The Changing Nature of the Afghan-Pakistan War

Streaming video requires RealPlayer to view.The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.Anthony Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also a national security analyst for ABC News. His analysis has been featured prominently during the Gulf War, Desert Fox, the conflict in Kosovo, the fighting in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpage, streaming video, event photo

The U.S. Military and the Evolving Challenges in the Middle East

The Naval War College has two main missions: to educate future leaders and to help define the future Navy. These are, remarkably, the basic mis- sions for which the College was established over a century ago. The times have certainly changed, the technology of maritime warfare has improved, and the geopolitical landscape would hardly be recognizable to our founder, Stephen B. Luce. But the mission has remained constant—to be a force for change and to serve as the intellectual center of the Navy

Dark Victory: America’s Second War against Iraq,

Interventions by the United Nations for the purpose of establishing and main- taining peace have a mixed record. Some have been reasonably successful, such as in East Timor, while others, such as Rwanda, have not. Roméo Dallaire, the author, a retired lieutenant general in the Canadian army, suggests that efforts by the United Nations Secu- rity Council largely depend upon the location of the problem area. East Timor, just to the north of Australia and on the flank of major shipping routes, met the requirements. Rwanda, in his opinion, did not

Transnational Threats from the Middle East: Crying Wolf or Crying Havoc?

There is no doubt that the Middle East can present significant potential threats to the West. The author of this monograph examines these threats in order to put them into perspective--to distinguish between crying wolf and crying havoc. After thorough analysis, he contends that the problems caused by narcotics and organized crime, immigration, terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction do not as yet require draconian action by the Western nations. However, he asserts that if the threats of Middle Eastern terrorism and proliferation were to be combined into super- terrorism, the result would create a new form of asymmetric warfare for which the West is singularly ill-prepared. Professor Anthony H. Cordesman, an internationally recognized expert of long-standing on these issues, has provided this comprehensive assessment. Presented originally at the U.S. Army War College--Pepperdine University cosponsored conference on Mediterranean Security into the Coming Millennium, held October 26-27,1998, in Florence, Italy, his appraisal is a valuable reference for analysts who are studying the potential consequences of these threats to U.S. security.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1846/thumbnail.jp

Relinquishing and Governing the Volatile: The Many Afghanistans and Critical Research Agendas of NATO's Governance

This article invites academics and policy analysts to examine the mechanisms and legacy of NATO's security and development governance of Afghan social spaces by using critical theory concepts. It argues that such scholarly endeavors are growing in importance as the United States and NATO gradually pull their troops out of Afghanistan. Thus, the article suggests a broad twofold research agenda. First, it points out that researching social spaces such as towns, villages, marketplaces, and neighborhoods beyond the realm of intergovernmental politics can lead to thick descriptions of how such places have been governed from within by agents external to them. Second, the study argues for a multifaceted examination of instruments, strategies, and institutions of security governance, its conduct and social effects by deploying critical and Foucauldian concepts such as the rationality and apparatuses of power relations. Thereby, it proposes an inquiry into Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Afghan National Security Forces as spatially and temporally specific apparatuses of surveillance and security

NATO and Ukraine: Reshaping NATO to Meet the Russian and Chinese Challenge

There is no way to predict whether Russia will actually take military action against Ukraine, what kind of actions it will take, and how serious the military results will be at the time of this writing. What is already clear, however, is that the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are not prepared for a serious military challenge from Russia. It is equally clear that the U.S. blundered badly under the Trump administration by focusing on burden-sharing rather than developing an effective mix of U.S. forces and a coherent effort to correct the many shortfalls in European forces. Furthermore, it is clear that NATO is not making any serious real-world effort to improve its capabilities.The U.S. did provide some $2.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine following the Russian seizure of the Crimea and the Russian military intervention in Eastern Ukraine in 2014. The U.S. did make some improvements in the forces it deployed to Europe. NATO European states also made limited improvements, and various NATO countries took action to improve the speed with which U.S. and European forces could deploy forward in a crisis.The Russian buildup has also led the U.S. to respond by accelerating improvements, albeit limited, to its own forces. Several NATO European countries have also rushed aid and deployed small military elements forwardNevertheless, it is all too clear from this analysis on the size of current European forces by country as well as from any analysis of the current military balance between NATO and Russia why the U.S. has threatened to use sanctions against Russia as a substitute for military capability. Regardless of how the current crisis develops, NATO will now need to make far more effective efforts to improve its forces, make them interoperable, and deal with the challenges posed by the lack of any real integration and by emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs)