Securing Tyrants Or Fostering Reform?
Securing Tyrants Or Fostering Reform?

Author: Seth G. Jones

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0833040189

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The United States has provided assistance to the security forces of a number of repressive states that do not share its political ideals. This practice raises several questions, the answers to which have significant policy implications: Has U.S. assistance improved the effectiveness of internal security forces in countering security threats? Has it improved the accountability and human rights records of these forces? What is the relationship between improving security and improving accountability and human rights? This study addresses these questions by examining the results of U.S. assistance to four states: El Salvador, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. U.S. assistance to El Salvador improved the accountability and human rights practices of the Salvadoran police but not their effectiveness as violent crime rates soared. In Uzbekistan, programs focused on counterproliferation, export control, and specific investigatory techniques were effective. But autocracy and repression by Uzbek officials, including security forces, have increased in recent years. Assistance to Afghanistan has somewhat improved the accountability and human rights practices of Afghan security forces. The vast majority of serious human rights abuses in the country are now committed by insurgent groups and warlords. In Pakistan, the U.S. government has not paid significant attention to the implications of its security assistance for the improvement of accountability and human rights, in large part because these goals have not been a focus of that assistance. Overall, these analyses suggest that efforts to improve the effectiveness, human rights, and accountability of internal security forces are more likely to be successful when states are transitioning from repressive to democratic systems. In addition, several factors are critical for success: the duration of assistance, viability of the justice system, and support and buy-in from the local government (including key ministries).

Securing Tyrants Or Fostering Reform?
Securing Tyrants Or Fostering Reform?

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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This report examines U.S. government assistance to the police and internal security agencies of repressive and transitioning states. Throughout its history, the United States has provided assistance to a number of countries that have not shared its political ideals. Their security forces were not accountable to the public, and their practices and approaches were not transparent. The decision to provide assistance to repressive and autocratic states (and states that are, to varying extents, seeking to transition away from repression) raises a number of questions, the answers to which have significant policy implications. Can U.S. assistance improve the effectiveness of internal security agencies in countering security threats? Has U.S. assistance improved the accountability and human rights records of these agencies? What is the relationship between improving security and improving accountability and human rights?

Afghanistan's Police
Afghanistan's Police

Author: Robert Perito

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 16

ISBN-13:

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Introduction -- The Afghan National Police -- Key reasons for ANP shortcomings -- Conclusions and recommendations.

Aid for Elites
Aid for Elites

Author: Mark Moyar

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-02-01

Total Pages: 548

ISBN-13: 1316473112

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Current foreign aid programs are failing because they are based upon flawed assumptions about how countries develop. They attempt to achieve development without first achieving good governance and security, which are essential prerequisites for sustainable development. In focusing on the poorer members of society, they neglect the elites upon whose leadership the quality of governance and security depends. By downplaying the relevance of cultural factors to development, they avoid altering cultural characteristics that account for most of the weaknesses of elites in poor nations. Drawing on a wealth of examples from around the world, the author shows that foreign aid can be made much more effective by focusing it on human capital development. Training, education, and other forms of assistance can confer both skills and cultural attributes on current and future leaders, especially those responsible for security and governance.

Reviewing the Responsibility to Protect
Reviewing the Responsibility to Protect

Author: Ramesh Thakur

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1351016776

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This volume is a collection of some of the key essays by Ramesh Thakur on the origins, implementation and future prospects of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm. The book offers a comprehensive yet accessible review of the origins, evolution, advances and shortcomings of the R2P principle. A literature review is followed by an overview of the background, meaning and development of R2P. With a focus on the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), Part I analyses the features of, and explains the factors that make for success and failure of commission diplomacy. Part II discusses the controversies surrounding efforts to implement R2P, including the role and importance of emerging powers. Part III describes the remaining protection gaps and explains why R2P will remain relevant because it is essentially demand driven. Finally, the book concludes with a look back at the origins of R2P and looks ahead to possible future directions. This book will be essential for students of the Responsibility to Protect, and of much interest to students of global governance, human rights, international law and international relations.

