Defense & Security Archive

BANGKOK, Thailand — The curiously named Caravan of the Poor, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s own version of Nazi brownshirts who intimidated anti-government demonstrators on the streets of Bangkok earlier this year, has evaporated in the week following Thailand’s coup. Instead, smiling mothers photograph their plastic gun-toting sons who pester to be lifted onto tanks parked in the capital’s streets. Newly married couples choose a backdrop of the flower-festooned armored vehicles instead of the royal palace or a historic temple to commemorate their special day on film. But the calm and the lack of combatants comes at too high […]

NEW DELHI — The recent seizure here of massive shipments of illegal Ephedrine and the highly addictive sedative Mandrax, as well as the June capture in Mumbai of a container packed with some $100 million worth of cocaine, spotlights the rise of illicit drug abuse and the burgeoning drug trade in South Asia — especially in India. Over the past year and a half alone, authorities say an estimated 216 kilograms of cocaine, more than 600 kilos of Ephedrine, 247 kilos of heroin and 4,400 kilos of Mandrax have been seized in India, the major portion captured in New Delhi […]

MOSHAV HANIEL, Israel — On a Friday night in Israel, somewhere along the portion of the country that measures just eight miles across between the West Bank and the sea, an Israeli family gathered to celebrate. In a home a few hundred yards from the Palestinian town of Tulkarm — from where many suicide bombers have made their way into the heart of Israel — three generations sat under the stars, toasting a 12-year-old girl’s coming of age, her Bat Mitzvah. As the girl’s relatives reminisced of her transformation into a sweet, wise teenager, one of her aunts leaned into […]

A simmering conflict is threatening to start another war in Sudan. This time, it is as much about oil as it is ethnicity. Unequal distribution of oil revenues, bungled oil contracts, and differences in ethnic power sharing are creating new fault lines in an already divided country. The South Sudan Defense Front (SSDF), a former ally of the Khartoum government in its battle against the rebel Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), has threatened to attack SPLA positions once again. The group, formed by Riek Marchar, now vice president of the Government of South Sudan, or GOSS, complains that its people […]

For our readers who are interested in the military, defense and national security, I wanted to take the opportunity to point out recent articles you might be interested in, as well as highlight our expanding coverage of this area. If you select “defense and military” on the issues pull-down menu on our front page, the results list will give you a pretty good sampling of our national security-related coverage so far. You can see we have exclusive news and commentary articles about everything from unmanned aircraft to military justice to NATO operations in Afghanistan. And of course in coming weeks […]

QUIBDÓ, CHOCÓ, Colombia — In this part of Colombia, most people don’t want to talk about the fighting between government forces and rebels in what’s been a 40 year long civil war. President Alvaro Uribe Vélez was re-elected in May to a second four-year term and he’s promised to make the long-neglected state of Chocó not only safer, but more of a commercial addition to the nation’s economic prosperity. That first step will mean finding a way to end the fighting between right wing Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defense of Colombia/AUC) soldiers and left-wing Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia […]

Had they been short on rally slogans, Sudan activists behind last weekend’s Global Darfur Day could have tapped Benjamin Disraeli’s classification of the three kinds of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics. A new study published Sept. 15 in the journal Science says the U.S. State Department’s death toll estimates for Darfur, released last year, underestimated the count by “hundreds of thousands” of lives. The new study is no news flash for Sudan watchers who have tracked the three-year-old conflict between government-backed militia and rebel groups in western Sudan. They’ve been accusing the Bush administration of low-balling the figures […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — For a time during the dark, stormy night it was feared that rival military factions might clash on the rain-swept streets of Thailand’s sprawling capital for control of the city following a coup during Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s absence at the UN General Assembly. But by dawn Wednesday it became apparent that despite calls by Thaksin in New York for the arrest of the coup leaders, no one was riding to his rescue. Pro-Thaksin elements in the military, police and political hierarchy, including the army supreme commander who had talked directly with the mercurial political leader by […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — There are few countries in the world that are in the midst of an armed conflict while also facing a post-conflict situation. Today, Colombia, the third most populous country in Latin America, is confronting such a challenge. Three years ago, Colombia’s President, Alvaro Uribe, initiated a peace process with the Self- Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), an umbrella organization of right-wing paramilitary factions. Since then, nearly 32,000 fighters have laid down their arms. In July 2005, the controversial Justice and Peace Law was passed which set out the framework for demobilization, the punishments paramilitaries would receive and […]

