Security of Cultural Property: U.S. Engagement and Potential for Improvement
Recent armed conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and political violence in Egypt have revealed the strategic significance of cultural property. This paper assesses the role of historic sites and antiquities in foreign engagement. Over the past century, U.S. foreign policy has had successes and shortcomings in leveraging protection of cultural patrimony to strategic advantage. The contrast of successful policy on the protection of immovable cultural property, such as religious monuments, in armed conflict and missed opportunities for tactical intelligence on the trade in movable cultural property, such as antiquities trafficking, identifies potential for development of foreign policy.
Art-Intelligence Programs: The Relevance of the Clandestine Art World to Foreign Intelligence
In the background of immediate threats of terrorism and political violence, a non-physical, insidious threat to international security develops. Progressive abuses against cultural heritage support campaigns of terrorism while simultaneously undermining the political credibility of targeted nations. This paper emphasizes the need for art-centric intelligence to counter the political and financial benefits that terrorist groups gain from the erosion of cultural heritage. Primary types of erosion include wanton destruction of cultural property in campaigns of ethnic cleansing, looting of undocumented cultural artifacts, and collateral damage to historic buildings and religious monuments during military action against terrorist groups. While all types of destruction confer political clout on terrorist groups, wartime destruction and looting of cultural artifacts directly impact nations that combat terrorism. During armed conflict, invading nations incur political liability by negligently damaging cultural property. Similarly, so-called collecting nations incur political liability as private individuals encourage erosion of cultural heritage by creating a viable market for looted antiquities. Through an informal proposal for an art-intelligence program, this paper examines immediate political risks engendered by physical erosion of cultural heritage and speculates on evolving threats to international security as transnational terrorist groups capitalize on the intangible value of manipulating cultural identity.
Counternarcotics Operations within Counterinsurgency: The Pivotal Role of Intelligence
The insidious nature of drugs has become especially visible in contemporary warfare. From the Balkans to the Hindu Kush, and from the Andes to the Golden Triangle, warfare is occurring alongside widespread drug production and in areas of well-traveled distribution routes. But an intersection of drugs and insurgencies is complicating security issues of the post–Cold War world. Drugs have become so deeply embedded in the politics, society, economy, and daily life of some of the countries involved in conf l ic ts that separat ing counternarcot ics operat ions from counterinsurgency campaigns is often difficult. As the director of Colombia’s national police declared a few years ago, ‘‘One does not know if the drug trafficker is a guerrilla or if the guerrilla is a drug trafficker. The line is now blurred; it is a brotherhood community.’’ Other ‘‘brotherhood communities’’ threaten the conventional military successes of recent United States interventions. The 2004 poppy season in Afghanistan produced three-fourths of the world’s heroin and lined the pockets of Taliban loyalists and other warlords opposed to America’s presence in their country. In Iraq, drug trafficking has sharply increased, and drug abuse by Iraqis grew by 75 percent between February and July of 2003; both types of activities subvert Coalition efforts to build a stable nation.