The Department of Homeland Security has just started up it's own blog. You can find it at:
http://www.dhs.gov/journal/theblog/
Better late than never; even I beat them to the punch on blogging. The posts look interesting and useful so far. It looks like they will include a daily round-up of some news items on homeland security issues, including some that are not so praiseworthy about how homeland security is working out. Bravo for that, although I wonder what guidelines they are using to select some stories but not others.
There is also the usual government department PR stuff (such as a video of FEMA chief Fugate leading a roundtable discussion) as well as updates on public appearances by the department leadership.
Hopefully they will follow the lead of the TSA blog, which appears to be written by a real person (i.e. one without the personality of a PR specialist) and that provides actually useful and sometimes interesting information. So far the DHS blog does not seem to have a clever name (like, say, "Back Channels") but is known just as The Blog @ Homeland Security. Well, at least that's a better name than Dipnote.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Political Violence Against Americans
The United States State Department has released the latest version of their report "Political Violence Against Americans." The 2008 report is available at
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/125224.pdf .
There was no reports produced from 2003-2007.
This report was known as "Significant Incidents of Political Violence Against Americans" from 1987-1997 and there was a previous study Lethal Terrorist Actions Against Americans: 1973-1986." This is available at http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/reading_room/122.pdf
(Thanks to Frada Mozenter for sending this along).
http://www.state.gov/
There was no reports produced from 2003-2007.
This report was known as "Significant Incidents of Political Violence Against Americans" from 1987-1997 and there was a previous study Lethal Terrorist Actions Against Americans: 1973-1986." This is available at http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/
(Thanks to Frada Mozenter for sending this along).
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Ink Blot Counterinsurgency
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan is making noises that he will shift the emphasis away from looking for Taliban/Al Qaeda types in the eastern mountains of the country, and towards protecting the population. This would, of course, be consistent with the Army's newish counterinsurgency doctrine. He even suggested that there are not enough troops to do everything, and that securing population centers is the more important task, and that the metrics for success would internal commerce and how secure local leaders felt in their hometowns, rather than body counts or the number of insurgent attacks.
This sounds like good stuff, especially from an officer who made his reputation killing and capturing insurgents and terrorists. I wonder, though, if even this will produce enough troops on the ground to provide sufficient security for the population across a large country with poor transpration networks? And are the troops trained to take on this sort of task?
More important, though, is how the insurgents would respond to such a move. The shift in emphasis is premised on the "ink blot" logic which suggests improving things in some population centers, and this happiness will then spread to neighboring areas while the insurgent sit in the mountains waiting to shoot at Americans. But they might not wait. Their goals are not to control the mountains, so that will not satify them. Instead, they may resort to more terrorist attacks and bombings in the same population centers that the Americans are trying to secure, with the objectives of staying politically relevant and showing that the Americans are not really in control. So this strategy might lead to more, not less, terrorism. The hope, I guess, is that this would be a short run response, and that over the longer run the locals would turn on the insurgents as they see how well the Americans are securing them.
This sounds like good stuff, especially from an officer who made his reputation killing and capturing insurgents and terrorists. I wonder, though, if even this will produce enough troops on the ground to provide sufficient security for the population across a large country with poor transpration networks? And are the troops trained to take on this sort of task?
More important, though, is how the insurgents would respond to such a move. The shift in emphasis is premised on the "ink blot" logic which suggests improving things in some population centers, and this happiness will then spread to neighboring areas while the insurgent sit in the mountains waiting to shoot at Americans. But they might not wait. Their goals are not to control the mountains, so that will not satify them. Instead, they may resort to more terrorist attacks and bombings in the same population centers that the Americans are trying to secure, with the objectives of staying politically relevant and showing that the Americans are not really in control. So this strategy might lead to more, not less, terrorism. The hope, I guess, is that this would be a short run response, and that over the longer run the locals would turn on the insurgents as they see how well the Americans are securing them.
