3] You get what you pay for, which in this instance means that while American and NATO forces have been successful in initially clearing the Taliban out of many areas of the country, they haven't been able to hold and rebuild many of those cleared areas, which is critical to the success of any counterinsurgency effort. One Western diplomat in Kabul described NATO operations in the south of the country as "mowing the lawn." Every year, NATO forces go in and clear out Taliban sanctuaries, only to have to go back the following year and cut back the new growth.

With the Taliban resurgent, the enthusiastic support Afghans once showed for the U.S. invasion is now eroding. According to an ABC News/BBC poll released in December 2006, "big majorities" still thought that the U.S.-led invasion was "a good thing for their country (88 percent)." By last year that number had dropped to 76 percent. Popular support for U.S. efforts declined from 57 percent to 42 percent between 2006 and 2007. However, increasing disenchantment with the coalition forces does not equate with approval of the Taliban, who are widely loathed in much of the country, except in the southwest, where 23 percent of those polled say that they support the religious militants, compared to only 8 percent in the country as a whole.[4]

Taking the Lead

To roll back the Taliban, which must be the first step in stabilizing Afghanistan, more troops are needed. In this, both American presidential candidates are correct. But neither Senator McCain's nor Senator Obama's public statements reflect the true size of the force required. Classic counterinsurgency doctrine suggests that Afghanistan needs something like half a million additional soldiers and policemen to secure its population. There are only 70,000 policemen in the entire country, which is wracked by a violent insurgency in its eastern and southern provinces, and increasingly in its central provinces, and is also the center of the world's heroin trade. (Compare this to New York City, which alone has some 40,000 policemen.) And Afghanistan, with its high mountain ranges and a landmass a third larger than Iraq's, is a country ideally suited to guerrilla warfare. Moreover, its population is some 4 million or so greater than Iraq's, yet there are three times more soldiers and police in Iraq than in Afghanistan. Iraqi security services number around 550,000, and there are some 140,000 American soldiers stationed in the country. In contrast, Afghanistan has only 140,000 soldiers and police in total, and around 70,000 U.S. and NATO troops.

Still, Afghanistan does not need a lot more American boots on the ground. Because the U.S. military and NATO are now stretched to the breaking point, the vast majority of additional soldiers and policemen must be supplied by the Afghans. What the coalition needs to do is to send in more Special Forces and civilian advisers who specialize in the training of indigenous forces.

This raises a question that is now weighing heavily on the minds of senior U.S. military officials: Could the security shortfall in Afghanistan be reversed by replicating the "Sons of Iraq" program, which helped dampen the insurgency in Iraq by putting on the U.S. payroll 100,000 Sunni militants who subsequently helped to decimate Al Qaeda in Iraq? Yes and no. The Sons of Iraq signed up not only for a U.S. paycheck but also because Al Qaeda in Iraq had turned its guns against fellow Sunnis who did not share its ultra-fundamentalist views. However, the Taliban have not engendered anything like the intense anger among Afghans that the foreign-led militants of Al Qaeda did among the Sunnis of Iraq.

According to a senior Afghan official, President Hamid Karzai is seriously considering the idea of establishing tribal militias of 50 to 300 men to establish security at the district level and provide a counterweight to local militants. The idea is potentially a good one: ordinary Afghans tend to trust their tribal shuras (councils) to solve their problems, and these "Sons of Afghanistan" could fill the security void until the Afghan army and police grew in size and ability so as to be able to secure the country-a process likely to take many years. Such tribal militias could be paid with U.S. funds, just as the Sons of Iraq have been.

Such a plan would have to be carefully implemented in order to avoid recreating the warlord-led militias that have been so successfully disbanded since the fall of the Taliban. To avoid fostering new warlord mini-armies, the coalition should not arm the members of these tribal militias, who have retained their personal weapons. Nor should they negotiate the set-up of the militias with local strongmen, but rather seek the consent of local tribal shuras, which would oversee them.

Another promising alternative would be for the United States to provide logistical and financial support for the Afghan government to institute a draft for males older than 18. These draftees would serve for two years and help to stand up an Afghan National Guard, which in turn would help bring security and foster a sense of Afghan nationhood. When not acting as a first line of defense against the Taliban, these units could work on reconstruction projects.

Just as important as building up the Afghan army and police force is combating the insurgency by reducing its size. At the 2001 Bonn Conference that set the stage for the present Afghan government, there were no mechanisms to include the Taliban. This is no longer a viable position. Already an effective amnesty program has disarmed hundreds of Taliban soldiers; the time has now come to reach out quietly to more senior members of the Taliban who are open to negotiating a lasting peace.

In all of this, the United States must take the lead. Over the past three years, since NATO took over responsibility for military operations in the north, west, and south of the country, violence has grown exponentially. Although the Taliban's resurgence is not NATO's fault, it's time to recognize that NATO's involvement in Afghanistan has been a strategic failure.

While it is still politically and financially useful for the overall operation to be a genuine multi-country coalition, the time has come for the United States to admit that military operations, particularly in the unsettled south, must be taken over by American forces, with help from those allied Special Forces that are up to the job. Even the most able NATO allies don't have the capability of American forces, and other NATO allies come to the table so freighted with "national caveats" about what they can and cannot do that they are largely useless in battle. NATO forces should be deployed in more settled parts of the country for the peacekeeping operations that they signed up for in the first place.

Turn on the Lights in Kabul

The rising violence in Afghanistan is fed by the widespread feeling among Afghans that they haven't benefited from the billions of dollars of reconstruction aid that supposedly has been lavished on the country. Much of that money has been consumed by the various international organizations whose four-wheel drives clog the streets of Kabul. In March, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief released findings showing that some 40 percent of aid to Afghanistan has been funneled back to donor countries.

