Korean Futures: Challenges to U.S. Diplomacy of North Korean Regime Collapse
by Ferial AraSAEED and James J. PRZYSTUP

There is no shortage of plausible scenarios describing North Korean regime collapse or how the United States and North Korea’s neighbors might respond to such a challenge. Yet comparatively little attention has been paid to the strategic considerations that may shape the responses of the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, China, and Russia to a North Korean crisis. These states are most likely to take action of some kind in the event the North Korean regime collapses. For the ROK (South Korea), North Korean regime collapse presents the opportunity for Korean reunification. For the other states, the outcome in North Korea will affect their influence on the peninsula and their relative weight in Asia. This study identifies the interests and objectives of these principal state actors with respect to the Korean Peninsula. Applying their interests and objectives to a generic scenario of North Korean regime collapse, the study considers possible policies that the principal state actors might use to cope with such a crisis.

The insurgency is now characterized by less indiscriminate violence and more retaliatory attacks. Insurgents continue to target security forces, government officials, and Muslim moderates who seek accommodation with the Thai state as part of efforts to make the region ungovernable by limiting provision of social services and driving Buddhists from the south. The overall level of violence may be influenced more by insurgent calculations about the optimum amount of violence needed to advance their political goals than by improved capabilities of the security forces.

Joint Interagency Task Force–South: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success
by Evan Munsing and Christopher J. Lamb

Joint Interagency Task Force–South (JIATF–South) is well known within the U.S. Government as the “gold standard” for interagency cooperation and intelligence fusion. It is often cited as a model for whole-of-government problem-solving in the literature on interagency collaboration, and other national security organizations have tried to copy its approach and successes. This study attempts to fill the gap in knowledge about JIATF–South as a model for crossorganizational collaboration. It traces the evolution of the task force from its roots in the «War on Drugs» in the 1980s, through its original manifestation as Joint Task Force–4 in the early 1990s and its later reinvention as Joint Interagency Task Force–East (and still later, its renaming as JIATF–South), up until the present day. It then examines how JIATF–South actually works with the help of 10 organizational performance variables taken from organizational and management research on cross-functional teams. Investigating JIATF–South’s performance through these different organizational lenses, and weighing the importance of each variable in light of JIATF–South’s historical experience, yields a compelling explanation for JIATF–South’s stellar performance. The results contribute to a better understanding of interagency teams and help answer the pressing question of whether successes like JIATF–South can be replicated elsewhere in the national security system.

A Journal of the Institute for National Strategic Studies

By John W. Parker

Independent Russia is approaching the start of its third decade of post-Soviet existence. After the economic chaos of the Boris Yeltsin decade and the recovery and stabilization of the Vladimir Putin decade, Russia’s leaders have high ambitions for a return to great power status in the years ahead. Their aspirations are tempered, however, by the realities of Russia’s social, economic, and military shortcomings and vulnerabilities, laid painfully bare by the stress test of the recent global financial crisis. Looking ahead, some also calculate that Russia will be increasingly challenged in the Far East by a rising China and in the Middle East by an Iran that aspires to regional hegemony...

Moscow is already seeking to strengthen Russia’s ties with Europe and the United States. The West is seen as crucial to Russia’s modernization as well as a hedge against what may develop to Russia’s east and south in coming decades. This process of Russia’s anchoring itself more firmly in the West will proceed with lots of tactical hiccups and sporadic crises. Nevertheless, it will bring consequences and opportunities for U.S. diplomacy and strategic development, some of which the Barack Obama administration’s policy of “reset” is already reaping. But Russian policy toward the United States is conditional on a U.S. approach that engages Russia in positive ways. If that policy were to change, it could push Russia and China closer together on some issues in an effort to constrain the United States.

Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation

by By Christopher J. Lamb and Evan Munsing

This study argues that interagency teams were a major catalyst in turning around the Iraq War, and that they will disappear from America’s arsenal unless the knowledge base supporting the innovation can be secured. Most explanations credit the dramatic reduction in violence in Iraq between 2007 and 2008 to new U.S. leadership, the surge in U.S. forces, and/or U.S. financial support to Sunni tribal leaders. In contrast, we argue that the United States employed an underappreciated organizational innovation—interagency teams—to put insurgent clandestine organizations on the defensive and give population security measures a chance to take effect...