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  GNSI Decision Brief: Repression Without Borders: How Nations Silence Critics Abroad

  Sarah Brown and Amy K. Mitchell

  Introduction

  Transnational Repression (TNR) – the act of a government, or authorized group, coercing, repressing, or retaliating against individuals outside its sovereign territory – has significantly increased in recent years. Transnational repression often targets human rights defenders, activists, critics, journalists, and political opponents. Despite its insidious spread, the international community continues to grapple with applying a standard definition, as well as accountability and enforcement.

  Transnational repression knows no borders. TNR can take many forms ranging from physical attacks such as the brazen murder of American citizen and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, coercion by proxy (e.g., the threatening of family members) to the use of technology to monitor and harass. Governments who engage in transnational repression to silence those who speak against its policies do so with impunity under current international law. Their disregard for international norms and human rights fosters fear in ethnic and marginalized communities around the world.

  Furthermore, studies have shown repression, both domestic and abroad, is an essential tool for the longevity of authoritarian regimes. A 2023 study conducted by Dukalskis, Furstenberg et. al, states the “interaction between domestic repression and diplomatic representation is positive and statistically significant. Domestic repression is more likely to translate into TR [transnational repression] if a state is well represented abroad, granting it the logistical means to execute TR.”

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Creating Sun Tsu: Instituting a Master’s Degree in Irregular Warfare

  Robert Burrell and John Collision

  In the words of Sun Tsu, arguably the father of irregular warfare, war is like water, and water has no constant form, and there are no constant conditions in war.i Nowhere in the history of U.S. military doctrine has conflict been described in this theoretical and inclusive way. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the U.S.’s preference for technological solutions, increased firepower, and lethality on the battlefield neglects to account for leveraging irregular and asymmetric forms of conflict to advance its interests and counter its adversaries. The Consortium to Study Irregular Warfare Act of 2021 addressed the gap in irregular warfare doctrine with the requirement to professionalize irreg- ular warfare education in the Department of Defense (DoD).ii Currently, such education mostly comprises electives at Service Colleges, which already have far too many Congressional and Service-mandated requirements to implement irregular warfare education to the degree required to create a modern-day Sun Tsu. Instead, the DoD should institute a master’s degree in irregular warfare to fill critical billets in the Joint Force.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Educate as You Operate: Developing National Security Practitioners for Strategic Competition

  David Oakley and David H. Ucko

  Amid a “rapidly changing world,” shaped by “strategic competition” and “shared challenges,” the 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) set out a U.S. vision for a global environment “that is free, open, secure, and prosperous.” Achieving this vision, it acknowledged, will “demand increased global cooperation,” not only across the United States Government but with its partners and allies.i In similar terms, the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) recognized the novel threats of near-peer competitors and emphasized the need to work “seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, all instruments of U.S. national power and our networks of alliances and partners.” It seems the NDS and NSS authors believe good strategy is important, but integration is key to its implementation.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: A Covert Competition and a Competition Over Covert Action

  Jeff Rogg

  The U.S. is entering an era of global competition that is drawing comparisons to the Cold War. Similarly, the U.S. is again facing key problems in one of the most secret and sensitive areas of national security: covert action. This decision brief will scrutinize the shortcomings in the existing architecture for covert action and identify questions facing policymakers who would use this crucial, yet controversial, instrument of statecraft to provide an advantage in strategic competition.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Beyond Intervention: Sustainable Solutions for Haiti’s Security Needs

  Heather Ward and Sarah Brown

  Current Political Climate in Haiti

  Events are rapidly evolving in Haiti with each week bringing a new crisis and leading some to say the country is at risk of state failure. Haiti held its last presidential election in 2016 and its parliament last voted in 2019. At the start of this year, the remaining democratically elected government officials formally vacated their positions as their terms ended. After President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in 2021 and the resignation of the unelected and unpopular de facto prime minister Ariel Henry, Fritz Bélizaire was chosen as the new prime minister by a transitional council at the end of April--meaning the Haitian populace has had no part in selecting its current government.

  With doubts concerning the state’s credibility and the legitimacy of its leaders, there are estimates of over 200 gangs vying for territory and power within Haiti. Some gangs are hoping to set up their own governing council to rule the country and have signaled they will not recognize the appointed coalition established by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) international partners.