While the U.S. government has so far appropriated $45 billion for Iraqi reconstruction,[5] it has dispersed only $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan,[6] a country that has been utterly destroyed by two decades of war.

To reverse Afghan resentment, the United States should focus on completing three high-profile projects that will have real benefits for the Afghan people. The first is to turn on the lights in Kabul, which receives on average only a few hours of electricity a day. The second is to secure the important Kandahar-to-Kabul road, which was opened as a blacktop freeway with much hoopla in 2003, but which is now a suicidal route for anyone driving it without a security detail. The third is to finish building the Kajaki Dam in southern Afghanistan, which will provide electricity to some 2 million Afghans, most of whom live deep in Taliban country.

There is also the problem of the capacity of the Afghan government, which doesn't spend a good chunk of the money it is given. The only way the Afghan government can increase its capacity is if it is given the resources to attract the best and the brightest away from the NGOs operating in the country, which pay salaries the government has no way of matching. As the United States increases its direct aid to the Afghan government, it should combat corruption by requiring audits by a respected international accounting firm. And it should help fund and provide technical assistance for an Afghan governance academy that would teach best practice management to all levels of the Afghan government.

Senator Obama has said that as president he will give an additional $1 billion in reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, but significantly more than that is required to meet the country's basic needs. The new president should solicit matching funds from the Gulf nations, which are now sitting on one of the largest wealth transfers in history in the form of windfall oil profits. Those countries have so far done almost nothing to help the poorest Muslim country in the world. In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia matched U.S. expenditures in Afghanistan dollar for dollar in the effort to defeat the Soviet occupiers. It should do at least as much today to help with reconstruction, as should its neighbors. After all, as the Gulf countries are belatedly beginning to realize, they are also threatened by the rise of global militant jihadists.

Additional American aid should be tied in part to an Afghan public employment program similar to the Works Progress Administration program that President Roosevelt instituted during the Great Depression. Afghanistan has a chronic 40 percent official unemployment rate. It also has a desperate need for new roads and dams, and must repair the agricultural aqueducts destroyed by years of war. Meanwhile, Kabul and other major Afghan cities are awash in debris and trash. Cleaning up that rubbish would have a salutary effect on the residents of those cities. Much of the labor required to fix Afghanistan's problems does not require great skill, and millions of Afghans could be set to work rebuilding and cleaning up their country.

A Boneheaded Counternarcotics Strategy

Also feeding the Taliban's comeback is the boneheaded U.S. counternarcotics strategy of poppy field eradication. The policy is an utter failure: Afghanistan continues to produce ever larger amounts of opium and its derivative, heroin-providing 93 percent of the world's supply-and the Taliban insurgency is financed in good part by this trade, to the tune of $100 million a year.[7] Not only has the manual eradication program carried out by Afghan police working with DynCorp contractors failed to wipe out the Afghan drug trade, the approach has only created more enemies for the coalition.

Two million Afghan farmers and their families survive on poppy production, and those whose crops are destroyed are generally the poorer ones who can't pay the bribes to have their fields left alone. It's no surprise that those farmers are easy recruits to the Taliban cause. "The decision to destroy poppies, says Capt. Michael Erwin, a senior intelligence officer for a Special Forces task force in Afghanistan in 2007, "has turned thousands of Afghans from citizens disinterested in coalition force activity to men willing to take up arms to attack anyone they associate with eradication-coalition troops...or the Afghan government."[8]

Instead of penalizing farmers who cultivate poppies because they have few other options, the United States needs to invest in the legitimate Afghan agricultural economy by providing subsidies, price supports, and seeds for alternative crops, and by building the road system that will get those crops to market. As Lt. Gen. David Barno, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, has said, the measure of success of a successful counternarcotics policy should not be hectares of poppy destroyed every year, but hectares of other crops that are planted. To that end, it is imperative that the United States send more agricultural advisers to Afghanistan. And the United States and other NATO countries should open their markets to Afghan farm products and handicrafts. Additionally, the international community should help Kabul set up an agency, modeled on the Canadian Wheat Board, that would purchase crops from farmers at consistent prices, and market and distribute them internationally.

The United States should also endorse a pilot demonstration project to harness poppy cultivation for the production of legal medicinal opiates such as morphine for sale to countries like Brazil that are in short supply of cheap pain drugs. While there are some legitimate criticisms of this idea-principally that it would be difficult to make sure that Afghan opium was only going into the legitimate market-one low-risk approach would be to allow the legalized opiate trade to debut as a pilot project on a small scale in a province with reasonable security. Farmers engaged in legalized poppy growing would enjoy financial incentives that could be revoked, and they would face criminal penalties if they tried to divert their product to the illicit market. Congress could amend the law that requires U.S. opiate manufacturers to purchase at least 80 percent of their opiates from India and Turkey (affording them a guaranteed market) to include Afghanistan. This preferential trade agreement, which was designed to serve U.S. political and strategic interests, should be recalibrated to fit our present-day strategic interests in Afghanistan, where vital national security interests are at stake.

To end the culture of impunity that Afghan drug kingpins currently enjoy, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration should make public the list of the country's top drug suspects, including government officials, a practice that would likely see results in Afghanistan's shame-based culture. It appears that the list has so far not been published because it would embarrass certain officials in the Karzai government. Publication is long overdue.

Because Afghanistan's judicial system is still too weak to handle major drug cases, Washington and Kabul should sign an extradition treaty allowing Afghan drug kingpins to be tried in the United States, as has happened in the past with Colombian drug lords. And now that we are finally talking to Iran, which has perhaps the highest percentage of heroin users in the world, one area of strong common interest should be closing down the trafficking routes on Afghanistan's western border.

