Archive for the ‘Asia’ Category
Monday, July 26th, 2010
Australia’s military involvement in Afghanistan since 2001: a chronology
Source: Parliamentary Library of Australia
While this chronology aims to provide a comprehensive view of Australia’s military commitment in Afghanistan—including, where possible, the individual ADF units deployed as part of Operation Slipper—it should be noted that each personnel deployment is not necessarily reported publicly via official channels and some details are not in the public domain. It is also important to note that the nature of military operations is fairly dynamic; personnel figures can alter daily due to continuous insertion and extraction activities. These factors impinge on the exercise of determining how many boots are on the ground at any given moment. As a baseline and for consistency, the Department of Defence provides an authorised personnel figure for each financial year—it is these estimates that are drawn upon in the table at Appendix 1. Also included in the table are the budget figures, where available, for each financial year of the campaign.
Posted in Afghanistan, Australia and New Zealand, Military and defense | No Comments »
Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010
Source: Wikileaks
WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary (AWD), an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related detail.
The document collection will shortly be available on a dedicated webpage.
The reports cover most units from the US Army with the exception of most US Special Forces’ activities. The reports do not generally cover top-secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations.
We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.
The data is provided in CSV and SQL formats, sorted by months, and also was rendered into KML mapping data.
Posted in Afghanistan, Government and politics, International Relations, Military and defense | No Comments »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
“We can’t go on the way we are” — U.S. Proposals for a Fissile Material Production Cutoff and Disarmament Diplomacy during the 1950s and 60s
Source: National Security Archive
U.S. presidents long before President Obama have sought an international fissile material cutoff off treaty but the reasons they have failed remain with us today, according to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive. The proposed treaty would cut off the worldwide production of fissile material–plutonium and highly-enriched uranium–for nuclear weapons. (Note 1) According to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first president to propose a cutoff, “we have always said it is not technically feasible to ban the bomb now but we have actively urged the cutoff as a first step.” President Obama echoed Eisenhower’s argument in his speech in Prague at Hradcany Square on April 5, 2009, where he endorsed a cutoff treaty, along with a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons and as part of his long-term nuclear abolition commitment.
The documents suggest that the fissile material production cutoff was integral to Cold War propaganda and diplomatic campaigns, which helps explain why it failed during the 1960s. (Note 2) During the 1950s and 1960s, when superpower tensions, massive production of nuclear weapons, and atmospheric nuclear tests stoked fear of nuclear war worldwide, both U.S. and Soviet heads of state tried to reduce fears with disarmament proposals, but they never let diplomacy trump their military postures. Even the strength of U.S. support for the cutoff depended on shifting military perceptions of the U.S.-Soviet balance of fissile materials stockpiles. Under such circumstances, the nuclear disarmament proposals that Moscow and Washington offered were largely nonnegotiable, whatever their merits may have been.
Documents in PDF.
Posted in Government and politics, International Relations, Military and defense, National security, Russia | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Endgame for the West in Afghanistan? Explaining the Decline in Support for the War in Afghanistan in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, France and Germany
Source: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
Domestic public opinion is frequently and correctly described as a crucial battlefront in the war in Afghanistan. Commentary by media and political figures currently notes not only the falling support for the war in the United States but also in many of its key allies in Europe and elsewhere, making it all the more difficult for the Obama administration to secure the help it believes it needs to bring the war to a successful conclusion. This study is an extensive examination of the determinants of domestic support for and opposition to the war in Afghanistan in the United States and in five of its key allies–the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, and Australia. Tracing the trajectory of public opinion on the war from the original invasion in 2001 to the fall of 2009, this paper concludes that the combination of mounting casualties with a declining belief that the war could be won by the Coalition is the key factor driving the drop in support. Other factors, such as the deployment of numerous and shifting rationales by the political leadership in various countries, and the breakdown of elite consensus have played important but secondary roles in this process.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
Posted in Afghanistan, Government and politics, International Relations, Military and defense | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010
Reconstruction Under Fire: Case Studies and Further Analysis of Civil Requirements
Source: RAND Corporation
Successful counterinsurgency (COIN) requires the integration of security and civil COIN to create conditions that allow the population to choose between the government and insurgents, eliminate the grievances that gave rise to the insurgency, and present the population with choices that are more attractive than what the insurgents can offer. Building on a framework for integrating civil and military counterinsurgency first described in Reconstruction Under Fire: Unifying Civil and Military Counterinsurgency, this volume presents an approach to the civil component of counterinsurgency that builds on detailed background, context analysis, and threat analysis to identify and develop critical civil COIN activities. It illustrates this approach using three case studies: Nangarhar province in Afghanistan, Nord-Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Al Anbar province in Iraq. The approach builds on the best aspects of existing conflict assessment methodologies and adds new elements developed specifically for this project. The resulting framework goes beyond the strategic and operational decisions related to designing a program that is appropriate for a given conflict context.
