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Posted On: Feb 24, 2010

by COHA Research Fellow Alexandra DeprezThis Council on Hemispheric Affairs research paper, by COHA Research Fellow Alexandra Deprez, has been under preparation for a year. In it, she brilliantly synthesizes current developments regarding environmentally-driven human migration -and more specifically, migration caused by the environmental manifestations of anthropogenic climate change- which are capable of exposing their potential harmful effects in Central and South America, as well as ...

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Posted On: Jan 21, 2010

 A briefing memo from the Project on Defense Alternatives. The United States faces Reagan-level deficit spending and greatly increased debt. Can the president's program of high defense spending and increased non-defense spending survive?  This brief report puts recent and planned defense spending into the context of emerging fiscal constraints and President Obama's broader program of change. 11 charts and tables. 

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Posted On: Jan 21, 2010

This Project on Defense Alternatives report analyzes the unprecedented post-1998 rise in defense spending and the return to Cold War budget levels. The causes include overly ambitious US military strategy and goals; weakness of reform and transformation efforts; failure to make hard choices in acquisition; and conduct of wars ill-suited to the US military. Also examined: the surge in military construction and the expanded role of private contractors. 75 pages with Executive Summary and 21 cha...

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Posted On: Jan 19, 2010

This memo aims to reinforce the strategic logic of the Topos Partnership's research (including by highlighting selected findings) and to reinforce connections between the research findings and the work of the National Security and Human Rights Campaign, with special attention to bridging some of the initial "disconnects" that seem to be coming up for advocates who have started to grapple with the implications of the research.

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Posted On: Jan 07, 2010

 Overspent and OverextendedWritten by Doug Bandow, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Why is Washington spending so much on the military?The U.S. dominates the globe militarily. America's reach exceeds that of the Roman and British Empires at their respective heights. The threats facing the U.S. pale compared to its capabilities. So why is Washington spending so much on the military?The military budget is the price we pay for the nation's foreign policy. The U.S. currently is spending ne...

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Posted On: Jan 05, 2010

A December 2009 report from the Charity and Security Network describes how U.S. nonprofits are hindered from being an ally against violent extremism due to burdensome CTMs.

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Posted On: Dec 23, 2009

by Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Afghanistan is the sort of country which humanitarian-minded people understandably want to "fix." It has become a target of aggressive pro-war activists ranging from neoconservatives who believe in remaking other societies at gunpoint to feminists who believe in waging war to improve the status of women.The latter group belies the common assumption that the Left opposes war. While the Right traditionally resisted imperialistic social engi...

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Posted On: Dec 18, 2009

Visa and immigration policy, taken together, determine who can knock on America's front door - and how we respond. In its latest report, NAFSA: Association of International Educators proposes recommendations for an integrated approach that reflects the opportunities and realities of today's world. The report urges U.S. policymakers to move toward defining the country's security objectives more broadly than has been the case in much of the post-9/11 period, stressing that openness to the world...

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Posted On: Dec 16, 2009

This report from the European Climate Foundation describes how "Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) could be used as a financing mechanism for climate change mitigation and adaptation for least developed countries (LDCs)." The idea was announced by George Soros at a press conference at COP15 in Copenhagen on 10 December 2009. The document provides ackground information on SDRs, details how such an SDR based mechanism might function, and highlights some open questions and challenges.

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Posted On: Dec 14, 2009

AS PREPARED SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTONTHE HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA FOR THE 21ST CENTURYGEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYWASHINGTON, DCDECEMBER 14, 2009  Thank you Jasdeep, Dean Lancaster, and President DeGioia for that kind introduction and thank you for having me here today.   There is no better place than Georgetown University to talk about human rights. President DeGioia, the administration, and the faculty embody the university's long tradition of supporting free expression and free inq...

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Posted On: Dec 14, 2009

 by Doug BandowDoug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Reagan, he is the author of Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World (Cato Institute) and co-author of The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relations with North and South Korea (Palgrave/Macmillan).Special envoy Stephen Bosworth has returned from Pyongyang after what he called "exploratory talks, not negotiations" over North Korea's nuclear program. Before that t...

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Posted On: Nov 24, 2009

A joint letter to President Obama from the Connect U.S. Fund, InterAction, USCAN and 1Sky. The letter calls on the President to build on his initiative at the G20 to end fossil fuel subsidies by initiating the phase out of those subsidies in the U.S., and to redirect those subsidies to international climate finance efforts.

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Posted On: Nov 23, 2009

The Obama administration promised "a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena." The sixth yearly Report of the Task Force on a Unified Security Budget for the United States, FY 2010 finds that this promise hasn't yet been kept. The needle tracking the overall balance of spending on offense, defense, and prevention stayed stubbornly in place. In the FY 2010 request, like the one before it, 87% of the nation's security resources were allocated to the tools of mi...

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Posted On: Oct 15, 2009

The two-decade-old conflict in Somalia has entered a new phase, which presents both a challenge and an opportunity for the United States. To best encourage peace in the devastated country, Washington needs a new strategy that takes into account hard-learned lessons from multiple failed U.S. interventions.In a new study, author David Axe argues that Washington should err on the side of nonintervention, and recommends:The Obama administration should work to build a regional framework for reconc...

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Posted On: Oct 07, 2009

The U.S. sustainability standard currently requires ethanol production to emit at least 20% less CO2 than the gasoline it is assumed to replace. In a new study, authors Harry de Gorter and David R. Just argue that sustainability standards for ethanol are, by definition, illogical and ineffective. Moreover, say de Gorter and Just, those standards divert attention from the contradictions and inefficiencies of ethanol import tariffs, tax credits, mandates, and subsidies, all of which exist wheth...

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Posted On: Oct 01, 2009

The National Priority Project's comprehensive "Security Spending Primer: Getting Smart About The Pentagon Budget" is now available online.

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Posted On: Sep 28, 2009

This op-ed originally appeared on Huffington Post on September 28, 2009.By Colin Thomas-JensenHow do you defeat a dangerous insurgent group that has embedded itself within a civilian population? This vexing question is at the center of the ongoing debate over the counterinsurgency approach in Afghanistan--a conversation that plays itself out at the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department, on Capital Hill, and through a seemingly endless herd of pundits on cable news shows, op-ed p...

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Posted On: Sep 28, 2009

This report from Oxfam stresses the importance of financing adaptation assistance to developing countries with "adequate, new, and additional funds," and through a streamlined international process.

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Posted On: Sep 28, 2009

 By Colin Thomas-Jensen, Noel Atama, and Olivia CaeymaexSeptember 28, 2009The human cost of Operation Kimia II—the ongoing joint offensive by the Congolese army and United Nations peacekeepers against Rwandan rebels in eastern Congo—outweighs its benefits. Although Kimia II has led to gains in the fight against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, by forcing the rebels to abandon a number of the lucrative mining areas that help sustain their insurgency, efforts to...

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Posted On: Sep 23, 2009

From Refugees International: From Refugees International: "Dwarfed by the Department of Defense in terms of budget, personnel and capacity, State and the Agency for International Development (USAID) have atrophied nearly to the point of irretrievability. This paper describes the causes and effects of the lack of human capital and capacity at State and USAID and offers suggestions on how to rebuild these capacities."