Policy and Research Papers
White House Factsheet: U.S. Security Sector Assistance Policy
The White House issued a new policy directive on security sector assistance. The goals of this new policy are to: help partner nations build the sustainable capacity to address common security challenges; promote partner support for the policies and interests of the United States; strengthen collective security and multinational defense arrangements and organizations; and promote universal values.
The “security sector” of a government is, as designated by this policy document, composed of institutions that have the authority to use force to protect both the state and its citizens at home or abroad, maintain international peace and security, and to enforce the law and provide oversight of security institutions and forces. Security sector assistance refers to the policies, programs, and activities the United States Government employs to engage with foreign partners in these areas, including to help them build and sustain the capacity and effectiveness of institutions to provide security, safety, and justice for their people; and to contribute to efforts that address common security challenges.
Security Sector Reform
This document provides Department of State, DoD, and USAID practitioners with guidelines for coordinating, planning, and implementing SSR programs with foreign partner nations. The objective of this paper is to provide guidance on how best to design, develop, and deliver foreign assistance such that it promotes effective, legitimate, transparent, and accountable security sector development in partner states.
Security Sector Reform
This paper provides Department of State, Department of Defense (DoD), and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) practitioners with guidelines for for coordinating, planning, and implementing SSR programs with foreign partner nations.planning and implementing Security Sector Reform (SSR) programs with foreign partner nations. Its objective is also to provide guidance on how best to design, develop, and deliver foreign assistance such that it promotes effective, legitimate, transparent, and accountable security sector development in partner states.
US International Criminal Investigative Training assistance Programme (ICITAP)
This plan outlines ICITAP's projected assistance efforts for FY 2010, which encompasses the following projects areas: Integrated Border Management, Police Development, Accountability, and Human Resources Management, complex Criminal Investigations, Rule of Law Information Management, and Community Safety Action Teams and Community Policing.
Rule of Law Handbook: A Practitioner's Guide for Judge Advocates
The Handbook is not intended to serve as U.S. policy or military doctrine for rule of law operations. Nor is the Handbook intended to offer guidance or advice to other military professionals involved in the rule of law mission. Written primarily for Judge Advocates, the limits of its scope and purpose are to provide the military attorney assistance in accomplishing the rule of law mission. While others involved in rule of law missions may find the Handbook helpful, they should understand its intended audience is the Judge Advocate or paralegal involved in the rule of law mission during on-going military operations.
Independent Progress Review on the UN Global Focal Point for Police, Justice and Corrections
This report presents the results of an independent review of the progress that the GFP initiative has made since January 2012, conducted at the request of the GFP managers, by a joint research team from the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael), the Stimson Center and the Folke Bernadotte Academy.
Source: http://www.clingendael.nl/publication/progress-review-un-global-focal-point-police-justice-corrections
Building Better Armies: An Insider's Account of Liberia
Recent events in Mali, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere demonstrate that building professional indigenous forces is imperative to regional stability, yet few success stories exist. Liberia is a qualified “success,” and this study explores how it was achieved by the program’s chief architect. Liberia suffered a 14-year civil war replete with human rights atrocities that killed 250,000 people and displaced a third of its population. Following President Charles Taylor’s exile in 2003, the U.S. contracted DynCorp International to demobilize and rebuild the Armed Forces of Liberia and Ministry of Defense; the first time in 150 years that one sovereign nation hired a private company to raise another sovereign nation’s military. This monograph explores the theory and practice behind the successful disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of the legacy military and security sector reform (SSR) that built the new one. It also considers some of the benefits and difficulties of contracting out the making of militaries. This is significant since the private sector will probably participate increasingly in security sector reform. The monograph concludes with 28 concrete recommendations for practitioners and 6 recommendations for the U.S. Army on how to expand this capability. Finally, this monograph is written by a practitioner for practitioners.
Field Manual 3-07.1: Security Force Assistance
In an era of persistent conflict, the United States supports the internal defense and development of international partners, regardless of whether those partners are highly developed and stable or less developed and emerging. While many of these partners are nations, they can also include alliances, coalitions, and regional organizations. U.S. support to these partners ranges from providing humanitarian assistance to major combat operations. U.S. support includes conducting conflict transformation, bolstering partner legitimacy, and building partner capacity. A vital part of these three aspects of U.S. support is assisting partner security forces.
