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Women on the Frontlines of Peace and Security
No full textThere is a growing body of evidence that shows how outcomes are better for whole societies when women participate in peace talks, security-sector planning, and reconstruction efforts. For example, women often raise day-to-day issues such as human rights, citizen security, employment, and health care, which make peace and security plans more relevant and more durable. They speak on behalf of marginalized groups, often crossing cultural and sectarian divides, which helps give voice to everyone seeking a peaceful future. And once consensus is reached, women can help translate peace from an agreement on paper into changes that make a real difference in people’s lives.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/books-and-book-chapters/1009/thumbnail.jp
Joint Force Quarterly 76 (1st Quarter, January 2015)
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/jfq-full-issue/1037/thumbnail.jp
Defense Partnerships: Documenting Trends and Emerging Topics for Action
No full textPublic-public and public-private and partnerships (P4s) are time-proven effective solutions for delivering public services at reasonable costs when deployed and managed properly. Various U.S. agencies1 and international organizations all have longstanding successful P4 initiatives and projects. Recently, Department of Defense (DOD) leaders have expressed increased interest in implementing P4s throughout their organizations.2 As DOD is faced with evolving roles and missions in an “unpredictable and complex world amid fiscal constraints, the expertise and involvement of the private sector and other public organizations will be essential.”3 P4s could be ideal tools intended to “further policy objectives, enhance U.S. operational capabilities, reduce costs, gain access to nonmilitary expertise or assets, or build greater capacity in partners.”4https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/defense-horizons/1006/thumbnail.jp
Red China\u27s Capitalist Bomb : Inside the Chinese Neutron Bomb Program
No full textThis paper examines why China developed an enhanced radiation weapon (ERW) but did not deploy it. ERWs, better known as “neutron bombs,” are specialized nuclear weapons with reduced blast effects and enhanced radiation, making them ideal tactical and antipersonnel weapons. Declassified U.S. intelligence and Chinese press reports indicate the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was interested in an ERW in 1977 and successfully tested a device on September 29, 1988. To date, however, these sources provide no evidence of deployment. This study exploits primary source documents to reconstruct the ERW program’s history, assesses drivers behind decisions throughout the program, and considers broader implications for PRC decisionmaking on weapons development. This case study suggests a model of a “technology reserve” in which China develops a weapons technology to match the capabilities of another state but defers deployment. This paper presents an analytic framework for examining how the technology reserve model might apply to China’s decisionmaking on ballistic missile defense (BMD), antisatellite (ASAT), and hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) systems.
The framework considers five variables as potential drivers of China’s ERW decisionmaking. Specifically, it assesses the strategic environment of the PRC, the strategic value and normative value of the ERW, as well as the resource demands and technical feasibility of the ERW program. The framework also considers coalition politics of the ERW program as an intervening variable that influenced each of the above variables throughout the program’s history. The ERW program’s history comprised three phases:
1. 1977–1980: Decision and Initial Research. In 1977, Chinese media followed the controversy over the U.S. decision to develop and deploy an ERW in Europe. Soviet media denounced the ERW and grew concerned at China’s silence on the controversy. After General Zhang Aiping [张爱萍] signaled the PRC’s interest in the ERW in the People’s Daily, scientists involved in the ERW program (herein referred as the weaponeers) began initial research and development (R&D). Some weaponeers argued against developing the ERW, worrying that it was unnecessary and would disrupt higher priority work on warhead miniaturization. Ultimately, they acquiesced to orders and combined the ERW and warhead miniaturization research to master common principles of the two systems.
2. 1980–1984: Research and Development. In 1980, General Zhang told a member of a visiting U.S. delegation that China needed the ERW as a hedge against the Soviets. The weapon fit into China’s military strategic guideline of “active defense” to defend against a Soviet armored thrust and invasion. By then, the weaponeers were dividing the ERW problem into constituent parts, or “principles,” and solving them individually. From 1982 to 1984, China conducted five tests related to the ERW and warhead miniaturization. On December 19, 1984, the weaponeers conducted a successful “principles breakthrough” test. One weaponeer metaphorically described the successful test by saying that “the second generation of light boats has passed the bridge.”
3. 1985–1988: Pause and Reevaluation. In 1985, China halted nuclear testing for 30 months. The pause coincided with a Soviet moratorium on testing and a leadership reshuffle that neutralized ERW proponent General Zhang. In 1986, the weaponeers warned PRC leaders that the United States and Soviet Union could conclude a nuclear test ban treaty, and they proposed accelerated testing to complete warhead designs. The Central Committee approved the report and provided funding. On September 29, 1988, China successfully tested an ERW design and added it to what one weaponeer called the “technology reserve.”
