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Iraq and Afghanistan Missions Failing to Build Internal Security
America’s current nation-building missions in Iraq and Afghanistan “largely have been unsuccessful in establishing law and order,” according to Seth Jones, lead author of a new RAND study that examines nine nation-building efforts in the post–Cold War era.
Nation-building has many components, such as reconstructing a country’s public health, economic, and education systems. However, said Jones, “Establishing police, courts, border control, and other elements of internal security should be the most important objectives of policymakers immediately after major combat.”
Therefore, his study measures the level of internal security achieved in various post-conflict settings. The study compares nine efforts — Panama, El Salvador, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq — in terms of how successful the United States and its allies have been at both reducing the level of violence and establishing a functioning rule of law.
For Kosovo and East Timor, the data show consistently high levels of inputs provided and outputs produced. |
As the figure shows, only two of the cases — East Timor and Kosovo — have met with success in both respects, with the level of violence declining and the rule of law improving over the course of reconstruction. The study found that success has been largely a function of initial conditions in the country (such as the existence of a peace treaty), inputs (such as the amount of financial assistance provided), and outputs (such as the number of civilian police trained). The outputs influenced subsequent outcomes, such as crime rates and the levels of political violence.
For Kosovo and East Timor, the data and case studies show consistently high levels of inputs provided and outputs produced: the amount of financial assistance, the duration of assistance, the size of international military and police contingents, the size of a national police force, and the number of police trained in proportion to the general population. Kosovo and East Timor have also had the highest proportions of civilian police forces who have been armed and given arrest authority. The other cases — both the unsuccessful and mixed ones — have had lower rates in these categories.
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The report urges the United States to bolster the planning for post-conflict security institutions by
- paying as much attention to planning post-conflict internal security as to planning combat operations
- negotiating a peace treaty or formal surrender
- filling the security gap quickly with U.S. (or U.S. and allied) military and constabulary forces
- developing a comprehensive doctrine for post-conflict internal security reconstruction
- building mechanisms to ensure faster mobilization of personnel, funds, and equipment
- focusing on outcome measures, such as crime rates, when designing programs.
The researchers set rough guidelines for the successful reconstruction of security after combat. For example, average annual financial assistance should be roughly $250 per capita over the first two years of nation-building. And there should be 1,000 soldiers per 100,000 inhabitants to provide security and stability. 
For more information:
Establishing Law and Order After Conflict, ISBN 0-8330-3814-1, 2005.
Military Spending: Which Path Will China Take?
China’s military budgets are expected to grow substantially over the next two decades. According to Keith Crane, a RAND economist, “China’s defense spending has more than doubled over the past six years, almost catching up with Great Britain and Japan. Although the rate of increase has slowed, by 2025 China will be spending more on defense than any of our allies.”
Both projections yield very substantial sums by 2025. |
Crane and his colleagues estimate that Chinese defense spending is between 2.3 and 2.8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), compared with U.S. defense spending of 3.9 percent of GDP. This estimated range is 40–70 percent higher than official Chinese government figures, but it is still considerably lower than many previous estimates of how much money China spends on defense.
As for future growth, the figure shows two projections: mid-range and maximum. Both projections yield very substantial sums by 2025. The lower sum of $185 billion from the mid-range projection amounts to about 60 percent of the 2003 U.S. defense budget. The larger sum of $403 billion from the maximum projection is a third more than the 2003 U.S. defense budget. (Both projections are expressed in terms of 2001 U.S. dollars.)
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The maximum projection assumes that the Chinese leadership would be willing to raise military expenditures to 5 percent of GDP during a period when political pressures to increase spending on health, education, and pensions — plus infrastructure, the environment, and unemployment — will be very strong. This projection reflects both the upper bound of what middle-income developing countries have been willing to spend on defense over the past two decades and an evaluation of the People’s Liberation Army’s assessment of threats to China at this point in time. The mid-range projection assumes that military spending will not rise above the lower bound of the current estimate, or 2.3 percent of GDP.
How will we know which path China is taking? Tracking a set of indicators should help determine whether future military expenditures and capabilities are likely to diverge markedly, up or down. Those indicators include factors such as rates of growth in GDP, the introduction of a national pension program, closure of poorly performing defense plants and expanded production by better-performing ones, sizable contract awards to nontraditional defense suppliers (including nonstate enterprises), and changes in the total government budget for research and development.
For more information:
Modernizing China’s Military: Opportunities and Constraints, ISBN 0-8330-3698-X, 2005.
Terrorism Insurance Failing to Cover Growing Threats to Private Sector
The U.S. terrorism insurance system is failing to provide businesses with adequate financial protection, leaving the nation vulnerable to economic disruption if there is a major terrorist attack, according to a new RAND study.
“Protecting businesses against the economic impact of a terrorist attack should be part of a robust homeland security effort,” said Peter Chalk, lead author of the report.