  In recent months, armed gangs united to carry out coordinated attacks on ports, airports, and government buildings. In early March, gangs stormed two of Haiti’s largest prisons, releasing thousands of prisoners and sending the country into a state of emergency. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that 1,436 non-violent actors were killed between January and March 20245 and this surge of violence led to over 360,000 displaced people nationwide. Now 4.35 million people, nearly half the population, are facing food insecurity, and 1.4 million are facing emergency levels of hunger.7

  In early May, the Biden administration approved a 60-million- dollar military aid package attempting to curb some of the gang violence by equipping the Haitian National Police with weapons and equipment.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: A Lasting Peace to the Russo-Ukraine War: Obstacles and Considerations

  Golfo Alexopolous and Tad Schnaufer

  When the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia started in 2014, with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support of separatists in the Donbas, negotiated settlements failed to bring peace. Both Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 did little to return to pre-war conditions and instead created a frozen conflict that reignited with Russia’s invasion in February of 2022. With that recent failure, how will opposing Russian and Ukrainian perspectives limit the success of any settlement to the conflict? Each of the belligerents in the current war in Ukraine has a distinct perspective regarding their nation’s origins, historical experiences, and national identity. These perspectives will influence the peace process and shape the post-war order while largely determining whether this war ends definitively or simply pauses for a time before breaking out again. A lasting peace would be in the interest of the US and its allies in Europe. The obstacles that could block a negotiated settlement and how the key players might overcome them for a lasting peace will be examined below.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Who Will Rebuild Ukraine's Public Health and Disease Research Laboratories?

  Kelli L. Barr, Eric Bortz, Anton Gerilovych, and Oleksii Solodiankin

  Amid the devastating war in Ukraine, a parallel battle rages on – that against infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic starkly underlined the vital importance of global health surveillance for emerging and re-emerging human and animal pathogens. This challenge has become even more acute in war-torn regions like Ukraine, where healthcare infrastructure is under siege. For viruses with pandemic potential, such as the influenza virus, worldwide surveillance initiatives are essential in tracking the virus’s movement and spread among both animals and humans. Such monitoring serves dual purposes. Firstly, it guides the formulation of the yearly vaccine, ensuring it remains effective against prevailing strains. Secondly, it alerts livestock farmers in advance, enabling the timely rollout of mitigation measures. Moreover, discerning whether a disease outbreak is of natural origin, or an intentional release becomes critical. To achieve this, the global community must share transparent and timely information through a robust network of laboratories with cutting-edge biotechnological capabilities. The war’s ramifications have severely impacted these efforts. Yet, the stakes are too high to let these facilities fade away. This situation leads to the ultimate question: Who will step up to rebuild Ukraine’s public health and disease research laboratories?

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  GNSI Decision Brief: What Keeps the US in the Middle East?

  Arman Mahmoudian and Tad Schnaufer II

  In early August the United States sent “More than 3,000 Marines and Sailors [to the Middle East] in a deployment meant to deter Iran from seizing and harassing merchant ships near the Strait of Hormuz.” The decision likely caught many off guard, considering that just two years prior, the US had finalized its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yet, this isn't the first instance of the United States oscillating in its engagement with the Middle East. Historically, a range of factors have consistently drawn America into the region. The US had minimal involvement in the Middle East until the compounding interests of oil, great power competition, fighting terrorism, and the resource needs of allies fully engaged it.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: China’s Energy Insecurity

  Tad Schnaufer

  Overview

  Scholars and policymakers alike have used energy production and consumption as a measure of a state’s power and influence.i A state’s energy sector indicates the potential for use in the production of war materials or as an export to use as leverage over other nations. China produces and consumes more energy than any other country in the world and has done so since 2006 and 2009 respectively. Chinese consumption continues to outpace its production as its demand for energy grows.ii China’s large, aging population (around 1.41 billion people) and fast-growing economy have pushed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to look for ways to secure energy resources and the land or sea routes that deliver them.iii Understanding the Chinese domestic demand for energy and the need to secure energy resources will provide insights into the CCP’s foreign policy objectives.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Integrated Deterrence: What is it Good For?

  Tad Schnaufer

  The Biden administration introduced the concept of Integrated Deterrence (ID) in its 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS). As the report, No I in Team, states, “Integrated deterrence seeks to integrate all tools of national power across domains, geography, and spectrum of conflict, while working with allies and partners.” The Department of Defense’s (DoD) National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s National Military Strategy (NMS) further defined the military’s role in this concept. Critics have noted deficiencies with the whole-of- government approach that ID demands while failing to specify coordination methods across agencies. That same report notes, “what integrated deterrence entails in practical terms remains unclear... This ambiguity raises the risk that integrated deterrence may find itself dead on arrival.” Could this new initiative fail before ever getting off the ground? Another analyst declared, “Integrated Deterrence...is not a bad idea. In fact, it is a good one. But it’s not a strategy.” With these concerns in mind, this brief will explore what ID entails and assess its possible effectiveness.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Nuclear Weapons on the Battlefield: Arriving sooner rather than later?