Great Games, Local Rules
Great Games, Local Rules

Author: Alexander Cooley

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-07-23

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0199978581

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The struggle between Russia and Great Britain over Central Asia in the nineteenth century was the original "great game." But in the past quarter century, a new "great game" has emerged, pitting America against a newly aggressive Russia and a resource-hungry China, all struggling for influence over the same region, now one of the most volatile areas in the world: the long border region stretching from Iran through Pakistan to Kashmir. In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected international relations scholars, explores the dynamics of the new competition for control of the region since 9/11. All three great powers have crafted strategies to increase their power in the area, which includes Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Each nation is pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians. However, overlooked in all of the talk about this new great game is fact that the Central Asian governments have proven themselves critical agents in their own right, establishing local rules for external power involvement that serve to fend off foreign interest. As a result, despite a decade of intense interest from the United States, Russia, and China, Central Asia remains a collection of segmented states, and the external competition has merely reinforced the sovereign authority of the individual Central Asian governments. A careful and surprising analysis of how small states interact with great powers in a vital region, Great Games, Local Rules greatly advances our understanding of how global politics actually works in the contemporary era.

U.S.-Pakistan Relations
U.S.-Pakistan Relations

Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13:

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Peace Works
Peace Works

Author: Frederick D. Barton

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-04-20

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1538113015

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Bosnia, Rwanda, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria - a quarter-century of stumbles in America’s pursuit of a more peaceful and just world. American military interventions have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, yet we rarely manage to enact positive and sustainable change. In Peace Works: America's Unifying Role in a Turbulent World, ambassador and global conflict leader Rick Barton uses a mix of stories, history, and analysis for a transformative approach to foreign affairs and offers concrete and attainable solutions for the future. Drawing on his lifetime of experience as a diplomat, foreign policy expert, and State Department advisor, Rick Barton grapples with the fact that the U.S. is strategically positioned and morally obligated to defuse international conflicts, but often inadvertently escalates conflicts instead. Guided by the need to find solutions that will yield tangible results, Barton does a deep analysis of our last several interventions and discusses why they failed and how they could have succeeded. He outlines a few key directives in his foreign policy strategy: remain transparent with the American public, act as a catalyzing (not colonizing!) force, and engage local partners. But above all else, he insists that the U.S. must maintain a focus on people. Since a country’s greatest resource is often the ingenuity of its local citizens, it is counterproductive to ignore them while planning an intervention. By anchoring each chapter to a story from a specific conflict zone, Barton is able to discuss opportunities pursued and missed, areas for improvement, and policy recommendations. This balance between storytelling and concrete policy suggestions both humanizes distant stories of foreign crises, and provides going-forward solutions for desperate situations. The book begins and ends in Syria – the ultimate failure of our current approach to foreign policy, and with devastating consequences.

Crime-Terror Nexus in South Asia
Crime-Terror Nexus in South Asia

Author: Ryan Clarke

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2011-04-12

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 113673970X

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This book examines the crime-terror nexus in South Asia, focusing in particular on the activities of non-state actors that operate out of Pakistan, and challenges the conventional wisdom that the Pakistan Taleban (TTP) and Al-Qaeda are Pakistan’s most serious security threats. Much research has focused on the policies of India and Pakistan towards Kashmir. But surprisingly little attention has been paid to several notable Pakistan-based non-state actors who are increasingly operating on their own, and who have the potential to greatly inhibit, if not derail, the peace process there. These groups blur the line between terrorism and organized crime with serious implications for policy in the region. India and Pakistan can engage in confidence-building measures, but if criminal actors such as Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT) and D-Company cannot effectively be controlled, a lack of trust between both sides will remain. Although the role of regular military forces is not to be discounted, many of the non-state actors in Indian-Held Kashmir, such as LeT, are not confined by the same restraints as state forces, thus allowing them engage in more violent actions without fear of reprisal. In order for lawmakers, security personnel, and others to develop sound, comprehensive policies, these forces and their potential to undermine political initiatives must be fully appreciated. This book explores the dynamics of the relationship between Pakistan, D-Company, and LeT and how it affects strategic thought, decision-making, and security interests in the region and explains the triangular relationships between states, terrorist groups, and organized criminal syndicates in general, and in India and Pakistan in particular. This book will of much interest to students of South Asian politics, terrorism, organised crime, war and conflict studies, and Security Studies in general.