Middle East & North Africa

The United States has a complex, multi-agency structure to plan, synchronize, and execute foreign policy and national security. By statute, the State Department is the lead agency for foreign policy. However, in practice, the much larger and better-funded Department of Defense conducts much of America's foreign policy activity, often with little coordination with the State Department or other relevant agencies. Over the past two decades, the military's Geographic Combatant Commands have taken an increasing lead in planning and executing foreign policy activities around the world. This has often effectively put a military face and voice on America's foreign policy, sometimes to the detriment of broader U.S. goals and relationships. More effective U.S. foreign policy requires greater interagency coordination at all levels and a greater role for the State Department as America's lead agency for foreign policy.

With the United States currently engaged in difficult and taxing counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, renewed emphasis has been focused upon the country's capabilities and priorities vis-à-vis this type of warfare.  Within the military, the Air Force has been especially and increasingly criticized for being too enamored with a Cold-War era conventionally minded force structure and for not shifting aggressively to meet the threats of COIN-style conflicts that many predict will be pervasive throughout the Global War on Terror.

This paper addresses the conceptual capabilities and limitations of air power in COIN in order to illuminate how the Air Force can leverage the distinct asymmetric advantage that air power presents across the spectrum of conflict.  This asymmetry is founded upon a clear U.S. superiority in air power capabilities combined with the unique flexibility inherent in air power.  An understanding of air power's efficacy in COIN, measured against conventional requirements and capabilities, will inform decisions on appropriate force structure and employment.

A panel of Kennedy School experts offered a clinical dissection of Iraq policy Tuesday after a week of heady political theater in Washington focusing on the success of the U.S. troop surge.

Council on Foreign Relations publication on the U.S.-Turkey relationship

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.

In this era of American predominance, alliances are more compelling than ever. The United States needs allies to generate capabilities that amplify its power, create a basis of legitimacy for the exercise of its power, avert impulses to counterbalance its power, and steer partners away from strategic apathy or excessive self-reliance.

The path to acquiring a peaceful civilian nuclear program is fraught with challenges for countries in the Middle East. Given Israel's proactive policies in preventing the proliferation of its neighbors and nuclear supplier states' consternation about the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region, Arab states face  a number of unique obstacles in acquiring foreign nuclear assistance. Yet as the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) recent success in courting the assistance of a number of nuclear supplier states demonstrates, these obstacles are not insurmountable. This piece explores the UAE's strategies in obtaining foreign nuclear assistance to uncover the generalizable insights that may be of use to other Middle Eastern countries seeking to develop peaceful nuclear programs.