The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces has just released two volumes on gender and the security sector. The first, entitled The Security Sector and Gender in West Africa, provides complete profiles of the fourteen countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) along two lines of inquiry: do security 
SSR Blog
Yearly Archive
Year | 2011
New DCAF Reports on Gender and SSR
By: Michael Lawrence | Wednesday, December 21st, 2011Examining the Afghanistan exit strategy
By: Geoff Burt | Wednesday, December 7th, 2011The three pillars of the international community’s exit strategy from Afghanistan-training the Afghan security forces, forging a regional strategy and coming to a political settlement with insurgent groups-are teetering, according to an editorial by the SSR Resource Centre’s Mark Sedra, Geoff Burt and Michael Lawrence. Despite massive investments in training, only one army unit is
“A Cautionary Tale: Plan Colombia’s Lessons for U.S. Policy Toward Mexico and Beyond”
By: Michael Lawrence | Friday, December 2nd, 2011As the drug war continues to expand southward, a growing number of countries (including Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador) are following Mexico’s lead by deploying the military in an internal security role to directly confront the drug gangs. The D.E.A. even deploys commando-style squads to support counter-narcotics in Central America and the Caribbean. In addition to
Security Sector Transformation in North Africa and the Middle East - New USIP Special Report
By: Michael Lawrence | Monday, November 21st, 2011Clashes between security forces and protesters continue in Egypt’s Tahrir Square after a weekend of violent confrontation that killed 20 people and injured hundreds more. As parliamentary elections approach, thousands are protesting attempts by the military and other elements of the old regime to cement their power within the transition to constitutional democracy. The mass
The Future of Afghanistan
By: Michael Lawrence | Tuesday, November 15th, 2011With American withdrawal set for 2014, a multitude of officials and experts are turning their attention to the uncertain security prospects of a post-intervention Afghanistan, and particularly the future of its security sector. Outside of official NATO pronunciations, the predictions tend to be rather bleak; after a decade of costly and concerted attempts to build
Guatemala’s ‘Mano Dura’ and the Future of SSR
By: Michael Lawrence | Wednesday, November 9th, 2011On Sunday, Guatemalans elected retired general Otto Perez Molina as their country’s new President. As a former head of the country’s intelligence agency (EMP) during the 1980s, Perez was a central figure in a counterinsurgency machine that killed over 200 000 people in a series of atrocities that the United Nations later declared to constitute
US Government Accountability Office Reviews Military Assistance
By: Michael Lawrence | Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) just released a report reviewing the US Government’s International Military Education and Training (IMET) program (available here). The objectives of this assistance “include professionalizing military forces and increasing respect for democratic values and human rights” and in these ways it broadly aligns with security sector reform. In practice,
CIGI Afghanistan Paper: “Watching While the Frog Boils: Strategic Folly in the Afghan Security Sector”
By: Geoff Burt | Monday, October 31st, 2011International approaches to the Afghan security sector over the last nine years have exhibited the tendencies of security sector reform (SSR), counterinsurgency (COIN) and stabilization, and exposed the inherent tensions between them. CIGI’s latest Afghanistan paper, “Watching While the Frog Boils: Strategic Folly in the Afghan Security Sector” argues that while an SSR, COIN or
NATO’s Role in Libya and Syria?
By: Michael Lawrence | Friday, October 28th, 2011NATO voted today to end its mission in Libya on October 31 even though Libya’s National Transitional Council asked the Organization to stay until at least the end of the year. A recent opinion piece by Mark Sedra indeed argues that Libya provided NATO with a quick win that did not entail troops on the
New USIP Special Report on Police Reform in Iraq
By: Michael Lawrence | Thursday, October 20th, 2011SSR guru Robert Perito has just published the report “The Iraq Federal Police: U.S. Police Building Under Fire” at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). The report examines American efforts to train and equip a police force capable of dealing with the heavily-armed insurgency and militias that have undermined Iraq’s security in recent years,
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