Director's Statement
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM Vermont Air National Guard F-16 flies over Manhattan in days after the World Trade towers attack. Annual Report 2001-2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Director’s Statement 11 Faculty 16 Affiliates 24 Seminar and Dinner Series 32 Conferences and Workshops 35 Field Trips 36 Publications 41 SSP Teaching 42 Courses 46 Professional Education 48 SSP-Affiliated Graduate Students 49 SSP Directory SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM Massachusetts Institute of Technology 292 Main Street (E38-600) Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel: (617) 258-7608 Fax: (617) 258-7858 Email: [email protected] URL: http://web.mit.edu/ssp SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM The Security Studies Program (SSP) is a graduate level research and educational program based at the MIT Center for International Studies. It traces its origins to two initiatives. One is the teaching on international security topics and most particularly on defense budgeting, that Professor William Kaufmann began in the 1960s at the MIT Political Science Department. The other is the MIT-wide seminars on nuclear weapons and arms control policy that Professors Jack Ruina and George Rathjens began in the mid-1970s. Initially called the MIT Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, SSP’s teaching ties are primarily, but not exclusively, with the MIT Political Science Department. The SSP faculty, however, includes natural scientists and engineers as well as social scientists. Distinguishing the Program is its ability to integrate technical and political analyses in studies of international security issues. Several of the SSP faculty have had extensive government experience. They and the other Program faculty advise or comment frequently on current policy problems. But the Program’s prime task is educating those young men and women who will be the next generation of scholars and practitioners in international security policy making. The Program’s research and public service activities necessarily complement that effort. The Center for International Studies is a major unit of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at MIT and seeks to encourage the analysis of issues of continuing public concern. Key components of the Center in addition to SSP are Seminar XXI, which offers training in the analysis of international issues for senior military officers, government officials, and industry executives; and the MIT Japan Program, which conducts research and educational activities to further knowledge about Japanese technology, economic activities, and politics. DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT OVERVIEW America’s War on Terrorism, precipitated by the savage attacks by Al Qaida against New York and Washington on September 11th, necessarily took center stage in our work this year. We sought to understand the terrorist network that conducted the attacks, what might be the most effective response to the attacks including analyzing the military actions undertaken in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and the consequences of the war for international relations in general and US defense policy in particular. Our faculty, fellows and students participated in dozens of public meetings, media interviews, workshops and conferences, including some that the Program organized, on these and related subjects. We grieved for those lost in the attacks. We worried about our own safety and that of family and friends as we traveled. And we thought often about our past and current military fellows who might be involved in the fighting. Al Qaida wants what we cannot give them. It wants the United States out of the Middle East and our influence in the Muslim world eliminated. Al Qaida seeks to replace the Saudi regime and wishes the demise of Israel. The United States cannot leave Persian Gulf oil unprotected and it cannot abandon a state it helped establish and therefore risk a second Holocaust. Our economy depends on oil. Our civil society might not survive the domestic turmoil the abandonment of the Jews would cause. Removing Saddam from power likely will allow for a reduction in the American military presence in Saudi Arabia, but not for a total withdrawal. We need bases in the area and if they are not in Saudi Arabia they will surely be nearby. There are indeed limits on the pressure we will place on Israel in the quest for peace with the Palestinians. And American culture with its emphasis on individual freedom and consumerism will continue to undermine Islamic and other traditional societies irrespective of any actions undertaken by the United States government. In the Gulf to stay. The fight against Al Qaida is a difficult one. It has no territory of its own, does not wear uniforms, often hides among civilians, cloaks itself in religion, and has suicidal followers. Normal deterrence strategies are ineffectual. On the contrary, Al Qaida’s desire seems to be to provoke retaliations that would arouse support for its cause from the wider Muslim community. We must locate and destroy its many cells that are scattered across the globe. It is hard to tell how the war is going. The Bush administration has provided very little information on its progress. We know that the Taliban has been defeated and that Al Qaida is on the run. Hundreds of Al Qaida and others are being detained at our naval base at Guantanamo Bay. An undisclosed number of suspect aliens are being detained in the United States as their links to terrorist groups are being investigated. Many countries have aided our efforts to track down Al Qaida operatives and provided military assistance in the war in Afghanistan. Domestically, security has been tightened considerably at airports, public facilities and vital infrastructure. The federal government is undergoing a major reorganization in order to emphasize the importance of protecting the homeland. But we also know that key members of both the Taliban and Al Qaida leadership have not yet been captured or killed and that it is impossible to prevent all attacks by determined and often suicidal terrorists. Our large and well-trained military, any number of federal reorganizations, and all the research and intelligence efforts initiated since September 11th will not eliminate our vulnerability. The fear is that we will be attacked with weapons of mass destruction. Most of the relevant technologies are old. There are large stocks of such weapons in Russia as well as in several other clearly hostile states with significant potential for transfer to other states and terrorist groups. It is no wonder that President Bush talks about a strategy of preemption. During the Cold War peace was achieved through a “balance of terror.” Neither side dared try a direct attack against the other because each held the other side’s population at risk with a secure second strike. But now we are at a disadvantage. Our population is vulnerable to attack while terror groups and some nations offer no comparable targets. We are unlikely to kill millions of innocents in retaliation for even the most heinous crimes of bin Laden or Saddam. The certain promise that we will chase forever terrorists once they attack us may not be enough to prevent them from using every weapon they can make or buy against us. When a deterrence relationship can not be established, preemption is more than a temptation. It is a necessity. The war underlines the American dilemma. By large margins the United States is the most powerful country in the world, economically, culturally, and militarily. We are richer than Europe or Japan. Our language and popular tastes dominate nearly everywhere. And the U.S. Air Force motto, “No One Comes Close,” could be appropriately used by each of America’s other armed services as well. Fully aware of these advantages, American political leaders, Republican and Democrat alike, believe we have both the need and the responsibility to manage security affairs for the world. America, it must be admitted, has acquired without any internal debate a global empire. And the American military, even if it is not admitted, patrols a global beat as the empire’s police force. Policing Iraq during another The problem is that as big and powerful as it is, the American military is not big enough to police the empire. During the Cold War the Soviet Union patrolled approximately half of the world and we the rest. Today, with a smaller military and much less reason to be interested in the task, it is all ours. We discourage others from holding much responsibility for peace in their regions. Our rule is quite mild, perhaps too mild. We provide security for most of the world, but demand no tax in return. All European nations and several in Asia get our protection, but are not required to buy our weapons or offer up sufficient drafts of soldiers. Their leaders complain about our unilateralist tendencies, but do nothing to counter our dominance or share substantially the burden that we have assumed. And relying only on volunteers, our own military comes perilously close to exhausting the pool of American young people who are willing to risk their necks to guard the empire’s far-flung borders. It is no wonder there is pressure to transform the American military. Transformation is the appealing, if perhaps ultimately false, promise that a military no bigger than our current one can subdue all possible challengers to our rule. The American military, already furlongs ahead of other militaries, is to use information technology and every other tool to make a contest futile for an opponent. On any given battlefield our knowledge will be great, our aim true, and our likely casualties few. This is the promise. We rest on no laurels, but instead invest more than $50 billion a year in military R&D alone to make it so, an amount no one else thinks necessary or possible for all of their defense needs.