  Tad Schnaufer II

  Imagine a Russian Colonel receiving an order from Moscow to deploy a tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) on the Ukrainian frontline. His next order – “Nuke ‘em” – rapidly changes the battlespace and in fact, the world. Since the inception of nuclear weapons in 1945, the threat of nuclear war has loomed over the globe. J. R. Oppenheimer, after the first successful test of an atomic bomb, recalled the Hindi scripture Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." The power of nuclear weapons, along with the possibility of their use has only escalated since then. Starting in 1947, the threat of nuclear annihilation has been measured in part by the renowned “Doomsday Clock.” Today, the clock reads the closest to global catastrophe than at any other time in its history. As the war in Ukraine drags on, and the frontlines stagnate, global decision makers fear that President Vladimir Putin’s Russia may look to turn the tide or gain a domestic win by making good on his threats to use nuclear weapons. In 2022, Putin made it clear that, “To defend Russia and our people, we doubtlessly will use all weapons [and] resources at our disposal...This is not a bluff.”

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Strategic Competition in the Arctic: Sooner or Later?

  Tad Schnaufer

  The Arctic has a reputation for being dark, cold, and inhospitable but melting sea ice has made natural resources more accessible and opened shipping lanes, drawing the attention of the great powers. In 1996, to deal with competing interests the eight Arctic nations (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) signed the Ottawa Treaty creating the Arctic Council. This council is an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation in the region and involves 13 non-Arctic nations including China, France, India, Japan, and Poland. Most of the Arctic nations are U.S. Allies. Once Sweden joins NATO, Russia will be the only Arctic nation not in the alliance. Even with its allies, American capabilities in the region are challenged by Russia. Comparatively, Russia has extensive infrastructure and military bases in the region and has amassed the largest icebreaker fleet in the world with 46 ships. The United States has five and China only three. Even if the United States and its allies combined assets, it would number only 40 icebreakers. Icebreakers alone do not indicate a nation’s Arctic capability, but provide one indicator to be considered along with military bases, regional infrastructure, and air forces. Considering this situation, three main factors have pulled the great powers to the region. (1) The year-on-year reduction of sea ice has allowed greater access to shipping lanes and natural resources. (2) New technologies have made the region more accessible. This includes modern icebreakers, all-weather airstrips, drones, floating nuclear power plants, regional infrastructure improvements, and remote- sensing equipment. (3) The Arctic could provide alternative sources of oil and Rare Earth Elements (REE). With this purported opening of the Arctic, how should the United States and its allies respond?

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  GNSI Decision Brief: The National Guard's State Partnership Program in Strategic Competition

  Tad Schnaufer

  Both the National Security (NSS) and National Defense Strategies (NDS) make it clear that the US is "in the midst of a strategic competition" with Russia and China. Both documents highlight the strengths the US has in this competitive environment, notably its allies and partners. The NSS states, "The United States' unrivaled network of allies and partners protects and advances our interests around the world--and is the envy of our adversaries." The US employs a variety of methods to maintain this invaluable network. One expanding method is the National Guard's State Partnership Program (SPP). The SPP establishes formal relationships between State National Guard units and foreign militaries to share experiences and skills to address security challenges. Created in 1993 to support the new democracies emerging in Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the SPP has expanded to include every US state and territory, who have entered into 88 partnerships with 100 nations (Some having multiple partners). For example, Texas is the only state with three partners: Egypt, Chile, and a shared partnership with Nebraska and Czechia.

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  GNSI Decision Brief: Hunger as a Weapon

  Tad Schnaufer and David Himmelgreen

  Overview

  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places physiological needs as the foundation of all others.i The needs of food, water, and shelter are referred to as objects indispensable to survival (OIS). A person will think of little else until these basic needs are met, hence the power OIS have over populations. The concept of hunger as a weapon dates to the beginning of written history with Homer’s Iliad describing the siege of Troy. In war, military leaders often consider foodstuffs as it relates to their war effort while analyzing ways to use this basic need against their foe. As the quote attributed to Napoleon goes, “an army marches on its stomach.” Russian’s scorched earth policy during Napoleon’s 1812 invasion would lead to his Grande Armée’s defeat from lacking access to provisions from the countryside. This brief will examine the methods of starvation that militaries have used and continue to use in warfare. It will also explore how the United States and its allies can build resilient food supply chains to withstand crises and conflict.