Stanford University

"Human Terrain" and post-film discussion

-

From the film’s website: ‘Human Terrain’ is two stories in one. The first exposes a new Pentagon effort to enlist the best and the brightest in a struggle for hearts and minds. Facing long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military initiates ‘Human Terrain Systems’, a controversial program that seeks to make cultural awareness the centerpiece of the new counterinsurgency strategy. Designed to embed social scientists with combat troops, the program swiftly comes under attack as a misguided and unethical effort to gather intelligence and target enemies. Gaining rare access to wargames in the Mojave Desert and training exercises at Quantico and Fort Leavenworth, ‘Human Terrain’ takes the viewer into the heart of the war machine and a shadowy collaboration between American academics and the military.

The other story is about a brilliant young scholar who leaves the university to join a Human Terrain team. After working as a humanitarian activist in the Western Sahara, Balkans, East Timor and elsewhere, and winning a Marshall Scholarship to study at Oxford, Michael Bhatia returns to Brown University to take up a visiting fellowship. In the course of conducting research on military cultural awareness, he is recruited by the Human Terrain program and eventually embeds with the 82nd Airborne in eastern Afghanistan. On the way to mediate an intertribal dispute, Bhatia is killed when his humvee hits a roadside bomb.

War becomes academic, academics go to war, and the personal tragically merges with the political, raising new questions about the ethics, effectiveness, and high costs of counterinsurgency.

Following the screening, James Der Derian (the film's Co-Director and Executive Producer) will discuss the film with the audience.

For more information about the film, please visit the Human Terrain website. 

CISAC Conference Room

James Der Derian Co-Director and Executive Producer, “Human Terrain” Professor (Research), Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University Speaker
Joseph Felter Senior Research Scholar, CISAC Speaker

Norman M. Naimark

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C235
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-6927 (650) 725-0597
0
Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies
Professor of History
Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Naimark,_Norman.jpg MS, PhD

Norman M. Naimark is the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies, a Professor of History and (by courtesy) of German Studies, and Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and (by courtesy) of the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. Norman formerly served as the Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division, the Burke Family Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program, the Convener of the European Forum (predecessor to The Europe Center), Chair of the History Department, and the Director of Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

Norman earned his Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in 1972 and before returning to join the faculty in 1988, he was a professor of history at Boston University and a fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He also held the visiting Catherine Wasserman Davis Chair of Slavic Studies at Wellesley College. He has been awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1996), the Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding faculty volunteer service (1995), and the Dean's Teaching Award from Stanford University for 1991-92 and 2002-3.

Norman is interested in modern Eastern European and Russian history and his research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century. His published monographs on these topics include The History of the "Proletariat": The Emergence of Marxism in the Kingdom of Poland, 1870–1887 (1979, Columbia University Press), Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement under Alexander III (1983, Harvard University Press), The Russians in Germany: The History of The Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949 (1995, Harvard University Press), The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe (1998, Westview Press), Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing In 20th Century Europe (2001, Harvard University Press), Stalin's Genocides (2010, Princeton University Press), and Genocide: A World History (2016, Oxford University Press). Naimark’s latest book, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty (Harvard 2019), explores seven case studies that illuminate Soviet policy in Europe and European attempts to build new, independent countries after World War II.

 

Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Hide publication sections
Off
Norman M. Naimark Professor of Eastern European Studies; Professor of History; CISAC Affiliated Faculty; Europe Center Research Affiliate and FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy Moderator
Conferences

Q&A: Fingar shares insight on Chinese vice president's U.S. visit

News Type
Q&As
Date
Paragraphs

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping recently visited the United States to meet with top officials and tour various cities. China experts followed the trip closely because Xi is anticipated to become China’s next president. Thomas Fingar spoke with the Shanghai Oriental Morning Post about the visit, and about the Obama administration’s Asia policy.

How will the Obama administration’s strategic adjustments towards the Asia-Pacific shape or influence Xi’s visit? Given the fast-changing environment and shift of power towards Asia, will there be any changes or differences in the United States’s treatment of China’s anticipated future leader?

