Clashes 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 
SSR Blog
Monthly Archive
November | 2011
Security Sector Transformation in North Africa and the Middle East - New USIP Special Report
By: Michael Lawrence | Monday, November 21st, 2011The 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,
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