Further Efforts

If the United States wants to stop adding fuel to the Taliban fire, it must stop killing civilians. Because Afghanistan is an economy-of-force operation, U.S. military operations rely on air strikes far more often than is the case in Iraq, with predictable consequences. In a 2007 ABC News/BBC survey, 34 percent of Afghans polled said that civilians had been killed or seriously injured by coalition forces in the area where they lived. Of the some 700 civilians killed in the first six months of 2008, around a third were killed by Afghan, American, or NATO soldiers, according to U.N. figures. That is an improvement over the same time period in 2007, when coalition forces killed more civilians than the Taliban, but the numbers must continue to come down.

Looking ahead, it is vitally important that the presidential election scheduled for the end of next year, when Hamid Karzai's five-year term as president is up, be seen to be fair and as inclusive as possible. NATO and the United States will have to pay for the costs of the election-hundreds of millions of dollars the Afghan government simply doesn't have-and focus on providing security, particularly in the south, so that the election can go forward without significant interference from the Taliban.

The Problem of Pakistan

All these efforts will fail, however, if America doesn't recognize another threat to its Afghan policy: Pakistan, which is offering crucial safe haven to the Taliban even as it professes its cooperation with the United States. A careful study by the United Nations released last September found that suicide attackers in Afghanistan are mostly drawn from religious schools across the border in Pakistan.[9] According to Seth Jones, a political scientist at RAND who has studied some 90 insurgencies that have taken place since 1945, "Insurgents have been successful approximately forty-three percent of the time when they enjoyed a sanctuary."[10]

How the Pakistan sanctuary fuels the violence in Afghanistan can be seen in the case of Rahmad Khan, a cow herder in Pakistan's tribal area, who I met in a Kabul jail in July. Khan told me he was about 30, that he couldn't read or write, and that he had been recruited three months earlier to be a "martyr" in Afghanistan in the jihad against the foreign occupiers. He said that he made about eight dollars a month herding cows-not enough to get married-and agreed to carry out a suicide mission because "in Paradise, I would find houris (virgins) for free." He was taken to a madrassa where militants were manufacturing suicide vests and then over the border to Afghanistan. But the vision of the virgins disappeared in a flash after Afghan policemen thought he seemed nervous and arrested him.

Unfortunately, there are hundreds more Rahmad Khans standing by. In 2007, there were more than 50 suicide attacks in Pakistan and some 140 in Afghanistan, many of them carried out by the Taliban. The United States must reconceptualize its Afghan policy as a regional problem. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are embedded in a sea of ethnic Pashtuns who live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. In fact, there are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than there are in Afghanistan-some 40 million altogether, making them the largest ethnic grouping in the world without a state.[11]

The next U.S. president should take every opportunity to make it clear that America's commitment to Afghanistan is not just until the next election cycle, but for years to come. The American public, which understands that Afghanistan's reversion into a failed state would be a prelude to Al Qaeda regaining a safe haven in the country, will support this approach. As noted above, Pakistan is holding on to its radical groups as for a means of asserting de facto control over Afghanistan should the Americans withdraw; only a long-term U.S. commitment will convince Pakistan's government to end its tolerance for the militant groups headquartered on the country's western border.

Dislike of President Bush has so colored Pakistani politics that the government has not been able to persuade its own population that going after the militants is in Pakistan's best interests and not just part of some U.S.-led war against Islam. A poll released in June by Terror Free Tomorrow, a respected Washington-based polling organization, found that 52 percent of Pakistanis blamed the United States for the violence in their country, and only 8 percent blamed Al Qaeda.[12] Just as in Afghanistan, sharply curtailing the numbers of Pakistanis killed in U.S. air strikes on the Afghan border would help reverse those numbers.

There are some promising signs that the Pakistani establishment is waking up to its domestic militant threat. As Yousaf Raza Gillani, the new prime minister, said at a press conference in July, "Pakistan is not fighting the war of any other country. The war on terror is in our own interest." But, even if the Pakistani government turns on all of its militants, there is no obvious quick way to remove their safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which for centuries have not been fully under any government's control and are now largely under the thumb of the Taliban.

The Pakistanis tried the hammer approach in the FATA in 2003 and 2004 with a number of military operations, but they were badly defeated. That approach was followed by appeasement in the form of "peace" agreements-essentially an admission of military failure-that only increased the militants' control. The most recent approach is a mix of peace agreements, military operations, and reconstruction, which on paper is not a bad idea, but even under the most optimistic scenario it will take many years to pacify the region.

The United States has earmarked $750 million in development funds for the FATA and $400 million to bolster the Frontier Corps, the local paramilitary force. This is a good start, but it may be premature: the FATA is in the grip of a violent insurgency, and even the less violent agencies, such as Khyber, are unsafe. Reconstruction in such a context may not be possible.

A further problem is that the FATA, arguably one of the most strategically important places on the planet, is an information black hole, off-limits to all but locally based journalists. The Pakistani government should be encouraged to lift its de facto ban on travel there by international journalists-as well as the similar bans in effect regarding Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

To help tamp down the insurgency in FATA and other areas of the NWFP, America should help the Pakistanis build up their counterinsurgency capabilities. The Pakistani army is built for a land war with India, not for fighting terrorists and insurgents. Pakistani officers should be encouraged to attend counterinsurgency courses at American war colleges, and the United States should support such courses at Pakistan's National Defense University. None of this would cost a lot of U.S. dollars and would yield potentially large results, as the new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has done in Iraq.