Posted in Afghanistan, International Relations, Middle East, Military and defense, Social and cultural issues, Terrorism | No Comments »
Monday, July 12th, 2010
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Korea? New Archive Document Collection Sheds Light on Nixon’s Frustrating Search for Military Options
Source: National Security Archive
Four decades ago, in response to North Korean military provocations, the U.S. developed contingency plans that included selected use of tactical nuclear weapons against Pyongyang’s military facilities and the possibility of full-scale war, according to recently declassified documents. Astonishingly, casualty estimates ranged from a low of 100 or so civilian deaths, up to “several thousand.”
Newly-elected President Richard Nixon and his key advisors, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and JCS Chairman Earle Wheeler, considered a menu of possible military actions against North Korea, from carefully targeted attacks on North Korean military facilities, to a plan codenamed FREEDOM DROP for limited nuclear strikes (with surprisingly limited casualty expectations), to all-out war using nuclear weapons. The Pentagon drew up these plans as the result of North Korea’s downing of a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Japan in April 1969 — just one in a long set of military provocations by Pyongyang that continues to the present.
Yet, in another pattern that would be repeated in the years since then, Nixon and his advisors were forced to heed the Pentagon’s warnings that anything short of massive attacks on North Korea’s military power would risk igniting a wider conflagration on the peninsula, leaving diplomacy, with all its frustrations, as the remaining option, coupled with the deterrent posed by U.S. conventional and nuclear forces. These vexing issues confront the Obama administration today as it seeks to forge an effective response to North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean warship last March.
The National Security Archive obtained the documents posted today through multiple Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests to the U.S. government. They are part of a major new collection consisting of almost 1,700 documents, The United States and the Two Koreas, 1969-2000, which the Archive is publishing through ProQuest, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korea War on June 25th, 1950.
Documents in PDF.
Posted in Asia, Government and politics, International Relations, Military and defense | No Comments »
Saturday, July 10th, 2010
Afghan perceptions and experiences of corruption, a national survey 2010
Source: Integrity Watch Afghanistan
Corruption is rampant and has become more entrenched in all areas of life in Afghanistan. The Afghan population as a whole paid twice as much in 2009 as it had paid in 2006. Bribery today represents a burden of 1 billion USD on the Afghan GDP. One adult in seven experienced direct bribery in Afghanistan in 2009 while 28% of Afghan households paid a bribe to obtain at least one public service.
This is the second corruption survey produced by Integrity Watch Afghanistan in a continuous effort to increase transparency, integrity and accountability through policy-oriented research. The survey which was conducted at the end of 2009 in 32 provinces of Afghanistan covering a representative sample of 6,500 respondents assesses the impact of corruption on the relationship between Afghan citizens and the state, the trust in state and non-state institutions, the perceived support of the international community for anti-corruption efforts and the links of corruption and perceptions of corruption with insurgency and conflict. The survey is focused on petty or administrative corruption, which has the most direct and widespread effects on Afghan citizens.
The findings of this survey shows that corruption threatens the legitimacy of state-building, badly affects state-society relations, feeds frustration and the support for the insurgency, leads to increasing inequality, impedes the rule of law according to Afghan standards, hinders access to basic public services, which impacts the poor most severely, and has a major negative effect on economic development.
+ Full Report
Posted in Afghanistan, Ethics, Social and cultural issues | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Uncertainties in the North Korean Nuclear Threat
Source: RAND Corporation
North Korea has been very successful in denying the United States and others information about its nuclear weapon program. The result is a high degree of uncertainty about the size and character of the North Korean nuclear weapon threat, how it might be used, and what impact it might have. This briefing addresses those uncertainties. Estimates of the number and nature of North Korean nuclear weapons depend heavily on how much external help the program has received; there is some evidence that help has included the provision of fissile material and assistance in the design of nuclear weapons, including miniaturization for ballistic missiles. North Korea uses its nuclear weapons actively in peacetime for deterrence and to obtain leverage. It could use them heavily in a war. If its force is as large as the uncertainties suggest it might be, North Korea could establish its nuclear weapon capabilities and intent to use them from early on in a war. Like other countries that have developed small nuclear forces, North Korea could threaten adversary cities (mainly in Japan and the Republic of Korea) to control escalation and the developments in a war, striving for some hope of victory. If North Korea actually attacked a city such as Seoul with a nuclear weapon, it could result in hundreds of thousands of casualties, as well as serious damage to the South Korean economy.