The primary impact is likely to be on the discussions between Xi and his American interlocutors. I assume that U.S. officials will want to explain the announced strategic adjustments and that Xi will seek authoritative answers to questions that he and other Chinese leaders have about the objectives and implications of the adjustments.

Contrary to your question, I do not believe the environment is changing rapidly—shifts in the global system and the shift in dynamism and wealth toward Asia have been under way for decades. The United States has been and will remain a part of that transition. The U.S. goal is to ensure that the changes result in increased security and prosperity for all—a win-win situation not unlike what happened when first Japan and then the other “Asian tigers” preceded China on the path toward greater wealth and power. 

What interests Washington most about Vice President Xi? What expectations does the United States have for his visit?

Washington expects Xi to succeed Hu Jintao and understands that he will be first among equals in a collective leadership that constrains Xi’s ability to act independently. But U.S. officials also understand that Xi, like all leaders, brings personal preferences and agendas to the job and that dealing with him will be influenced by his personality, understanding of American culture, and goals for the relationship. Simply stated, the Americans Xi meets will want to get to know him and what he is like.

U.S. officials understand that he is here as China’s vice president and therefore is unlikely to be bringing new initiatives. They do expect him to have questions about U.S. and Obama administration positions on a wide range of global issues and to have questions about U.S. intentions in Asia.

Is the U.S. “pivot to Asia” strategy aimed at containing or encircling China? Almost all U.S. official statements try to clarify that the United States is not trying to contain China, but its policy focus and military deployments in the Asia-Pacific have made many Chinese scholars doubtful of U.S. intentions. What are your observations? Is U.S. rhetoric consistent with its actions?

I do not like the term “pivot to Asia” and am pleased that U.S. officials seem to have stopped using that term. The United States is not returning to Asia; we never left. I think the basic point of recent statements is that with the end of the U.S. role in the conflict in Iraq and plans to draw down in Afghanistan, the United States will be able to focus more attention on other parts of the world. Asia is, and has been, the most dynamic, fastest changing, and in many ways most-challenging region of the world for many years. The region is also very important to the United States and deserves more attention than it has received. The Asia-Pacific is a region of superlatives—biggest economies, largest militaries, most nuclear powers, largest military budgets, largest foreign exchange reserves, etc. It would be unwise and impossible not to pay attention to developments in and affecting the region and its relations with other parts of the global system.

I have been working on China for more than 45 years and working with Chinese counterparts for 40 years. I must say that I have just about abandoned efforts to persuade important groups in China that the United States is not attempting to surround, contain, or thwart China’s rise. They seem determined to believe that it is the case no matter what we say or do. It is impossible for me to look at the policies and actions of the last eight administrations and come to any conclusion except that the United States means what its leaders have said: that it is in the interest of the United States for China to be strong, secure, and prosperous. The record shows quite clearly that the United States has assisted China’s rise. It also shows that China’s rise has been beneficial to the United States. We are not poorer or weaker or more insecure because China’s people live better and China plays an increasingly important role on the world stage. 

Do you think the Obama administration has changed the direction of U.S. strategy toward China or Asia compared with the Bush administration?

The short answer is, “no. ” The Bush administration was preoccupied by terrorism, Iraq, and Afghanistan and devoted less time and attention to Asia. Obama is redressing the balance and better aligning attention with current interests. Arguably what has changed is the perception of China held by others in the region. A series of foreign policy blunders in 2010 undercut the success of China’s diplomacy and increased regional concern about China’s intentions. That prompted requests for reassurance that the United States would remain engaged in the region and that the Bush administration’s “neglect” of certain regional meetings was not a harbinger of a retreat from Asia. The Obama administration seeks to provide that assurance and to make clear that we are engaged in Asia because we are a Pacific power with great interests in the region. We are not there to contain or block anybody.

The United States is struggling with its economy and also cutting its defense budget. Do you think this strategy comes at the right time?

