PRISM

• Features

  • How to Build Democratic Armies (PDF)

    Zoltan Barany

    Democracy cannot be consolidated without democratic armies, that is, armies that support the principle of democratic governance. The question of how to build democratic armies, however, largely depends on the political environment in which democratizers and army-builders work. The tasks, processes, and the level of difficulty of building a democratic army will be very different if the starting point is, for instance, following a civil war, a military regime, or newly found independence of a former colony. The article explains the different tasks army-builders face in these disparate settings, points out commonalities, and makes policy recommendations based on the author’s recently published large-scale study of the subject.

  • Civil-Military Cooperation: A Way to Resolve Complex Crisis Situations (PDF)

    Hans-Jürgen Kasselmann

    Operational experiences in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Libya have driven NATO to evolve first the concept of Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) and later the much broader Comprehensive Approach. As the Alliance implements the Comprehensive Approach, it must take care to link doctrinally the nascent concept of Civil-Military Interaction (CMI) to a new understanding of CIMIC, whereby NATO focuses on its core business of ensuring security while pursuing necessary civil-military interaction in an open and flexible process that spans the politico-strategic, operational, and tactical levels.

  • Making the Afghan Civil-Military Imbalance Conducive to Democratization (PDF)

    Christian Bayer Tygesen

    In-conflict state building generates unbalanced civil-military relations in the host state due to an inevitable civil-military gap. Building civilian institutions cannot match the trajectory of progress in building military institutions. The civil-military imbalance creates structural risks to the democratization of the state. In Kabul, a widening civil-military imbalance poses increasing risks to Afghanistan’s post-2014 future. In Bagdad, the civil-military imbalance has enabled a gradual monopolization of control over the security forces by Prime Minister Maliki, stoking fears of a predatory Iraqi state. The article explains the civil-military gap and its risks, examines Iraq and in particular Afghanistan, and presents steps on how to make unbalanced civil-military relations conducive to democratization by shaping the political role of the military.

  • Thinking About Strategic Hybrid Threats – In Theory and in Practice (PDF)

    Frank J. Cilluffo, Joseph R. Clark

    As the United States resets in the wake of previous security challenges and assesses future dangers, the risks posed by strategic hybrid threats deserve increased contemplation and deliberation. This article presents a new theoretical framework for addressing such, defining them as the product of principal-agent relationships in which intentions and capabilities are forged into novel hazards. Using Iran, the availability of likely proxies (notably Hizballah), and U.S. vulnerabilities to computer network attacks, the authors construct illustrative examples of how hybrid threats could threaten both the national security and national interests of the United States. They also offer a model (based on the concept of a war council) with which response efforts on the part of public and private sector actors at the local, state, and Federal levels of governance could be organized and managed.

  • Chinese Organized Crime in Latin America (PDF)

    Evan Ellis

    This study focuses on organized crime ties between China and Latin America associated with expanding commercial and human contact between the PRC and the region. A review of open source data and interviews with subject matter experts in Latin America find evidence of such ties in four areas: (1) extortion of Chinese communities in Latin America by groups with ties to China, (2) trafficking in persons from China through Latin America to ultimately smuggle Chinese expatriates into the United States or Canada, (3) trafficking in narcotics and precursor chemicals, and (4) trafficking in contraband goods. It also finds evidence of modest levels of activities that could become significant in two other areas, arms trafficking and money laundering.

  • Adaptive Leadership in Times of Crisis (PDF)

    Chiemi Hayashi, Amey Soo

    Leadership is undergoing a profound transformation in our interdependent world. The dispersal of knowledge, the rise of new media, and declining faith in existing power structures have all had profound implications for what it means to be a leader. Traditional top-down power structures have been challenged both in geopolitical terms and in the corporate world. The velocity of decisionmaking—and message management—in crisis situations has accelerated. For example, a decade ago, the media expected authorities to issue guidance on an unfolding crisis within 24 hours; now, the window for dominating the information space has shrunk to a matter of minutes. Some important insights can be gleaned from the aftermath of last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake and 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The importance of rapid, transparent communication and adaptive leadership models based on networks of empowered individuals is needed. Overall, the gap between public and private sector leaders must be bridged to improve communication and encourage new partnerships to tackle today’s complex, interconnected risks.

  • Risk Management of Future Foreign Conflict Intervention (PDF)

    Gordon Woo

    Military intervention in any future foreign conflict is a diligent exercise in risk management. There is no guarantee either of satisfaction with the military outcome or with the postconflict regime. As budgets are tightened across the Western Alliance, the risk management of future conflict intervention might adopt principles of the corporate approach to managing highly uncertain major risks. A review of risk management methods is presented with the purpose of showing the widespread potential for their application to the domain of foreign conflict intervention.

• Lessons Learned

  • Reconstruction Leaders’ Perceptions of CERP in Iraq: Report Overview (PDF)

    Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., Craig Colier

    In order to learn from the first-hand experiences of those who used CERP and other reconstruction funds in Iraq, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction administered a survey to former Army and Marine Corps battalion commanders, former Provincial Reconstruction Team leaders, USAID members on the PRTs, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials who served in Iraq. They were asked about what outcomes they intended to achieve with CERP, what measures of effectiveness they used, the level of interagency coordination, and the level of corruption. This report provides the results of the survey along with analysis and lessons learned and a wealth of information as well as opportunities for future research.

  • The Human Toll of Reconstruction During Operation Iraqi Freedom: Report Overview (PDF)

    Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., Craig Colier

    The United States has spent more than $60 billion on reconstruction and stabilization in Iraq. Mostly overlooked are the casualties suffered specifically related to SRO efforts. Through this report, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction sought to determine how many people-U.S. Servicemembers and civilians, third-country nationals, and Iraqis-were killed while participating in activities related to the rebuilding of Iraq’s infrastructure and institutions. After examining all available classified and unclassified sources, SIGIR found that at least 719 people lost their lives while performing stabilization and reconstruction missions, including 318 U.S. citizens (about 11 percent of total hostile deaths). The report provides more detailed analysis of these casualties, offers lessons learned, and examines opportunities for future study.

• Interview

  • An Interview with Richard N. Haass (PDF)

• Book Reviews

  • Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform (PDF)

    Michelle Hughes

    I was given a copy of Rachel Kleinfeld’s Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform just as I was in the process of trying to codify my own lessons from more than three decades of working in and around conflict countries to restore and strengthen rule of law. Since 9/11, “rule of law” has had a flavor-of-the-month feel to it, and a number of authors have weighed in on the subject. As a practitioner, however, I have found that while most of the current thinking is helpful for advancing academic dialogue and debate, very little is of practical use on the ground.

  • The Art of Intelligence – Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service (PDF)

    Nathaniel L. Moir

    The nexus of conflict, intelligence, government, and society is perhaps the most complex realm to navigate as a career intelligence professional. To accomplish that feat through distinguished service and then, upon retirement, concisely delineate these intersections through shared personal experience in a publication is a rare achievement. The Art of Intelligence—Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service compellingly recounts a critical period of transformation in conflict. It also presents significant analysis and reflection on the failures and successes of intelligence and what should ideally be its symbiosis with policy formulation. As Henry Crumpton demonstrates, the relationship between intelligence and policy is often messy, but it is an increasingly critical key to wise and effective decisionmaking.

A publication of:National Defense University Press

Volume: 4, Issue: 1 December 2012

PRISM’S LAST 13 ISSUES: From December 2009 to December 2012