Afghanistan’s Civil Order Police: Victim of Its Own Success
- In 2006, a day of deadly riot in Kabul dramatized the need for an Afghan constabulary force capable of controlling outbreaks of urban violence. In response, the U.S. military and Afghan authorities created a elite gendarmerie, the Afghanistan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP).
- Although ANCOP was conceived of as a riot control force, it was assigned to the Focused District Development Program to replace district-level Afghan Uniformed Police who were away for training. The high demand and constant transfers required by this duty resulted in rates of attrition among ANCOP unit of 75 to 80 percent.
- In 2010, ANCOP's superior training, firepower, and mobility were recognized in its assignments, along with a "surge" of U.S. military forces, to reverse the Taliban's hold on key areas in Southern Afghanistan.
- In heavy fighting in Marja, Helmand province, ANCOP was demonstrably unprepared to serve as a counterinsurgency force, particularly in areas that had not been cleared by coalition and Afghan military forces.
- Subsequent improvements in training and partnering with U.S. forces improved ANCOPS's performance in kandahar, where ANCOP was used to hold areas that had been cleared by the military.
- By 2011, ANCOP had firmly established its place as an elite rapid reaction and counter-insurgency force with a positive reputation among coalition troops and afghan citizens.
Interagency Security Sector Assessment Framework: Guidance for the U.S. Government
The purpose of the ISSAF is to provide a common foundation for USG agencies to assess a country’s security and justice context and make strategic program recommendations.
Assessments should inform the strategic planning process and underlie program design.
The ISSAF is divided into two parts:
1. A 10-step framework for analysis
2. Areas of inquiry with illustrative questions.
This document outlines key SSR concepts and a process for planning and conducting an interagency assessment. Supplementary assessment tools that focus on specific sub-sector institutions and topics (e.g., police, criminal justice, defense, maritime security sector reform, armed violence reduction, or gender) can be helpful in looking at particular subjects in greater detail. This broader assessment framework enables the assessment team to examine the linkages among various components of the security sector and to identify entry points for integrated programs.
The ISSAF is based on international best practices4 and incorporates existing methodologies for analyzing the security sector in states receiving international assistance. It builds on previous efforts to provide common frameworks through which USG agencies can leverage comparative strengths to implement a whole-of-government approach.
Security Strategies Today : Trends and Perspectives
There have been considerable developments in security-policy thinking since the end of the Cold War, and a complex set of transnational threatsand challenges necessitates new security policies and strategies. Not only the attacks of 11 September 2001, but also the dark side of globalisation such as climate change, the global spread of dangerous technologies and international organised crime have changed the security perspective and policy procedures in recent years. Consequently, new
national-security strategies, white papers and security-policy documents have been drafted in order to take into account the changing security landscape.
On 6 April 2009, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) welcomed a group of leading security experts for a seminar entitled “Security Strategies Today : Trends and Perspectives”. The goal of the seminar was to provide a forum for experts from different European states, major international powers and regional and international organisations to take stock of current security polices in the European region and beyond. The participants had an opportunity to assess the direction of security-policy thinking by analysing a number of key security-policy documents such as national-security strategies, defence concepts and white papers, among others. Assumptions regarding future threats were considered, as were a variety of drafting processes and methodologies.
More than 30 participants attended the seminar, including representatives of the Defence Ministries of Finland, Germany and Sweden, as well as representatives of the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In addition to faculty members from the GCSP, regional and international experts from a range of academic and policy institutions participated, including speakers from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the International Affairs Institute (Rome), the Institute for International Strategic Studies (Beijing), the Royal Institute of International Relations (Brussels) and the Foundation for Strategic Studies (Paris).
