2009-2010 PIPS Fellows

Alexander Bellah

China's growing military power challenges Taiwan's ability to unilaterally break a PRC naval blockade, while growing economic interdependence and China's development of effective anti-access technology diminish the United States' willingness to engage in a military conflict. These trends call into question the U.S. commitment to Taiwan and increase the risk of China's acting on a perceived loss of credible U.S. deterrence, which would force the United States to choose between direct military intervention and abandonment of Taiwan. Given these considerations, the United States must help Taiwan develop a self-sufficient means of deterring or defeating a Chinese blockade without seriously harming U.S.-PRC relations. To this end, this brief proposes that the United States encourage and help Taiwan to adopt a "Focused Lifeline" strategy, in which Taiwan has the capability to maintain at least one sea line of communication open out to twelve nautical miles. This strategy requires that the United States provide Taiwan with capable -- but degraded -- destroyers, conditioned on Taiwan's building stockpiles of critical supplies and improving the capacity of its East Coast harbor at Hualien.

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Raymond Ciabattoni

Radical Islamists exploit weak education systems in the Middle East and around the world to promote fundamentalist forms of Islam through economically self-sustaining private religious schools. These schools are created with a one-time capital outlay and are sustained by a constant flow of revenue from attached community businesses. Graduates of radical madrasses fail to learn a useful economic skill set, remain poor, and practice intolerant ideologies that create an active base of support for radical causes. Current top-down approaches to reforming education systems in the Middle East have been unable to combat this grass-roots problem. Using Pakistan as a case study, this paper proposes the creation of micro-financing institution to fund economically self-sustaining, moderate schools based on the same method currently used by radical Islamist groups.

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Levent Kiran

Difficulty devising effective counterinsurgency strategies for commercialist insurgencies has prevented the United States from effectively responding to growing instability in northern Mexico. This ineffectiveness emerges from the fact that United States has historically faced insurgents motivated by a desire for political change. Increasingly, however, the United States and its allies confront insurgencies that want to control territory for economic and not political reasons. These groups render ineffective the traditional "clear-hold-build" approach to counterinsurgency. To respond effectively to this threat, U.S. officials need to take into account lessons learned from previous experiences with commercialist insurgencies. In particular, this brief applies the lessons learned from the commercialist insurgency in Colombia to the contemporary case of northern Mexico and argues that a fragmentation approach is required to disrupt the planning, preparation, and conduct of such groups.

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Megan Liaboe

For almost a decade, the United States has committed its wealth and power to establish a secure Afghanistan; yet, in spite of these efforts, the Afghan government remains heavily dependent on the international community and foreign aid. If Afghanistan is to have a strong central government independent of international assistance, it must develop a stable source of domestic revenue to cover its expenditures. Absent such a domestic source, the government will remain dependent on the international community and, should foreign assistance decline, at risk of once again becoming a failed state. This paper argues the most effective means for the Afghan government to generate the needed revenue is to tax countries and corporations seeking access to Afghanistan's vast mineral deposits.

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Kristopher McClellan

Climate change and shrinking sea ice in the Arctic create new opportunities for cheaper commercial shipping and increased access to new oil reserves. Russia and Canada are already exploiting new oil and shipping prospects in the High North. The United States can also benefit from these emerging opportunities by creating an "Arctic Superhighway" for safe and predictable commercial shipping and energy transportation. The "Superhighway" would provide the cornerstone of U.S. strategy in an ice-free Arctic by overcoming current obstacles like long range communications, limited disaster response capability, unresolved territorial disputes, and unregulated resource extraction practices.

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Hannah Thornton

Radical Islamic terrorist organizations use the internet as a tool for spreading their ideology. The absence of an equivalent moderate presence online gives radical groups a significant advantage in the virtual war of ideas. To respond to this radical threat, this brief proposes the creation of a "Virtual Library of Freedom" to empower moderate voices. The library would contain historical and contemporary documents in a variety of languages addressing topics such as good governance and human rights. It would be targeted toward young, well-educated people who have not yet chosen a side in this debate, which is the same target audience of many terrorist groups. The site would allow people to form networks and initiate discussion, giving them the tools to contest terrorist ideologies.

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