MILITARY INTERVENTION
Winter 2009-10
"Hot off the Presses"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Susan M. Lynch, Program Assistant, International Security Program; Web Manager, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
New and notable books from the Belfer Center.
Belfer Center Photo
Winter 2009-10
"Analyzing the War in Afghanistan: Obama's Fork in the Road"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications
As President Barack Obama continues to weigh the impacts of American presence in Afghanistan, the Belfer Center's Graham Allison, Meghan O'Sullivan, and Rory Stewart offer their comments on the situation at this fork in the road.
AP Photo
November 11, 2009
"The Big Impact of Small Footprints"
Op-Ed, Foreign Policy
By Thomas Hegghammer, Associate, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program
"The power of small incidents has increased in the past decade thanks to the Internet. Increasing bandwidth, cheaper digital cameras and fast-learning activists have turned the world wide web into a giant propaganda tool which can generate powerful visual messages and project them instantly to a global audience. The smallest detail can be dramatically enlarged and turned into a symbol of 'Muslim suffering at the hands of non-Muslims.' On jihadi discussion forums such as Faloja (named after the Iraqi city whose 2004 battles between jihadis and U.S. forces made it an icon of Muslim suffering), high-quality video productions appear on a daily basis. The relationship between objective physical destruction and jihadi mobilization has never been less linear."
AP Photo
November 4, 2009
"In Afghanistan, Kerry Keeps U.S. Goals Modest"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School
"President Obama confronts the most fateful foreign policy decision so far of his administration," says Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. "Rapidly deteriorating security in Afghanistan, the post-election political crisis in Kabul, highlighted by Abdullah Abdullah's decision to drop out of the runoff vote, and General Stanley McChrystal's request for 44,000 troops rightly spurred Obama to call a timeout for reflection."
Forthcoming January 2010
Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars
Book
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"Using comprehensive data on internal conflicts, Toft challenges the flawed assumptions driving international peacemaking diplomacy and peacekeeping operations, which sadly may be prolonging civil wars instead of ending them. This provocative and politically incorrect book ought to stimulate a long-needed debate over the efficacy of current approaches to ending conflicts." - Andrew Natsios, Georgetown University
AP Photo
Summer 2009
"Testing the NATO Alliance: Afghanistan and the Future of Cooperation"
Op-Ed, Harvard International Review, issue 2, volume 31
By Azeem Ibrahim, Research Fellow, International Security Program
"...[O]n the ground, Afghanistan does not look like a NATO mission, but a deployment of an ad hoc alliance. This impression is bolstered given that eight non-NATO countries are also contributing troops. This arrangement calls into question how genuine and useful the alliance will be in the future. It is no good to argue that NATO countries should share the burden more equally. That will not be enough to persuade skeptical governments to offer more troops. The truth is that the differences in deployment levels reflect real differences of public and political opinion. Unfortunately, there is no reason to expect that they should agree in the future either, as there is no longer agreement on what constitutes NATO's mission in Afghanistan."
AP Photo
October 28, 2009
"Afghans Need to Find a New Model of Democracy"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Paul Fishstein, Fellow, Belfer Center & Carr Center
"While democracy is notoriously difficult to define, it is generally considered to be something positive. Until the debacle of the August presidential elections, 'fledgling democracy' was touted as one of the west's great achievements in Afghanistan."
AP Photo
October 27, 2009
War From Cyberspace
Op-Ed, National Interest
By Richard Clarke, Faculty Affiliate, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
The United States thinks that its cyber warriors are the best at offense, with the capability of shutting down enemy air defenses, electric-power grids, rail systems and telephony. Such offensive prowess does nothing to defend our own networks from similar attacks, however, and the current U.S. defense systems protect only parts of the federal government, and not civilian or private-sector infrastructure. No nation is as dependent on cyber systems and networks for the operation of its infrastructure, economy and military as the United States. Yet, few national governments have less control over what goes on in its cyberspace than Washington.
AP Photo
October 21, 2009
"High Cost, Low Odds"
Op-Ed, Nation
By Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs; Faculty Chair, International Security Program
"...America's odds of winning this war are slim. The Karzai government is corrupt, incompetent and resistant to reform. The Taliban have sanctuaries in Pakistan and can hide among the local populace, making it possible for them simply to outlast us. Pakistan has backed the Afghan Taliban in the past and is not a reliable partner now. Our European allies are war-weary and looking for the exits. The more troops we send and the more we interfere in Afghan affairs, the more we look like foreign occupiers and the more resistance we will face. There is therefore little reason to expect a US victory."
Fall 2009
"Transformative Choices: Leaders and the Origins of Intervention Strategy"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 34
When and why do great powers seek to transform foreign institutions and societies through military interventions? What role does executive leadership play in influencing the choice of intervention strategy, especially the degree to which an intervention interferes in the domestic institutions of the target state?
