Political Transitions

Andrew Kenealy is an intern in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations For some in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, the ongoing low-level skirmish between Ukrainian and Russian/separatist forces has faded into the background of daily life. The nightly shelling barely affects the normal existence of Ukrainians: grocers have enough to sell in shops, public gathering spots are crowded on warm days, and reservations are still difficult to book at the best restaurants on the weekends. But despite the perception of calm, the death toll from the conflict is unsettling. After eighteen months of fighting, nearly eight thousand lives have been lost, another thirty thousand people have been wounded, and more than 1.5 million are internally displaced. Beyond the casualties, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and its enduring military intervention in eastern Ukraine have plunged U.S.-Russia relations to their lowest level of trust since the Cold War. Although the Minsk II cease-fire agreement was signed in February 2015, major fighting was not suspended until September and the conflict has reached an impasse. Both Russia and Ukraine repeatedly pledged to implement the peace accords in the subsequent Paris talks that took place on October 2, yet there are continued reports of fire exchanged between the warring sides in Donbas. A new Center for Preventive Action Contingency Planning Memorandum Update examines rising escalation and spillover concerns about the conflict and lays out a durable policy agenda for the United States. In “Crisis Over Ukraine,” Steven Pifer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, argues that a frozen conflict would pose substantial risks for U.S. interests. MAP OF UKRAINE HIGHLIGHTING THE DONBAS REGION Some have argued (for example, John Mearsheimer) that the United States and its allies should do nothing (e.g. abandon plans to support a pro-West government in Ukraine and rule out NATO’s regional expansion). The argument for a minimal U.S. role—which presupposes NATO’s eastward expansion, rather than initial Russia-sponsored aggression, as prompting the crisis—relies on the assumption that Russia will act militarily in Ukraine and Eastern Europe only if provoked. This is a risky assumption, since Vladimir Putin (or any head of state) can always reassess their strategic situation and adjust their foreign policy (as Putin has done in Syria). Without U.S. and European Union support for Ukraine and other Eastern European nations, an opportunistic Putin could freely determine—without an overt Western provocation—that Russia can do whatever it wants in Eastern Europe with little cost. Given the risk of Moscow further expanding its influence outside of Russian borders, Pifer promotes a more active U.S. foreign policy approach in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He advocates constraining and reducing the Kremlin’s ability to interfere in the region through a combination of Western assistance to Ukraine and Eastern European countries, and additional sanctions on Russia. This would increase the cost of further Russian territorial expansion, help stabilize Ukraine, and reassure other nervous Eastern European nations. Other specific recommendations include: • Press the Ukrainian government to avoid political infighting, move faster on reform, and implement Minsk II • Continue close coordination with European Union nations on how to financially support Ukraine (with an additional $5 to $7 billion in financial aid) and maintain economic sanctions on Russia • Work with NATO to bolster conventional defense capabilities—such as a larger rotational presence of alliance ground forces—n the Baltics and Central Europe and provide greater military assistance to Ukraine • Work with Germany and other allies to reestablish an accord between the West and Russia on the security rules for Europe, particularly with Germany once it assumes chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2016 • Stress the importance of restoring a broader dialogue between the United States/West and Russia to facilitate a peaceful settlement of the crisis. Read Steven Pifer’s Contingency Planning Memorandum Update, “Crisis Over Ukraine,” for specifics on how the United States can curb Russian influence in Eastern Europe and promote a productive dialogue with Moscow.

Along with presidential campaigns comes an array of what candidates deem the greatest threat to the United States. Senator Ted Cruz said in July, “The single greatest threat to the United States, if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, is that of an electromagnetic pulse,” while Dr. Ben Carson during September’s presidential debate referred to “global jihadists” as an “existential threat to our nation.” U.S. officials have a different outlook. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said in July, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia.” Last October, Vice President Joe Biden said, “We face no existential threat—none—to our way of life or our ultimate security.” Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper listed cyber as the top threat to the United States for the past three years. Among many, these are several challenges that threaten global security. What is more concerning, as echoed by FBI Director James Comey earlier this year, are developing or unforeseen threats. “If you imagine a nationwide haystack, we are trying to find needles in that haystack”, Comey said. “And knowing there are needles out there that you can’t see is worrisome.” To successfully address threats, U.S. policymakers must first understand which of these potential contingencies they should focus their finite time and resources on most directly. For the past eight years, to assist policymakers in anticipating and planning for international crises that threaten U.S. national interests, CFR’s Center for Preventive Action have conducted a Preventive Priorities Survey (PPS). The annual PPS evaluates ongoing and potential violent conflicts and sources of instability based on two factors: 1) the impact they would have on U.S. interests and 2) their likelihood of occurring in the coming year. What threats and conflicts are you worried will emerge or escalate in 2016? Please tell us your suggestions in this survey by Wednesday, October 14. Keep your responses short and to the point, but feel free to explain why the contingency is important. Compelling suggestions will again be included in this year’s survey, which will be published in December. Take the survey here: http://svy.mk/1Q4EyCy.

Bruce W. Jentleson is a professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the 2015-16 Kissinger chair at the Kluge Center in the Library of Congress. Jenna Karp is a Duke University senior studying public policy and global health and an intern in the State Department Foreign Service Internship Program. As the UN General Assembly (UNGA) opens its seventieth session, you’ll hear “never again” rhetoric regarding genocide and other mass atrocities, while witnessing the “yet again” reality. The UNGA passed a resolution two weeks ago establishing an International Day of Commemoration and Dignity for past victims of genocide. One week before, it had held a dialogue marking the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Unfortunately, while R2P was reaffirmed as “a vital and enduring commitment,” the gap between rhetoric and reality is all too evident in Syria, South Sudan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, among other countries. Closing the gap between rhetoric and reality is going to take a three-part strategy involving military intervention (when necessary), crisis diplomacy (when possible), and early prevention (steadily, systematically). Military intervention will continue to be necessary in certain situations. This was the only means by which to stop Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011 from delivering on his threat to slaughter civilians. Although the immediate objective was achieved in the Libya case, the post-intervention dilemma—what R2P cofounder Gareth Evans calls the “responsibility to rebuild”—has been an abject failure. Libya thus shows both what late-stage military intervention can and cannot achieve. Crisis diplomacy, also largely a late-innings effort, is a second strategy for prevention. In Kenya’s 2013 elections, coordinated diplomacy by the United States, Europe, and the UN helped to prevent replays of the mass violence witnessed in the 2008 elections. More frequent, though, have been cases like Burundi, South Sudan, and Guinea, in which crisis diplomacy has been too little too late—arriving only after atrocities are unfolding, subsequently having limited impact. The final component to closing the gap is early prevention: acting when the number of options are greater, risks are smaller, and potential costs are lower. This basic logic underlies the original conceptualization of R2P put forth by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Even though such logic runs counter to the political reality of postponing action until the bodies begin to pile up, more progress is being