SIGS NEWS

SIGS NEWS
FALL 2012
Born in Cambodia and raised largely in France
and the United States, Sophal Ear, an assistant
professor of National Security Affairs at the
Naval Postgraduate School, knows something
about struggling to survive and flourish. His
mother escaped the violence of the Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia, fleeing with her five chil-
dren. She worked hard in the years following
to support her children, accepting help when
needed. Through his mothers example, Ear
learned a mixture of hard work, dogged pursuit
of goals and help from others leads to success.
In his new book, Aid Dependence in Cambodia:
How Foreign Assistance Dependence Undermines
Democracy, (Columbia University Press), Ear ad-
dresses the ongoing problems faced in post-
conflict Cambodia. He challenges the notion
that foreign aid helps Cambodia to the extent
claimed by the Cambodian government and
donors. He instead advocates for an approach
that mimics the ethos of his family: encourag-
ing the Cambodia government to support itself
by raising domestic revenues (i.e. taxes), and
gradually decreasing reliance on foreign aid.
Ear believes this approach promotes a sense of
ownership of Cambodia by the Cambodian and
allows the government to learn how to respond
to citizens needs.
Despite decades of aid, technical coopera-
tion, four national elections, no open warfare,
and some progress in some parts of the econ-
omy, Cambodia is one broken government
away from disaster, said Ear. Foreign aid often
carries with it the unintended consequence of
disincentivizing countries to find their own so-
lutions. This creates an unhealthy dependence
and promotes corruption.
Ear cites the financial changes enacted within
Cambodia following the 1997 coup dtat as an
example of the success possible in the absence
of foreign aid.
In the wake of the coup, Cambodia was cut
National Security Affairs Assistant Professor Sophal Ear, sat down to discuss the findings
in his new book, Aid: How Foreign Assitance Dependence Undermines Democracy in
Cambodia.
Can Aid Thwart Democracy?
In This Issue
DRMI Prepares NATOs fnances
Managing Natural Resources
New Book: Nuclear Nonproliferation
Gaming for Nuclear Preparedness
M
essage from the Dean
The School of International Graduate
Studies prides itself on the leadership of
our faculty members, so I am happy to
announce two faculty members stepping
into leadership roles within SIGS.
Professor Clay Moltz will be taking
charge as Director of the Project for
Advanced Systems and Concepts for
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruc-
tion (PASCC), a major research initiative
for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency
(DTRA). Moltz is stepping in for the
founding director, Professor Anne Clu-
nan, who will be taking a well-deserved
sabbatical at Stanford University.
Professor Douglas Porch will take the
helm as the Executive Director of the
Joint Foreign Area Officer Skill Sustain-
ment Program (JFSSPP). In that role, he
will oversee the JFSSPP as it continues to
evolve to meet the needs of the Foreign
Area officer community. Porch will be
replacing Professor Tristan Mabry, the
founding director of the program, who
will be transitioning to fulltime teach-
ing duties at the department of National
Security Affairs (NSA).
On behalf of the faculty and students
of the School of International Graduate
Studies, I would like to extend our grati-
tude to our colleagues for taking on these
responsibilities both past and present.
James J. Wirtz
School of Internationl Graduate Studies
SIGS News Fall 2012 1
off from foreign aid pending democratic elec-
tions,said Ear. During that time, the Cambodian
government increased its tax revenue through
a Value Added Tax. That was a positive step to-
ward Cambodia becoming self-sufficient. After
the elections when foreign aid resumed, there
werent any further steps by the government to-
ward self-sufficiency.
Domestic revenues, driven primarily by taxes,
matter as a credible commitment to nationally
owned development. For accountable growth to
take hold, foreign aid has to be tied to improved
domestic and tax revenue performance. If Cam-
bodia is not collecting enough taxes because of
corruption, foreign aid should not make up the
difference,said Ear.
Post-conflict nations are ubiquitously short on
cash and resources needed for reconstruction
and development, one of the key reasons for-
eign aid is provided to these nations in the first
place. In the case of Cambodia, according to Ear,
foreign aid has continued for too long and at too
high a level without sufficient oversight.
When revenues are too low, the link between
taxes and accountability is broken. Governments
can ignore voters because they dont pay suffi-
cient taxes to support the government. When
the government isnt accountable, corruption
inevitable takes hold. Corruption costs Cambo-
dia an estimated 300 to 500 million dollars per
year. And corruption is far more burdensome, as
a share of income, on the poor than on the rich.
