Security Realities Research Articles

The Politics of Interim Radioactive Waste Storage: The United States

Forging a consensus for the permanent disposal of radioactive waste has been long and difficult. As the process has dragged on, the search for a viable interim storage solution has intensified. This article is a case study of the politics associated with the interim storage of radioactive waste in the United States. Since the search for a government sponsored interim radioactive waste storage solution also has been slow, politicised and fraught with conflict, two privately funded projects (Skull Valley – Utah and Owl Creek – Wyoming), have attempted to bypass the logjam. While the fate of these interim radioactive waste storage projects is still unclear, energy and national security realities dictate that the continued deferment of the nuclear waste storage issue is no longer a viable option.

Prospects for Controlling Narcotics Production and Trafficking in Myanmar

Introduction The Union of Myanmar's military government has brought upon itself extensive criticism for its undemocratic nature and violations of internationally accepted human rights. There often are reasonable grounds for that criticism. When Yangon's critics venture into the complex issue of Myanmar's drug trade, however, the same reasonableness is not always apparent. That is especially so when critics blame the ruling generals for their country's role as one of the world's major producers of illicit narcotic drugs. Myanmar's generals are routinely accused of promoting the drug trade as a matter of government policy. Simplistic charges of official government complicity in the drug trade overlook the underlying security, political, and economic realities that have made Myanmar a major drug production and trafficking centre. Moreover, by demonizing the Yangon government in the eyes of the international community, those charges pose an obstacle to counter-narcotics co-operation between the West and Myanmar. Effective governing of Myanmar's drug-producing frontier areas has eluded Yangon governments since the country gained independence in 1948. Persistent post-independence insurgencies in the central part of the country seriously threatened the new Union's very existence. By the 1960s Yangon's forces had neutralized those insurgencies in central Myanmar. By the end of that same decade, however, the government was confronting a variety of stubborn insurgencies in Myanmar's frontier areas, a problem that it has failed to resolve. The legacy of those insurgencies, be they driven by political ideology or ethnic aspirations, continues its contribution to the intractability of the problems surrounding Myanmar's role in the drug trade. Intertwined Challenges To address successfully the drug problem within its borders any Yangon government must first impose the rule of law throughout its territory. Post-independence governments in Yangon, both civilian and military, have consistently failed to do so. To achieve that goal, a government must overcome three intertwined sets of challenges requiring simultaneous solutions. Discouragingly, it is far from clear whether any Yangon government, military or civilian, will in the foreseeable future be able to overcome these daunting challenges. First, any central government must be able to exercise its writ throughout the country and bring an end to the ethnic and drug-fuelled insurgencies that have plagued the country since 1948. The prolonged struggle against insurgents threatening the cohesion of the Union has provided excuses for Myanmar's military to cling to political power, has emptied the government's treasury, and has impeded national economic development. Importantly, that struggle has also encouraged the drug trade. Profits from the illicit drugs trade have enabled armed insurgents for the past half century to defy central government efforts to end the state of near anarchy in the Union's opium-growing frontier areas. Secondly, any Yangon government must be able and willing to satisfy the legitimate political aspirations of the Union's diverse ethnic minorities. Since Myanmar's independence the issue of ethnic minority rights has been the greatest single obstacle to political unity and, by extension, the rule of law. Failure to resolve legitimate minority political aspirations has driven many ethnic communities into rebellion. Many, in turn, have turned to the drug trade to finance their struggle against Yangon. With few exceptions, whatever political motivations held by ethnic insurgents in the beginning of their fight with Yangon all too often succumbed quickly to the drug trade profit motive as their raison d'etre. Thirdly, any government must offer realistic economic alternatives for people now making their living in the drug trade. Tens of thousands of ethnic minority farmers grow opium poppies because, among other reasons, it is the most profitable cash crop available to them. …

Understanding "Asymmetric" Threats to the United States

This article evaluates whether the concept of asymmetry has analytical utility and characterizes the threat environment facing the United States. The concept of asymmetry has come to bear too great a burden, as it is used to explain: different and challenging threats; the United States' position in the world and the security challenges it faces; U.S. legal and political self-imposed constraints; vulnerabilities to new and old threats; and novel approaches designed to offset U.S. strengths. The term does reflect the uncertainty that currently exists in the international security environment, and it does impress upon us that the United States is either vulnerable to some menace or unprepared at some level to cope with a selection of modern-day threats. Yet, can such a concept serve defense planners and policy makers well? This article finds that the utility of the term "asymmetry" for understanding security matters has diminished since it was introduced in the mid-1990s. Examination of specific uses of the term "asymmetry" indicates that the frequent references today to threats that are so labeled do little to help order defense priorities. Given the international security realities and the analytical shortcomings of this concept, and given the clear imperative today to clarify national defense priorities, the relatively young concept of asymmetry will fade from defense jargon in the years ahead.

Exploring Complex Security Realities: NGOs, Community, and State Development Partnerships in Laos

Exploring Complex Security Realities: NGOs, Community, and State Development Partnerships in Laos

Ethics, National Security and Bureaucratic Realities

Some have characterized Oliver North's conviction in federal court, for lying to Congress among other things, as the criminalization of policy differences, whereas others have condemned his actions as subversive of constitutional checks and balances. Within the government, "designated liar" has become an unofficial title when selecting an agency official to give the "company line. "for Congress or the public. The commonplace acceptance, even expectation, of official lying as exemplified by North is merely accepted as a fact of governmental life. What is it about the culture of national security decision making that makes lying an acceptable form of behavior? The authors have found that some of the real-world factors that shape individual behavior include organizational indoctrination, access to information, succumbing to that cult-like mystique of routine access to classified information, and national-security policy making itself.

European security realities and the influence of Cold War institutions

(1994). European security realities and the influence of Cold War institutions. European Security: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 238-250.