made by individual states, international institutions, regional bodies, and even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to build capacities for R2P early prevention than is often acknowledged. In 2012, the Obama administration established the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), based in the White House, which is charged with coordinating the State Department, Department of Defense, U.S. Agency for International Development, and other federal agencies to ensure the steady attention needed for policy development and pre-establishing a mechanism for crises and other urgent situations. While short on resources and prey to bureaucratic turf battles, the APB has made a positive impact on U.S. preventive policies. Within the UN system, spurred particularly by the 2009 mass killings in Sri Lanka, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched the Human Rights Up Front initiative in 2013, seeking to make human rights and atrocities prevention more of a “system-wide core responsibility…to act with moral courage to prevent serious and large-scale violations.” Here, too, the results have been limited thus far, but provide the basis upon which further progress can be built. Regional institutions have also made their mark. The European Union (EU) has a number of initiatives including the EU Situation Room, which monitors the global political climate and assesses current crisis awareness. Individual EU member states like Denmark have developed their own R2P-related national action plans. The African Union’s (AU) Peace and Security Council provides a regional decision-making mechanism linked to the Continental Early Warning System, a data collection and analysis center tasked with monitoring potential conflicts and threats to peace and security. Its “Panel of the Wise” draws on a group of distinguished African leaders who focus on conflict prevention. In West Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Conflict Prevention Framework and the Early Warning and Response Network (EWARN) came into play in Guinea in 2008, Niger in 2010, and Mali and Cote d’Ivoire in more recent years. Countries have also taken initiative independently. Ghana has its own National Peace Council, and Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Zambia all have their own national committees. In Asia, there has been less region-wide initiative, although the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) convened a high-level advisory panel in 2014 that issued recommendations for “mainstreaming” R2P in Southeast Asia. Australia has been especially active, regionally and internationally, by adapting its civilian corps from a solely natural disasters mission to a conflict prevention one, for example. For its part, China has been showing more flexibility than is often acknowledged by Western states, with an increasingly conditional rather than absolutist approach to intervention and state sovereignty. Latin America has a Network for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, which includes Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and fourteen other countries. Brazil has also formulated its own variation of R2P, “Responsibility while Protecting” (RwP). While initially somewhat of a dilution of R2P, it has evolved into a serious component of the policy mix. The NGO community has played a useful and creative role. The Focal Points Initiative led by the Global Centre for R2P now has fifty-one country members with broad, geographic representation. Each is developing internal capacity for promoting R2P at the national level and collectively serving as a like-minded network. The Obama administration must use its remaining time in office to assure the continuity and effectiveness of the APB—Washington is full of doubts about its future—as well as of the State Department Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) and other executive branch counterparts. At the UN, as Ban Ki-moon finishes his final term, strengthening the Human Rights Up Front Initiative provides a sorely needed opportunity to leave more of a legacy. Regional bodies also have much work to do, including the EU, both directly and in its assistance to Africa and other regions, the AU and the other African initiatives, ASEAN, and Latin American initiatives. And as is so often the case in twenty-first century global affairs, NGOs have their own crucial role to play, as has been the case with the Global Centre’s Focal Points Initiative. To be sure, such early prevention measures will not resolve the Syria of 2015; that requires targeted, more immediate initiatives. But they can help prevent the next Syria. If there is one thing that the world can be sure of, it is that there will be more Syrias unless greater R2P early prevention capacity is built full-spectrum. The world may not achieve “never again,” but it is certainly possible and necessary to have fewer “yet agains”—and to narrow, even if not fully close, the rhetoric-reality gap.

Yesterday, the New York Times published an infographic, “Death in Syria,” that presents the more than 200,000 combatants and noncombatants who have been killed in the four-and-a-half-year Syrian civil war. The Times’ website relies upon estimates “provided by the Violations Documentation Center [VDC] and are as of Sept. 9, 2015.” This non-governmental organization (NGO) claims to use a three-stage process for gathering and documenting information from within Syria, and verifying its accuracy to the best extent possible. The VDC notes that it strives for “conveying the truth as it is on the condition that those data and information are being regularly reviewed, checked and revised.” These fatality estimates used by the Times should therefore be viewed with an understanding of the inherent difficulties of reporting from within Syria, and the conscious or unconscious biases often found within NGOs. The VDC categorization and numbers conflict significantly with those published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a human rights NGO based in London—as you can see from the SOHR chart at the very bottom of this post. Even the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights decided to stop providing public estimates of casualties in January 2014, because it could no longer guarantee that the source material for its estimates was accurate. Nevertheless, the Times’ presentation of the VDC data is illuminating for policy discussions about whether and how to intervene militarily in Syria. Consistent with earlier analyses, most people who have tragically lost their lives in Syria are not civilians, but rather active combatants. This is worth bearing in mind when U.S. Senators repeat the inaccurate statement that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has “massacred” 200,000 of his own people. The Syrian security forces under Assad’s authority have perpetrated an untold number of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and as the head of state he must be held accountable by a post-conflict special tribunal for Syria. However, those advocating the use of force to protect civilians should recognize that there first must be an end to the fighting between the combatants, within which civilians have suffered and died tremendously. More specifically, as I wrote almost two years ago, any proposal for using force to protect civilians in Syria must take into account how noncombatants are actually being killed and injured. Note that of the 85,404 civilians estimated to have been killed (by both regime and rebel forces) by the VDC, just 22 percent were killed by Syrian government air attacks. (This includes over one hundred civilians killed by air-launched missiles while shopping in a Douma marketplace on August 16.) Those who propose a no-fly-zone (NFZ) or “cratering” Syrian Air Force runways should recognize that these tactical responses will do nothing to save the lives of most Syrian civilians. Moreover, as was the case with other NFZs throughout history, the Assad regime will simply reprioritize its offensive operations from air power to infantry and artillery attacks, which combined are already killing most Syrian civilians. Of course, the United States and a coalition of outside states could intervene in Syria to protect civilians from such infantry and artillery attacks, as well as the many disappearances by the regime and rebel forces. I have written about what these time-tested military countermeasures consist of: counter-sniper tactics, counter-battery radars and fire, and infantry “movement to contact” operations to clear out Syrian and pro-government militia ground forces that threaten civilian populations. Yet, these operations require a level of cost, commitment, risk, and uncertainty that intervention proponents are apparently unwilling to accept, including a significant number of the unthinkable—“boots on the ground.” So when policymakers and pundits advocate intervening in the Syrian civil war to save civilians, consider whether their proposals would actually achieve this intended objective. Sources: Violations Documentation Center, September 14, 2015; Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, August 5, 2015.