No variable individually explains the ERW program’s decisions and outcomes. A tense strategic environment and the ERW’s high strategic value against Soviet armored divisions correlate with the program’s R&D but do not explain the fi al test in a more relaxed strategic environment. Similarly, the ERW’s normative value was initially high as a technological achievement, but a taboo against the weapon was fi mly in place before the fi al test. Resource demands and technological feasibility were challenges at the program’s beginning, and even after the weaponeers combined ERW and miniaturization research to conserve resources, the program still stalled in 1985. The 1988 fi al ERW design test for China’s “technology reserve” reflects both a hedge against changes in China’s strategic environment and the culmination of research. The evidence is incomplete, but it indicates that an ERW coalition led by General Zhang Aiping championed the program from 1977 to 1984 but fell apart before the ERW’s completion.
This analytic framework and “technology reserve” model of matching a capability but deferring deployment help frame analyses of the PRC’s decisionmaking for its BMD, ASAT, and HGV programs. A cursory analysis indicates arms control possibilities for BMD, continued development of ASAT capabilities, and multiple possible outcomes for HGV development.
Key themes and lessons from the ERW case study include the following: Strong leaders versus institutional capacity. Coalitions with strong leaders such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhang Aiping drove the ERW program in a time of weak institutions. Today, China’s weapons development processes are more institutionalized but are still susceptible to factional politics. Technology parity as an ideological imperative. Matching other states’ military technologies is an extension of Chinese techno-nationalism into weapons development decisions. Importance of potential adversaries’ reactions. Soviet alarm over the ERW as a disruptive capability made the weapon more attractive to Chinese leaders. U.S. reactions to contemporary PRC weapons systems should be calm. Need to update Chinese open-source research techniques. This research benefited from studies on Chinese open-source research techniques, but such literature is dated. Newer sources such as social media, blogs, chat rooms, and updated databases highlight the need for more current discussions.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/china-strategic-perspectives/1011/thumbnail.jp
Joint Force Quarterly 78 (3rd Quarter, July 2015)
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/jfq-full-issue/1035/thumbnail.jp
The Nightmare Years to Come?
No full textWe have entered a particularly dangerous era in the Near East and South Asia— that is, the Greater Middle East. The context of today’s situation is more alarming than respective current crises—as bad as they may be. Rather, there is an increasingly radicalized and violent sectarian environment made up of crosscutting crises occurring in the midst of proliferation; precision weapons; cyber war; increased ungoverned territory vulnerable to global, regional, and local jihadist exploitation; majoritarian authoritarianism; uncompromising sectarianism; ethnic, tribal, and sectarian-driven civil wars; massive popular anger and frustration over the lack of essential services and a diminishing quality of life, particularly in areas such as water, electricity, health, education, employment, and economic collapse; water wars and environmental endangerment; and the vulnerability of sensitive infrastructure targeted by state and nonstate actors, or an empowered lone wolf in the service of a state or nonstate actors.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/strategic-monographs/1009/thumbnail.jp
The Future of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Their Nature and Role in 2030
No full textThe longstanding efforts of the international community writ large to exclude weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from international competition and conflict could be undermined in 2030. The proliferation of these weapons is likely to be harder to prevent and thus potentially more prevalent. Nuclear weapons are likely to play a more significant role in the international security environment, and current constraints on the proliferation and use of chemical and biological weapons could diminish. There will be greater scope for WMD terrorism, though it is not possible to predict the frequency or severity of any future employment of WMD. New forms of WMD—beyond chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons—are unlikely to emerge by 2030, but cyber weapons will probably be capable of inflicting such widespread disruption that the United States may become as reliant on the threat to impose unacceptable costs to deter large-scale cyber attack as it currently is to deter the use of WMD. The definition of weapons of mass destruction will remain uncertain and controversial in 2030, and its value as an analytic category will be increasingly open to question.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/wmd-occasional-papers/1002/thumbnail.jp
Policy Challenges of Accelerating Technological Change: Security Policy and Strategy Implications of Parallel Scientific Revolutions
No full textThis paper examines policy, legal, ethical, and strategy implications for national security of the accelerating science, technology, and engineering (ST&E) revolutions underway in five broad areas: biology, robotics, information, nanotechnology, and energy (BRINE), with a particular emphasis on how they are interacting. The paper considers the timeframe between now and 2030 but emphasizes policy and related choices that need to be made in the next few years to shape the future competitive space favorably, and focuses on those decisions that are within U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) purview. The pace and complexity of technological change mean that linear predictions of current needs cannot be the basis for effective guidance or management for the future. These are issues for policymakers and commanders, not just technical specialists.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/defense-tech-papers/1002/thumbnail.jp
The Indian Jihadist Movement: Evolution and Dynamics
No full textThe Indian jihadist movement remains motivated primarily by domestic grievances rather than India-Pakistan dynamics. However, it is far more lethal than it otherwise would have been without external support from the Pakistani state, Pakistani and Bangladeshi jihadist groups, and the ability to leverage Bangladesh, Nepal, and certain Persian Gulf countries for sanctuary and as staging grounds for attacks in India. External support for the Indian mujahideen (IM) from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and Pakistan-based militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) persists, but the question of command and control is more difficult to discern. The IM is best viewed as an LeT associate rather than an LeT affiliate.https://digitalcommons.ndu.edu/inss-strategic-perspectives/1025/thumbnail.jp