SMART Security Cooperation Objectives

SMART Security Cooperation Objectives
Author: Michael Joseph McNerney
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0833094300

"Translating security cooperation goals into effective action is challenging, given the multitude of stakeholders, changing political and security environments, and resource limitations. To help ensure that limited security cooperation resources are properly directed for greatest effect, the U.S. Department of Defense has highlighted the need to develop security cooperation objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and results-oriented, and time-bound (SMART). The SMART concept has been used for several decades in the private sector to develop objectives that facilitate assessment, monitoring, and evaluation. This report evaluates DoD's effectiveness in developing SMART security cooperation objectives. It also proposes a systematic approach to developing security cooperation objectives for use by policymakers, planners, program managers, and resource managers. The authors present a detailed evaluation of the extent to which the security cooperation objectives used by U.S. European Command, U.S. Pacific Command, and U.S. Southern Command meet the SMART criteria, and they recommend changes to improve DoD security cooperation guidance and planning"--Back cover.

Oversight and Accountability in U.S. Security Sector Assistance

Oversight and Accountability in U.S. Security Sector Assistance
Author: Melissa G. Dalton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2018-02-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442280581

With the range of security challenges confronting the United States in the 21st century, characterized by competition by both state and nonstate actors, the importance of working with allies and partners to address common challenges is paramount. Deeper examination of the relative effectiveness of U.S. security sector assistance and how it must nest in a broader foreign policy strategy, including good governance, human rights, and rule of law principles, is required. Improving oversight and accountability in U.S. security sector assistance with partners are at the core of ongoing security assistance reform efforts to ensure that U.S. foreign policy objectives are met and in accordance with U.S. interests and values. This report examines key areas in security sector programming and oversight where the U.S. Departments of Defense and State employ accountability mechanisms, with the goal of identifying ways to sharpen and knit together mechanisms for improving accountability and professionalism into a coherent approach for partner countries.

Smart Technologies and Innovation for a Sustainable Future

Smart Technologies and Innovation for a Sustainable Future
Author: Ahmed Al-Masri
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2019-01-08
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3030016595

The book presents high-quality research papers presented at the 1st AUE International research conference, AUEIRC 2017, organized by the American University in the Emirates, held on November 15th-16th, 2017 in Dubai. The book is broadly divided into three sections: Media and Smart Cities, Creative Technologies and Innovation, and Security Risks and Strategic Challenges. The areas covered under these sections are cyber-psychology and digital forensics, cloud RAN architecture, networking functions virtualization, e-Governance and IoT semantic interoperability, ERP security, web-based application and problem-solving skills, smart technologies and advertising, smart technologies for smart cities, smart adaptable navigation systems, turbo codes for security key generation, technology advanced student learning and mobile devices, big data security and privacy, multi-channel buffer enabled technique, physiological signal acquisition in electro-oculography, blockchain and donation-based crowdfunding, smart city and framework development approach, news channel and media education, UAE foreign policy, China-GCC relations, diplomacy in the Internet age, intelligent cyber-security strategies, industry securities and strategic challenges, hybrid alliances and corporate security, security and privacy in smart cities, human computer interaction and e-learning solution, complexity of smart cities governance. The papers included in this book present insightful information on the most recent and relevant research, theories and practices in the field, which aim for a sustainable future.

Smart and Power Grid Systems – Design Challenges and Paradigms

Smart and Power Grid Systems – Design Challenges and Paradigms
Author: Kolla Bhanu Prakash
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2023-03-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1000795144

The Smart Grid represents an unprecedented opportunity to move the energy industry into a new era of reliability, availability, and efficiency that will contribute to our economic and environmental health. During the transition period, it will be critical to carry out testing, technology improvements, consumer education, development of standards and regulations, and information sharing between projects to ensure that the benefits we envision from the Smart Grid become a reality. Today, an electricity disruption such as a blackout can have a domino effect—a series of failures that can affect banking, communications, traffic, and security. This is a particular threat in the winter, when homeowners can be left without heat. A smarter grid will add resiliency to our electric power system and make it better prepared to address emergencies such as severe storms, earthquakes, large solar flares, and terrorist attacks. Because of its two-way interactive capacity, the Smart Grid will allow for automatic rerouting when equipment fails or outages occur. This will minimize outages and minimize the effects when they do happen. When a power outage occurs, Smart Grid technologies will detect and isolate the outages, containing them before they become large-scale blackouts. The new technologies will also help ensure that electricity recovery resumes quickly and strategically after an emergency—routing electricity to emergency services first, for example. In addition, the Smart Grid will take greater advantage of customer-owned power generators to produce power when it is not available from utilities. By combining these "distributed generation" resources, a community could keep its health center, police department, traffic lights, phone system, and grocery stores operating during emergencies. In addition, the Smart Grid is a way to address an aging energy infrastructure that needs to be upgraded or replaced. This book shows that Smart Grids can address energy efficiency, to bring increased awareness to consumers about the connection between electricity use and the environment, bring increased national security to our energy system—drawing on greater amounts of home-grown electricity that is more resistant to natural disasters and attack.

