Congressional Research Service Reports - 3,025 Matching Results
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- United States/Soviet Military Balance
- No Description Available.
- Nuclear Weapons Freeze Movement: Issues for National Debate
- No Description Available.
- Civil Defense and the Effects of Nuclear War
- This Info Pack contains material on nuclear weapons and on the anticipated physical, economic, and social consequences of nuclear attacks on the United States, basic information on the civil defense program, and material discussing some of the arguments, pro and con, surrounding the civil defense issues.
- President Reagan's START Proposal: Projected U.S./U.S.S.R. Ballistic Missile Forces
- No Description Available.
- The START Proposal: Verification Issues
- No Description Available.
- Technology Transfer And National Security Issues
- No Description Available.
- U.S.-Soviet Negotiations to Limit Intermediate-Range Nuclear Weapons
- No Description Available.
- Women in the Armed Forces
- Women have become an integral part of the armed forces, but several issues remain. One is whether to reduce, maintain, or expand the number of women in the services as the total forces are being reduced. A second question is to what extent women should continue to be excluded from some combat positions by policy. A third question is whether or not women should be included if the draft is reinstated? Would national security be jeopardized or enhanced by increasing reliance on women in the armed forces? Should women have equal opportunities and responsibilities in national defense? Or do role and physical differences between the sexes, the protection of future generations, and other social norms require limiting the assignments of women in the armed forces? Opinion in the United States is deeply divided on the fundamental issues involved.
- Nuclear Freeze: Arms Control Proposals
- No Description Available.
- Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START)
- No Description Available.
- Martial Law in Poland
- No Description Available.
- NATO Nuclear Forces: Modernization and Arms Controls
- No Description Available.
- Selected Articles and Bibliography on the Military Uses of Space
- No Description Available.
- Yellow Rain and Related Issues: Implications for the United States
- The United States has charged that the Soviet Union is implicated in the use of chemical weapons in Afghanistan and of chemical and toxin weapons, including the toxin known as "Yellow Rain," in Laos and Kampuchea (Cambodia). These charges raise two significant sets of issues: First, issues surrounding the evidence that has been presented to show: (a) that such weapons have been used and (b) that the Soviet Union is implicated in this use. Second, issues connected with the implications of Soviet involvement, if proven, in chemical and toxin warfare.
- War Powers Resolution: Presidential Compliance
- No Description Available.
- Space Policy and Funding: Military Uses of Space
- No Description Available.
- Standby Draft Registration
- No Description Available.
- Arms Shipments to Iran
- This report provides background and examines key questions in regards to the shipments of arms to Iran and the subsequent diversion of funds to Nicaraguan guerrillas by the Reagan Administration.
- Terrorism: U.S. Policy Options
- No Description Available.
- The Strategic Defense Initiative: Program Facts
- No Description Available.
- The Strategic Defense Initiative: Program Facts
- No Description Available.
- The Persian Gulf and the U.S. Naval Presence: Issues for Congress
- No Description Available.
- The Reagan Administration Posture Toward the ABM Treaty - Possible Implications
- No Description Available.
- The Reagan Administration Posture Toward the ABM Treaty - Possible Implications
- No Description Available.
- The Iran-Iraq War: Implications for U.S. Policy
- This report discusses the Iran-Iraq conflict at its present state, which has become a war of attrition with neither side capable of achieving a decisive military victory over the other in the short term. U.S. policy concerns currently are threefold: first, that Iraq, despite moves to sustain its economic and military capacities, ultimately might suffer a destabilizing defeat to the detriment of U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf region; second, that future instability in Iran could open opportunities for Soviet exploitation; and third, that the conflict might expand beyond its present confines to threaten friendly regional states and the availability of their vast petroleum resources.
- Strategic Defense Initiative: Selected References, 1986-1988
- No Description Available.
- Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and Military Manpower Policy
- This issue brief will discuss issues dealing with military manpower policy and the AIDS virus, including the level of the AIDS infection or HIV infection rates in the military; efforts to control the spread of AIDS to and among military personnel; and AIDS in the context of military personnel stationed overseas.
- Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI): Mission Objectives for Directing the Program
- No Description Available.
- The Strategic Defense Initiative: Issues for Phase 1 Deployment
- No Description Available.
- The Strategic Defense Initiative: Issues for Phase 1 Deployment
- No Description Available.