Downturns in the economy never come at a good time. The great recession has taken a heavy toll but we are recovering and will recover. We have been spending too much for too long and need to cut back. In my opinion, we also need to tax ourselves more to pay for modernization of infrastructure, better schools, and other requisites of continued prosperity. We are winding down two long and expensive wars and should reduce our defense budget. It will take time to replace worn out equipment and to reduce the large role that defense expenditures played in the U.S. economy during the Cold War, but we will get there eventually. More importantly, now is a good time to reduce defense expenditures and reorganize our military because we do not have any enemies and are not bent on conquering other nations.

Is the “pivot to Asia” strategy concrete or more of a “paper tiger” given the fact that other challenges, including Iran, are still occupying the United States?

As previously noted, the term “pivot to Asia” exaggerates the amount of change. The United States never left or lost interest in Asia, but is now able to devote more attention to the most dynamic, and in some respects most dangerous place in the world. Building a new security architecture that is inclusive—including China—and addresses concerns in and about North Korea is and should be a priority. Forging institutions to ensure continued stability and prosperity in the region despite paralysis at the global level and adjusting to changes in production and supply chains are among the long list of specific issues that need attention. The United States has a stake in the way these issues are addressed and must be engaged in the search for solutions.

Hero Image
BidenXi NEWSFEED
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping greet high school basketball players in Dujiangyan, China, Aug. 2011.
Official White House Photo/David Lienemann
All News button
1

The South African Denuclearization Exemplar: Insights for Nonproliferation

-

July 10, 2011 was a milestone in history, marking twenty years since South Africa acceded to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).  To this day, South Africa remains the only country to have produced and assembled nuclear weapons and to have later relinquished that arsenal.  Moreover, that denuclearization came without any direct external intervention, and involved opening-up the former top secret program to international scrutiny, voluntarily, beyond that required by the NPT.  While each example of nuclear weapons proliferation has a unique history and basis, South Africa is a particularly instructive exemplar as a result of its unprecedented rollback. That rollback provided sufficient transparency for clear insights into:


1) Why a nation might seek to acquire nuclear weapons,
2) What tactics might a nation employ to conceal the existence of nuclear weapons program under a “Peaceful” nuclear program umbrella,
3) What strategies might a nation consider with respect to the potential use of such weapons, and
4) Why a nation might choose to renounce its nuclear weapons.

This seminar will focus upon a few less reported, but nonetheless salient, aspects of the South African nuclear weapons program pertinent to the monitoring and assessment of the capabilities and intent of other threshold nations whose nuclear programs remain suspect (despite having been repeatedly declared as being solely for only peaceful purposes).  They include object lessons derived from the various efforts that the minority-ruled government of South Africa took to conceal its nuclear program from external discovery, and to ensure sufficient ambiguity to allow that program to progress unabated, despite externally imposed restraints and sanctions, (and only up until termination was self-imposed through internal decision making). The lessons thus learned also provide an objective basis for comparison and assessment of alternative intents represented by the various capabilities, activities, and statements associated with those of contemporary nuclear threshold states exhibiting similar ambiguity.

About the speaker:

Frank Pabian is the Senior Geospatial Information Analyst at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Global Security Directorate and a visiting scholar at CISAC. Frank has nearly 40 years in the nuclear nonproliferation and satellite imagery analysis fields including 30 years with US National Laboratories. During 1996-1998, he served as Nuclear Chief Inspector for the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during ground inspections in Iraq, focusing primarily on equipment/materials “Hide Sites”, and “Capable Sites” that were deemed potentially associated with weapons of mass destruction development and/or production.

His responsibilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory include “Rest-of-World” infrastructure analysis involving the exploitation of all-source information, particularly commercial satellite imagery in combination with openly available geospatial tools for visualization. Frank has published in numerous peer-reviewed scientific journals on the use of commercial satellite imagery for treaty verification and monitoring, and his work has been featured on magazine covers and in textbooks for training in the nonproliferation and intelligence professions. Frank is a recipient of the US Intelligence Community Seal Medallion (gold medal) for “sustained superior performance” for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty verification support to the IAEA during South Africa’s denuclearization, and for associated discoveries derived from original analysis of all-source, including open source, information. Frank is also a “Certified Mapping Scientist, Remote Sensing” with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASP&RS).

