Volume 06, Issue 1, Spring 2015

Rémy M. Mauduit
 
Corruption is as old as humanity and a disastrous phenomenon. The perpetrators are government officials as well as private sector. Corruption may be more noticeable in poor countries and dictatorships (often the same), it is not absent in rich countries and democracies. The cost of corruption equals more than 5% of global GDP [gross domestic product] (US $2.6 trillion). Corruption is found in both rich and poor countries, and evidence shows that it hurts poor people disproportionately. It contributes to instability and poverty and is a dominant factor driving fragile countries towards state failure. Good governance is one of the answers to systemic corruption.

Col Cindy R. Jebb, PhD, US Army
Maj Jessica D. Grassetti, US Army
Maj Riley J. Post, US Army
 
This paper examine the impact of conflict on both the origins and efficacy of women's mobilization. In the studies of Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), group cohesion in general, and group identity specifically are critical in understanding the conditions under which we might expect women to mobilize. In Liberia, historical precedents of women influencing male-dominated institutions proved crucial in explaining modern mobilizations. As conflict intensifies and active grievances increase, external actors play a significant role in outcomes for women. While the women in Liberia were empowered to change the power structure through their grievances in the conflict, it is still unclear if these structural changes will last. These cases highlight the importance of understanding the political, cultural, societal, and economic contexts throughout the lifecycle of conflict in terms of the pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict phases.

Stephen F. Burgess, PhD, US Air War College - USAF
 
Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) and civil affairs (CA) teams have demonstrated difficulties in embracing strategic knowledge and perspective in its approach in countering violent extremism and assisting with sustainable development in the Horn of Africa. Eastern Africa was the first sub-region for which AFRICOM produced a campaign plan - the 2012 East African Campaign Plan (EACP). The EACP is supposed to provide direction for all DoD elements in Eastern Africa, including CJTF-HOA. At AFRICOM HQ, personnel expressed awareness that CJTF-HOA could direct kinetic forces and civil affairs teams in the Horn of Africa but that it also had to coordinate with the US embassies and defense offices and that permission was needed from Ethiopia, Kenya and other states and US ambassadors to stage operations in the area. In addition, the perception was that CJTF-HOA needed to develop deeper relations with the African Union in Addis Ababa as well as with AMISOM forces in Somalia and in Uganda and Kenya and Burundi.

Paul Jackson, PhD
 
This paper discusses the relationship between security and justice within Sierra Leone following the war that ended in 2002. The country became synonymous with a series of security measures known as security sector reform, but within this set of policies justice was largely missing until the later stages. At the same time, the international community established, with mixed results, a Special Court for Sierra Leone. The outcome of this has been relatively little political buy-in to justice as a peace building mechanism, with almost no current budgetary allocation to the justice sector itself. International control over the Special Court and failure to address local justice systems has failed to fully address core justice issues and grievances that constituted key conflict drivers. The failure to address the resilient local systems and their relationship to political structures raises questions about the use of international courts of justice and also the role that justice interventions can play in long-term conflict prevention.

James Turner Johnson, PhD, Rutgers University 
 
After sketching the historical development of the idea of noncombatant immunity and efforts to protect noncombatants in the war from the Middle Ages into the nineteenth century, this article then examines the emergence and development of these themes in positive international law during the late nineteenth and twentieth century's, concluding with their treatment in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the treatment of noncombatant immunity in recent moral discourse on just war. Then the focus shifts to the challenges posed by irregular and asymmetric warfare to legal and moral efforts to protect noncombatants in the way of war, noting the tension between "regular" or rule-governed warfare between and among states and the forms of irregular warfare which have become the new face of war in recent decades. Such warfare is typically asymmetrical, with regular forces of national militaries opposing self-constituted irregular forces of insurgent and terrorist groups. Challenges to achieve noncombatant protection in this context include difficulties in distinguishing combatants from noncombatants, cultural differences which may tend to erase this distinction, fighting so as to ignore the distinction when it can be made, with attacks on noncombatant targets often a preferred means of war by terrorists and other irregular forces, the problem of accountability and punishment of persons responsible for attacks on noncombatants, and failures in the law of armed conflicts bearing on protection of noncombatants. The article concludes by noting that protection of noncombatants, though deeply rooted in historical tradition and a major focus in both law and moral thinking in the West, is not a universally shared goal and is but a somewhat fragile possibility in the context of contemporary asymmetric warfare.

Chaplain, Maj Robert A. Sugg, USAF
 
Military commanders are stewards of the constitutional rights of their service members. To make fair and equitable decisions, leadership must first understand that the nonreligious cannot walk the road of (non) establishment and arrive at free exercise. In the same way, the religious cannot walk the road of free exercise and arrive at (non) establishment. Common ground is a level playing field upon which both parties must agree to live as coequals. This article describes the unique cultural environment of the closed American military society and introduces the text and intent of case law for commander discretion in religious affairs. Four constitutional principles provide a balanced foundation for understanding constitutional intent, and four tools are provided for the assessment of religious displays and practices on military installations. Finally, real-world news reports are used to assess recent command decisions.

Joshua Tallis, Security Management International (SMI)
 
Space debris poses a risk to environment and critical infrastructure. Yet, the obstacles to remediating space debris are numerous, from inadequate global governance regimes to divisions in technical approaches. International law, such as the Outer Space Treaty and its constituent agreements, provides inadequate guidance on a variety of issues that directly impact the cleanup of debris. The ambiguity which follows disincentives investment in the range of hypothesized remediation technologies. The author conclude that rectifying treaty shortfalls regarding negligence and liability provides an avenue for facilitating greater international unity of effort in the future.