Patrick Romano is an intern in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s unrelenting opposition to negotiating a bilateral ceasefire with left-wing guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) threatens to derail current peace talks and indefinitely perpetuate the longest conflict in the Western Hemisphere. Though the war began in 1964, over the past fifty years more than 220,000 Colombians—80 percent civilians—have lost their lives and more than five million have been displaced. The conflict has also fueled the illegal drug trade, as the FARC continues to fund itself through the production and trafficking of cocaine and heroin. Since negotiations between Santos and FARC leaders began in October 2012, the negotiators have reached agreements on three of five points: land reform, political participation, and illicit narcotics. The two remaining issues, the thorniest of all, deal with rights and reparations for the conflict’s victims and disarmament of the rebels. While this progress could be deemed a partial success, the escalation of violence since the FARC’s suspension of its unilateral ceasefire in May threatens to end the peace process altogether. With declining popular support for a peace accord, the longer Santos waits to take action to de-escalate the conflict, the less likely a final peace agreement will be reached. On July 8, the FARC announced a new, one-month unilateral ceasefire, effective July 20, but this will be insufficient for reducing long-term instability for two reasons. First, even if the FARC upholds the ceasefire—its sixth since peace talks began—one month will not be enough time to reach an agreement on the remaining issues of victims’ rights and disarmament, as it has taken nearly three years to reach consensus on the other three points. Second, Santos’ July 12 announcement that his government would scale down military action to accelerate negotiations does not explicitly promise—as a formal bilateral ceasefire would—that the military will not attack FARC rebels or resources. Given that an agreement will likely not be reached within a month, the only strategic option left to FARC commanders is to plan for a resumption of hostilities. Thus, when the ceasefire expires, Colombia will (at best) remain unstable, protracting the risk to civilians and destruction of critical infrastructure. A formal, written bilateral ceasefire—with a longer duration of four to six months and a potential to be renewed—will provide adequate time and stability to settle the remaining issues in the peace negotiations. To date, Santos has stated repeatedly that he will never agree to one, claiming that the FARC, who have ultimately suspended all previous ceasefires, will use the opportunity to regroup for new attacks. The Santos administration is also concerned that the FARC could continue to fundraise through drug trafficking and extortion. While both are legitimate dangers, an independent mediating body—perhaps led by the guarantors of the talks, Norway and Cuba—could assuage these concerns if given adequate time and access to monitor conflict areas and FARC strongholds in order to verify that both sides are upholding the ceasefire terms. A successful, unbroken bilateral ceasefire could also help alleviate disagreements over FARC disarmament,  as FARC leaders may feel more secure that giving up their arms will not lead to their annihilation by Colombian forces. The United States—Colombia’s most intrinsic ally in terms of monetary, military, and diplomatic support—appointed Bernard Aronson as special envoy to the peace talks. In a House hearing on June 24, Aronson stated that his role is to advise and counsel Santos, not to impose his opinion or publicly undermine Santos. However, without pushing his opinion forcefully or publicly, Aronson could present the conditions listed above to Santos, showing him the benefits of a bilateral ceasefire, including the significant progress in the peace process that it will demonstrate to his increasingly disengaged constituency and the extended time it will give negotiators. A failure to either de-escalate the conflict or accelerate negotiations would be an embarrassment for U.S. diplomacy, but is likely if Santos continues to rule out a bilateral ceasefire. The benefits of a longer ceasefire and negotiated settlement for U.S. security, economic, and political interests far outweigh the potential consequences of another failed ceasefire: • Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in Latin America. The State Department ranks the FARC as one of the largest drug traffickers in the world, and through “Plan Colombia,” an aid initiative that began in the late 1990s, the United States has provided billions of dollars in aid to the Colombian government, mainly to combat the illicit drug trade. A ceasefire that stipulates—and independently verifies over time—that the guerrillas stop fundraising through the drug trade would be a significant return on the U.S. investment in Colombia and a way to reduce the $162 million in  counter-narcotics aid planned for Colombia in 2016. • U.S. reputation in Latin America has waned in the past two decades, but the U.S.-Colombia relationship remains one of the strongest, and bilateral trade has increased significantly since the signing of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in 2012.  This mutually beneficial relationship bolsters the U.S. reputation in a region where the influence of China and India is expanding. As Latin American economies continue to grow, it is important for U.S. trade interests to maintain a favorable reputation in the region, and destabilization due to the FARC conflict threatens the good example of the U.S.-Colombia partnership. • The United States purports to promote human rights and the rule of law in the Americas, and defeating the FARC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, is an important part of this agenda. However, progress was set back when Human Rights Watch recently alleged that the Colombian military killed innocent civilians and passed them off as guerrillas, and the top Colombian brass knew about it. Given the close U.S. partnership with the Colombian military, these human rights abuses risk conveying hypocrisy to other Latin American nations, such as Venezuela and Cuba, which the United States has condemned for similar  issues of state violence. If the United States wishes to see the payout from its investments in Colombia, Aronson should demonstrate the benefits of a long-term, bilateral ceasefire and negotiated settlement to Santos, and the consequences of failure, including a dissatisfied public. The longer it takes to establish a bilateral ceasefire, the less likely it is that a lasting peace will be reached.  

Gitanjali M. Singh, et al., “Estimated Global, Regional, and National Disease Burdens Related to Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption in 2010,” Circulation, June 29, 2015. Worldwide, the model estimated 184,000 (95%UI=161,000-208,000) deaths/year attributable to SSB consumption: 133,000 (126,000-139,000) from diabetes, 45,000 (26,000-61,000) from CVD, and 6,450(4,300-8,600) from cancers. (p. 2) (Supplemental Table 2) SSBs were defined as any sugar-sweetened sodas, fruit drinks, sports/energy drinks, sweetened iced tea, or homemade SSBs such as frescas, which contained at least 50 kcal per 8oz serving; 100% fruit juice was excluded. (p. 4) (3PA: Note that "only" 70,000 people worldwide die from all forms of conflict and/or terrorism. More Americans die from diseases related to sugar-sweetened beverage consumption than the average 15,473 Americans killed in violent deaths each year, or the 11,208 killed by firearm homicides.) Remarks by the President on Progress in the Fight Against ISIL at the Pentagon, White House Office of the Press Secretary, July 7, 2015. “If we try to do everything ourselves all across the Middle East, all across North Africa, we’ll be playing Whack-a-Mole and there will be a whole lot of unintended consequences that ultimately make us less secure.” (3PA: Compare this to what Assistant Defense Secretary for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Michael Sheehan proclaimed in June 2013, which directly contradicts Obama: "Whack-a-Mole, in my view, works because terrorists aren’t plastic things that pop up again. When you kill them, they don’t come back. Yes, somebody else may come back, but that guy is probably less effective, less trained, and by the way, knows his buddy before him got...killed.") Hearing on the Strategy to Counter ISIL, Senate Armed Services Committee, July 7, 2015. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): General Dempsey, would you agree that there’re more terrorist organizations with more safe havens, with more weapons, with more capability, with more men to strike the homeland than any time since 9/11? Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey: Yes. Graham: Do you believe that ISIL is expanding in other countries as we speak? Dempsey: Yes. (3PA: Indeed, the number of terrorist attacks, their lethality, as well as the size of terrorist organizations has worsened in past years. Note that Sen. Graham did not follow up to ask why terrorist organizations were larger and more capable. U.S. officials are too vested in the country’s counterterrorism strategy—nearly unchanged over the past thirteen years—to recognize that it is failing. To overcome this, I have suggested that a National Commission on the War on Terrorism be established to evaluate strategic documents and the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies to date, analyze underlying reasons for homegrown terrorism, and provide policy recommendations.) John Kirby, Daily Press Briefing, U.S. Department of State, July 6, 2015. QUESTION: John, what about Said’s first question, which was: What are you doing to try to – I don’t know – improve the accuracy or somehow dissuade the Saudis from hitting civilian areas? I mean, just today, there was a strike that killed dozens of civilians. KIRBY: Well, look. We remain in close touch with the Saudi Government regarding a wide range of issues. With respect to Yemen, I’d refer you to them for discussion of their operational details. That’s really for the Saudi Government to speak to. And we take all accounts and reports of civilian casualties seriously, and again, have been very clear about our desire to see a humanitarian pause. (3PA: The Saudi-led coalition would not be conducting these airstrikes, which are killing civilians, without the enabling capabilities being provided by the United States, primarily targeting intelligence, air refueling, combat search and rescue, and vessel searches.) Karl P. Mueller (eds.), Precision and Purpose Airpower in the Libyan Civil War, RAND Corporation, July 2015, p. 4. (3PA: I highly recommend this report, which is the most well researched and comprehensive study of the 2011 air war in Libya. Unfortunately, it came out shortly after I published a similar chart, listed below, comparing the average strike sorties per day and average bombs dropped per day in various air wars since the 1990s.)