Posted in Asia, Government and politics, Military and defense, National security | No Comments »
Monday, July 5th, 2010
The Diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, 1990
Source: National Security Archive
Today the National Security Archive publishes its fifth installment of the diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, the man who was behind some of the most momentous transformations in Soviet foreign policy at the end of the 1980s in his role as Mikhail Gorbachev’s chief foreign policy aide. In addition to his contributions to perestroika and new thinking, Anatoly Sergeevich Chernyaev was and remains a strong proponent of openness and transparency, providing his diaries and notes to historians trying to understand the end of the Cold War. This section of the diary, covering 1990—a tragic year, according to Chernyaev—is published here in English for the first time.
Mikhail Gorbachev and Anatoly Chernyaev
By the end of 1989, even after the peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe, it seemed that events in Europe were developing according to Gorbachev’s vision—integration of a new democratic Soviet Union into Europe on the model of the common European home. The December 1989 meeting with President George Bush at Malta confirmed the U.S.-Soviet partnership and agreement on the main outlines of European transformation. However, already early in 1990, it was becoming clear that the swift process of German unification was undermining the evolutionary developments that in Gorbachev’s mind would lead to the transformation of the two blocs. Eventually, the Soviet Union accepted German unification in NATO and began to pull its troops out of Eastern Europe, including East Germany, spurring discontent and opposition in the ranks of the military and the still strong Communist Party.
Domestically, 1990 became the year when political forces in the country became polarized with the Inter-regional Group of Deputies in the Supreme Soviet crystallizing as the liberal-democratic opposition to Gorbachev, led by Andrei Sakharov and Boris Yeltsin, and the conservative forces consolidating around the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. In the diary entries included in this posting, Chernyaev observes Gorbachev trying to find a balance between these two poles and eventually moving closer to the latter. Chernyaev often shows his frustration and even disillusionment with his leader, questioning his reformist credentials and doubting Gorbachev’s personal loyalty to his adviser. In this section of the diary one hears deep concerns about the fate of perestroika and the Soviet Union itself.
+ Full Document
Posted in Government and politics, International Relations, Russia | No Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
Rising Wages: Has China Lost Its Global Labor Advantage? (PDF)
Source: Institute for the Study of Labor
We document dramatic rising wages in China for the period 1978-2007 based on multiple sources of aggregate statistics. Although real wages increased seven-fold during the period, growth was uneven across ownership types, industries and regions. Since the late 1990s, the wages of state-owned enterprises have increased rapidly and wage disparities between skill-intensive and labor-intensive industries have widened. Comparisons of international data show that China’s manufacturing wage has already converged to that of Asian emerging markets, but China still enjoys enormous labor cost advantages over its neighboring developed economies. Our analysis suggests that China’s wage growth will stabilize to a moderate pace in the near future.
Posted in Business and economics, China, Globalization, Labor | No Comments »
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs Release of Foreign Relations, 1969-1976, Volume VIII, Vietnam, January-October, 1972
Source: U.S. Department of State
The Department of State released today Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume VIII, Vietnam, January–October 1972. Few issues engaged President Richard M. Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs, Henry A. Kissinger, more than those associated with the Vietnam war. This specific volume documents U.S. policy toward the war in Vietnam from January 20 to October 7, 1972.
The Easter Offensive, and its ramifications, represents the most significant event in Indochina for U.S. policy in this period, and documentary coverage of the event dominates the volume, concentrating mainly on what happened in North and South Vietnam, policy formulation and decision-making in Washington, and the negotiations in Paris. Only a very small number of documents relate to events and policy in Laos and Cambodia, and then only as they relate to events and policy in Vietnam.
Documents in this volume examine the link between force and diplomacy in U.S. national security policy toward the Vietnam war. In the period the volume covers, force drove diplomacy. Only by recognizing this can the process by which America’s Vietnam war policy was formulated and implemented be fully understood. Controlling the process was a small circle of men, led by President Richard M. Nixon, and which included the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Henry A. Kissinger; the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs, Major General Alexander M. Haig; and a few National Security Council officials trusted by Kissinger.