This leads to an increasing income inequality
within the country despite Cambodias econom-
ic growth over the last years,said Ear.
If Cambodia increased taxes and made
the corruption money they collected official,
then the Cambodian government would have
enough money for development.
Ear thinks often well-intentioned foreign aid
agencies are complicit in the corruption in Cam-
bodia because they do not hold government of-
ficials accountable for aid money.
Aid organizations need to hold governments
accountable or bypass the government and
reach out to the people they are trying to help.
In Cambodia it is a fallacy that the government
represents the best interest of the people, said
Ear. The system has been corrupted, and the in-
ternational community must recognize its role in
that. The international community has chosen to
prioritize political stability above all other gover-
nance dimensions, and in so doing has traded a
modicum of democracy for an ounce of security.
The Defense Resources Management Institute (DRMI) is ramping up
to help NATO with their finances, or at least to help NATO highlight the
importance of defense communities managing their resources effec-
tively. DRMI is organizing the next NATO Building Integrity and Defense
Institution Building conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Office of the
Secretary of Defense-Policy and NATO. The February 2013 conference,
taking place in Monterey, Calif., is part of the U.S. contribution to NATOs
new Building Integrity (BI) Initiative. Given the current global economic
downturn plaguing NATO nations, this conference is apropos.
NATOs adaptation to the global financial crisis offers valuable les-
sons for defense alliances. The
sovereign debt crisis is forcing
NATO members and partners to
adopt fiscal austerity measures
that include deep budget cuts,
said Francois Melese, Executive
Director of DRMI and professor
of economics at the Naval Post-
graduate School. This new im-
perative demands that member
countries make the best use of
their defense resources. A key
insight of NATOs Smart Defense
initiative is the opportunity to increase collective efforts to pool and
share resources and responsibilities through combined multinational
efforts and increased interoperability.
In theory, Smart Defense can mitigate the impact of budget cuts,
strengthen political cohesion, and spur military interoperability. In prac-
tice, for increased interdependence to work, NATO members must have
confidence their partners will respond as needed in times of crisis and
share burdens equitably, said Melese.
NATO, which is comprised of 28 member nations, has developed the
defense planning process to provide a framework for nations to work
together, sharing the load of preparing for and responding to NATO
missions, while recognizing each nations sovereignty. This shared bur-
den includes several planning domains, all of which involve compo-
nents of resource management.
In guiding defense management and investment decisions, trans-
parency and good governance promote the most efficient and effective
allocation of defense budgets, generating the greatest possible collec-
tive security for the alliance, said Melese.
Public confidence in defense institutions is especially important at
a time of great fiscal stress. A lesson from the Arab Spring is that politi-
cal establishments risk being overthrown if key institutions such as the
military and police are seen as lacking integrity, transparency and ac-
countability.
As European Union nations
continue to struggle to work
together to tackle their finan-
cial woes, NATO is faced with
the even greater challenge as
it draws together a bigger pool
of collaborators with diverse
agendas and regulations. This
necessitates an increased level
of transparency in order to build
confidence among the NATO
partners.
The strength of NATOs alliance will increasingly depend on the in-
tegrity, transparency and accountability of defense institutions in each
member and partner country. Based on current fiscal challenges, the
focus of the 2013 conference is strategic budgeting.
The DRMI conducts professional education programs in analytic deci-
sion making and resources management for military officers of all ser-
vices, and senior civilian officials of the U.S. and 162 other countries.
DRMIs courses provide a multidisciplinary program that encourages
participants to develop an understanding of concepts, principles, meth-
ods, and techniques drawn from management theory and economic
reasoning, the basic language and analytic tools that are the foundation
of modern decision theory.
DRMI Prepares to Tackle NATOs Finances
The strength of NATOs alliance will
increasingly depend on the integrity,
transparency and accountability of defense
institutions in each member and partner
country.
2 SIGS News Fall 2012 Naval Postgraduate School
Congratulations and farewell to National
Security Affairs (NSA) faculty member, Jeffrey
Knopf. Knopf recently had his edited book, Se-
curity Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation,
published by Stanford University Press. He is
set to start at the Monterey Institute of Inter-
national Studies (MIIS) as chair of the Non-
proliferation and Terrorism Studies Program.
Knopfs new role will allow him to continue
exploring nuclear nonproliferation, the topic
discussed in his latest work.