Six months ago, I published the first blog in this series, highlighting earlier academic findings. Jeffrey Stamp, “Aero-Static Warfare: A Brief Survey of Ballooning in Mid-nineteenth-century Siege Warfare,” The Journal of Military History, 79(3), July 2015, pp. 767-782. Several nations experimented with military ballooning in the mid-nineteenth century, despite limitations such as lack of controllability. The key factor in whether or not the belligerents perceived ballooning as valuable was the type of warfare involved. When balloons were used in static warfare, such as siege conditions, their usefulness usually encouraged further experimentation. The American Civil War draws some stark contrasts between what balloons could do during static warfare, such as the siege of Island No. 10, and what they could not do in fluid combat, as in the failure at First Bull Run. Later, Brazil employed former Union aeronauts during the siege of Humaita in Paraguay, following which the French pioneered balloon “air mail” from besieged Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Enemy efforts to defeat ballooning included Prussian invention of what may be the world’s first purpose-built anti-aircraft gun, making the point that if an enemy thinks an innovation is valuable, then it is. Deniz Aksoy, David B. Carter, and Joseph Wright, “Terrorism and the Fate of Dictators,” World Politics, 67(3), July 2015. The authors study the influence of domestic political dissent and violence on incumbent dictators and their regimes. They argue that elite with an interest in preserving the regime hold dictators accountable when there is a significant increase in terrorism. To pinpoint the accountability of dictators to elite who are strongly invested in the current regime, the authors make a novel theoretical distinction between reshuffling coups that change the leader but leave the regime intact and regime-change coups that completely change the set of elites atop the regime. Using a new data set that distinguishes between these two coup types, the authors provide robust evidence that terrorism is a consistent predictor of reshuffling coups, whereas forms of dissent that require broader public participation and support, such as protests and insurgencies, are associated with regime-change coup attempts. This article is the first to show that incumbent dictators are held accountable for terrorist campaigns that occur on their watch. Dursun Peksen, “Economic Coercion and Currency Crises in Target Countries,” Journal of Peace Research, June 8, 2015, pp. 1-15. Despite significant research on the efficacy and inadvertent humanitarian and political effects of economic sanctions, surprisingly little is known about the possible economic and financial consequences of sanctions for target economies. Synthesizing insights from the currency crisis literature with sanctions scholarship, we argue that economic sanctions are likely to trigger currency collapses, a major form of financial crisis that impedes economic growth and prosperity. We assert that economic coercion instigates currency crises by weakening the economy and creating political risks conducive to speculative attacks by currency traders. To substantiate the theoretical claims, we use time-series cross-national data for the 1970–2005 period. The results from the data analysis lend support for the hypothesis that sanctions undermine the financial stability of target countries. The findings also indicate that the adverse effect of economic coercion on the financial stability of target economies is likely to be conditioned by the severity of the coercion and the type of actors involved in the implementation of sanctions. The findings of this article add to the sanctions literature demonstrating how economic coercion could be detrimental to the target economy beyond the immediate effect on trade and investment. It also complements and adds to the literature on political economy of currency crises that has so far overlooked the significant role that economic coercion plays in financial crises. Virginia Page Fortna, “Do Terrorists Win? Rebels’ Use of Terrorism and Civil War Outcomes,” International Organization, June 2015, pp. 1-38. I argue that when it comes to achieving a rebel group’s political goals, the disadvantages of terrorism generally outweigh its advantages. It is a cheap way to inflict pain on the other side, and terrorist groups are hard to eliminate completely, but it is useless for taking or holding territory. It may help signal commitment to a cause, but because it is cheap, it signals weakness rather than strength. It may be useful for provoking an overreaction by the government, but it also helps justify draconian measures to crush the rebellion. Its outrageous nature may help bring attention to a cause, but it also undermines legitimacy and alienates potential supporters. Terrorism may help achieve tactical results, but these apparently do not translate into strategic success. It may also be useful at lower levels of conflict or for groups that do not have the ability to wage full-scale war (a question I cannot yet address with available data). Empirically, I find much more support for the argument that terrorism is likely to backfire than for the notion that it is effective. Rebels who use terrorism do not win outright, and they are less likely to achieve concessions in a negotiated outcome. This negative effect may be somewhat attenuated when rebels fight against democracies rather than autocracies. But even in democratic states, terrorist rebels groups do not achieve victory and are unlikely to obtain concessions at the negotiating table. The short answer to the question “Do terrorist rebels win?” is “No.” If terrorism is so ineffective, one might reasonably ask why rebel groups use it, especially rebels who are not fighting democratic governments. The answer may lie in the finding that civil wars in which terrorism is used last significantly longer than others. The use of terrorism contributes to rebels’ organizational survival. Rebels thus appear to face a dilemma—using terrorism as a tactic is good for the immediate goal of survival, but comes at the expense of the long-term political goals for which they are, ultimately (or ostensibly) fighting. This study begins to shed light on the causes of terrorism, as well as its effects. I examine this question only briefly in this article, focusing on variables that might also affect war outcomes, to avoid spurious results. The results are intriguing, however. They cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that terrorism is a “weapon of the weak.” Among rebels fighting full-fledged civil wars, there is surprisingly little evidence that weaker groups are more likely to use terrorism than stronger ones. Nor is terrorism more likely, again contrary to conventional wisdom, in secessionist wars, or when rebels profess extreme aims. Terrorism is more likely, however, in civil wars in democracies, as many have argued, and where religion divides rebels from the government they fight. It is much less likely to be used in Africa, a finding that remains to be explained theoretically. Ryan Grauer, “Moderating Diffusion: Military Bureaucratic Politics and the Implementation of German Doctrine in South America, 1885–1914,” World Politics, 67(2), April 2015. In this article, I seek to deepen our understanding of the peacetime spread of military ideas by focusing on the implementation phase of the diffusion process. That is, I assume that states not currently at war have made the decision to adopt an innovative military doctrine developed abroad and I explore the reasons why they are more or less likely to succeed in effecting their desired changes. Drawing on current research on military innovation and the diffusion of civilian organizational practices, I argue that the nature of bureaucratic politics within the adopting military is likely to condition the selection and capacity of the communications channels used to transmit information about innovative foreign military doctrines, and therefore to affect the likelihood of success or failure in implementing new methods of fighting. Specifically, I contend that when a large or influential group of actors within the armed forces strongly supports the adoption of a foreign military’s doctrine, states are more likely to contract missions— collections of advisers and instructors drawn from originating states— to facilitate the transfer of essential information about the new way of fighting. However, when a large or influential group within the military opposes some aspect of the doctrinal change, the group is likely to use its political and bureaucratic power to circumscribe the purview of a contracted mission or force reliance on less effective means of information transfer. We should therefore expect the greatest degree of implementation—and the highest levels of diffusion—when there is minimal resistance from the military to the adoption of a foreign doctrine. Alex Braithwaite, “Transnational Terrorism as an Unintended Consequence of a Military Footprint,” Security Studies, 24(2), 2015, pp. 349-375. The key task of this article is to specify a logic in which the deployment of troops overseas results in the employment of terrorism against the global interests of the deploying state...(p. 352) My attrition-based theoretical logic implies that countries are likely to experience terrorist violence against their global interests emanating from those countries to which they deploy troops…(p. 362) In some of the notable cases of territorial terrorism outlined in the early portions of this article, it is clear that terrorist violence has been employed on a large scale (alongside more expansive forms of insurgency) against the military assets of the deploying state. This is certainly true of recent US and Coalition deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance. However, my theoretical logic suggests that territorially motivated terrorism ought to manifest itself not only in the form of attacks against the military but also against the wider set of global interests of the deploying state. Accordingly, it is important to demonstrate that the arrival of troops on the ground does not only provide additional suitable targets for terrorist violence but also has the effect of increasing the likelihood of attacks against the nonmilitary interests of the deploying state. Accordingly, I next present the results of a test in which attacks against military targets—as defined by the GTD—are excluded from the dependent variable…In other words, it is apparent that troops on the ground do not exclusively provide additional targets; rather, troops on the ground also motivate the use of violence against the non-military interests and assets of the deploying state…(pp. 371-373) This article has presented significant evidence to support the central logic of territorial terrorism: the deployment of troops overseas increases the likelihood of transnational terrorist attacks against the global interests of the deploying state. It appears as if terrorist groups encourage and exploit public territorial responses to the arrival of “foreign” troops on “home” territories by employing attrition-based strategies against deploying states. The effect of deploying troops is slightly larger for democratic states—suggesting that the use of violence in such circumstances is viewed as being efficient and legitimate…(p. 374) Alex Bellamy, “When States Go Bad: The Termination of State Perpetrated Mass Killing,” Journal of Peace Research, 2015, pp. 1-12. Almost three-quarters of all the mass killing endings produced by regime change were achieved by principally domestic opponents through one of these pathways. This means that regime change brought about by foreign military intervention endings