Posted in Asia, Government and politics, International Relations, Military and defense | No Comments »
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
U.S.-Russia Relations: “Reset” Fact Sheet
Source: White House Press Office
In one of his earliest new foreign policy initiatives, President Obama sought to reset relations with Russia and reverse what he called a “dangerous drift” in this important bilateral relationship. President Obama and his administration have sought to engage the Russian government to pursue foreign policy goals of common interest – win-win outcomes — for the American and Russian people. In parallel to this engagement with the Russian government, President Obama and his administration also have engaged directly with Russian society — as well as facilitated greater contacts between American and Russian business leaders, civil society organizations, and students — as a way to promote our economic interests, enhance mutual understanding between our two nations, and advance universal values. On the occasion of President Medvedev’s visit to the United States and one year after President Obama visited Russia, it is time to take stock of what has been achieved from this change in policy and what remains to be done in developing a more substantive relationship with Russia.
See also: U.S. – Russia Joint Statements
Posted in Government and politics, International Relations, Russia | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
The ‘AfPak policy’ and the Pashtuns (PDF)
Source: House of Commons Library Research Papers
The first part of this paper focuses on the Pashtuns, beginning with a survey of the geographic, historical and cultural factors which have shaped Pashtun identities in Afghanistan and Pakistan before going on to describe the political and security arrangements under which they currently live. The paper then reviews the Pashtun armed militant groups currently operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The second part of the paper then looks at the US AfPak policy, setting out its origins and evolution before assessing the prospects for success over the coming year and beyond.
Posted in Afghanistan, Ethnic, International Relations, Military and defense, Social and cultural issues, Terrorism | No Comments »
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Progress towards nuclear disarmament?
Source: House of Commons Library (UK)
In April 2009 President Obama set out his vision for a world without nuclear weapons, and in doing so laid the groundwork for renewed international efforts to strengthen and advance the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime. Over the past year that momentum has translated into the agreement of a successor to the US-Russia START treaty, global commitments to secure highly vulnerable nuclear materials within four years and the establishment, at the May 2010 Review Conference, of an action plan in support of the three main pillars of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This paper examines the prospects for achieving that vision of ‘global zero’.
Posted in Government and politics, International Relations, Military and defense, Russia | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
The Washington/Camp David Summit 1990: From the Secret Soviet, American and German Files
Source: National Security Archive
The Washington summit 20 years ago this month between Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev brought dramatic realization on the American side of the severe domestic political pressures facing the Soviet leader, produced an agreement in principle on trade but no breakthrough on Germany, and only slow progress towards the arms race in reverse which Gorbachev had offered, according to previously secret Soviet and U.S. documents posted today by the National Security Archive.
The largely symbolic achievements of the Washington summit memorialized in the documents contrast with subsequent published accounts claiming that the summit was a crucial turning point for German unification. (Note 1) The documents suggest other (non-American) points were more important, such as the March 1990 elections in East Germany, and the July 1990 meeting between Gorbachev and West German chancellor Helmut Kohl, in which Kohl offered significant financial aid and support for the Soviet troops in East Germany during a multi-year withdrawal process. (Note 2)
The documents show that Gorbachev came to the Washington summit in May 1990 under severe constraints from his own Central Committee (in marked contrast to previous summits). His marching orders, published here for the first time, reflect the dismay within leading Soviet circles over the loss of the Eastern European empire, resistance to Gorbachev’s demilitarization policy, and opposition to the unification of Germany.
Documents in PDF.
Posted in Europe, Government and politics, International Relations, National security, Russia | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
USITC Releases Annyal Report on U.S. Textile and Apparel Imports From China
Source: U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC)
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) today released its first annual compilation of bi-weekly reports on textile and apparel imports from China.
The report, Textile and Apparel Imports from China: Statistical Reports, Annual Compilation 2009, was requested by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means.
As requested, the USITC, an independent, nonpartisan, factfinding federal agency, produced an annual compilation of data that has been posted on a bi-weekly basis on the USITC website. The data in the report are shown on an annual and quarterly basis, by category and by Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) 10-digit subheadings.
By category, annual data are provided from 2003 through 2009, and quarterly data are provided from first quarter 2008 through fourth quarter 2009. By HTS10 subheading, annual data are provided from 2007 through 2009, and quarterly data are provided from first quarter 2008 through fourth quarter 2009.