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Frank Pabian

0
Affiliate
Pabian,_Frank.jpg

Frank Pabian is a globally recognized expert in the fields of nuclear nonproliferation and satellite imagery intelligence analysis with one half century of professional experience, beginning with the CIA’s Office of Imagery Analysis, followed by employment at US and European National Nuclear Laboratories. During the period from 1996-98, Frank was a Nuclear Chief Inspector for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during ground inspections in Iraq, focusing primarily on equipment/materials “Hide Sites” and “Capable Sites” potentially associated with weapons of mass destruction development and/or production. His Iraq Action Team’s efforts helped garner support for the IAEA and its Director General to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Frank is recipient of the US Intelligence Community’s highest  award for contractors, the Gold Seal Medallion, for “sustained superior performance” for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty verification support to the IAEA during South Africa’s denuclearization, and for associated discoveries derived from original analysis of all-source information. He was also named a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow in 2013, having served as the senior geospatial open-source information analyst in both the Global Security Directorate and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division to help solve key intelligence questions in a geospatial context until retirement in May 2017. During 2014-2016, served as a Senior Fellow Researcher during USG authorized overseas service at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy; and is continuing as an Affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation where, previously, Frank was a Research Fellow during the 2011-2012 academic year.
 

Although now fully retired, Frank remains a consultant to the CISAC IMINT Team and continues to lecture on new developments for Open Source Geospatial Intelligence.  Frank is a “Certified Mapping Scientist, Remote Sensing” with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASP&RS) and an American Mensan.

Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Frank Pabian Visiting Scholar Speaker CISAC
Seminars

The Road Ahead for America and Pakistan

-

About the topic: When democracy returned to Pakistan, Americans and Pakistanis had high expectations of an improved partnership. Those expectations have not been met: The events of 2011 were hard on both sides, and pushed the relationship to a series of dangerous crises. What can we expect in 2012 and beyond, not only in bilateral ties, but in the plans both countries have for regional stability in South Asia?

About the Speaker: Cameron Munter was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan on October 6, 2010. Prior to his nomination, Ambassador Munter completed his tour of duty at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. He served there first as Political-Military Minister-Counselor in 2009, then as Deputy Chief of Mission for the first half of 2010. He served as Ambassador in Belgrade from 2007 to 2009.

In 2006, he led the first Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mosul, Iraq. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in Prague from 2005 to 2007 and in Warsaw from 2002 to 2005. Before these assignments, in Washington, he was Director for Central Europe at the National Security Council (1999-2001), Executive Assistant to the Counselor of the Department of State (1998-1999), Director of the Northern European Initiative (1998), and Chief of Staff in the NATO Enlargement Ratification Office (1997-1998). His other domestic assignments include: Country Director for Czechoslovakia at the Department of State (1989-1991), and Dean Rusk Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (1991).

CISAC Conference Room

Cameron Munter U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Speaker
Seminars

The Flawed Logic of Striking Iran

Paragraphs

Matthew Kroenig's argument for preventive military action to combat Tehran's nuclear program -- "Time to Attack Iran" (January/February 2012) -- suffers from three problems. First, its view of Iranian leaders' risk calculations is self-contradictory. Second, it misreads nuclear history. And third, it underestimates the United States' ability to contain a nuclear Iran. When these problems are addressed, it is clear that, contrary to what Kroenig contends, attacking Iran is not "the least bad option." 

