January 11, 2011 View this newsletter as a web page on CFR's website.  | | | | | | Director's Note Happy New Year to you all! With 2011 likely to see new challenges to peace and stability around the world, the Center consulted a wide array of government officials, academics, and foreign policy experts to determine the most important preventive action priorities for the United States. The results of this Preventive Priorities Survey, which you can access through this newsletter, include twenty-nine scenarios grouped into three categories according to the severity of their potential consequences for U.S. interests. Two particular contingencies identified in this survey, a deadly U.S.-PRC military incident and state collapse in Yemen, will be the subjects of two projects CPA is undertaking this winter. Other recently completed CPA materials that you may be interested in viewing include my First Take on the U.S. government's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review and Micah Zenko's articles on tactical nuclear weapons, New START, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Best Wishes, Paul B. Stares General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director, Center for Preventive Action | |  | | | | | | | U.S. Preventive Priorities in 2011 To offer guidance for how the Obama administration should rank its conflict prevention goals for 2011, the Center for Preventive Action asked a wide selection of government officials, academics, and experts to comment confidentially on a list of plausible contingencies that might occur in the New Year. The responses led to a number of additions, subtractions, and refinements to the contingencies. The scenarios judged most threatening to U.S. interests are: — Mass casualty terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland
— Major military/political reversal in Afghanistan
— Iranian nuclear crisis (surprise advance in nuclear weapons capability/possible Israeli strike)
— North Korean crisis (surprise advance in nuclear weapons/ICBM capability, continuing deadly provocations, succession-related political instability)
— Serious escalation of drug-related violence in Mexico (political instability/border spillover effects)
— Deadly U.S.-PRC military incident
— Indo-Pakistani military escalation (triggered by major terrorist attack, or unrest in Kashmir)
— Severe internal instability in Pakistan (triggered by civil-military crisis, or major terror attack)
— Highly disruptive cyber attack on U.S. infrastructure or financial institutions Click here to read the full list and here to see past years' lists. | | | | | | CENTER FOR PREVENTIVE ACTION | | | 
For more conflict prevention analysis, visit www.cfr.org/thinktank/cpa | | | | | | RECENT CPA ACTIVITIES | | | Micah Zenko co-led a CFR workshop on "The United States and the Future of Peacekeeping" on December 15 in Washington. Micah Zenko presented at the Center for American Progress about his book on limited uses of military force, Between Threats and War, on December 14. Micah Zenko led a CFR academic conference call about his Council Special Report Toward Deeper Reductions in U.S. and Russian Nuclear Weapons on December 9. Paul Stares gave presentations on enhancing transatlantic cooperation for preventive action to the East West Institute's "Global Conference on Preventive Action" in Brussels on December 6 and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's "Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities: Goals and Challenges to International Cooperation" symposium in Paris on November 15. Micah Zenko participated in a conference call with Jim Lindsay and Kay King on "New START Treaty and its Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy" on November 22. CPA in Washington held a MacArthur Foundation funded workshop on managing instability in China's periphery on November 18 and 19. CPA in New York held a roundtable on "Investing in Afghanistan: Private Sector Growth in Conflict Zones" with Jake Cusak and Erik Malmstrom of Harvard University on December 7. CPA in New York held a roundtable on "What Future for U.S.-Russian Nuclear Cooperation after New START?" with Pavel Podvig of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project on December 6. CPA in New York held a roundtable titled "A Conversation with the Government of South Sudan" with Pagan Amum Okiech of the Government of South Sudan on November 17. | | | | | | CPA IN THE NEWS | | | New Start Offers "Modest" Nuclear Reductions Deutsche Presse-Agentur December 22, 2010 A New Korean War Would Be Devastating, but It Could Happen AOL News December 15, 2010 In Seoul, Rising Anxiety Over a Menacing North USA Today November 20, 2010 The Iran-Start Connection TheAtlantic.com November 23, 2010 North Korean Attack on South Aimed at Restarting Nuclear Talks Bloomberg November 23, 2010 | | | | | |