Monday, June 8, 2009
AfPak: New Advice on What To Do
A new paper from the Center for a New American Security offers interesting advice on what the US should do in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the next 12 months. Here is the punchline:
In Afghanistan, we recommend that protecting the population take precedence over all other considerations for the time being. At the same time, however, any “civilian surge” must be used to increase the legitimacy of the Afghan government in the eyes of the Afghan population. In Pakistan, meanwhile, the U.S. government should place a moratorium on drone strikes on non-al Qaeda targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province until such strikes can be incorporated into a coherent strategy for separating the population of these areas from al Qaeda. And the United States should refocus its train and equip mission in Pakistan to place a greater emphasis on the police – the only Pakistani security service focused entirely on domestic security.
Solid ideas. It's very difficult to imagine, though, that much progress can be made on these in the next year (with the exception of stopping the drone attacks). Basically the authors are talking about building new states in both countries, which does not happen overnight. But one does have to start somewhere, and these suggestions are consistent with the existing counter-insurgency literature and might work if (and it's a big if) a consistent effort was sustained by the US and its allies for many years.
In Afghanistan, we recommend that protecting the population take precedence over all other considerations for the time being. At the same time, however, any “civilian surge” must be used to increase the legitimacy of the Afghan government in the eyes of the Afghan population. In Pakistan, meanwhile, the U.S. government should place a moratorium on drone strikes on non-al Qaeda targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province until such strikes can be incorporated into a coherent strategy for separating the population of these areas from al Qaeda. And the United States should refocus its train and equip mission in Pakistan to place a greater emphasis on the police – the only Pakistani security service focused entirely on domestic security.
Solid ideas. It's very difficult to imagine, though, that much progress can be made on these in the next year (with the exception of stopping the drone attacks). Basically the authors are talking about building new states in both countries, which does not happen overnight. But one does have to start somewhere, and these suggestions are consistent with the existing counter-insurgency literature and might work if (and it's a big if) a consistent effort was sustained by the US and its allies for many years.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A New Geneva Convention?
Jeff Stein reports that lawyers at Georgetown are working on plans to revise the Geneva conventions to figure out how to treat non-uniformed combatants, civilian fighters, terrorists, etc. Geneva either does not cover such individuals, or is so vague it's not a very useful guide to action.
This is a great idea. A well-drafted treaty might help prevent such bad things as indefinite detentions, disappearances, secret prisons, more Gitmos, and extraordinary rendition to not very nice places. Now could be the ideal time to push forward on this, as the Obama administration talks about changing course on human rights. Sure, it has been criticized for not going far enough in the right direction, the US government (as well as other governments) might be more willing to agree to tighter constraints on detainee treatment that everyone else signs on to follow, and that is unlikely to be in place for at least a few years as a treaty update is negotiated and ratified.
At the same time, though, it's clear that such a treaty alone would do little. There is a pretty substantial scholarly debate about if and when humanitarian and human rights treaties influence state behavior. Some studies find that such treaties actually lead to more abuses (see these papers by Oona Hathaway and James Vreeland, for example). Others hold that the influence of such treaties is conditional on other factors, especially if the country in question is democratic. James Morrow concludes that the treaties governing conduct during war have a larger effect on democratic states, whose political institutions allow them to credibly signal to opponents their willingness to play by the rules. In seperate papers, Hathaway and Neumayer conclude that human rights treaties do reduces abuses, but only in democratic states. Jeffrey Staton adds some specificity to this, holding that it is the existence of an independent judiciary in democracies that can enforce international commitments. This could lead to a quite important change in the actions of the United States, which of course has argued against expanding the interpretation of Geneva to include such detainees but also has an independent judiciary.
The punchline is that, alone, a new improved Geneva probably would not change much in general. But it might change the treatment of detainees in some situations; for example, democratic countries, and/or those with independent judiciaries, might follow the new rules. And some improvement would be better than no improvement.
