Publications

Written in the wake of the "9-11" terrorist attacks, this short paper lays out and draws conclusions from the long history of U.S. Navy involvement in what are now called "homeland defense" operations. Topics covered in the survey include: The submersibles and gunboats of the Revolution and the War of 1812; the creation (and subsequent reorientation forward) of a Home Squadron in 1840s; the innovative naval homeland defense systems of the Confederate Navy during the Civil War; the role of inshore U.S. Navy monitors during and after the Civil War; the massive failure of American homeland defense at Pearl Harbor in 1941; offshore antisubmarine warfare during both world wars; and Cold War U.S. Navy continental air defense and coastal underwater surveillance efforts. Analysis of the historical record shows that U.S. Navy forward offensive deployments have almost always taken precedence over homeland defense efforts; that naval systems and organizations originally developed for homeland defense usually migrate to other roles; and that naval homeland defense operations have almost always been embedded in larger joint, inter-agency and total force efforts, usually involving the U.S. Coast Guard. (A shorter version of this paper was published in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings May 2003 edition).

Indonesia's ability to deal with separatist pressures in Aceh and Papua is limited by weaknesses of leadership, vision, and institutional development. Even so, Indonesia is not likely to disintegrate. Policy toward separatist movements lacks coherence and consistency. Neither the insurgents nor the government appear able to achieve their goals through military action. Stalemate could lead to a quagmire for government troops, particularly in Aceh. Both the independence movement and the armed forces in that province have been responsible for a level of violence that compares with the worst periods in the 1990s. The government under President Megawati appears to be heading toward a renewed effort at a military solution, although talks with the insurgents continue. The separatist movement in Papua is weaker and poorly armed. Papuan leaders have united in a "Presidium" with which the government could negotiate, although the murder of a Papuan leader in November 2001-reportedly by army elements-has undercut the political track. Effective implementations of special autonomy laws for both regions could, over time, result in willing continuation of these territories as parts of Indonesia. The United States has only a limited ability to foster solutions in Aceh and Papua.

In preparation for the transition to a new Administration in January 2001, CNAC conducted workshops with informed citizens in four U.S. cities: New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and San Francisco, with the last one conducted in December 2000. This report summarizes the views of those workshops participants. They were especially concerned that the United States stay active in the day-to-day world, and were less interested in transformation of U.S. forces for the future or in national missile defense. While circumstances have not permitted us to return for more discussions in these cities after 9/11/2001, we have nonetheless annotated this report to extrapolate their views to the post-9/11 situation. We believe that they would have fully supported the global war on terror, in close coordination with our allies around the world.

In this project, we examined how U.S. maritime forces—the Navy and the Marine Corps—relate to globalization. The project builds on the survey of globalization done by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University (NDU). All considerations have been updated in light of 9/11 and subsequent U.S. actions in response.