Congress passed the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, or TRIA, in 2002. The act requires insurers to offer insurance that will pay on claims resulting from terrorist attacks on commercial assets when perpetrated by foreign groups using conventional weapons and on the scale of 9/11.
But while such insurance is required by law, only about 50 percent of businesses have “taken it up.” At present, TRIA is scheduled to expire in December; if that occurs, prices for such insurance will increase, “take-up” rates will fall, and the nation’s financial vulnerability to future attacks will rise.
And although al Qaeda remains the principal “foreign” threat, its operational and organizational character has changed markedly since 9/11, now corresponding more to a “movement of movements” that works through local affiliates. In fact, the study postulates four main attack trends: (1) an increased focus on “soft,” civilian-centric venues; (2) an ongoing emphasis on economically motivated assaults; (3) a continued reliance on martyrdom; and (4) a continued interest in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) attacks despite little ability to execute large-scale strikes.
TRIA is scheduled to expire in December; if that occurs, the nation’s financial vulnerability to future attacks will rise. |
Domestically, the antiglobalism movement, with its opposition to the growing concentration of state and corporate power, has influenced at least three homegrown entities that are very dissimilar but that have demonstrated, in varying degrees, a shared penchant for violence: (1) anarchists, (2) far-right extremists, and (3) radical environmentalists. The rise of domestic militants hostile to corporate power has coincided with al Qaeda’s increased focus on attacks designed to yield magnified economic consequences.
Two key implications for terrorism insurance emerge. First, TRIA does not provide adequate financial protection, particularly in the face of economically targeted attacks against soft targets. The currently low levels of take-up rates could lead to widespread uninsured losses, intensifying the economic consequences of such attacks.
Second, TRIA has failed to keep pace with the evolving threat. Although the risk from CBRN attacks is profound, insurers are not required to offer this type of coverage (other than workers’ compensation). Another key limitation of TRIA is its exclusion of coverage for attacks caused by domestic terrorist groups. This exclusion is problematic because al Qaeda “franchises” its attacks to local affiliates and because it is hard to attribute such attacks to a particular group.
The report recommends that the U.S. Congress consider the following proposals:
- Increase the number of businesses buying terrorism insurance by lowering its price, which could be accomplished by altering the terms of federal reinsurance.
- Expand and improve the financial protections offered by TRIA instead of allowing it to expire in December.
- Require that terrorism insurance cover attacks by domestic groups and attacks involving CBRN weapons (or possibly cover CBRN attacks through a direct government insurance program).
- Create a national board to assess the performance of TRIA or its successor.
For more information:
Trends in Terrorism: Threats to the United States and the Future of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, ISBN 0-8330-3822-2, 2005.
Number of Asbestos Claims Continues to Rise at Steady Pace
Asbestos litigation is the longest-running mass tort litigation in the United States, and the number of claims “increased sharply” from the early 1990s to 2002, according to Stephen Carroll, a RAND senior economist and lead author of the most comprehensive study of asbestos litigation to date. The increase was “driven primarily by people who claim noncancerous injuries, a group that accounts for 90 percent of all new claims,” he said.
Current litigation has spread well beyond the asbestos and building products industries. |
Previously, most claims came from workers exposed through activities such as asbestos mining and manufacturing. Current litigation, however, has spread well beyond the asbestos and building products industries to industries such as textiles, paper, glass, and food. In the latter cases, workers did not routinely handle asbestos, but it was present in the workplace.
Researchers found that more than 730,000 individuals had brought asbestos claims against more than 8,400 defendants through 2002. Moreover, at least 73 companies named in a substantial number of asbestos claims had filed for bankruptcy through mid-2004.
All told, a total of $70 billion has been spent on this litigation through 2002. As the figure shows, nearly a third of the money ($21 billion) has paid for the legal costs incurred by defendants and insurers, with the remaining two-thirds being the gross compensation awarded to claimants.
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Of that $49 billion in gross compensation through 2002, roughly $19 billion has paid for the claimants’ legal costs, leaving about $30 billion — or 42 percent of total spending — as net compensation. Put another way, claimants have received about 42 cents of every dollar spent, with the rest going to attorneys on both sides and for other related costs.
The study encourages policy-makers to consider alternative strategies for resolving asbestos injury claims, strategies that would deliver adequate and fair compensation more efficiently. Among the alternatives described in the report is one that would allow claims to remain in the legal system but would limit compensation only to those people whose injuries meet certain medical criteria. Such a system would require the fewest changes but would prevent many asbestos-exposed workers from seeking compensation.
Yet another alternative would be to create a trust fund to make payments to injured workers who meet certain criteria. The fund would be created by pooling payments from defendant corporations and insurers. This alternative is similar to proposed legislation that was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in late spring.
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