December 2007 HIGHLIGHTS:

A great deal of activity has been aimed at revising the approach to the planning and implementation of Stabilization, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) operations. The primary emphasis of the changes is on ensuring a common U.S. strategy rather than a collection of individual departmental and agency efforts and on mobilizing and involving all available U.S. government assets in the effort. However, using a template to assess the extent of progress in building collaborative interagency capacity for SSTR operations, the authors find that some elements essential to the success of the process are not yet in place. They provide a series of recommendations on how the Army, as a major stakeholder, can act to advance the interagency process.

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This report focuses on understanding how terrorist groups make technology choices and consequently how the United States can discourage their adoption of advanced conventional weapons. Five types of advanced conventional weapons are identified that could provide terrorists with a new and qualitatively different weapon capability: sniper rifles, squad-level weapons, antitank missiles, large limpet mines, and mortar systems. Two key methods of limiting the threat from these systems in the hands of terrorists are explored: raising awareness of the threat, and reducing the threat through procedural and technical use controls.

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Ongoing operations and emerging mission requirements place a heavy burden on Army resources, resulting in capability gaps that the Army is unable to fill by itself. This report argues that one way to fill those gaps is by building the appropriate capabilities in allies and partner armies through focused security cooperation. It argues that U.S. Army planners need a more comprehensive understanding of the types of capability gaps that partner armies might fill and a process for matching those gaps with candidate partner armies.

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Includes articles on building partner capacity for successful counterinsurgency; reducing U.S. exposure to potential space attacks; finding the right ratio of experienced and new pilots for fighter units; Chinese efforts to limit U.S. power in the Western pacific; command and control of air and space operations; why Iraqi military resistance to the coalition invasion was so weak; and whether the Air Force is overinvested in test and evaluation facilities and capabilities.

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TESTIMONY

NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN
Author: James Dobbins

Testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on November 7, 2007.

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