Reports & Papers

11 Items

Flooding Red River

Flickr CC/Loozrboy

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Wilson International Center for Scholars

Emergency Management in North America

| February 2022

North America continues to face evolving challenges to comprehensive emergency management. As climate change, technology, global health, and the nature and scale of emergencies change, so does the need for improved coordination among the United States, Mexico, and Canada. This is further complicated by the distinct federal systems that operate in each country, and the different roles that national, regional, and private corporations can and should play across all of these separate jurisdictions.

Donald Trump and Anthony Fauci

AP/Alex Brandon

Paper - Centre for International Governance Innovation

US Intelligence, the Coronavirus and the Age of Globalized Challenges

| Aug. 24, 2020

This essay makes three arguments. First, the US government will need to establish a coronavirus commission, similar to the 9/11 commission, to determine why, since April 2020, the United States has suffered more coronavirus fatalities than any other country in the world. Second, the COVID-19 pandemic represents a watershed for what will be a major national security theme this century: biological threats, both from naturally occurring pathogens and from synthesized biology. Third, intelligence about globalized challenges, such as pandemics, needs to be dramatically reconceptualized, stripping away outmoded levels of secrecy.

Tractors on Westminster bridge

AP/Matt Dunham

Paper - Institut für Sicherheitspolitik

The Global Order After COVID-19

| 2020

Despite the far-reaching effects of the current pandemic,  the essential nature of world politics will not be transformed. The territorial state will remain the basic building-block of international affairs, nationalism will remain a powerful political force, and the major powers will continue to compete for influence in myriad ways. Global institutions, transnational networks, and assorted non-state actors will still play important roles, of course, but the present crisis will not produce a dramatic and enduring increase in global governance or significantly higher levels of international cooperation. In short, the post-COVID-19 world will be less open, less free, less prosperous, and more competitive than the world many people expected to emerge only a few years ago.

Report Chapter

South Korea: An Alliance in Transition

| May 2014

For sixty years, the United States has maintained an extensive network of military bases on the Korean Peninsula to ensure South Korea's security. An alliance that lasts for over half a century is likely to evolve as power configurations and the security environment change; this has certainly been the case for the U.S.–South Korea alliance. This chapter examines the key dimensions of this evolution as they alter the U.S. military presence in South Korea.

A U.S. dollar on a renminbi (RMB) banknote is seen through a magnifier in Fuyang, China, 14 Oct. 2010. The value of the RMB hit new high against U.S. dollar as the central parity rate of the RMB was set at 6.6582 per U.S. dollar.

AP Photo

Report - Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Understanding America's Contested Primacy

| 2010

"A rigorous assessment should consider the strengths and weaknesses of the United States' putative competitors on the global scene as well as the enduring strengths and sources of resilience that have enabled America to extend its primacy and maintain a stabilizing, global hegemonic role against all expectations. There is a need for a framework to inform how US policymakers might think about the problem of developing strategies and policies to extend that role yet again, since it is at least an arguable proposition that rather than a multipolar world, the global system, after the current Great Recession passes, will continue to be unipolar but with some additional challenges for US leadership."

Paper - S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies

U.S. Primacy, Eurasia's New Strategic Landscape, and the Emerging Asian Order

| December 11, 2007

This paper argues that the current structure of international power in Asia is transitional. But neither hegemony nor multipolarity will likely be the next Asian order. The paper then assesses the prospects of the emerging regional order in Asia in terms of four options: bipolarity, the East Asian Community, U.S.-China condominium, and shared leadership. The paper concludes by discussing how Southeast Asian countries should prepare for the future strategic environment.

Report - National Security Advisory Group

The U.S. Military: Under Strain and at Risk

| Jan. 25, 2006

The National Security Advisory Group sounds a warning, raising awareness about the state of our ground forces today and the very real risk that poses to our future security. The group also proposes an action plan for restoring the health and vitality of the U.S. military.

Paper - American Academy of Arts & Sciences

War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives

| December 2002

A December 2002 report, published under the auspices of the Academy’s Committee on International Security Studies (CISS), finds that the political, military, and economic consequences of war with Iraq could be extremely costly to the United States. William D. Nordhaus (Yale University) estimates the economic costs of war with Iraq in scenarios that are both favorable and unfavorable to the United States. Steven E. Miller (Harvard University) considers a number of potentially disastrous military and strategic outcomes of war for the United States that have received scant public attention. Carl Kaysen (MIT), John D. Steinbruner (University of Maryland),and Martin B. Malin (American Academy) examine the broader national security strategy behind the move toward a preventive war against Iraq.