So, what is all the fuss about these Geneva Conventions? Considering that the subject of compliance with these treaties not only led every Sunday morning weekly news program, but also is the cause of the so called “rebellion” by a group of highly influential Republican Senators, many are no doubt asking this question. The answer is in some ways complex, in other ways quite simple, and now central to how the United States will frame the nature of the conflict we are struggling not only to win, but to understand. The Geneva Conventions — yes plural — are four treaties […]

SDEROT, Israel — On the surface, life in this Israeli town of 24,000 looks peaceful. The quiet streets, with intersections marked by neat traffic circles, each decorated with a charming sculpture, seem sedate under the harsh sun of Israel’s Negev desert in the south of the country. Agricultural fields in the distance add to a sense of pastoral peace. Suddenly, the Red Dawn warning system jolts Sderot back into the awful reality of life here: Another Qassam rocket has been fired from nearby Gaza. The entire town has 15 seconds to seek shelter or risk death. A moment later, the […]

Six weeks in hell — or, more precisely, in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. That sums up the brutal fighting endured by the NATO troops who took over from U.S. troops in the area at the end of July. But while British, Canadian and Dutch troops have had an unexpectedly hot reception, pleas from the area British commander calling for other NATO countries to “pull their weight” and commit 2,500 more troops to the southern war have fallen on deaf ears. Though 1,000 more Polish troops were announced last week as “on way” to the region, it had nothing to […]

In a display of optimism for its prospects at landing a huge U.S. Air Force aerial refueling tanker contract, Northrop Grumman Corp. Sept. 13 hosted representatives of some 100 companies that could become suppliers to the company if it wins. With a likely price tag of at least $20 billion to build a minimum of 100 refueling aircraft, the competition is fierce among defense contractors to land the order. As the only U.S.-based aircraft manufacturer, The Boeing Co. once looked to be a shoe-in for the contract. But now Northrop Grumman, partnering with the European firm that owns Airbus, is […]

SEVILLE, Spain — “Ridiculous! Nobody takes that seriously,” laughs Santiago, the young Spanish tourism executive, when asked to comment on Osama bin Laden´s references to reclaiming Spain´s once Moorish province of Andalusia. “The city of Seville expelled the Muslims in 1248, even before they were driven out of the rest of Andalusia. The threat is not worth discussing.” Bin Laden has in the past called for an Islamist takeover of what he calls “al-Andaluz” as the center of a restored Caliphate, a single Islamic state, one nation under Allah stretching from Indonesia to southern Spain that would contain 1.5 billion […]

While Congolese waited for the presidential election results last month, I heard several half-truths about Congo. The one that has stuck with me happens to be a favorite among Western diplomats. “Kinshasa is not Congo,” they say, commenting on the east-west tension surrounding President Joseph Kabila’s candidacy. Their premise is sound, but their conclusion is wrong. Kinshasa, which lies in the country’s far west, is the gate to Congo, and whoever holds the key to the city controls national politics. With more than 7 million residents and 12 percent of voters, the capital is also the country’s most ethnically integrated […]

TIRANA, Albania — In attempt to boost its bid for a 2008 accession into NATO, the Albanian government has hired former U.S. homeland security chief Tom Ridge as a consultant to Prime Minster Sali Berisha. Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania and congressman, was appointed as the United State’s first homeland security adviser on October 8, 2001, shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Ridge went on to become the first secretary of Homeland Security, overseeing the consolidation of the massive new department, created in the largest federal reorganization since World War II. Ridge resigned from government in December 2004. […]

Japan’s likely new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, will seek to amend the Japanese constitution to allow the country to use its military for non-defensive purposes. Combined with the material capabilities of the Japanese military and the perception that Japan glorifies World War II, the likelihood that Japan will be viewed as a regional threat is growing. Both domestic and international factors are pushing Japan to amend the Constitution. Domestically, as in Germany, there is a growing belief in Japan that World War II is long past, and the country should no longer act like a chastened nation. Regionally, Japan is […]