Small amounts of U.S. aid in support of deradicalization programs for jailed Pakistani militants could also yield large returns. Such programs have had some success in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Singapore, but have not been tried in Pakistan. Pakistani officials would benefit from learning about best practices in countries that have already spent years in building up their own counter-radicalization programs.

A Regional Grand Bargain

With respect to the larger regional picture, the United States must also put serious diplomatic effort into settling the Kashmir dispute, which the Indians and Pakistanis have been moving forward on for the past several years with scant American support. Kashmir is a core grievance for many Pakistani Muslims and a training ground for jihadist terrorists, some of whom end up working with Al Qaeda. An equitable Kashmir settlement would curtail militancy and likely lead those elements of the Pakistani establishment who aid Kashmiri jihadi groups allied with Al Qaeda and the Taliban to withdraw their support.

As part of a regional grand bargain aimed at satisfying Pakistan, the United States should encourage Afghanistan to formally recognize the Durand Line of 1893 that demarcated Afghanistan's border with the British Raj and is the de facto border with Pakistan today. Afghanistan does not recognize the Durand Line and so technically claims territory deep inside Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. For Afghan leaders to continually complain about Pakistani incursions over a border they don't even acknowledge makes no sense.

Finally, a regional grand bargain could be accomplished in part by the new U.S. president convening a meeting of key concerned states, as happened at the Bonn Conference in late 2001, and which set the course for the Afghan political compact that held up reasonably well until the past year or so. The key players include Iran, Russia, India, China, Pakistan, and NATO countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, all of which have an interest in preventing the continued rise of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Such a conference would have the side benefit that Pakistan would finally get the message that the continued existence of safe haven for militants on its western border is intolerable to the international community, including key allies such as China and the U.K.

Going After Al Qaeda

Turning to the fight against Al Qaeda itself, seven years after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government still does not maintain a comprehensive database of the insurgents and terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such a database, which would map the "facilitative nodes" that bring young men into the jihad, such as Web sites, operational planners, financiers, and jihadist underground networks, is urgently needed. One of the building blocks of such a database should be the identification of suicide attackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which could be accomplished using DNA samples, accounts on jihadist Web sites, good intelligence work, and media reports.

The mapping of the social networks of terrorists should also include identification of the clerical mentors of suicide bombers, as it seems likely that only a relatively small number have persuaded their followers of the religious necessity of martyrdom. Armed with such intelligence, the United States and NATO could ask Pakistan, where most of the suicide attackers originate, to rein in especially egregious clerics.

The United States, together with the Pakistani and Afghan governments, should also target the production and distribution networks of As-Sahab, Al Qaeda's video/audio production arm, as well as the Taliban's analogous Ummat propaganda division. Given the close connections between these networks and Al Qaeda and the Taliban, such an effort would also provide important clues to the whereabouts of terrorist leaders.

It goes without saying that capturing or killing Osama bin Laden would be a psychological victory for the civilized world and a psychological defeat for Al Qaeda and its affiliates. As-Sahab represents perhaps the best way to locate the Al Qaeda leader because he continues to release tapes through the organization and will likely feel compelled to release a videotape as the U.S. presidential election approaches, just as he did just before the 2004 presidential election. Of course, capturing or killing bin Laden will not end the militant jihadist movement on the Afghan-Pakistan border. But it would be a really good start.

The Cost of Neglect

As the new president assumes office in January, some will no doubt advise him that increased American engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan of the sort outlined above will be too costly and dangerous. His best response will be that on September 11, 2001, we learned that we neglect Afghanistan and Pakistan at our peril.

Peter Bergen is a Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency Initiative at the New America Foundation. This paper -- the first publication from this new initiative -- is an expanded version of an article that first appeared in The New Republic.Thanks to Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation for her help on this paper.

Notes

[1] There have been conflicting reports about Baitullah Mehsud's possible death. As of early October 2008 he appears to be alive.

[2] Http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/world/asia/10terror.html.

[3] Http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070202010.html.

[4] Http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1049a1Afghanistan-WhereThingsStand.pdf.

[5] "[As of May 22, 2008], nearly $45 billion has been appropriated for Iraq

reconstruction" (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL31833.pdf).

[6] According to an August 2008 report by the Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/08/left_behind.html.

[7] According to General David McKiernan at a press conference in Washington DC on October 1 2008

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2374293.

[8] Http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/cs/v1i9/f_0002137_1217.pdf.

[9] Http://www.unama-afg.org/docs/_UN-Docs/UNAMA%20-%20SUICIDE%20ATTACKS%20STUDY%20-%20SEPT%209th%202007.pdf.

[10] Http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG595.pdf.

[11] Https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html; http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/pco/statistics/statistics.html.

[12] Http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/PakistanPollReportJune08.pdf.

Time for a U.S.-Iranian 'Grand Bargain'

adminn — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:46:00 -0400

The next U.S. president, whether it is John McCain or Barack Obama, should reorient American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran as fundamentally as President Nixon reoriented American policy toward the People's Republic of China in the early 1970s. Nearly three decades of U.S. policy toward Iran emphasizing diplomatic isolation, escalating economic pressure, and thinly veiled support for regime change have damaged the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. U.S.-Iranian tensions have been a constant source of regional instability and are an increasingly dangerous risk factor for global energy security. As a result of a dysfunctional Iran policy, among other foreign policy blunders, the American position in the region is currently under greater strain than at any point since the end of the Cold War.

Deadly Traffic: China's Arms Trade With The Sudan

adminn — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:40:00 -0400

As a result of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China will be exposed to a greater global audience -- and greater global scrutiny -- than ever before. In order to put its best foot forward, the Chinese government has spent record amounts on everything from increased security to environmental cleanup.

