Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2016 Burning Bridges: American Security Assistance and Human Rights in Mauritania Isabel Wade Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Wade, Isabel, "Burning Bridges: American Security Assistance and Human Rights in Mauritania" (2016). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 1431. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1431 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Claremont McKenna College Burning Bridges: American Security Assistance and Human Rights in Mauritania submitted to Professor Jennifer Taw by Isabel Wade for Fall 2015 & Spring 2016 April 25, 2016 Abstract This paper examines the intersection between human rights and security assistance in Mauritania. In American security assistance broadly, and within the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership specifically, there has been an over-securitization of “whole of government” counterterrorism policy. While the United States recognizes the need to address the social, economic, and political roots of extremism, it has failed to do so in practice. If the United States continues to support Mauritania with conventional security assistance but does not tackle the root causes of extremism, it will ultimately fail in fighting terrorism in the Sahel. In order to succeed, the U.S. government must give greater authority to the Department of State and USAID, create greater accountability for human rights within the Department of Defense, and improve interagency coordination. In the long term, the U.S. government must change its paradigm regarding the relationship between security and human rights.