is among the rarest of ways in which mass killing perpetrated by states against their own population ends. Overall, since 1945 fewer than one in ten episodes of state perpetrated mass killing have been terminated by foreign armed intervention. What is more, the frequency of foreign induced regime change has not changed significantly in line with the general decline of perpetrator-induced endings since the end of the Cold War, described earlier. In the post-Cold War era, mass atrocities are still more likely to end when the perpetrators choose to end them or at the hand of domestic opponents than they are to be ended by foreign armed intervention. If, as proponents of the moral hazard approach to humanitarian intervention (e.g. Kuperman, 2008) suggest, rebel groups believe that they can secure foreign intervention on their behalf by provoking governments into perpetrating mass atrocities, the historical record suggests they are deeply misguided…(p. 7) Understandably, the duration of an episode seems to be important in influencing the overall number of estimated casualties. From the data presented here, it appears that episodes that end with regime change (and remember that most of these are produced by domestic forces) tend to be much longer in duration (more than twice as long based on a simple average of years) than those ended voluntarily by the perpetrating regime. Episodes that end with regime change tend also to be more deadly (based on simple averages of the clustered cases in the online appendix). This seems to be primarily a function of their longer duration because there is little discernible difference in the average intensity of the killing (i.e. average rate of killing over time) associated with different types of endings. The most likely explanation for the longer average duration associated with regime change endings is that determined domestic opposition prevents a state perpetrator from achieving its goals quickly and pushes it into a protracted campaign of mass killing. Only quite rarely are domestic armed opponents able to defeat regimes quickly. This suggests that the worst of all worlds in terms of an episode’s duration and lethality is not when the state perpetrators are confronted by armed opposition per se but when they are confronted by forces incapable of inflicting a decisive defeat upon them…(p. 8)

During her confirmation hearing to become secretary of state, Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in no uncertain terms, “I want to pledge to you that as secretary of state I view [women’s] issues as central to our foreign policy, not as adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser than all of the other issues that we have to confront.” A thoughtful and nuanced new book by Valerie M. Hudson and Patricia Leidl, The Hillary Doctrine: Sex & American Foreign Policy, evaluates to what extent Secretary Clinton has fulfilled this pledge. Unsurprisingly, they find many examples where Clinton’s rhetoric does not meet U.S. foreign policy reality. Rather than simply denounce the former secretary of state for this, they try to understand what explains this reoccurring disconnect. For example, the authors contend that a component of Clinton’s hawkish support for intervening in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya was the belief that women’s lives would be markedly improved. Hudson and Leidl disagree, noting, “Military action in and of itself against regimes violating human rights will not protect women. If anything, it unleashes new and usually even more vicious male-bonded groups intent on stripping them of even the most basic human rights.” It is this sort of refreshing analysis that makes this book so important, and one that I highly recommend to anybody interested in elevating women’s voices in world affairs, as well as the practicalities of day-to-day U.S. foreign policymaking. The “doctrine” comes from a proposition that Clinton made at the TEDWomen Conference in December 2010: “The subjugation of women is, therefore, a threat to the common security of our world and to the national security of our country.” In countries where women are chronically mistreated, or systematically excluded from leadership roles, there tends to be far greater state fragility, outbreaks and reoccurrences of conflict, and environments where extremists can flourish, including even terrorist organizations. The quantitative and anecdotal evidence supporting Clinton’s proposition has grown stronger over the past five years. For example, we now know that the participation of women’s groups in peace negotiations increases the likelihood of reaching an agreement and implementing it, and the probability that it will last longer. When women were included in peace processes between 1989 and 2011, agreements were 20 percent more likely to last as long as two years, and 35 percent more likely to last fifteen years. Additionally, women’s leadership and political participation enhances  a community’s ability to resist violent extremism, and women play the most critical family role in influencing young people who are susceptible to radicalization. The first part of the book—based on interviews with government officials like Swanee Hunt, Andrew Natsios, Paula Dobriansky, and Melanne Verveer—consists of a helpful history of how women’s issues became prominent in U.S. foreign policymaking during the 1990s. This included milestones like UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the first resolution to address the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women, as well as the role of women in conflict prevention and resolution; the publication of the first U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security; and the difficulties and haphazard manner that the military and USAID have experienced in incorporating women’s issues into foreign operations. This is crystallized in an anecdote from Charlotte Ponticelli, the State Department’s senior coordinator for international women’s issues in the era after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was toppled. Ponticelli received an email from an aide to Paul Bremer, director of the Coalition Provisional Authority: “If I gave you 15 minutes to tell me how you would spend $10 million on behalf of Iraqi women, could you send me an email in that 15 minutes?” Ponticelli quickly drafted something, sent it to Bremer’s aide, and later received the $10 million. The authors later struggle to square Clinton’s “conspicuous silence” in the face of the brutal treatment of women by Saudi Arabia, or China’s perpetration of sex-selective abortions among Tibetans. The authors write, “one possible interpretation is that the Hillary Doctrine is in fact merely a rhetorical stance on the part of U.S. foreign policy makers, including, apparently, Hillary Clinton herself—a position that may be jettisoned if its tenants would undermine ‘real’ American national interests in any particular case.” The authors offer several potential explanations, including that Clinton expressing more public disapproval for the mistreatment of women might be counterproductive, draw unwanted attention to local NGOs, or result in current autocrats being replaced by worse and more backward-thinking leaders. However, the more plausible explanation comes from a quote provided by Verveer, who was Clinton’s chief of staff and later led the development of the U.S. National Action Plan: “You know, they are sovereign nations under their own." The authors later note that the most important and elusive ingredient for implementing the Hillary Doctrine “can only come from the White House itself.” If a President Hillary Clinton is sworn into office on January 20, 2017, then there will be no more bureaucratic hurdles preventing the fuller implementation of the Hillary Doctrine. We would only learn if it is indeed a rhetoric, or the basis upon which U.S. foreign policy is developed and implemented.

Samantha Andrews is an intern in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. On Sunday, the United States carried out an airstrike in Libya that reportedly killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a commander of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and mastermind behind the 2013 seizure of an Algerian gas plant that killed thirty-eight hostages. Since the collapse of the Muammar al-Qadaffi regime in 2011, Libya has experienced an unprecedented level of instability and violence, fostering a safe haven for international terrorists like Belmokhtar. In a new Center for Preventative Action (CPA) Contingency Planning Memorandum Update, “Libya’s Escalating Civil War,” Daniel P. Serwer, professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, discusses the implications of Libyan instability for U.S. interests and provides policy recommendations. Serwer says that the threat of chaos that existed after the 2011 intervention has “come to fruition,” and now the United States must address the growing presence of jihadists in Libya, some of whom have joined the self-declared Islamic State. With two opposing military coalitions—Libya Dawn and Operation Dignity divided roughly along geographical lines, with each declaring their own parliament, government, and military chiefs—the loyalties of fighters are difficult to characterize. Though foreign media often associates Dawn with Islamists and Dignity with non-Islamists, both groups have overlapping support. These divisions are just as unclear to the government, whose Finance Ministry in Tripoli continues paying combatants from both coalitions. This indistinctness has undermined UN efforts to negotiate a comprehensive political settlement. In addition to the Dawn and Dignity coalitions, a growing presence of jihadists affiliated with Ansar al-Sharia and the Islamic State are also gaining a foothold in Libya. Taking advantage of the widespread political instability, jihadists are using the country as a hub to coordinate broader regional violence and launch attacks. Since these terrorist groups regard Dawn and Dignity as enemies, their growth only threatens to further escalate the violence and fracture warring parties. Libya is critical to U.S. allies in Europe that rely on the country as a gas and oil supplier and face a steady influx of Libyan refugees. Currently, Libya receives less attention than countries where the United States is directly engaged militarily, such as Iraq and Syria. However, the devolution of stability in Libya threatens a collapse of the state and territorial fragmentation. Additionally, at odds with the United States’ efforts to counter violent extremism, the inflow of international terrorists is expected to drive radicalization in the region. What policy options could help steer Libya toward a more stable outcome? Skewer emphasizes that, since European interests in Libya overshadow those of the United States, the European Union (EU) should take the lead. Washington should encourage and provide support to EU-led efforts, rather than undertaking a new initiative. Other specific recommendations that Serwer details are: • Supporting an inclusive national political solution that devolves as much authority as possible to Libya’s three regions and twenty-two districts. • Encouraging Italy and France to form a coalition of the willing to provide peacekeeping forces with a UN mandate in support of a national political settlement, including substantial Arab contributions of police and military personnel. • Providing logistical, intelligence, and air support for this mission, but without boots on the ground. • Coordinating with and funding the Libyan government develop counterterrorism and internal security capabilities. For more of Serwer’s analysis of and recommendations for addressing the conflict, read CPA’s report, “Libya’s Escalating Civil War.”