This book originated out of a Defense
Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) workshop
I organized in August of 2009, said Knopf.
We wanted to explore the concept of secu-
rity assurance and look at the effectiveness of
assurances as a strategic tool in nuclear non-
proliferation.
The workshop was organized under the
auspices of the Center on Contemporary Con-
flict (CCC), the research arm of NSA. The CCC
regularly coordinates with DTRA on research
related to reducing the threat posed by weap-
ons of mass destruction. Nuclear nonprolifera-
tion has been of particular interest to Knopf.
In a strategy of assurance, Knopf explained,
one state or group of states tries to alleviate
another states concerns about a perceived
threat to its security by taking steps to assure
the other state that its security will not come
to harm.
Security assurances havent been as well
researched as other nonproliferation strate-
gies, said Knopf. A lot of people look down
on assurance as a soft power measure, but our
research has shown that when used in con-
junction with other diplomatic tools it can be
effective. This was the case in five of the seven
cases we examined for the book. Only in Iran
and North Korea have assurances proved inef-
fective.
Assurances can be used both with allies
who fear a threat from a third party and with
potential adversaries who view ones own
state as a potential threat. Promises to come
to the aid of a country that is threatened by
a third party are called positive assurances,
while pledges not to use ones own weap-
ons to threaten or harm another country are
called negative assurances.
This differs significantly from the other
popular strategies used in nuclear non-pro-
liferation negotiations, deterrence and co-
ercion. Deterrence tries to stop states from
obtaining nuclear weapons through threat-
ening to enact sanctions or other negative
strategies. Coercion tries to force nations to
The report from the Center for Civil-Military Relation (CCMR) Center
for Stabilization and Reconstruction Studiess (CSRS) intensive training
on the role of natural resources in peacebuilding and preventing con-
flicts, held last spring, is now available through the CSRS website. The
workshop, which took place in Montreux, Switzerland from February
27 to March 2, 2012, explored the somewhat schizophrenic role natural
resources play in causing, funding and ending conflicts within nations.
During the conference last spring, more than 35 humanitarian, de-
velopment, peacebuilding and natural resource management practitio-
ners gathered to explore the relationships between natural resources
and peacebuilding in post-conflict countries. A key focus of the work-
shop was identifying how disarmament, demobilization and reintegra-
tion (DDR) programs can address risks and opportunities that arise from
natural resources.
Experts and case studies from the United Nations Environmental Pro-
gramme (UNEP) in Sierra Leon, Democratic Republic of Congo and Dar-
fur were used to highlight how natural resources serve as an underlying
driver of conflict and are often a means for groups to fund conflicts.
Case studies from 20 other countries where also used to demonstrate
how in the aftermath of conflict, those same natural resources that
caused and funded the conflict become crucial to support livelihoods,
job creation and macro economic recovery.
[Participating in the workshop] was like reading a dozen world his-
tory books and 100 memoirs about world conflicts, their linkages with
natural resources and current debate over how to settle them, said You-
baraj Acharya, a representative from the United Nations Development
Programme in Nepal who attended the training.
The workshop was developed through a partnership between the
CCMRs Center for Stabilization and Reconstruction Studies, the UN
Development Programme, the UN Environmental Programme and the
UN Inter-agency Working Group on DDR with kind support from the
European Commission.
Report Release: Managing Natural Resources
Reassuring Allies Helps Nuclear Nonproliferation
Naval Postgraduate School SIGS News Fall 2012 3
stop doing something theyve already begun
or to start something theyre resistant to, like
dismantling an existing nuclear program for
instance, said Knopf.
Deterrence can also be a part of assurance
when a state extends its nuclear deterrent um-
brella to cover an ally. This particular type of se-
curity guarantee has been important to some
U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea.
I will caution that security assurances are
not a panacea. There is no case where assur-
ances by themselves have been the decisive
factor; they are one ingredient in the mix, said
Knopf. In Sweden, for example, assurances,
combined with a growing domestic public sup-
port for nuclear disarmament, gave some of the
more hawkish defense leaders the reassurance
they needed to support giving up Swedens ef-
forts to build nuclear weapons while still main-
taining a strong national security stance.
We also present cases in the book, like North
Korea, where assurances were clearly not effec-
tive, said Knopf. The U.S. offered some pretty
clear assurances that we had no hostile intent
against North Korea, but they were not good
enough to stop North Korea from pursuing a
nuclear weapons program. In that instance, we
were offering the wrong type of assurances.