Kroenig's view of the way Iranian leaders are willing to take on risks is deeply incongruous. In his view, a nuclear bomb will push Tehran to block U.S. initiatives in the Middle East, unleash conventional and terrorist aggression on U.S. forces and allies, and possibly engage in a nuclear exchange with Israel. This would mean Iranian leaders are reckless: given the United States' conventional and nuclear superiority, any of these actions would provoke considerable retaliation from Washington. And, of course, a nuclear exchange with Israel would invite annihilation. At the same time, Kroenig suggests that Tehran would remain remarkably timid after a preventive strike from the United States. Presented with clear redlines, Iran would not retaliate against U.S. troops and allies or attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz. Kroenig's inconsistency is clear: If Iranian leaders are as reckless as he seems to believe, a preventive strike would likely escalate to a full-blown war. If they are not, then there is no reason to think that a nuclear Iran would be uncontainable. In short, a preventive attack on Iran can hardly be both limited and necessary.

Kroenig's argument misreads nuclear history at least three times. First, he writes that a targeted preventive strike would likely wipe out the nuclear program in Iran, as strikes against Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 did in those countries. These comparisons are misleading. Recent research based on captured Iraqi documents demonstrates that the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osirak reactor, near Baghdad, actually spurred a covert nuclear weapons program at other sites. Indeed, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein remained determined to revive his nuclear program until he was removed from power in 2003. What prevented him from achieving that goal was the decade-long U.S.-led containment regime put in place after the 1991 Gulf War. The Iraqi case suggests that any attacks that do not depose the Iranian regime, too, would cause it to accelerate its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Kroenig's prescription might therefore precipitate the very outcome he is trying to avoid. 

As for Syria, Damascus' nuclear program was just budding. The country boasted only one exploratory facility, which was shattered easily by a single aerial bombing carried out by Israel in September 2007 under the cloak of night. But Iran's nuclear program is much more advanced and is already of industrial proportions. Any attack on Tehran would involve destroying numerous nuclear-program and air-defense targets, making it far more costly and less likely to succeed than the Israeli raid against Syria's Deir ez-Zor reactor. More, Iran's advanced program reflects Tehran's greater resolve to develop nuclear capabilities, so, post-attack, Tehran would be ever more likely to double down on developing a weapon. Furthermore, although Kroenig hopes that a targeted strike would destabilize the Iranian regime, there is no basis for such optimism. Being a civilian, parliamentary, oil-rich theocracy, Iran is relatively stable. Put simply, a preventive strike against Iran can hardly be both limited and effective.

Kroenig misreads history again when he considers a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel. In his view, they "lack nearly all the safeguards that helped the United States and the Soviet Union avoid a nuclear exchange during the Cold War." Yet the United States and the Soviet Union avoided a nuclear exchange even during the hottest crisis of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, at a moment in which Soviet retaliatory capability was still uncertain, there were no clear direct communication channels between the two leaderships, and Soviet experience managing their nuclear arsenal was no longer than five years. Moreover, the historical record shows that even young and unstable nuclear powers have avoided nuclear escalation despite acute crises. Pakistan and India avoided nuclear war in Kargil in 1999, as well as after the terrorist attacks targeting the Indian parliament in 2001 and Mumbai in 2008. When national survival is at stake, even opaque and supposedly "irrational" regimes with nuclear weapons have historically behaved in prudent ways.

Kroenig's final abuse of history comes when he posits a cascade of nuclear proliferation across the Middle East in response to an Iranian bomb. He mentions Saudi Arabia, and implies that Egypt, Iraq, and Turkey might all follow suit. Yet none of these states, which can count on U.S. support against Iran, nuclearized in response to Israel's nuclearization (against which they cannot count on U.S. backing, mind you). And more generally, the United States has a successful record of preventing clients from acquiring nuclear weapons in response to a regional enemy, such as South Korea and Japan in response to North Korean nuclear acquisition. (Washington agreed with Pakistani nuclearization in response to India.) 

Taking the long view, Kroenig's argument reveals an unwarranted skepticism about Washington's ability to contain a nuclear Iran. This skepticism is all the more surprising considering Kroenig's work on the benefits of U.S. nuclear superiority. Existing U.S. security guarantees, based on current capabilities, give allies little incentive to nuclearize. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are among the largest recipients of U.S. military support, and Turkey is a member of NATO. Reinforcing U.S. ties with friends in the region would be easier, cheaper, and less risky than attacking the Iranian nuclear program. 