Amelia M. Wolf is a research associate in the Center for Preventive Action and the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2002, the UN General Assembly designated May 29 as the International Day of UN Peacekeepers to honor current and former peacekeepers, and well as those who have lost their lives. In the sixty-seven years since the first peacekeeping mission was established, more than one million people have served in seventy-one peacekeeping operations, and 3,358 military, police, and civilian personnel died while serving. Over the past twenty-five years alone, the mandates, composition, and deployments of peacekeeping operations have grown dramatically in size and complexity. The number of UN member states contributing personnel increased from 46 to 122 countries, and total deployed peacekeepers grew from 10,304 to 107,805, a reflection of the more than doubling of overall missions. However, the composition of peacekeeping forces has seen the starkest change. While Eastern European countries, the United States, and Canada accounted for 71 percent of personnel in 1991, those same countries now contribute just 5 percent. Whereas Canada (1,002), Finland (992), and Norway (924) were the top contributors in 1990, they now collectively contribute just 583 personnel. Today, Bangladesh (9,307), Pakistan (8,163), and India (8,122) are the top troop-contributing countries, accounting for almost 25 percent of all personnel. The United States, which pays for 28 percent of UN peacekeeping, provides merely 54 military personnel and 41 police. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) faces numerous challenges, including limited, outdated, or inadequate resources and supplies, a more lethal and asymmetric operating environment that is not reflected in Security Council mandates, and demands for technologies that have not been adequately adopted into missions. As the UN reflects on the “past, present and future of UN Peacekeeping” and reaffirms its “commitment to working ’Together for Peace’,” it should keep in mind a few particularly important issues. First, a persistent problem facing peacekeeping missions is sexual exploitation and abuse, which has garnered international attention. According to DPKO estimates, some progress has been made; reported allegations decreased from 357 in 2006 to 51 in 2014. However, the UN itself does not have the power or jurisdiction to hold suspected perpetrators accountable. Subsequently, the responsibility lies with member states, some of which lack strong judicial systems, have weak laws governing sexual crimes, or simply are not willing to report on the status of a trial. Last year, nineteen allegations were referred to the troop-contributing countries for investigation, seven of which did not reply or declined to investigate. Second, a chronic and significant gender gap still exists at all levels. Women make up less than 4 percent of peacekeeping personnel—3 percent of military and less than 10 percent of police. More importantly, since the UN began collecting gender data for both military (in 2009) and police (in 2005) personnel in peacekeeping operations, the number of women has increased by less than 1 percent. Additionally, between 2011 and 2013, women leading peacekeeping operations decreased from six to four. Gender diversification is important not only because women are more suitable to carry out certain tasks essential to peacekeeping operations, such as working with victims of gender-based violence or child soldiers. It also has other benefits, including enhanced situational awareness and increased acceptance of a UN force by local populations. Third, while the diversification and growth of contributing countries has had great benefits, such as faster deployment in cases of close proximity, or a better understanding of the culture or operating environment, it has also created new challenges. Neighboring contributing countries may have a greater stake in the outcome of a peacekeeping mission or political objectives that differ from the Security Council mandate, or personnel may have biases that affect their ability to impartially fulfill the mandate. Fourth, over 87 percent of UN peacekeepers are deployed in Africa, but collaboration between the UN and the African Union (AU) remains underdeveloped. In a recent Center for Preventive Action report, Enhancing Support for Peace Operations in Africa, Paul D. Williams, associate professor in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, writes that “partnership peacekeeping”— two multilateral institutions or bilateral partners collaborating on an operation—is now the norm. This includes the transition of authority from the UN to AU in Mali, coexisting missions in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, or the hybrid mission in Darfur. “No single actor can cope with Africa’s security challenges,” writes Williams. Therefore, greater collaboration is needed to utilize the unique strengths of the UN and AU. Williams recommends that the United States support these efforts by assisting the AU to “adopt appropriate standards for its peace support operations” and develop training standards. The International Day of UN Peacekeepers provides an opportunity to not only reflect on the service of peacekeepers but also constructively think about how to enhance their safety and better support them in future missions. This is particularly important this year given that the High-level Independent Panel on UN Peace Operations, established by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2014, is expected to soon submit a joint report to the UN Secretariat. Though similar reviews and assessments of peacekeeping operations have been undertaken regularly since the late 1990s, subsequent action was inadequate in addressing the challenges listed above. Ultimately, reform will depend on whether member states listen to the panel’s recommendations and do anything to faithfully implement them.

Last night, Director of Central Intelligence John Brennan participated in a question-and-answer session at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. The first thirty-seven minutes consisted of an unusually probing exchange between Brennan and Harvard professor Graham Allison (full disclosure: Graham is a former boss of mine). Most notably, between 19:07 and 29:25 in the video, Allison pressed Brennan repeatedly about whether the United States is winning the war on terrorism and why the number of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups has only increased since 9/11: “There seem to be more of them than when we started…How are we doing?” Brennan replied: If I look across the board in terms of since 9/11 at terrorist organizations, and if the United States in all of its various forms. In intelligence, military, homeland security, law enforcement, diplomacy. If we were not as engaged against the terrorists, I think we would be facing a horrendous, horrendous environment. Because they would have taken full advantage of the opportunities that they have had across the region… We have worked collectively as a government but also with our international partners very hard to try and root many of them out. Might some of these actions be stimulants to others joining their ranks? Sure, that’s a possibility. I think, though it has taken off of the battlefield a lot more terrorists, than it has put on. This statement is impossible to evaluate or measure because the U.S. government has consistently refused to state publicly which terrorist organizations are deemed combatants, and can therefore be “taken out on the battlefield.” However, relying upon the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism,the estimated strength of all al-Qaeda-affiliated groups has grown or stayed the same since President Obama came into office.  Of course, non-al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have arisen since 9/11, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which the Central Intelligence Agency estimated last September to contain up to 31,500 fighters, and Boko Haram, which has perhaps 10,000 committed members. However, the most interesting question posed to Brennan came at the very end from a Harvard freshman who identified himself as Julian: “We’ve been fighting the war on terror since 2001. Is there an end in sight, or should we get used to this new state of existence? Brennan replied: It’s a long war, unfortunately. But it’s been a war that has been in existence for millennia, at the same time—the use of violence for political purposes against noncombatants by either a state actor or a subnational group. Terrorism has taken many forms over the years. What is more challenging now is, again, the technology that is available to terrorists, the great devastation that can be created by even a handful of folks, and also mass communication that just proliferates all of this activity and incitement and encouragement. So you have an environment now that’s very conducive to that type of propaganda and recruitment efforts, as well as the ability to get materials that are going to kill people. And so this is going to be something, I think, that we’re always going to have to be vigilant about. There is evil in the world and some people just want to kill for the sake of killing…This is something that, whether it’s from this group right now or another group, I think the ability to cause damage and violence and kill will be with us for many years to come. We just have to not kill our way out of this because that’s not going to address it. We need to stop those attacks that are in train but we also have to address some of those underlying factors and conditions. I’m not saying that poverty causes somebody to become a terrorist, or a lack of governance, but they certainly do allow these terrorist organizations to grow and they take full advantage of those opportunities. To summarize, the war on terrorism is working, compared to inaction or other policies. But, the American people should expect it to continue for millennia, or as long as lethal technologies and mass communication remain available to evil people.