Defence White Papers in the Americas
In preparation for the October 2000 Defense Ministerial of the Americas (DMA) in Manaus Brazil and at the request of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) studied the global trend toward the creation of Defense White Papers. The study aimed to understand the nature of these documents in order to prepare the U.S. delegation to discuss the tendency in Latin America and the Caribbean during the DMA. The INSS study team found no agreement about what constitutes a 'white paper' other than each is a consensus statement on a topic. The team examined 15 defense documents worldwide and interviewed participants in the development process and independent analysts. The results suggest that the formative, often difficult, process through which governments must move to solidify their approach to national security defense policy, and the structure to implement it and build consensus for it is the essential part of a 'white paper,' providing a constructive experience that benefits the country. Governments tended not to want a template for this process, although at the working level there is some interest in the experience of other states. Defense White Papers become highly stylized nationalistic documents that reflect a state's unique domestic circumstances and international geopolitical situation. The attached chart provides an overview comparison of the Defense White Paper processes of Canada, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and South Africa. Past efforts by U.S. agencies to design templates have failed.
The National Security Policy Process: The National Security Council and Interagency System
This annual report by Dr. Alan G. Whittaker, Frederick C. Smith and AMB Elizabeth McKune describes the national security decision-making process of the US government.
US National Security: Policymakers, Processes & Politics
The fourth edition of "US National Security" reflects the strategic landscape as it has evolved in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The ongoing US military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, the focus on homeland security, the significant organizational changes in the intelligence bureaucracy, and the impact of the Bush Doctrine are among the current issues that inform the authors' presentation and appraisal of US security interests, politics, and processes.
Cybersecurity: Authoritative Reports and Resources
Cybersecurity vulnerabilities challenge governments, businesses, and individuals worldwide. Attacks have been initiated by individuals, as well as countries. Targets have included government networks, military defenses, companies, or political organizations, depending upon whether the attacker was seeking military intelligence, conducting diplomatic or industrial espionage, or intimidating political activists. In addition, national borders mean little or nothing to cyberattackers, and attributing an attack to a specific location can be difficult, which also makes a response problematic.
Congress has been actively involved in cybersecurity issues, holding hearings every year since 2001. There is no shortage of data on this topic: government agencies, academic institutions, think tanks, security consultants, and trade associations have issued hundreds of reports, studies, analyses, and statistics.
This report provides links to selected authoritative resources related to cybersecurity issues. This report includes information on:
- “Legislation”
- “Executive Orders and Presidential Directives”
- “Data and Statistics”
- “Cybersecurity Glossaries”
- “Reports by Topic”
- Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports
- White House/Office of Management and Budget reports
- Military/DOD
- Cloud Computing
- Critical Infrastructure
- National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC)
- Cybercrime/Cyberwar
- International
- Education/Training/Workforce
- Research and Development (R&D)
- “Related Resources: Other Websites”
The report will be updated as needed.
Books
Handbook for Military Support to Rule of Law and Security Sector Reform
This handbook, published by the United States Joint Force Command, defines the “Rule of Law;” explains the interrelationship between rule of law, governance, and security; and provides a template to analyze the rule of law foundation essential to successful stability operations.
U.S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy
This edition of the U. S. Army War College Guide to National Security Policy and Strategy reflects to some extent recent changes in the structure of the core curriculum at the War College. The college broke its traditional core course, “War, National Policy and Strategy,” into two courses: “Theory of War and Strategy” and “National Security Policy and Strategy.” The result for this book is the expansion of the block on strategic theory and the introduction of a block on specific strategic issues. Because little time has past since the publication of the most recent version of this book, this edition is largely an expansion of its predecessor rather than a major rewriting. Several chapters are new and others have undergone significant rewrites or updates, but about two-thirds of the book remains unchanged. Although this is not primarily a textbook, it does reflect both the method and manner we use to teach strategy formulation to America’s future senior leaders. The book is also not a comprehensive or exhaustive treatment of either strategy or the policymaking process. The Guide is organized in broad groups of chapters addressing general subject areas. We begin with a look at some specific issues about the general security environment—largely international. The section on strategic thought and formulation includes chapters on broad issues of strategy formulation as well as some basic strategic theory. The third section is about the elements of national power. A section on the national security policymaking process in the United States precedes the final section that deals with selected strategic issues.