+ Full Report (PDF)
Posted in Business and economics, China, Government and politics, International Relations | No Comments »
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
The Effect of Rural-to-Urban Migration on Obesity and Diabetes in India: A Cross-Sectional Study
Source: PLoS Medicine
Migration into urban areas is associated with increases in obesity, which drive other risk factor changes. Migrants have adopted modes of life that put them at similar risk to the urban population. Gender differences in some risk factors by place of origin are unexpected and require further exploration.
Posted in India, Obesity, Social and cultural issues | No Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2010
Indian Immigrants in the United States
Sourve: Migration Information Source/Migration Policy Institute
The United States is home to about 1.6 million Indian immigrants, making them the third-largest immigrant group in the United States after Mexican and Filipino immigrants. Between 2007 and 2008, the number of Indian immigrants surpassed the number of Chinese and Hong Kong-born immigrants for the first time since at least 1960.
Indian immigration to the United States, a fairly recent phenomenon, grew rapidly during the 1990s and 2000s. In addition, people with Indian ancestry have also immigrated to the United States from the Caribbean, East Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Indian immigrants are heavily concentrated in California and New Jersey (for more information on immigrants by state, please see the ACS/Census Data tool on the MPI Data Hub). Compared to other immigrant groups, the Indian foreign born are much better educated — nearly three-quarters of Indian-born adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher. About one-quarter of Indian-born men in the labor force work in the information technology industry.
This spotlight focuses on Indian immigrants residing in the United States, examining the population’s size, geographic distribution, and socioeconomic characteristics using data from the US Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey (ACS) and 2000 Decennial Census, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) for 2008 and 2009.
Posted in Ethnic, Immigration, India, Social and cultural issues | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
A Question of Balance? The Deficit and Defence Priorities
Source: Royal United Services Institute
Key Findings:
The deeper the immediate cuts that the MoD has to make, the greater the risks will be of capability reductions without commensurate financial gains.
The greatest efficiency saving of all would be to put the defence budget on to a sustainable path, in which plans are realistic and commitments are honoured.
Given plausible budget trends, a ‘balanced’ scenario for capability over the next decade could involve reducing ground force formations from 98 to 80, major vessels from 57 to 45, and aircraft numbers from 760 to 550–600.
A policy of balanced reductions would involve reducing ground force personnel numbers by around 20 per cent. This could require cuts in capabilities for armoured warfare, together with examination of more selective approaches to expeditionary operations.
As long as NATO is committed to Afghanistan, the UK could not easily decide to withdraw all of its own forces. But a review of the nature and size of its commitment, and the timing of any future reduction, could be conducted in parallel with the Review.
Balanced reductions could lead to steep falls in combat aircraft numbers and scrutiny of the Joint Combat Aircraft requirement which, even on a reduced buy of sixty aircraft, could cost £15–20 billion in life-time costs.
Most major powers with a carrier capability make do with only one vessel. A policy of balanced reductions could consider a similar option, and also review numbers of frigates, destroyers and submarines.
Alternative nuclear weapon delivery platforms are unlikely to achieve significant savings. But a re-examination of the timing of expenditure on Vanguard replacement, due to rise sharply after 2014, is still a possibility.
Cuts of 10-15 per cent in the defence budget will not alter the UK’s position as one of Europe’s two leading military powers. But its capability is likely to continue to decline compared with China, India and other rising powers.
+ Direct link to document (PDF; 400 KB)
Posted in Afghanistan, China, Europe, Government and politics, India, International, International Relations, Military and defense, National security, United Kingdom | No Comments »
Friday, June 11th, 2010
The Afghan War: Metrics, Narratives, and Winning the War
Source: Center for Strategic & International Studies (via Human Security Report Project)
No one approach to providing the proper mix of metrics and narratives in analyzing, fighting, and reporting on the Afghan conflict is “right,” and no unclassified, outside analysis cannot assess the fully range of what the US, ISAF, and allied countries are already doing. Moreover, the tasks involved include trying to deal with multiple “centers of gravity” in which US civil-military splits, other divisions within a 46-country alliance, problems in GIRoA, the fact this is both an Afghan and Pakistan conflict, and a foreign aid effort which is often decoupled from the reality that Afghanistan is at war all combine to vastly complicate the problems in providing an adequate mix of narratives and metrics. Accordingly, the Burke Chair has developed a report that focuses on the full range of problems in the reporting and metrics the author saw in a recent trip to Afghanistan, and has seen in US, ISAF, UN, and other reporting over the last eight years.
+ Full Report (PDF)
Posted in Afghanistan, International Relations, Military and defense | No Comments »
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