But there are some Chinese policies that are too controversial to be "cleaned up" at the last minute. This is certainly the case with respect to China's role in arming Sudan's government. Chinese weapons transfers to the Khartoum regime too often end up in the hands of the Janjaweed militias that have devastated Sudan's Darfur region. The recent charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir underscore the moral bankruptcy of China's arms transfer policy.

This issue brief provides background on China's arms trade, with a primary focus on exports to the Sudan.

Sovereign Wealth Funds: Foreign Policy Consequences In an Era Of New Money

Ron Tang — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:44:00 -0400

Over the past several months, few issues in international finance have generated as much discussion and comment as have Sovereign Wealth Funds (“SWF”s). This Committee deserves enormous credit for recognizing the potentially significant foreign policy consequences of the rapid accumulation by foreign governments of enormous, growing pools of capital. These large concentrations of government controlled wealth raise complex issues that transcend traditional boundaries between foreign policy, financial markets, international economics and national security.

It is my belief, however, that too much focus on SWFs may, in fact, divert attention from the more fundamental foreign policy issue that these funds have come to represent -- that of the rise of “state capitalism” and the broader use of finance as a tool of foreign policy. These, I believe, are increasingly important 21st century phenomena.

SWFs are simply a particular type of global financial market investor. They should not automatically trigger foreign policy concerns. Too much focus on SWFs as potential tools of political influence fails to take into account that the world’s more than fifty SWFs are very different in terms of the origin of funds, size, structure, investment philosophy and motivation. Other than the commonality of government ownership, they are really not a definable class of either political or financial actors. But it is specifically foreign government ownership and the possibility that these increasingly wealthy foreign governments may use finance as a tool to advance their national interests abroad that makes them of interest as a matter of foreign policy.

I believe the criteria by which many suggest we judge the risks posed by SWFs has resulted in an overemphasis on transparency and disclosure, while ignoring the more subjective, but more valuable, assessment of the political risk that a particular government owner poses. This is dangerous. While increased transparency and disclosure should be encouraged, such an over-emphasis on transparency of SWFs alone may, in fact, lead to unnecessary conflict with allies, which, for a multitude of reasons may fail to meet the requisite level of transparency. Likewise, we may take false comfort from those SWFs that comply with transparency rules, but whose government owners use of a broad array of other financial tools to advance foreign policy interests and which should warrant closer attention...

For the full text of the testimony, please see the PDF attached below.

Public Comments on the Proposed Regulations On Foreign Investment Into the U.S.

Ron Tang — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:38:00 -0400

The Honorable Nova Daly
Deputy Assistant Secretary
U.S. Department of the Treasury

Dear Mr. Daly:

We are pleased to submit these comments with respect to the recently proposed regulations regarding the implementation of the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 (“FINSA”) amendments to Section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950 (“Exon-Florio”).

Background

As a general matter, we believe that U.S. and global economic health are strengthened by the free flow of investment capital and by the increased liquidity that open markets provide. As significant providers of capital, foreign investors have thus far been a positive influence on U.S. markets and for the economy as a whole.

We recognize, however that economic interests and the free flow of capital, while important, must be balanced against national security interests. Following extensive analysis, we believe that the U.S. Congress, Administration and the American people should be comforted that, as regards foreign investment, this country’s national security interests and financial market integrity are well protected and well regulated. We believe that, in determining the potential impact of proposed FINSA regulations, it is important that they are understood in the context of the entirety of the existing laws and regulations that confront a foreign entity or person seeking to invest in the United States. These proposed FINSA regulations represent just one of multiple areas of restriction, oversight and regulation that confront a foreign investor and that attempt to address this balance.

Comment

Under the express language of Section 721, the President is authorized to review “mergers, acquisitions and takeovers... which could result in foreign control”. These regulations must obviously be consistent with this legislative language. The Treasury Department deserves credit for reminding us of the legislative history to Exon-Florio, highlighting that “the Conferees in no way intend to impose barriers to foreign investment”. This is an important point to remember when reviewing the proposed regulations.

It is because of the limitations of the scope and intent of the relevant legislation that we express our concern that some of the proposed regulatory language may result in a deterrent, if not an outright barrier, to legitimate foreign investment -- even if that is not the intention of either the legislation or regulation.

We recognize the advantages to maintaining flexibility on the part of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS “). We nevertheless believe that the corollary of increased flexibility for the U.S. Government is increased uncertainty on the part of the potential foreign investor. This is likely to discourage consideration of potential investment opportunities and may well have a negative effect on foreign investment into the country.

Our concern emanates from a belief that domestic and foreign investors alike generally reward predictability and certainty, while shying away from uncertainty and the unquantifiable risk it presents. This is likely to negatively impact valuations or even the decision to pursue a given investment at all.

The proposed regulations retain significant flexibility (and therefore uncertainty) and avoid providing a specific “roadmap” or comprehensive “safe harbor” guidance to investors. As a result, there is likely to be a good deal of uncertainty as to whether any individual transaction might, inter alia., fall within the definition of a “covered transaction” (Section 800.206) or whether it is structured to afford the investor the necessary level of “control” (Section 800.203) to warrant review by CFIUS.

We believe that uncertainty for potential investors about whether an individual transaction will require CFIUS review is likely to add both cost and risk to a transaction, which may well result in a negative impact on potential investment into the U.S. Investors will be presented with a choice of erring on the side of caution by incurring costs, delays and transaction risks in subjecting their potential investment to CFIUS review and scrutiny, or to assume the risk that a non-reviewed transaction is later determined to have required such approval, and is subject to scrutiny, sanction and disruption after the fact. The alternative is to simply decline to pursue the investment.

