Browsing by Subject "National security"
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Item Assessment of United States national security policy under international human rights law and international humanitarian law(2014-05) Salvaggio, Natalie Cecile; Inboden, William, 1972-; Dulitzky, Ariel E.This paper assesses U.S. national security policies in surveillance, detention, interrogation and torture, and targeted killing to determine whether they comport with international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The U.S. is responsible for adhering to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Geneva Conventions. These human rights law documents can be understood through court decisions, congressional statutes, and widely accepted interpretations from organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the UN Human Rights Council. Further, this paper offers prescriptions on how international human rights law and international humanitarian law can be updated to better deal with the current war on terror.Item The good guys win : Ronald Reagan, Tom Clancy, and the transformation of national security(2015-05) Griffin, Benjamin, M.A.; Suri, Jeremi; Lawrence, MarkThis paper examines the relationship between popular culture and policy. It argues that popular culture serves to make policy legible to a broad audience and exerts influence on policy makers themselves. It examines the way the administration of Ronald Reagan made use of the novels of Tom Clancy to build support for its national security agenda, how the public received the works, and in turn how the novels reinforced Reagan's confidence in his policy. The paper also explores how Reagan developed his political ideology and how his background informed the method in which he received, and then presented information. It argues that Reagan was the driving ideological force in his administration.Item In search of a cyber Manhattan Project : assorted thoughts on U.S. cyberattack by and for the computer illiterate(2011-08) Civins, Braden Eph; Chesney, Robert M.; Weaver, Catherine, 1971-National discourse on cyberconflict has largely focused on defensive concerns, or protecting “critical infrastructure” from cyber threats. By contrast, the U.S. government’s employment of cyberattack is shrouded in secrecy and receives scant public attention. The seminal study on U.S. cyberattack, published by the National Academy of Sciences in 2009, noted that the clandestine nature of U.S. cyber operations hinders “widespread understanding and debate about the nature and implications of U.S. cyberattack.” This secrecy has contributed to a policy and legal framework for cyberattack that the NRC-NAS Report called “ill-formed, underdeveloped and highly uncertain.” Since the NRC-NAS Report was published, the U.S. government has signaled an unprecedented seriousness of purpose in addressing cyberconflict. It has marshaled its cyber resources under the leadership of a single “Cyber Command” and attempted to articulate formal “cyberstrategy.” Media reports from 2010-11 provide rare insight into cyberattack decision-making, and describe gradual development of policy and process for a specific type of cyberattack. The topic of U.S. cyberattack merits revisiting. This Report surveys the current international environment regarding cyberconflict, traces the development of “cyberstrategy” by the Executive Office of the President (EoP) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to make general points about the U.S. approach to cyberattack, and examines the statutory framework applicable to U.S. cyberattack in a narrow set of cases. This Report draws on news media reports about a series of cyberattack incidents to examine the dynamics of the cyberattack policy-making process, discusses recent attempts to address these issues, and summarizes lessons learned.Item Mexico’s national security framework in the context of an interdependent world : a comparative architecture approach(2013-08) Martinez Espinosa, Cesar Alfredo; Ward, Peter M., 1951-In a more complex and interdependent world, nations face new challenges that threaten their national security. National security should not be understood exclusively in the way of military threats by adversarial states but in a broader way: how old and new sectoral threats affect not only a state and its institutions but a nation as a whole, physically and economically. This dissertation looks into how the nature of security threats and risks has evolved in recent years. This dissertation then explores how different nations have decided to publish national security strategy documents and analyzes the way in which they include this broadened understanding of security: it finds that there is evidence of international policy diffusion related to the publication of such security strategies and that nations are evolving towards a broader understanding of security that includes models like whole-of-government, and whole-of-society. In the second half, this dissertation analyzes the route through which Mexico has reformed its national security framework since the year 2000 through a policy streams approach. After looking at the path that led to the creation of Mexico’s modern national security institutions, it analyzes the way in which Mexico national interests can be determined and how these interests inform the way in which Mexico understands national security threats and risks in the 21st Century.Item Stockpile reduction : the key to transition and infrastructure management at Los Alamos(2010-08) Gubernatis, David Charles; Nichols, Steven P.; Kautz, Douglas D.; Kornreich, Drew E.Since the end of World War II the United States has grown and maintained a stockpile of nuclear weapons in the interest of preserving world peace, and with the specific intent to provide unparalleled national security to its citizens. It was a commonly held view during this time that a large diverse stockpile was a fundamental key to national security. However, in today’s ever-changing environment, Los Alamos National Laboratory finds itself with an infrastructure unable to quickly adapt to new national security needs and threats. Burdened by the management of a Cold-War-era stockpile, nuclear operations at Los Alamos will benefit from a reduced stockpile initiative. Contrary to previously held beliefs, Los Alamos can be the prime beneficiary to such an approach, and use such a monumental shift in strategy to modernize infrastructure, revitalize critical staff, and effectively manage critical materials and facilities while simultaneously reducing waste and environmental impacts to better support national security needs.