Reports & Papers

On 24 and 25 November 2016 experts from politics and academia, including FDP Executive director Cathryn Clüver, discussed the impact of Brexit on several policy areas in a series of workshops at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. All events took place under Chatham House rules.

This paper was written by Stephen R. Covington, with a Foreword written by Kevin Ryan.

In Putin’s view, any solution short of changing the European security system—including full integration, separation by erecting new walls, freezing the status quo around Russia, or partnering with other countries to counter-balance the powers in the European system—only means Russia’s inevitable loss of great power status and the loss of his personal power at home.

This paper explains changes in NATO's nationbuilding strategy for Afghanistan over time as an internal push-and-pull struggle between the major NATO contributors. It distinguishes between he "light footprint" phase, which had numerous problems connected to limited resources and growing insurgency (2003–2008), NATO's adoption of a comprehensive approach (CSPMP) and counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy (2009–2011), the transition and drawdown (2011–2014), and the Enduring Partnership (beyond 2014). The paper explains NATO's drawdown, stressing both increased budgetary strictures compelling decisionmakers to focus on domestic concerns nd predominant national narratives connected to a protracted stabilization effort in Afghanistan.

Why are terrorist groups prevalent in democracies?

"...Leaders of the Georgian, Abkhaz, and Ossetian national movements even consider Soviet federalism to be one of the main causes of the exacerbation of ethnic conflicts in Georgia and are not eager to reinstitute a federal structure. From the Georgian perspective, the Moscow leadership used federalism as an instrument to divide and rule and weaken the Georgian movement for national independence. From the Abkhaz and South Ossetian perspectives, Soviet federalism has put the various national communities in a hierarchical relation toward each other. This kind of ethnic stratification runs contrary to the principle of national self-determination, which pre-supposes the equality of all national communities. The exacerbation of ethnic conflicts in Georgia during the first half of the 1990s and the failure of existing federal arrangements to address these problems led to war in South Ossetia and then in Abkhazia. These wars resulted in the creation of two de facto states in these regions...."

A paper by the National Security Advisory Group

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.

A discussion about recent events in the Russian-Chechen conflict and possible connections between Chechen fighters and international Islamist organizations.

This monograph offers a current analysis of the three most important secessionist conflicts in the Caucasus: Chechnya, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh. In Chechnya, after the outbreak of war in 1994, the ferocious resistance of the Chechens, the collapse of the Russian military, and a popular backlash in Moscow against the war resulted in a tentative peace treaty in August 1996. Since then, neither Russia nor Chechnya has been able to find a creative middle ground that can reconcile the Chechen desire for independence with Russian fears of a "domino effect" and the rupture of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. In Nagorno-Karabakh, a cease-fire has held since May 1994. Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have gradually been moved toward a compromise solution by the OSCE, but the Karabakh Armenians are holding out for the ultimate ruling of the political status of the territory. In February 1998, just after Dr. Walker completed his paper, domestic disagreement in Armenia over prospect of a compromise solution for Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in the resignation of President Levon Ter-Petrossian. In Georgia, civil war and military collapse forced Tbilisi to end its assault on Abkhazia in 1993, but neither Moscow nor a United Nations mission has since been able to bring the two sides together. In their state of "no peace, no war," the three conflicts continue to pose the most serious obstacle to the long-term stability and development of the Caucasus region.