Conclusion

It is clear that there is a need for the U.S. Government, including CFIUS, to retain flexibility in all instances where national security interests are at stake. But it is imperative that we recognize that it is not in our national interest to unnecessarily discourage legitimate foreign investment into the United States. We believe that the proposed regulations would be improved if they created less uncertainty, more predictability and included more explicit “safe harbor” provisions to provide guidance to those international investors who seek to invest their capital in this country. The risk is that they may desire to invest, but will decline to do so for fear of how their investment may be treated under these regulations. Any unnecessary deterrent to foreign investment is neither appropriate under Exon-Florio, nor would it increase our national security. On the contrary, it could endanger our economic security, instead.

A PDF version of the letter is available below.

Financing America’s Infrastructure

Ron Tang — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:41:00 -0400

America’s basic infrastructure is outdated, worn, and in some cases, failing. Most experts agree that it is inadequate for meeting the demands of the 21st-century global economy. If we are to remain competitive, we must invest in capital assets like roads, ports, bridges, mass transit, water systems, and broadband infrastructure. Many other countries -- both rich and poor -- see investing in infrastructure as imperative for economic survival and success in an increasingly competitive economic environment. But the United States has lagged in infrastructure investment, in both relative and absolute terms. We are spending less than 2 percent of GDP on infrastructure, while China and India are spending 9 percent and 5 percent of GDP, respectively.

If the nation’s infrastructure needs are apparent, so too are the limits on available funds in federal, state, and local government coffers. In this presidential election year, we can see these limits clearly, as the nation’s spending priorities are magnified by electoral politics. Although significant government funding will likely continue to play a key role in the development of public infrastructure, the scale of our funding needs increasingly compels us to look beyond government to close the financing gap. It is for this reason that public support for private sector infrastructure investment is essential.

The good news is that while the federal government struggles to find funds to address its spending needs there is abundant private capital for infrastructure investment. An estimated $400 billion in global funds are available for equity investment in infrastructure, and the funds available to support the debt component amount to several trillion dollars if we include global central bank reserves, global pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds. Rather than focus on these large pools of global capital as a threat, we should view them as an opportunity. So, while we have enormous infrastructure financing needs, there are also enormous pools of capital available for investment. The trick is to bring the two together in a commercial, sustainable, and politically acceptable way.

The U.S. municipal bond markets have functioned well for many years, channeling private capital into financing certain elements of U.S. infrastructure. But current budgetary constraints and other market conditions mean that municipal finance is no longer adequate to meet the challenge of financing the scale of investment needed. And our current financing structures are unable to take advantage of the large pools of capital that are available for infrastructure financing.

We recommend two initiatives to help finance U.S. infrastructure needs beyond direct government grants. First, we suggest the enactment of legislation and the development of regulations to facilitate the origination and issuance of public sector covered bonds in the United States, which will provide a market-based, efficient, and secure mechanism to attract capital for infrastructure investment. Second, along the lines of a proposal by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) last year, we recommend that the federal government consider the creation of a new, government-owned and -capitalized infrastructure financing entity -- a National Infrastructure Finance Enterprise -- that would pool, package, and sell existing and future public infrastructure securities in the capital markets. The proposed entity would also seek to develop an in-house capability to originate infrastructure loans and would be able to fund itself through the international capital markets. We believe that the entity should be capitalized at a far higher level than proposed in the DeLauro bill. Further, its scope should extend beyond that of the National Infrastructure Bank as currently proposed by Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE).

Despite the current climate of suspicion and distrust regarding capital markets and financial engineering techniques, we believe that this should not preclude their responsible use in the future to help address infrastructure problems that require the investment and deployment of large amounts of capital.

For the full text of the policy brief, please see the PDF attached below.

Iraq War Spurs Growth in Vehicle Manufacturing and Fuel Supply Contracts

adminn — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:59:00 -0400

The ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have spurred strong growth in Pentagon prime contract awards to companies involved in armored vehicle production and fuel supply. In the mean time, major arms makers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have experienced much more modest growth rates.

Armored Vehicle Makers Benefit Most

A New America Foundation analysis of the Department of Defense's top ten contractors for FY 2007 found that the greatest increase by far from the prior year was posted by BAE Systems, which purchased Armor Holdings Inc., producer of the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), in July of 2007. BAE's Pentagon awards grew from $4.7 billion in FY 2006 to $9.8 billion in FY 2007, an
increase of over 87 percent. For General Dynamics, another top gainer, tracked combat vehicles like tanks accounted for more than half of the company's 39 percent increase ($4.1 billion).

By contrast, gains for the top three contractors were less dramatic. Lockheed Martin's Pentagon prime contracts increased by 4.5 percent, from $26.6 billion to $27.9 billion; Boeing's awards grew by 11.3 percent, from $20.3 billion to $22.5 billion; and Northrop Grumman's contracts increased by 4.2 percent, from $16.6 billion to $16.8 billion (see Table I).

Overall Pentagon awards grew by 4.3 percent from FY 2006 to FY 2007, from $298.5 billion to $312 billion. This was less than half the growth rate of 10.7 percent posted between FY 2005 and FY 2006— another sign that the Bush administration’s record post-World War II military buildup may be starting to wind down, despite the ongoing costs of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraq and Afghanistan Transform Contracting

Statistics from the Federal Procurement Data System provide a stark demonstration of the degree to which the Iraq and Afghan conflicts have transformed the Pentagon’s buying habits. A look at contract spending broken down by services shows that the Army has been the big winner, nearly doubling from FY 2003 to FY 2007, from $56.8 billion to $111.3 billion; the Navy was next in line, growing by 55.5 percent over the same time period, from $53.9 billion to $83.6 billion; while the Air Force was last with an increase of 30.8 percent from FY 2003 to FY 2007, from $51.5 billion to $68 billion.

