Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

Climate Security Insights From The Covid-19 Response, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

The climate change crisis and COVID-19 crisis are both complex collective action problems. Neither the coronavirus nor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions respect political borders. Both impose an opportunity cost that penalizes inaction. They are also increasingly understood as nontraditional, novel security threats. Indeed, COVID-19’s human cost is staggering, with American lives lost vastly exceeding those lost in recent armed conflicts. And climate change is both a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflict—a characterization reinforced in several climate-security reports. To counter COVID-19, the President embraced martial language, stating that he will employ a “wartime footing” to “defeat the virus.” Perhaps …

Delegating Climate Authorities, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

The science is clear: the United States and the world must take dramatic action to address climate change or face irreversible, catastrophic planetary harm. Within the U.S.—the world’s largest historic emitter of greenhouse gas emissions—this will require passing new legislation or turning to existing statutes and authorities to address the climate crisis. Doing so implicates existing and prospective delegations of legislative authority to a large swath of administrative agencies. Yet congressional climate decision-making delegations to any executive branch agency must not dismiss the newly resurgent nondelegation doctrine. Described by some scholars as the “most dangerous idea in American law,” the …

Is Climate Change A Threat To International Peace And Security?, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

This article argues that climate change’s destabilizing impacts require us to look at existing international governance tools at our disposal with fresh eyes. As such, Council climate action cannot and should not be dismissed out-of-hand. As conflicts rise, migration explodes, and nations are extinguished, how long can the Council remain on the climate sidelines? Hence, my call for a re-conceptualized “Council 3.0” to meet the climate security challenges this century.

This article proceeds as follows. In Part II, I describe and analyze the current state of climate science and the climate-security threats facing the world. This includes an analysis of …

National Security Vs. Human Rights: A Game Theoretic Analysis Of The Tension Between These Objectives, Aniruddha Bagchi, Jomon Aliyas Paul

Faculty Articles

We explore why human rights violations take place in the midst of a rebellion. Authoritarian governments may not care for human rights but surprisingly several democratic governments have also condoned such violations. We show that the primary cause of such violations is faulty intelligence. There are two type of defective intelligence that can occur viz., missed alarm and false alarm. We consider each of these cases and determine the optimal human rights standard of the government. We then examine the effect of a decrease in the human rights standard on the probability of quelling the rebellion. In our theoretical model, …

On Environmental Law, Climate Change, And National Security Law, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

This Article offers a new way to think about climate change. Two new climate change assessments—the 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment (“NCA”) and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Climate Change— prominently highlight climate change’s multifaceted national security risks. Indeed, not only is climate change an environmental problem, it also accelerates existing national security threats, acting as both a “threat accelerant” and “catalyst for conflict.” Further, climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events while threatening nations’ territorial integrity and sovereignty through rising sea levels. It causes both internal displacement within nations …

A Model Of A Multilateral Proxy War With Spillovers, Aniruddha Bagchi, Joao Faria, Timothy Mathews

Faculty Articles

Motivated by the war in Syria and the ascension of ISIS, this paper models a proxy war with three sponsors and three combatants as a dynamic game. Sponsors are leaders that provide resources for combatants to fight each other. Sponsors 1 and 2 have strong aversion to sponsor 3's proxy, but not against each other. Three pure strategy equilibria exist in the game. When the ex post value of winning is small, all players fight in equilibrium. However, when the ex post value of winning is large, in equilibrium either sponsors 1 and 2 coordinate their actions, with one of …

Simple Analytics Of The Impact Of Terror Generation On Attacker-Defender Interactions, Timothy Mathews, Aniruddha Bagchi, Joao Faria

Faculty Articles

A simple Attacker-Defender interaction is analyzed, in which a single terrorist (denoted T) will potentially attack a single target in the homeland of a government/state (denoted G). This interaction is modeled as a one-shot sequential move game in which G first chooses how heavily to defend the target, after which T chooses whether or not to stage an attack. T's benefit from a successful attack is allowed to be increasing in the amount of resources that G allocates to defense. In the context of terrorism, this has multiple reasonable interpretations, including situations in which: (i) citizens of the target country …

The Commander In Chief's Authority To Combat Climate Change, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

This Article first outlines the myriad national security threats posed by a changing climate, addressing the President’s and Congress’s powers to plan, study, and invest in climate-resilient infrastructure at military installations that are vulnerable to a rise in sea levels. Second, this Article asserts that climate change will stress and test persistent separation of powers concerns at home and abroad. Specifically, the President has less authority to protect military infrastructure domestically in the face of congressional intransigence, but has comparably greater authority as Commander in Chief to respond to climate-induced events abroad. Third, this Article argues that the threat of …

Role Of Intelligence Inputs In Defending Against Cyber Warfare And Cyber Terrorism, Aniruddha Bagchi

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Espionage And The Optimal Standard Of The C-Tpat Program In Port Security, Aniruddha Bagchi, Jomon Aliyas Paul

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Armor All: The Self-Conception Of Private Security Contractors, Volker C. Franke

Faculty Articles

Whereas the values, attitudes and motivations of soldiers serving in their countries’ armed forces have been widely studied, to date we know very little about the motivations and self-conception of individuals working for the private security industry. Using data obtained through an online survey, this article explores the values, attitudes and identity of more than 200 private security contractors with law enforcement backgrounds and operational experience with a security firm in Iraq. Contrary to media dominating images of ruthless, money-grabbing mercenaries, respondents in this sample adhered to attitudes and values very similar to those of professional soldiers serving in Western …

Pursuing "Peace" In Israel/Palestine, Maia Hallward

Faculty Articles

Nine years after the outbreak of the second intifada (uprising) in September 2000 and sixteen years after the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993, Israelis and Palestinians seem as far as ever from a final status agreement. Diplomatic efforts by the George W. Bush administration - notably the Performance-Based Road Map to Peace and the 2007 Annapolis Conference - avoided the core conflict issues, and delayed such negotiations by emphasizing "provisional" borders. Not only do such tactics allow more time for consolidating "facts on the ground" that can prejudice final status negotiations, but the lack of a political …

Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Using Case Studies For Teaching Strategy In Complex Environments, Volker C. Franke

Faculty Articles

Decision-makers today respond to a security environment characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Decisions cut across a wide range of social, political and cultural domestic and global issues and demand cognitive flexibility, adaptability and the ability to make decisions “on the fly.” While the U.S. military excels in preparing its soldiers and officers for the operational demands and tactical requirements of a wide array of increasingly complex contingency missions, a number of observers have pointed to the need for teaching strategy more effectively as part of professional military education. The purpose of this article is to analyze some of …

Security By Contractor: Outsourcing In Peace And Stability Operations, Volker Franke

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Contractors As Military Professionals?, Gary Schaub, Jr., Volker Franke

Faculty Articles

The article presents information on a research study which compared the mindsets of military officers and private security contractors. The results are discussed in terms of U.S. military professionalism. The study indicated a need for better clarification of legal responsibilities in terms of contractor relations with the military. The study is also said to support the view that military combat roles should not be outsourced.