The Kim family wasnt concerned with national
security. They wanted a guarantee that they
would be allowed to stay in power essentially
an assurance of domestic political security.
This is often the case in rogue states - they
are more interested in regime survival and as-
surances they wont be overthrown than in
national security. Western democracies are re-
luctant to make those assurances because we
find the regimes odious, said Knopf.
Despite his pending move to MIIS, Knopf
plans to continue collaborating with his col-
leagues at NSA, particularly on projects related
to nonproliferation. He hopes to expand on
this research to examine how the size of the
U.S. nuclear arsenal impacts the strength of U.S.
security assurances.
Once viewed as a diversion for nerdy teen
boys, video games have gained stature as one
of the most effective educational mediums
available to educators in recent years.
Chad Gorman, a 2012 graduate of the NPS
Center for Homeland Defense and Security,
sees gaming as a new preparedness educa-
tional tool that may motivate the under-40 set
to prepare for a nuclear disaster.
For the next six months, Gorman and a work-
ing group will explore developing a video
game platform with the aim of creating a sys-
tem that motivates preparedness. The work-
ing group comprises representatives from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, DHS
Office of Science and Technology, DHS Domes-
tic Nuclear Detection Office, the video game
development community as well as Oak Ridge
National Laboratory and the Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology.
Forget Cold War era public service an-
nouncements, todays younger learners are
more likely to usefully absorb information
when they are actively engaged.
You have a whole population out there
the gaming generation, said Gorman, chief of
FEMAs Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nu-
clear and Explosives (CBRNE) Branch. Those
adolescents and people under 40 who have
grown up with this technology dont want to
learn through the older mechanisms of watch-
ing videos or reading. They want to be en-
gaged. They are used to immediate feedback
on the actions they are taking.
The seeds of Gormans curiosity were subtly
planted during a brief conversation with Dr.
Tara OToole, Under Secretary for Science and
Technology, who inquired about using gam-
ing during a briefing. Subsequently, Gorman
wrote a Technology for Homeland Security
course paper on the topic and expanded the
concept in his thesis, Getting Serious About
Games: Using Video Game-based Learning to
Enhance Nuclear Terrorism Preparedness.
Gormans research shows women are just
as likely to play as men and that the average
age of gamers is a ripe 32-years-old. Gorman
cites research by Patricia Marks Greenfield,
professor of psychology at the University of
CaliforniaLos Angeles, showing video gam-
ing cultivates specialized skills such as induc-
tive learning through observation, trial and er-
ror, and testing hypotheses; comprehending
multi-dimensional imagery; and comprehen-
sion of scientific simulations.
There is a balancing act, Gorman notes, in
that the game needs to be challenging enough
for engagement, but not so onerous that play-
ing leads to frustration. As a player advances
in the game, the idea is to steadily increase the
difficulty. At the same time, there is the benefit
of an audience that desires to play, rather than,
say, a captive group forced to engage in work-
place training.
To spread key preparedness information
Gorman envisions utilizing a genre known as
serious games. In this genre, players forego
blowing stuff up or killing zombies for a game
aimed at addressing social and cultural issues.
For example, a game called Darfur is Dying
enables players to experience a life in the war-
torn Sudan as the player assumes the role of
one refugee.
You put somebody in a scenario where they
have to make key decisions to advance in the
game, Gorman said. Serious games and pre-
paredness go together. You can harvest the
willingness to learn and get it done.
The game will seek to address a gap for
young people in nuclear preparedness. A gen-
eration that has aged in the post-Cold War era
is less informed about what actions to take fol-
lowing an attack.
Just what the final product may look like is a
work in progress (Ill tell you what it looks like
in six months, quips Gorman).
Initially, the scope of the pilot program is
limited with the aim of producing and evalu-
ating a prototype and possibly publishing an
academic paper. As the process evolves FEMA
will look to lessons learned at other agencies
and, the approach could eventually be ex-
panded to address all-hazards preparedness.
Gorman credits his CHDS experience for
exposing him to the topic and the support in
research and making contacts in the gaming
industry that shaped the final proposal.
Where else would I have been able to pitch
this topic? he said. I dont know of another
environment where I would have received the
support to study this. The people at CHDS took
it seriously.
CHDS Alumnus Takes Gaming Seriously
For questions contact Kate Oliver at ksoliver@nps.edu or visit www.nps.edu/sigs