A breakdown by products purchased is even more revealing, with contracts for “Liquid propellants and fuels, petroleum base” tripling between FY 2003 and FY 2007, from $3.7 billion to $11.1 billion. Major fuel contractors during FY 2007 included Royal Dutch Shell ($2.1 billion); Valero Energy Corporation, $1.0 billion; BP ($963.7 million); Exxon Mobil ($949.2 million); and Conoco Phillips ($267.2 million).

“Combat, Assault and Tactical Vehicles, Tracked” were among the top 5 products and services purchased by the Pentagon in FY 2007, at $8.9 billion, as were “Trucks and Tractors, Wheeled” at $8.1 billion. In addition to BAE Systems and General Dynamics, cited above, major vehicle producers receiving Pentagon prime contract awards during FY 2007 included McAndrews and Forbes Holdings (owner of AM General, the maker of the Humvee), $3.6 billion; and Oshkosh Truck Corporation, $2.3 billion.

A Threat to Big-Ticket Weapons Systems?

The “perfect storm” of rising fuel prices, an economic downturn, continuing needs for land equipment in Iraq, and growing calls for increasing the size of the Army and the Marines will place heavy budgetary pressure on expensive next generation items like the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Army’s Future Combat System. Current combat needs and tightening budgets are likely to result in cutbacks or “stretch outs” of these kinds of projects.

Sources for this Report

USAspending.gov; U.S. Department of Defense Top 100 contractors series, FY 2006 edition; Tony Capaccio, “L-3 Rises, KBR Falls Among Top Defense Contractors,” Bloomberg.com, May 30, 2008; Business Wire, “BAE Systems Completes Acquisition of Armor Holdings Inc.,” July 31, 2007; Charlie Savage, “Senator Warns of a ‘Crisis’ In Pentagon Cost Overruns,” New York Times, June 4, 2008.

Contact

William Hartung, 212-431-5808, ext. 201, hartung@newamerica.net
Frida Berrigan, 212-431-5808, ext. 200, berrigan@newamerica.net

A PDF version of this report is available below for download.

Uprooted And Unstable

Ron Tang — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:44:00 -0400

Five years after the US -led invasion, Iraq remains a deeply violent and divided society. Faced with one of the largest displacement and humanitarian crises in the world, Iraqi civilians are in urgent need of assistance. Particularly vulnerable are the 2.7 million internally displaced Iraqis who have fled their homes for safer locations inside Iraq. Unable to access their food rations and often unemployed, they live in squalid conditions, have run out of resources and find it extremely difficult to access essential services. The US, the government of Iraq and the international community must begin to address the consequences of leaving Iraqis’ humanitarian needs unmet.

As a result of the vacuum created by the failure of both the Iraqi Government and the international community to act in a timely and adequate manner, non-state actors play a major role in providing assistance to vulnerable Iraqis. Militias of all denominations are improving their local base of support by providing social services in the neighborhoods and towns they control. Through a “Hezbollah-like” scheme, the Shiite Sadrist movement has established itself as the main service provider in the country. Similarly, other Shiite and Sunni groups are gaining ground and support through the delivery of food, oil, electricity, clothes and money to the civilians living in their fiefdoms. Not only do these militias now have a quasi-monopoly in the large-scale provision of assistance in Iraq, they are also recruiting an increasing number of civilians to their militias -- including displaced Iraqis.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the Government of Iraq has proven to be unwilling and unable to respond to the needs of vulnerable Iraqis. Although it has access to large sums of money, it is divided along sectarian lines, lacking both the capacity and the political will to use its important resources to address humanitarian needs. As a result, the government does not have any credibility left with Iraqis. The little assistance provided by the government is perceived by most as being biased in favor of the Shiite population, especially when it comes to the delivery of government services such as electricity or food ration cards from the Public Distribution System.

The international community has been largely in denial over the disastrous humanitarian situation in Iraq, and has until recently seen Iraq through the prism of reconstruction and development, and failed to address urgent needs. Only recently has the United Nations issued a common humanitarian appeal for Iraq, recognizing the nature of the situation and the need for all agencies to step up and address humanitarian needs.

Hindered by its political mandate in Iraq, and its lack of access to most of the country, the UN has no other choice than to rely on local partners to reach out to the communities most in need. By taking advantage of the “balkanization” of Iraq to identify interlocutors who can facilitate access throughout the country, the UN can create a larger space to meet humanitarian needs. Identifying and supporting local, non-governmental organizations that are known and trusted by the communities they serve will also be essential if the UN is to take a more important role in humanitarian assistance inside Iraq.

Ongoing violence in Diyala and Mosul, as well as recent events in Basra and Baghdad, have proven that the situation in Iraq is still too unstable and violent for people to return home. Of those Iraqis who have returned from Syria, most were unable to go back to their homes, as they would likely be attacked again, and had to move into homogenous, sectarian areas. Others found their homes occupied, and were unable to recover them.

While everyone hopes that Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people will be able to return to their homes in the future, the necessary conditions for returns to take place in safety and in dignity do not exist. All relevant actors should discourage returns until the violence subsides and people can receive adequate assistance and protection. In particular, the Government of Iraq should no longer use returns as an indicator of success in stabilizing the country. Returns -- like the rest of the humanitarian situation -- should not be used as a political tool by any of the parties to the conflict.

