Search Results

Your search for found 2087 results.

Trafficking Golden Crescent Drugs into Western China

/analyses/2011/trafficking-golden-crescent-drugs-into-western-china

The article analyzes the increasing scale and organization of Golden Crescent drug smuggling into western China, especially the growing links between domestic Chinese traffickers and Pakistan-based and Central Asian-based international drug rings. The increasing role of Africans in this trade—especially Nigerians—is an important theme for these authors. The authors identify the major highway, air, and rail routes along which Chinese and Central Asian authorities have detected drug smuggling cases. They also spotlight what they see as increasing professionalism and sophistication in drug smuggling techniques over the past five to ten years.

Economic Implications to Disrupting Oil Chokepoints

/analyses/2011/economic-implications-to-disrupting-oil-chokepoints

The secure transportation of oil is critical to world trade and economic growth. Oil trade requires the use of maritime trade routes, as two-thirds of the world’s oil exports are transported by ocean.

Conscription in Afghan Army Compulsory Service

/analyses/2011/conscription-in-afghan-army-compulsory-service

In a widely publicized speech last year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai raised the pos- sibility of a return to conscription in the Afghan army – as a way to forge national unity and reduce costs. At present, Afghanistan has a professional, all volunteer force. This monograph evaluates the potential benefits and costs of a shift to conscription in Afghanistan. Is conscription advisable in Afghanistan, or is the current volunteer force a better option? If conscription were instituted, what forms should it take? This monograph may be of interest to anyone concerned with the development and sustainment of the Afghan army, conscription versus voluntary military recruitment in less developed societies, or nation-building and stability operations. The paper was produced by analysts in CNA’s Strategic Studies Division. Research was conducted over a five-month period from October 2010 through March 2011, including an extended trip to several sites in Kabul and southern Afghanistan. The authors wish to thank the many US, NATO, and Afghan service members who spoke with the authors and provided valuable data.

Fitness Report System for Marine Officers

/analyses/2011/fitness-report-system-for-marine-officers

The FitRep is an evaluation tool filled out by a Marine’s RS and RO that communicates the reporting officials’ assessments of the Marine’s performance and character to promotion boards. The cur- rent FitRep system was implemented on January 1, 1999. Like the pre- vious system, it supports promotion boards’ selection and retention of the most qualified Marines in the grades of sergeant through major general, as well as the slating of officers for command or resident school billet assignments. All features of the performance evaluation system are found in Marine Corps Order P1610.7F.

Grand Strategy Analysis and Implication for Navy

/analyses/2011/grand-strategy-analysis-and-implication-for-navy

What should the grand strategy of the United States be? The Navy’s Strategy and Planning Division (OPNAV N51) asked CNA to review the state of the policy and academic debate on this issue to inform the Navy’s input into national decision-making and specifically to inform the incoming Chief of Naval Operations. CNA has surveyed and assessed the discourse in key think tanks and the academy on this question. This is important because dramatic developments such as the financial crisis and economic downturn that began in 2008, the continued rapid rise and growth of China, and the unrest in the Middle East have substantially changed the global situation that A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower addressed when it was released in October 2007. These dynamics have persuaded many that a reassessment of American national strategy is needed, and some have concluded that a course change is in order. Indeed, in his outgoing speech in May 2011 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for a sober and serious assessment of just what kind of role America, and America’s military, should play in the future. This document seeks to lay out the state of that debate and advise Navy decision-makers and staffs on how best to understand and take advantage of that debate.

Non Citizens in the Enlisted US Military

/analyses/2011/non-citizens-in-the-enlisted-us-military

From FY99 through FY08, roughly 70,000 non-prior-service (NPS) non-citizens accessed into the active-duty enlisted military, represent- ing about 4 percent of all NPS accessions.3 Although they currently represent only a small share of enlisted NPS accessions, non-citizens are a valuable enlisted recruiting resource, especially as the U.S. econ- omy improves and the military enters a more difficult recruiting envi- ronment. Non-citizens also may be a source of greater diversity among recruits, both in terms of diversity in the traditional sense (race, ethnicity, and gender) and in terms of diversity of skills that are of strategic interest to the U.S. military. Indeed, the Quadrennial Defense Review emphasizes DOD’s increasing desire to recruit people with specific critical skills.

Sand Wars: Maghreb, War for Northwest Africa

/analyses/2010/sand-wars-maghreb-war-for-northwest-africa

SAND WARS is a strategic-operational level wargame of potential conflict between Algeria and Morocco.

The Navy At A Tipping Point

/analyses/2010/the-navy-at-a-tipping-point

For the past 60 years, since roughly the outbreak of the Korean War and the U.S. response to that war, the Navy has had a consistent strategy for the structure, deployment, and posturing of the fleet. American maritime dominance has been based on forces that were deployed forward and always ready to respond quickly to emerging situations in areas of vital interest to American foreign policy. Because of the perceived need to be able to respond at the highest levels of warfare throughout the Cold War, those forces were built, trained, and equipped to be “combat credible” against capable challengers. “Combat credible” meant the ability to project power against advanced air defenses, conduct and enable littoral/amphibious operations in opposed environments, and establish blue-water dominance against highly capable surface, sub-surface, and air threats.

Powering Americas Economy Energy Innovation at the Crossroads of National Security Challenges

/analyses/2010/powering-americas-economy-energy-innovation-at-the-crossroads-of-national-security-challenges

In the first half of 2010, the CNA MAB reconvened to further consider the challenges and opportunities that America faces in order to transition to clean en- ergy technology (that is, low carbon energy technol- ogy), even as the United States and the world’s major economies begin to emerge from a great recession. Specifically, we examined how America’s national power could face significant future challenges due to the vulnerabilities of the nation’s current energy posture. Furthermore, we looked at the opportunities presented to the United States, relative to collabora- tors and competitors, by moving toward a clean en- ergy economy. We examined how the Department of Defense (DOD) could play a key role by altering its research and development enterprise to accelerate the development of innovative clean energy technologies. To this end, we were briefed by a number of talented speakers and experts, including current and former senior officials from DOD and the Department of Energy (DOE), current and former U.S. climate ne- gotiators, defense officials charged with incorporat- ing energy and climate change into national security strategy, active-duty military officers responsible for energy transformation, intelligence officials, private sector energy technology innovators, and specialists in the emerging clean energy economies of nations around the world. This report, which serves as a follow-on white paper to Powering America’s Defense, contains the findings and recommendations resulting from our deliberations. We hope that they will provide a useful contribution to the public debate and policy formulation on these critically important national security issues.

Military Dimensions of US China Security Cooperation

/analyses/2010/military-dimensions-of-us-china-security-cooperation

This paper was first presented at the Fifth Annual Conference of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College on 4 – 5 May 2010. It is offered as a CNA paper in advance of the publication of the conference proceedings with the permission of the conference sponsors.