Simon Frankel Pratt, “Crossing off names: the logic of military assassination,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 26(1), 2015, pp. 3-23. Those governments or commentators who publically advocate the use of military means to kill specific enemies have in recent times generally preferred terms such as ‘targeted killing.’ (p. 3) The following proposed definition should not suffer from the problems of its predecessors, and thus offer a solid beginning for further exploration of assassination as a strategic concept: Assassination is the premeditated killing of a specific individual to realise political objectives. This definition contains three key elements: (1) Premeditation (2) Specificity (3) Political intent More so than the word ‘intent’ or ‘deliberation’, ‘premeditation’ carries the implication that the killing is not a reflective decision based on events during the episode of action but precedes the initiation of contact between the agent and the target. The term ‘specificity’ replaces ‘selectiveness’ as the former requires that the agent ‘name or state explicitly or in detail’ while the latter to ‘[choose] from a number or group by fitness or preference’. To select therefore implies a comparative process, which does not necessarily occur, while to specify merely means to designate. Finally, the element of ‘political intent’ requires that the motivations and goals of an assassination be political, but not anything more: the target need not meet any criteria of prominence, and the consequences of the killing need not actually achieve a politically relevant outcome. (p. 6) Aaron M. Hoffman, et al., “Norms, Diplomatic Alternatives, and the Social Psychology of War Support,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59(1), 2015, p. 21. Taken together, our analyses suggest that asking people about their support for military operations and casualty sensitivity without providing cues about nonwar courses of action encourages them to respond as if they were told the alternatives to war were unappealing. Across three experiments, subjects who received no information about diplomatic alternatives to the use of force responded to our queries about their tolerance for casualties and support for war in similar fashion to those who heard that competing courses of action were unlikely to work. In contrast, subjects in two experiments who were informed that diplomacy could work typically reduced their enthusiasm for war and willingness to say any US casualties were “acceptable.” Bridget L. Coggins, “Does State Failure Cause Terrorism? An Empirical Analysis (1999-2008),” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2014, p. 23. Increasingly weak states are not at an increased threat of terrorism within their borders, nor do they threaten outsiders. Yet the most critically failed states (those experiencing violent political instability or emerging anarchy) are significantly more likely to experience and produce international terrorism and are also more likely to experience domestic terrorism—even when controlling for their participation in civil and international wars. What is most striking about the accumulated findings here are the contrasts between human security failure, state capacity failure, and political collapse when it comes to terrorism. Impoverished countries with severe human insecurity problems, including Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Eritrea, present no increased threat of terrorism. Nor do most countries with highly incapable state institutions like Haiti, Guinea, Chad, or Zimbabwe. Nor, surprisingly, were these states generally predisposed to domestic terrorism. Instead, states experiencing violent political instability and political collapse are far more dangerous to themselves and others when it comes to producing international terror (Goldstone et al. 2010). If strong states hope to tackle international terrorism’s root causes, they would do well to attend to those countries in the grip of chaotic political violence and not incapable or impoverished states. Moreover, efforts toward preventing the types of state weakness associated with terrorism may serve to prevent the emergence of more serious threats. The models also confirm the hypothesized importance of civil and international wars when it comes to terrorism. Many terrorist events, domestic and international, occur in the context of war fighting or are closely associated with an ongoing war. (3PA: This has been the case for the United States as well. As I recently pointed out, 80 percent of the 335 Americans killed by terrorism since 9/11 died in Iraq or Afghanistan—“the very places where the United States started wars to prevent or destroy safe havens.”) David E. Cunningham and Douglas Lemke, “Beyond Civil War: A Quantitative Examination of Causes of Violence within Countries,” Civil Wars 16(3), 2014, pp. 328-345. We first show that many correlates of civil war were previously used in broader studies of political violence. We then present a test using a country-year data-set including a variety of different dependent variables—traditional measures of civil war as well as measures of non-state war, one-sided violence, riots, assassinations, and coups. (p. 329) While some findings are disputed, a consensus exists that civil wars are more likely in states with lower average incomes, larger populations, that are neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic, neighbor other states in civil war, and that have experienced a civil war recently. (p. 330) In summary, we find considerable evidence of causal similarity across all the types of internal violence, from reasonably mild riots all the way up to civil wars. In general, it seems, the same factors which have been argued and found correlated with the occurrence of civil war seem to relate to a larger range of internal violence. This suggests that many of the arguments about civil wars are really arguments about the likelihood of internal violence more broadly… First, the relationship between regime type and conflict is interesting. The common finding that civil war is less likely in both strongly democratic and strongly autocratic regimes than in ‘anocracies’ is substantiated when the inclusive definition of internal armed conflict (25 battle deaths in a year) is used…However, we find that other forms of violence—particularly purges, coups, and revolts—are more common in autocratic regimes. And, we find that more intense types of civil wars (those that generate 1,000 battle deaths in a year) become more likely as regimes are more autocratic… Second, wealth has inconsistent effects across types of internal violence. It is generally well established that wealthy states are less prone to civil war, but our analysis suggests that higher levels of wealth do not decrease low-level forms of violence like riots, purges, and assassinations. (pp. 339-340) David T. Burbach and Christopher J. Fettweis, “The Coming Stability? The Decline of Warfare in Africa and Implications for International Security,” Contemporary Security Policy 35(3), 2014, pp. 421-445. Historical comparisons and quantitative analysis based on the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and Major Episodes of Political Violence (MEPV) datasets on the 1961 – 2013 period show that Africa has experienced a remarkable decline in warfare, whether measured in number of conflicts or fatalities. Warfare is a relatively low risk to the lives of most Africans. The years 2010 – 2013 saw an increase of 35 per cent in African battle deaths over 2005 – 2010, but they still are 87 percent lower than the 1990 – 1999 average. Changes in external support and intervention, and the spread of global norms regarding armed conflict, have been most decisive in reducing the levels of warfare in the continent. Consequently, there is no Africa exception to the systemic shift towards lower levels of armed conflict. (p. 421) The ‘war-torn Africa’ view is out of date. Contrary to pessimistic forecasts, the reality is that Africa has become dramatically more peaceful over the last 15 years. Not only has the 1990s surge of violence abated, but the level of warfare is lower now than in any other post-colonial decade. A good case can be made that Africa is more peaceful now, in relative and absolute terms, than at any time in history. (p. 422) According to either data source, Africans now face a lower risk of death from armed conflict than during any other post-independence decade. The UCDP data shows nearly a 90 per cent reduction in the mortality rate from battle deaths… War is less of a threat to life in Africa than everyday accidental injuries or non-political violence. War not only kills fewer people than do malaria or HIV, but kills fewer people than many less prominent disease do. (p. 429)