It is also difficult for people to return home because they have minimal access to basic services and the Government of Iraq does not have a clear strategy to handle returns. Moreover, property disputes are already emerging, as many houses of people who previously fled are now occupied by others who will be reluctant to give them up. Disputes are currently settled in an ad hoc manner, by a variety of actors such as the Iraqi army, the Iraqi police, or the militia in control of the neighborhood. For any return movement to be sustainable, the Iraqi Government, with the support and expertise of the international community, must devise a strategy to deal with property disputes, in a larger transitional justice framework. In the meantime, the Iraqi Government must ensure that property rights -- and their violations -- are documented.

Current Iraqi and American strategies for responding to Iraqi displacement assume that security will improve steadily over the next two years. However, the situation in Iraq remains volatile, and the Government of Iraq, the UN, the US government and other members of the international community must develop plans for Iraq based on all possible scenarios, including a deterioration of the security situation. Negotiations must begin with regional and local governments to ensure that people will be allowed to seek asylum in both Iraq and in the region in case violence increases and displacement resumes in large numbers. For Iraq to have any future, international donors must ensure that resources are allocated to the humanitarian response, and that all appeals are fully funded. As for the UN, it needs to develop its network of local actors, and reach out to all vulnerable Iraqis -- whether or not they are displaced.

Failure to address the needs of Iraqis will have dramatic impacts on security inside Iraq. The hope that does exist lies in the efforts of Iraq’s citizens. Iraqi organizations are providing lifesaving assistance throughout the country and the international community must increase efforts to reach out to these groups and provide them with the funds to continue their work. Ultimately, only Iraqis can save Iraq.

For the full text of the report, please see the PDF attached below.

Nuclear Bailout

Ron Tang — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:10:00 -0400

The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to undertake an extensive, multi-billion dollar investment in new nuclear weapons facilities and new nuclear warhead designs. The initiative, known as “Complex Transformation,” is unnecessary on strategic and technical grounds, not to mention exorbitantly expensive. The various plans being considered by the DOE have more to do with bailing out the nuclear weapons industry than they do with determining what size complex makes sense in an era of nuclear arms reductions. At a minimum, current proposals should be put on hold until the new president taking office in January 2009 has a chance to enunciate a new nuclear policy. That new policy should then guide any initiative to reshape the nuclear weapons complex.

Costs High, Savings Uncertain

Even the DOE’s own estimates suggest that the Complex Transformation initiative will cost well over $200 billion over the next two decades, or one-third more than previous estimates.

According to the DOE’s economic consultants, investments in upgrading the weapons complex may not be recouped through savings from more efficient operations until as late as 2060, more than 50 years from now. This suggests that a more affordable, less investment intensive approach to sustaining the complex -- such as a “curatorship” option that would only replace weapons components as needed and would forego any new warhead designs -- makes far more sense than any of the DOE’s current proposals.

Arguments For Complex Transformation Are Deeply Flawed

The Department of Energy (DOE) argues that the current nuclear weapons stockpile is aging to the point that existing weapons could become unsafe and unreliable. In fact, a Department of Energy funded study by the highly regarded scientific expert group JASON suggests that current warheads will be reliable for at least another 75 to 100 years.

Similarly, DOE’s argument that nuclear weapons facilities are too old is misleading. Although some of the buildings were built decades ago, much of the equipment -- which is the heart of the nuclear weapons complex -- has been regularly repaired, upgraded or replaced.

If the main issue is to retain “core competencies” for the design and production of nuclear weapons in case of a renewed nuclear arms race, a ‘curatorship approach’ (cited above) is more than sufficient for the job. Yet DOE has explicitly refused to examine the curatorship option as one of the approaches analyzed in its environmental impact statement for the Complex Transformation initiative.

Strategic Vision Missing In Action

At a time when distinguished foreign policy experts from Henry Kissinger and George Shultz to William Perry and Sam Nunn are calling for a “world free of nuclear weapons,” the Department of Energy is not seriously exploring what deep cuts or outright elimination of nuclear weapons would mean for the future of its weapons complex.

A U.S. plan to design and build new nuclear weapons and new nuclear weapons factories could spur nuclear proliferation by reducing Washington’s leverage in persuading countries like Iran and North Korea to forego or roll back their own nuclear programs.

For the full text of the issue brief, please see the PDF attached below.

Do Sovereign Wealth Funds Make the U.S. Economy Stronger or Pose National Security Risks?

Economic Growth — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:00:00 -0500

By way of introduction, I spent most of the last seventeen years working as an investment banker and private equity investor based primarily in London, England. This experience, I believe, gives me a somewhat different perspective on Sovereign Wealth Funds and the role that they play in today’s international capital markets. Currently, I co-direct the Global Strategic Finance Initiative at the New America Foundation. The New America Foundation is a non-profit, post-partisan public policy institute in Washington D.C.

Over the past several months, few issues in international finance have generated as much discussion and comment as have Sovereign Wealth Funds. I commend you and your colleagues for the informed and balanced views that you have expressed and the questions that you have posed on this important subject.

As a general matter, I believe that both the U.S. and global economies are strengthened through open markets. Overall, economic health is bolstered and fortified by the free flow of investment capital and increased liquidity that open markets provide. As significant providers of capital to these markets, Sovereign Wealth Funds have thus far been a positive influence in U.S. and global markets. Most recently, significant capital injections by Sovereign Wealth Funds in several major financial institutions have been a stabilizing force, potentially averting a significant market downturn at a time of high market uncertainty and volatility...

For the full text of Rediker's prepared testimony, please see the PDF attached below.