INSS provides cutting-edge research, analyses, and innovative solutions on critical national security issues in support of the joint warfighter and Department of War stakeholders.
Aug. 1, 2010
Civil-Military Relations in China: Assessing the PLA’s Role in Elite Politics
This study reviews the last 20 years of academic literature on the role of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in Chinese elite politics. It examines the PLA’s willingness to support the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to obey directives from top party leaders, the PLA’s influence on the selection of China’s top civilian leaders, and the PLA’s ability to shape the domestic political environment. Over the last two decades the discussion of these three issues has largely been shaped by five trends identified in the literature: increasing PLA professionalism, bifurcation of civil and military elites, a reduced PLA role in political institutions, reduced emphasis on political work within the PLA, and increased military budgets. Together, these trends are largely responsible for the markedly reduced role of the PLA in Chinese elite politics.
June 1, 2010
Assessing Chinese Military Transparency
The United States and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region have expressed concerns about China’s expanding military capabilities and called on Beijing to increase transparency on military issues. Chinese officials and military officers argue that Chinese transparency has increased over time and that weaker countries should not be expected to meet U.S. standards of transparency. Lack of an objective method for assessing military transparency has made it difficult to assess these Chinese claims and has inhibited productive dialogues about transparency.
April 1, 2010
The Origins of Nunn-Lugar and Cooperative Threat Reduction
In a 1999 interview, Ashton Carter, a key figure in helping to create and implement the threat reduction program initiated by Senators Sam Nunn (D–GA) and Richard Lugar (R–IN), recalled four visits between 1994 and 1996 to an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) base in Pervomaysk, Ukraine. Planted in the soil of this base were the most powerful rockets mankind has ever made, armed with hundreds of hydrogen bombs and aimed at the United States. In turn, Pervomaysk was itself the target of similar American missiles and weapons. Under the Nunn-Lugar program, the missiles deployed at Pervomaysk by the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and the silos that housed them were destroyed.
In a 1999 interview, Ashton Carter, a key figure in helping to create and implement the threat
March 11, 2010
Countering WMD in the 2010 QDR
Coming from the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), I probably will not
Jan. 1, 2010
U.S. Withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty
As President George W. Bush made these remarks in a speech at the National Defense University (NDU) on May 1, 2001, National Security Council (NSC) Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation, and Homeland Defense Robert Joseph listened attentively. Within just 4 months of taking office, President Bush was articulating one of his key national security priorities: setting the conditions for the United States to move full steam ahead on developing, testing, and eventually deploying a wide range of missile defense technologies and systems—a priority that in all likelihood would mean U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
As President George W. Bush made these remarks in a speech at the National Defense University (NDU)
Avoiding a Crisis of Confidence in the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent
The United States needs to modernize and ensure the long-term reliability and responsiveness of its
Oct. 1, 2009
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
This Occasional Paper traces the general evolution of the countering WMD enterprise in the Clinton and Bush administrations and anticipates some of the major WMD challenges that lie ahead.
President Nixon’s Decision to Renounce the U.S. Offensive Biological Weapons Program
The nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a prominent feature of the Cold War. A lesser known but equally dangerous element of the superpower competition involved biological weapons (BW), living microorganisms that cause fatal or incapacitating diseases in humans, animals, or plants. By the late 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union had both acquired advanced BW capabilities. The U.S. biological weapons complex, operated by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps, consisted of a research and development laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland, an open-air testing site at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and a production facility at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas that manufactured biological warfare agents and loaded them into bomblets, bombs, and spray tanks.