Nation Assistance: Does an Exercise in Guatemala by Reserve Components Support United States National Security Strategy?
Abstract : This strategic research paper critically examines the ends-ways-means formulas of United States national security strategy as it relates to performing a nation assistance exercise in Guatemala. It surveys the relevant documents revealing the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff place less value on nation assistance than the President does. Guatemala is an emerging democracy that received nation assistance exercises called Fuertes Caminos in 1993, 1994, and 1995. The author was the aviation commander of Fuertes Caminos 95-North. This paper follows a sequence describing the background of Guatemala and Fuertes Caminos exercises, defining nation assistance policy, then flowing through the United States Army War College (USAWC) strategy formulation guidelines, recommending adjustments and identifying lessons learned.
Military Involvement in Humanitarian Assistance Operations, Is It a Distractor to or, in Our Strategic Interests?
Abstract : The nation cannot undertake a National Security Strategy of 'Engagement and Enlargement' without continued participation in humanitarian assistance operations. This paper will demonstrate how the military's participation is supportive of the National Security Strategy and the historical tradition of military participation.
The European Council and The Council of the European Union: Shapers of a European Confederation
The European Council and the Council of the European Union play key roles in the European Union.' The European Council is largely concerned with system-steering, while the Council of the EU undertakes sectoral policymaking. What is common to these roles is the balancing act carried out by both institutions. Both have to mediate the centripetal dynamics of integration, termed cooperative confederalism here, and the centrifugal dynamics which are found in the strongly entrenched territorial nature of power, centered on the member states. Using new institutionalist analysis, the article illuminates different facets of the two institutions 'functioning in mediating the two dynamics.