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| 1 |
ID:
115339
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| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Geography is context for all strategic history. Everything must happen in geography, while many conflicts actually are about geography. Geopolitics is the political meaning of geography. Ironically, the pervasiveness of geography in its relevance to strategy renders its influence somewhat elusive. When everything has some geographical content and meaning, geography tends to escape the analyst's notice: because it is everywhere, it might as well be nowhere. A focus on the geography of deterrence brings the influence of geography, physical, psychological, and political, into useful focus. The geopolitical dimension to deterrence is not well-tilled scholarly ground. This is unfortunate, because the prospects for successful deterrence can be impacted heavily by the relevant geographical context. There is physical geography and there is also the geography of the imagination. Deterrence typically is geopolitical, but if the political meaning of geography is discounted, deterrence challenges will not be properly understood.
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| 2 |
ID:
115341
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| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Soviet Union and its successor state the Russian Federation have consistently violated their arms control obligations since the beginning of modern arms control in 1972. The violations have involved all major nuclear arms control treaties, including those that limit strategic and theater nuclear arms and constrain nuclear testing. This pattern of behavior is certain to continue. As a result, the nuclear warheads on the Russian missiles apparently will have been tested in contravention of a declared nuclear test moratorium and Russia's legal obligations concerning the CTBT. There is almost never any consequence for these violations. These violations have clear military significance, and they should have an impact upon our views of arms control. Regrettably, they do not. The evidence is more often suppressed than provided to the American people and we continue to ignore it in our arms control policy.
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| 3 |
ID:
115342
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| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The changes that have taken place in the last decades in the United States armed forces approach to waging wars have attracted a lot of attention in the strategic community. For some, the use of information technology, unmanned weapon systems, and precision-guided munitions represent a "revolution in military affairs" (RMA). But while the characteristics of change perfectly fit the needs of other countries such as the major European powers, the alleged RMA is not a hot topic among European and especially German defense specialists. Only some aspects of the RMA have found their way into the German armed forces. Efforts to transform the German armed forces are hampered by political controversy and difficult cultural premises.
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| 4 |
ID:
115340
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| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Beginning in the early 1980s, the central theme of U.S. diplomacy with the former Soviet Union and now Russia has been the mutual reduction of the overwhelming destructive capability of strategic arsenals as a means to reduce the primary threat to America. The record of accomplishment is impressive. Not only are the allowed force levels in the latest agreement dramatically lower than their Cold War peaks, the New START Treaty continues and builds on protocols that have created unprecedented transparency and confidence. It is time to ask: What is the next step that will have the highest payoff in reducing the nuclear threat to America? Between the United States and Russia, where the strategic calculus is very well understood, further bilateral stockpile reductions in the near term will lead to only limited improvements in national security. Priority and resources should be shifted to understanding how to deal with the emerging realities of a multipolar nuclear world, where risks can be just as grave and the techniques for managing them are not as well understood.
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