Instead, the United States should heed the lessons of the North Korean nuclearization. Not so long ago, Washington had to face an aggressive regime in Pyongyang intent on developing nuclear weapons. The United States rejected a preventive strike in 1994 for fear that the outcome would be worse than its target's nuclear acquisition. This was the right decision. After North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, none of the consequences that Kroenig's argument would predict materialized. U.S. security guarantees contained Pyongyang and persuaded South Korea and Japan not to acquire nuclear weapons. Nobody believes that the world is better off with a bomb in North Korea -- but the record shows that it hasn't brought the end of the world, either.

Military action against Iran would be a profound strategic miscalculation. For all the talk of retrenchment, the U.S. military might remains the most powerful in the world, and it can successfully minimize consequences of an Iranian bomb, should one come to pass, by containing Tehran's ambitions, dissuading regional proliferation, and providing security assurances to its allies.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Foreign Affairs
Authors
External URL

What’s in a Toolbox? Criminal Law and the Strategic State

-

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Samuel J. Rascoff Associate Professor of Law, New York University School of Law Speaker
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar Professor and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School; CDDRL Affiliated Faculty; FSI Senior Fellow; FSE Affiliated Faculty and Co-Director of CISAC Commentator
Seminars

Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?

-

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Jacob Shapiro Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University; Co-director, Empirical Studies of Conflict Project Speaker
David Blum Predoctoral Fellow, CISAC Commentator
Seminars

Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb

-

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

David Palkki Deputy Director, National Defense University, Conflict Records Research Center; Co-editor, The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of A Tyrant’s Regime, 1978-2001 Speaker

Martha Crenshaw

Not in residence

0
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emerita
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science, Emerita
crenshaw_martha.jpg PhD

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow emerita at CISAC and FSI. She taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1974 to 2007.  She has published extensively on the subject of terrorism.  In 2011 Routledge published Explaining Terrorism, a collection of her previously published work.  A book co-authored with Gary LaFree titled Countering Terrorism was published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2017. She recently authored a report for the U.S. Institute of Peace, “Rethinking Transnational Terrorism:  An Integrated Approach”.

 

 She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2005-2006 she was a Guggenheim Fellow. She was a lead investigator with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland from 2005 to 2017.  She is currently affiliated with the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center, also a Center of Excellence for the Department of Homeland Security.  In 2009 the National Science Foundation/Department of Defense Minerva Initiative awarded her a grant for a research project on "mapping terrorist organizations," which is ongoing.  She has served on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences.  In 2015 she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.  She is the recipient of the International Studies Association International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award for 2016. Also in 2016 Ghent University awarded her an honorary doctorate.  She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Security Studies, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, Orbis, and Terrorism and Political Violence.

Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Martha Crenshaw Professor of Political Science (by courtesy); Senior Fellow, CISAC and FSI Commentator
Seminars
Regional Conflict and Cooperation

A new study looks at the economics of counterinsurgency

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

A new study by Joseph Felter, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Eli Berman, finds that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, which  focuses on working with local populations on small, community-based projects like digging wells or paving rural roads, has reduced violence. Researchers found no evidence, however, that larger projects had the same effect. Read the study below. 

Hero Image
Soldier construction 2009 logo
All News button
1

Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq

Paragraphs

Abstract:

We develop and test an economic theory of insurgency motivated by the informal literature and by recent military doctrine. We model a three-way contest between violent rebels, a government seeking to minimize violence by mixing service provision and coercion, and civilians deciding whether to share information about insurgents. We test the model using panel data from Iraq on violence against Coalition and Iraqi forces, reconstruction spending, and community characteristics (sectarian status, socioeconomic grievances, and natural resource endowments). Our results support the theory’s predictions: improved service provision reduces insurgent violence, particularly for smaller projects and since the “surge” began in 2007.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Journal of Political Economy
Authors
External URL
Subscribe to Iraq