Indo-Pacific Smart Megacity System

Indo-Pacific Smart Megacity System
Author: T. M. Vinod Kumar
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2024-01-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9819962188

This book is an in-depth study of the Indo-Pacific region for effective interventions in the megacities system. First, based on several criteria, the region is identified as homogeneous country groupings of diversity, a multi-polar spatial system, and as program regions of QUAD and I2U2 for action programs and investment transcending many nations but mostly the ocean space of the Indo-Pacific, connecting all megacities sub-regions spatially and functionally. Then, the megacities with problems and prospects for economic integration are studied from the point of view of regional economics and international trade, and finally, the rural–urban interface with case studies of selected countries is presented. Prospects of systems of megacities and individual megacities for regional economies are designed. Existing interconnections through rail, air, and ocean of megacity systems, their capacity, performance, and potential are analyzed for emerging issues. International trade among the megacity systems/countries with emerging issues and barriers are presented. The mobility of money, goods, and services among the systems of megacities is analyzed. Rule-based diplomacy and other emerging options are discussed to sustain the above calls for a study of the Security of the Indo-Pacific region. Finally, the emerging architecture for megacity system governance is also presented. Out of 21 megacities in the Indo-Pacific, an in-depth study of a few in India and Japan in the Indo-Pacific region for effective economic interventions in the megacities system at the city level was studied. COVID-19 has affected most of the countries in the Indo-Pacific. With a contraction of GDP and a GDP growth rate negative, the number below the poverty level increased. Foreign Direct Investment is not forthcoming in any of these countries. Job creation becomes a priority in addition to public health concerns connected with COVID-19.

Binational Commons

Binational Commons
Author: Tony Payan
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816542015

Studying institutional development is not only about empowering communities to withstand political buccaneering; it is also about generating effective and democratic governance so that all members of a community can enjoy the benefits of social life. In the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, cross-border governance draws only sporadic—and even erratic—attention, primarily in times of crises, when governance mechanisms can no longer provide even moderately adequate solutions. This volume addresses the most pertinent binational issues and how they are dealt with by both countries. In this important and timely volume, experts tackle the important problem of cross-border governance by an examination of formal and informal institutions, networks, processes, and mechanisms. Contributors also discuss various social, political, and economic actors and agencies that make up the increasingly complex governance space that is the U.S.-Mexico border. Binational Commons focuses on whether the institutions that presently govern the U.S.-Mexico transborder space are effective in providing solutions to difficult binational problems as they manifest themselves in the borderlands. Critical for policy-making now and into the future, this volume addresses key binational issues. It explores where there are strong levels of institutional governance development, where it is failing, how governance mechanisms have evolved over time, and what can be done to improve it to meet the needs of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in the next decades. Contributors Silvia M. Chavez-Baray Kimberly Collins Irasema Coronado Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera Pamela L. Cruz Adrián Duhalt James Gerber Manuel A. Gutiérrez Víctor Daniel Jurado Flores Evan D. McCormick Jorge Eduardo Mendoza Cota Miriam S. Monroy Eva M. Moya Stephen Mumme Tony Payan Carla Pederzini Villarreal Sergio Peña Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira Cecilia Sarabia Ríos Kathleen Staudt

Security Cooperation between Western States

Security Cooperation between Western States
Author: Olivier Lewis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2022-08-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0429673698

This book examines security cooperation between Western states. Security cooperation occurs between Western (i.e. European and North American) states as a coping mechanism, as an imperfect substitute for integration. The book investigates the reasons for cooperation, what Aristotle called the ‘final cause’, as well as the material, formal, and efficient causes of cooperation. Such a causal explanation is based on a Critical Realist philosophy of social science. The book is also based on an embedded multiple-case study; the states studied are the United States, France, and Luxembourg. Within each state, the embedded subcases are three types of state security organizations: the armed forces, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies, which have rarely been compared in this way. Comparing different types of states and different types of state security organizations has allowed temporal, spatial, national, and functional variation in cooperation to be identified and theorized. The empirical evidence studied includes participant observations at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and documents such as state policy documents, annual reports by organizations, reports by parliaments and non-governmental organizations, autobiographies, books by investigative journalists, and articles by newspapers and magazines. The book is also based on a score of elite interviews with ambassadors, diplomatic liaisons, ministerial advisors, foreign ministry officials, and military commanders. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, intelligence studies, military studies and International Relations in general.