- Desert Shield and Desert Storm Implications for Future U.S. Force Requirements
- This preliminary assessment summarizes U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps performances during recent war, then relates it to past experience and potential threats in ways that might help decisionmakers determine the most suitable characteristics of U.S. armed forces for the rest of this decade.
- National Emergency Powers
- This report the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601-1651) that eliminated or modified some statutory grants of emergency authority, required the President to declare formally the existence of a national emergency and to specify what statutory authority, activated by the declaration, would be used, and provided Congress a means to countermand the President's declaration and the activated authority being sought.
- Japan's Response to the Persian Gulf Crisis: Implications for U.S. -Japan Relations
- This report provides information and analysis for use by Members of Congress as they deliberate on the Japanese response to the Gulf crisis and, perhaps more important, what it may mean for future U.S.-Japanese relations. The first chapter briefly reviews Japanese government actions in response to the crisis, from August 1990 to February 1991. A second section examines in detail the various factors and constraints that affected Japanese policy. The final section offers conclusions and examines implications of the episode for future U.S.-Japanese relations. Published sources for the report are cited in footnotes.
- Women in the Armed Forces
- Women have become an integral part of the armed forces, but they are excluded from most combat jobs. Several issues remain. One is whether to reduce, maintain, or expand the number of women in the services as the total forces are being reduced. A second question is to what extent women should continue to be excluded from some combat positions by policy. Would national security be jeopardized or enhanced by increasing reliance on women in the armed forces? Should women have equal opportunities and responsibilities in national defense? Or do role and physical differences between the sexes, the protection of future generations, and other social norms require limiting the assignments of women in the armed forces? Opinion in the United States is deeply divided on the fundamental issues involved.
- Japanese Participation in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations
- Japan is positioned to deploy its troops overseas for the first time since World War II. Under a controversial peacekeeping operations (PKO) bill passed by the Japanese Diet (parliament) on June 15, 1992, Japan is allowed to dispatch Self-Defense Forces (SDF) soldiers abroad for noncombat service with United Nations peacekeeping forces (PKF). [1] The politically sensitive PKO legislation comes two years after Japan was stung by international criticism for its failure to send troops to the Persian Gulf, even just for noncombat support. The day after the passage of the bill, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa pledged an early dispatch of SDF personnel to Cambodia.
- Japan's Sea Shipment of Plutonium
- Japan's sea shipment of a ton of plutonium from France to Japan on Nov. 7, 1992, faced strong public opposition, as did a previous one in 1984, from various public interest groups, independent analysts, and Members of Congress. The shipment arrived safely in Tokyo Jan. 4, 1993. Several more shipments at intervals of about 3 years are expected. While the plutonium is owned by Japanese utilities, it was produced from uranium enriched in the United States and supplied under a U.S.-Japan agreement for nuclear cooperation, revised in 1988. Although the agreement ties some strings to what Japan can do with nuclear imports from the United States, it also in effect gives to Japan a 30-year advance consent to ship plutonium subject to informing the United States.
- Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798-1993
- This report lists 234 instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It brings up to date a 1989 list that was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough sketch survey of past U.S. military ventures abroad. A detailed description and analysis are not undertaken here.
- Regional Security Consultative Organizations in East Asia and Their Implications for the United States
- In the uncertain security environment of the post-Cold War world, the Clinton Administration has expressed interest in proposals that would create forums for regional security consultations in East Asia.
- Theater Missile Defenses: Possible Chinese Reactions; U.S. Implications and Options
- There is a wide range of arguments regarding the Clinton Administration's proposal to spend about $2 billion in FY 1995 on developing an advanced theater missile defense (TMD) system. Arguments also center on whether or not interpretations of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty allow for development and deployment of Advanced Antimissile Systems.
- South Korea: U.S. Defense Obligations
- U.S. defense obligations to South Korea are contained in the U.S.-South Korean Mutual Defense Treaty, signed in 1953 and ratified in 1954. Under Article m of the treaty, the United States would "act to meet" an attack on South Korea "in accordance with its [U.S.] constitutional processes." At the time of ratification, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not define specifically the respective roles of the President and Congress in any decision to act militarily in accord with constitutional processes. The Committee stressed that Article did not set a requirement for an automatic American military response but that it did give the United States a wide range of possible actions
- The U.S. Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934
- In 1915, the United States undertook a military occupation of Haiti to preempt any European intervention, to establish order out of civil strife, and to stabilize Haitian finances. During the nineteen-year occupation, U.S. military and civilian officials, numbering less than 2500 for the most part, supervised the collection of taxes and the disbursement of revenues, maintained public order, and initiated a program of public works. The Haitian government remained in place, but was subject to U.S. guidance. The Haitian people benefitted from the end of endemic political violence and from the construction of roads, bridges, and ports as well as from improved access to health care. The U.S. occupation was, nonetheless, deeply resented throughout Haitian society, and many of its accomplishments did not long endure its termination in 1934.
