Managing Crisis and Sustaining Peace between China and the United States

Managing Crisis and Sustaining Peace between China and the United States

Source: United States Institute of Peace

A series of crises have strained relations between the People’s Republic of China and the United States since the end of the Cold War. Included most prominently among them are the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996, the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, and the midair collision between a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese fighter plane in 2001. Although none of these crises led to direct military hostilities, they have had an adverse impact on bilateral relations and portend future such crises between the two countries. To determine how best to mitigate such crises in the future, it is important to study these recent crises and identify the positive and negative responses and actions of both governments during them.

Turkey as a U.S. Security Partner

Turkey as a U.S. Security Partner

Source: RAND Corporation

Turkey has long been an important U.S. ally, but especially with the end of the Cold War, the relationship has been changing. Divergences between U.S. and Turkish interests have grown, in part because of Turkey’s relationships with its neighbors and the tension between its Western identity and its Middle Eastern orientation. Further, relations with the European Union have also deteriorated of late. As a result, Ankara has come to feel that it can no longer rely on its traditional allies, and Turkey is likely to be a more difficult and less predictable partner in the future. While Turkey will continue to want good ties to the United States, it is likely to be drawn more heavily into the Middle East by the Kurdish issue and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Consequently, the tension between Turkey’s Western identity and Middle Eastern orientation is likely to grow even more.

Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath

Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath

Source: Institute for National Strategic Studies (National Defense University)

To date, the war in Iraq is a classic case of failure to adopt and adapt prudent courses of action that balance ends, ways, and means. After the major combat operation, U.S. policy has been insolvent, with inadequate means for pursuing ambitious ends. It is also a case where the perceived illegitimacy of our policy has led the United States to bear a disproportionate share of the war’s burden. U.S. efforts in Iraq stand in stark contrast to the war in Afghanistan, where, to the surprise of many, U.S. friends and allies have recently taken up a larger share of the burden of that conflict. Afghanistan has become the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) war, but the war in Iraq has increasingly become only a U.S. and Iraqi struggle. The British drawdown in Basra in the summer of 2007 heightened the isolation of the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

The goal of this case study is to outline how the United States chose to go to war in Iraq, how its decisionmaking process functioned, and what can be done to improve that process. The central finding of this study is that U.S. efforts in Iraq were hobbled by a set of faulty assumptions, a flawed planning effort, and a continuing inability to create security conditions in Iraq that could have fostered meaningful advances in stabilization, reconstruction, and governance. It is arguable whether the Iraqis will develop the wherewithal to create ethnic reconciliation and build a coherent national government. It is clear, however, that the United States and its partners have not done enough to create conditions in which such a development could take place. With the best of intentions, the United States toppled a vile, dangerous regime but has been unable to replace it with a stable entity. Mistakes in the Iraq operation cry out for improvements in the U.S. decisionmaking and policy execution systems. In turn, these improvements will require major changes in the legislative and executive branches, as well as in interagency processes.

Testimony of General David Petraeus to Congress on the Situation in Iraq

Testimony of General David Petraeus to Congress on the Situation in Iraq

Source: Council on Foreign Relations

General David H. Petraeus gave this testimony on Iraq before Congress on April 8, 2008. Accompanying the testimony is a separate file of charts.