Helia Ighani is a research associate in the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. Iraq appears to be coming apart at the seams. The Sunni terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has expanded dramatically across Iraq over the past few months and murdered more than fourteen hundred Iraqis in August alone, and Iran is one-upping the United States in efforts to regain control. Both countries are actively involved in Iraq’s crisis, but have differing objectives for the future of the country. As the Obama administration strategizes on how to address the threat of ISIS, it should continue to build a coalition and refrain from working solely with Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s leadership historically swore off working with the United States. However, on September 5, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that he is willing to coordinate military operations with the United States in Iraq. The two countries do not have a great history of operating in war zones together. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Iran has increasingly exerted its influence in Iraq by helping train militias, which on occasion attacked U.S. troops prior to the end of the occupation in 2011. This summer, the United States and Iran both began arming the Kurdish peshmerga in the fight against ISIS. However, Iran has gone further than the United States. The president of Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous state, Massoud Barzani, explained: “We asked for weapons, and Iran was the first country to provide us with weapons and ammunition.” There are reports of Iranian soldiers fighting alongside Iraqi Shia, training and funding up to twenty thousand Iraqi militiamen, and backing several Iraqi Shia militias. Other reports indicate that hundreds, or potentially thousands, of Iranian soldiers have joined the Kurds to fight ISIS. Meanwhile, the United States—which has launched nearly one hundred and fifty airstrikes on ISIS strongholds and sent more than four hundred advisors to train and advise the Iraqi military—did not “have a strategy yet” on how to deal with ISIS. President Obama clarified at the NATO summit on September 5 that the United States intends to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS. He is expected to deliver a statement on his long-term strategy toward ISIS today. While both countries wish to see a stable Iraq, they have different endgames in mind. The United States wants to ensure it has a strong, dependable partner in the Middle East that is free of Iranian meddling. It has spent approximately $1.7 trillion since 2003 on the Iraq war and lost many American lives, and does not want to see those efforts go to waste. Iran, on the other hand, desires to keep a Shia government in power and play down Sunni influence in the region. As the largest Shia nation in the world, Iran continues to exert its dominance in Iraqi politics. Iraq has the second largest Shia population in the world at 65 percent, after Iran with 90 percent. The two countries also share a sizeable Kurdish population, distributed with about five million in Iraq and eight million in Iran. As ISIS attempts to carve out a caliphate in the Middle East, the United States and other allies should find a way to push back ISIS’s territorial gains and help bolster Iraq’s newly formed unity government. Rather than working solo with Iran and emboldening Shia domination of power in Iraq, the United States should continue to build its coalition—which so far includes Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Poland, and Denmark—and encourage Arab League members to join in a collective response to ISIS. Of the six countries that share a border with Iraq, Saudi Arabia is its biggest humanitarian donor, recently giving $500 million to help displaced Iraqis. The Saudis could serve as a counterweight in the sectarian narrative, helping to balance Sunni-Shia competition in Iraq. Additionally, longtime ally Jordan may have a role to play. It has borne the brunt of spillover from Syria’s civil war, has increased security concerns and is seeking greater assistance from the United States. The Obama administration should continue to support the Iraqi government and help defuse religious and ethnic tensions. This can be achieved by working closely with Iraqi leaders to ensure a lasting power-sharing agreement between Sunni and Shia Iraqis, as well as the Kurds. As ISIS’s reach and influence continues to pose a threat to Iraq’s territorial sovereignty and regional stability—with the group now estimated to have upwards of ten thousand fighters, including as many as three thousand foreign nationals—the United States should develop a comprehensive policy to dismantle ISIS and secure Iraq in the long term. By not addressing the situation swiftly and effectively, the United States will fall further behind Iran, ISIS will continue to make political and territorial gains, and sectarian narrative will continue to thrive.

Harry Oppenheimer is a research associate for national security at the Council on Foreign Relations. The conviction of John Foster Dulles—Secretary of State under Eisenhower in the 1950s, shaper of NATO, and lead architect of Rollback—about the most effective method of maintaining global peace and stability stands in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s foreign policy of remaining flexible and cautious. At the center of Dulles’ strong beliefs, as he remarked in his book War or Peace, was the importance of clear intentions in international affairs. “It is the theory and hope of the proponents of the [NATO] treaty that by thus making clear in advance what we will do in the event of an attack on Western Europe, that attack will not, in fact, occur.” Dulles believed that the main threat to global stability is miscalculation by state actors attributed to broadly-defined interests and weak signals of breaking points—where aggression becomes a cause for full-scale conflict. When interests are broad they become difficult to defend, and ambiguous intentions risk leaving the breaking point open to interpretation. Furthermore, stated policy positions must be matched by action in order to maintain credibility. President Obama’s foreign policy is characterized by reluctance to state and defend strong positions on international issues. U.S. policy in Syria, Ukraine, and Iraq share one characteristic—an ambiguous articulation of American interests. The intent is to allow flexibility and choice, and prevent being pulled into conflicts. Policymakers would be well advised to look back for a significant counterpoint and understand the potential consequences of such a strategy. America doesn’t want its limits to be tested or foreign actors to see how far they can push; this is not only a clear goal of American foreign policy but also of the international community at large. Today, Russia is testing these limits and the costs of the United States’ ambiguous foreign policy are evident. The downing of MH17 by Russian supplied missile systems, buildup of troops along the Russia-Ukraine border, and aid convoy heading for Ukraine have significantly escalated the conflict and tested the willingness of the United States to respond to a threat of instability in Eastern Europe.  The Kremlin assumed that the risk of an international incident was outweighed by the strategic advantage that heavy weapons provided for the rebels and presence of troops along the border; this assumption is now going to be tested. Letting it get to this point is a strategic blunder of U.S. foreign policy. No one knew exactly what the United States’ reaction would be if Russia supplied heavy weapons to the Ukrainian rebels. But in the future, for example, if the Russian military overtly invaded Ukraine, would the United States and NATO take action? What will be the reaction to Russian aid convoys? If the Malaysia Airlines flight was an American Airlines flight, would the United States have already intervened? The risks of guessing the answer to these questions are that eventually the United States will be forced to act beyond where it is comfortable, an outcome no one wants. Already, Bashar al-Assad knows how to test the U.S. and NATO responses, and three years into the Syrian Civil War the international community still cannot define U.S. interests in the conflict. The civil war has been marred by widespread torture and killing of political prisoners opposed to Assad, and use of chemical weapons on an industrial scale against non-combatants. However, at each stage, U.S. strategy has been to avoid direct action even when clear lines have been crossed. By keeping U.S. interests ambiguous the United States feels confident in its ability to stay out of conflict. However, every policy has a breaking point. Now, when U.S. interests are threatened the country saves face by redefining its agenda, but what happens when this becomes impossible? The risk is that, over time, it becomes very easy for other countries to miscalculate exactly where the United States draws the line, forcing it to escalate conflicts beyond where it is comfortable. Subsequently, the potential for even greater and unavoidable conflict increases. It would be easy to dismiss Dulles’ advice as reflective only of the bipolar world order of his day, but this would be a mistake. Greater global stability and lower risk of conflict could be achieved by a more clearly articulated foreign policy that lowers the potential for other countries to miscalculate the United States’ willingness to project force abroad. As Russia evaluates the risks of an invasion of Eastern Ukraine it would be advised to look at the lessons provided by Germany before WWI and WWII. As Dulles remarked, both the Kaiser and later Hitler miscalculated the response of allies to take action when their partners were threatened in Europe. They acted without certainty of the outcome, and history demonstrates how wrong the Kaiser and Hitler were. In the end, the costs for both sides and the world at large were massive. Today, Russian aid convoys race toward the Ukraine border and NATO Secretary General Rasmussen believes that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is “likely.” The United States should make its intentions clear so that the Kremlin doesn’t make the same error as Germany in 1914 or 1941, and opposing sides don’t suffer greater consequences than necessary. This would require a shift in the way President Obama conducts foreign policy, but it is a necessary change. A first step would be a commitment to Ukraine that goes beyond political rhetoric and demonstrates the United States’ resolve in the region. Knowing precisely where the United States stands is one of the best ways to ensure that Russia never has to discover how far it was willing to go.