- Defense Burdensharing: Is Japan's Host Nation Support a Model for Other Allies?
- Under an agreement announced in January 1991, the Government of Japan committed itself to increase substantially the amount of support that it provides for U.S. military forces based there. Among other things, Japan agreed by 1995 to absorb 100 percent of the cost of Japanese nationals employed at U.S. military facilities and to pay for all utilities supplied to U.S. bases, to increase the amount of military and family housing construction that it is providing to support U.S. forces, to continue to provide facilities at no charge to the United States and to waive taxes and fees that might otherwise apply to U.S. activities.
- The United States and the Use of Force in the Post-Cold War World: Toward Self-Deterrence?
- Early in the post-Cold War era, the willingness of the United States to use military force was tested by Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. U.S. actions and those of allied nations suggested that the international community had the will and ability to respond to serious aggressions and some other threats to international order. The United States appeared to be showing the way toward a post-Cold War international system whose demonstrated ability to respond to such threats was expected to deter at least some of them.
- Partnership for Peace
- NATO's Partnership for Peace program seeks to encourage eligible states, above all the states of the former Warsaw Pact and the former Soviet Union, to build democracy and undertake greater responsibilities in international security. The program could open the door to, but does not promise, NATO membership. U.S. and NATO relations with Russia are likely to be the determining factor in deciding whether states move from Partnership to NATO membership.
- Enlargement in Central Europe
- In December 1994, NATO members will begin the process of debating possible criteria for new members from Central Europe. Alliance relations with Russia will be a central factor determining the outcome of the debate.
- North Korea: U.S. Policy and Negotiations to Halt Its Nuclear Weapons Program: An Annotated Chronology and Analysis
- On October 21, 1994, the United States and North Korea signed an accord that, if fully implemented on a step-by-step basis, could resolve a prolonged confrontation over Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program. The accord came after 17 months of volatile talks, marked periodically by American threats to seek United Nations economic sanctions and various dire warnings and implied military threats from Pyongyang. Although the Clinton Administration maintains that the agreement fulfills its long-standing basic negotiating objectives, the accord differs significantly from earlier U.S. negotiating positions in regard to the timing and sequencing of actions by both parties, and includes some new elements.
- Key Foreign and Defense Policy Issues in the 104th Congress
- The new post-Cold War world and the role of the United States will be shaped by action on a wide variety of foreign policy and defense issues. The 104th Congress will debate many of these issues and help determine the outcome as it considers the National Security Act proposed by House Republicans in the Contract with America and takes up bills on foreign policy and defense agencies, programs, and budgets.
- Intelligence Implications of the Military Technical Revolution
- The availability of precise, real-time intelligence has been an integral part of a military technical revolution being implemented by the Department of Defense for post-Cold War conflicts and peacekeeping operations. Providing this intelligence requires new types of equipment, analysis and organizational relationships within the U.S. intelligence community.
- Chemical Agent Attacks in Japan
- The release of the nerve agent Sarin in Tokyo's subway system on March 20, marks the first clearly non-state terrorist use of chemical weapons. The agent was highly diluted andmfatalities were relatively few (10), though the number of injured was substantial (5,000+, with 600 hospitalized). This incident clearly indicates the potential political effectiveness of chemical weapons against an unprotected civilian population. Once a population has been sensitized by an incident like this, even the threat of CW can become significantly disruptive. Some have credited fear of another attack with contributing to the cautiousness of the Japanese police investigation
- A UN Rapid Reaction Force
- This report, completed in June 1995, discusses the content and context of the January 1995 proposal by then-United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that U.N. Member States consider the creation of a special rapid reaction force to perform U.N. peacekeeping operations. It contains brief background information on similar proposals and a description of the current U.N. "standby forces" system. It reviews the concerns and issues raised by the Boutros-Ghali proposal, including political acceptability, financing, and the problems of force design and operation. It concludes with an analysis of the strategic, budgetary, political and military implications for the United States. This report will not be updated.