This is a great idea. A well-drafted treaty might help prevent such bad things as indefinite detentions, disappearances, secret prisons, more Gitmos, and extraordinary rendition to not very nice places. Now could be the ideal time to push forward on this, as the Obama administration talks about changing course on human rights. Sure, it has been criticized for not going far enough in the right direction, the US government (as well as other governments) might be more willing to agree to tighter constraints on detainee treatment that everyone else signs on to follow, and that is unlikely to be in place for at least a few years as a treaty update is negotiated and ratified.
At the same time, though, it's clear that such a treaty alone would do little. There is a pretty substantial scholarly debate about if and when humanitarian and human rights treaties influence state behavior. Some studies find that such treaties actually lead to more abuses (see these papers by Oona Hathaway and James Vreeland, for example). Others hold that the influence of such treaties is conditional on other factors, especially if the country in question is democratic. James Morrow concludes that the treaties governing conduct during war have a larger effect on democratic states, whose political institutions allow them to credibly signal to opponents their willingness to play by the rules. In seperate papers, Hathaway and Neumayer conclude that human rights treaties do reduces abuses, but only in democratic states. Jeffrey Staton adds some specificity to this, holding that it is the existence of an independent judiciary in democracies that can enforce international commitments. This could lead to a quite important change in the actions of the United States, which of course has argued against expanding the interpretation of Geneva to include such detainees but also has an independent judiciary.
The punchline is that, alone, a new improved Geneva probably would not change much in general. But it might change the treatment of detainees in some situations; for example, democratic countries, and/or those with independent judiciaries, might follow the new rules. And some improvement would be better than no improvement.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Will COIN work in Pakistan? One reason it might not.
The Pakistani army is finally cracking down on militants rather than preparing to fend off an Indian invasion. Yea!
The crackdown has created millions of refugees. Boo!
Why boo!? Because it seems likely that the refugees (technically, "internally displaced persons") could make things much worse in Pakistan. Sarah Lischer has a paper in International Security which analyzes the problems that refugees created in Iraq. She shows that large numbers of refugees can be subject to political manipulation. Extremists can provide them with humanitarian assistance and use camps for recruiting and indoctrinating new supporters, who may have few other options for work or protection. Large numbers of refugees also threaten the legitimacy of the government by demonstrating that it cannot maintain order or provide basic services to many of its citizens. Her paper also suggests policies that can mitigate these effects, including not building large refugee camps. I would add to this that it might help if the Pakistani army lost some of its gusto for effectively kicking people out of their homes and focused more on actually protecting them in place.
Pakistan is not Iraq, and the refugee crises are not the same. Fewer of the Pakistanis have fled overseas, suggesting that the refugee problem is lessl likely to spill into other countryies. And there are reports that some are able to settle with relatives elsewhere in the country (although you cannot exactly put 2 million people in relatives' basements). But this cannot be good for political stability in Pakistan, and that cannot be good for cooperation with the United States, getting the Pakistani army to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy that actually works for more than a month, or for the refugees themselves.
The crackdown has created millions of refugees. Boo!
Why boo!? Because it seems likely that the refugees (technically, "internally displaced persons") could make things much worse in Pakistan. Sarah Lischer has a paper in International Security which analyzes the problems that refugees created in Iraq. She shows that large numbers of refugees can be subject to political manipulation. Extremists can provide them with humanitarian assistance and use camps for recruiting and indoctrinating new supporters, who may have few other options for work or protection. Large numbers of refugees also threaten the legitimacy of the government by demonstrating that it cannot maintain order or provide basic services to many of its citizens. Her paper also suggests policies that can mitigate these effects, including not building large refugee camps. I would add to this that it might help if the Pakistani army lost some of its gusto for effectively kicking people out of their homes and focused more on actually protecting them in place.
Pakistan is not Iraq, and the refugee crises are not the same. Fewer of the Pakistanis have fled overseas, suggesting that the refugee problem is lessl likely to spill into other countryies. And there are reports that some are able to settle with relatives elsewhere in the country (although you cannot exactly put 2 million people in relatives' basements). But this cannot be good for political stability in Pakistan, and that cannot be good for cooperation with the United States, getting the Pakistani army to pursue a counterinsurgency strategy that actually works for more than a month, or for the refugees themselves.
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