Series:

CSIS Reports

9 total works

Cover of The New Foreign Policy Frontier
Since World War II, the Arctic has been a region of geostrategic importance to the United States. As unprecedented environmental transformation occurs in the Arctic, this region will increase in significance. When historians look back at this critical opportunity to develop U.S. Arctic policy, we do not want the question to be posed, "Who lost the Arctic?" but rather, "How did the United States win the Arctic?" Crafting U.S. policy toward the Arctic, however, is a complex and challenging undertaking. Arctic policy must respond to the economic, environmental, security, and geopolitical concerns that confront the region. When the Barack Obama administration came into office in January 2009, it accepted and left unchanged the recently adopted Arctic strategy of the George W. Bush administration. In its second term, it is now time for the Obama administration to enhance U.S. Arctic policy by updating and prioritizing National Security Presidential Directive 66/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 25 (NSPD-66/HSPD-25), improving interagency cooperation, enhancing U.S. international and public diplomacy related to the Arctic, and increasing the focus of senior U.S. officials. These activities must begin now if the United States is to prepare for and fully maximize its chairmanship of the Arctic Council beginning in 2015.

Cover of Arctic Economics in the 21st Century
Arctic Economics in the 21st Century explores the key economic dynamics at play in the rapidly changing Arctic region. This report evaluates both the economic benefits of an increasingly open Arctic region and the costs of exploring the riches of the American Arctic. It frames an economic strategy built upon six critical economic components: mineral resources, oil and gas development, shipping, fisheries, tourism, and finally, the regional infrastructure required to support and sustain the first five components. The report analyzes the increasingly prominent role of the private sector in Arctic development and its interplay with the potentially diminished traditional role of governments in the region.

Cover of Enhanced Deterrence in the North
Twenty-five years of relative calm and predictability in relations between Russia and the West enabled European governments largely to neglect their military capabilities for territorial defense and dramatically redraw Northern Europe's multilateral, regional, and bilateral boundaries, stimulating new institutional and cooperative developments and arrangements. These cooperative patterns of behavior occurred amid a benign security environment, a situation that no longer obtains. Following Russia's annexation of Crimea, its military incursion into eastern Ukraine, its substantial military modernization efforts, heightened undersea activity in the North Atlantic and Baltic Sea, and its repeated air violations, the region's security environment has dramatically worsened. The Baltic Sea and North Atlantic region have returned as a geostrategic focal point. It is vital, therefore, that the United States rethink its security approach to the region-what the authors describe as an Enhanced Northern Presence.

Cover of Leading from Behind in Public-Private Partnerships?
This report studies the usage of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in international development among six European nations-the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Ireland, and Norway. Although all face similar financial constraints and have similar histories as generous aid donors, the six countries' approaches to PPPs vary greatly. The authors examine which countries use PPPs most effectively in their development strategies and make recommendations about how other countries can improve their usage.

Cover of Russian Soft Power in the 21st Century

Cover of A New Security Architecture for the Arctic
Creating a twenty-first century security architecture for the Arctic presents the United States with a conundrum: U.S. Arctic policy must be given a sense of urgency and focus at the same moment that U.S. defense budgets are being reduced and U.S. military planners consider the Arctic to be "an area of low conflict." How does one economically and militarily square this circle? While there has been some discussion of the form and format of international Arctic security cooperation, the debate has often focused on what issues cannot be discussed rather than on those that must be addressed. Arctic stakeholders have yet to discuss seriously what collective security framework Arctic states should use to address the emerging security challenges in the region, despite signing legally binding agreements on international search and rescue and negotiating international agreements on oil spills and response. This report analyzes the drivers of change in the region, examines the key Arctic security actors and institutions, and explores the potential for a new security architecture for the Arctic.

Cover of Restoring the Eastern Mediterranean as a U.S. Strategic Anchor
U.S. strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean is long overdue for revision. Today's strategy was conceived 70 years ago and is no longer fit for purpose despite the continued strategic importance of the region for U.S. interests. To account for the dramatic changes that have occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean in the past two decades, it is time for the United States to create a new regional strategy that builds on common transatlantic interests, ensures European unity and security, provides greater stability in the Middle East, and safeguards state capacity against a myriad of strengthening nonstate actors. This report aims to offer such a new strategy, focusing on two priority areas: resolving the Syrian conflict, and recalibrating the relationship with Turkey. Much is at stake for the United States, and it must take a new strategic approach to the region or risk losing influence for the foreseeable future.

Cover of Perspectives on Security and Strategic Stability
This study presents the outcome of a Track II dialogue among civil society leaders, security experts, academics, and government representatives from across the Baltic States, Poland, and the United States who came together to discuss the shared threats and challenges facing NATO's eastern flank in light of Russia's aggressive behavior toward its neighbors. The objective of the study was to enhance scholarship on the challenges stemming from the Ukraine crisis and to inform public discussions on the evolving nature and future of security and defense relations among the United States, the Baltic States, and Poland.

Cover of Maritime Futures

Maritime Futures

by Heather A. Conley and Matthew Melino

Published 17 November 2017
Significant diminishment of the Arctic ice cap is propelling the advent of a new, blue water ocean and, with it, new commercial and economic opportunities. Abundant natural and mineral resources, as well as rich fishing stocks, encourage Arctic and non-Arctic nations to explore these resources through the enhanced use of Arctic maritime transportation routes, which connect geographically distant economies more directly. As a result, the evolving commercial dynamics of Arctic international shipping-both destinational and transshipment-are beginning to change. Once considered dangerous and noncommercial, Arctic shipping routes such as the Northern Sea Route are increasingly scrutinized as potential economical alternatives to some of the world's most popular maritime passages.