Defense & Security Archive

The Congressional Research Service recently published a report on conventional arms transfers that identifies Russia as the world’s leading arms supplier to developing countries in 2005. According to CRS calculations, Russia ranked first in arms sales agreements with developing nations, with contracts worth approximately $7 billion. Although Russia’s current arms exports have decreased considerably since the Soviet period, its revenue per transaction is now greater because Russian firms have yielded much of the lower-end market to lower-cost suppliers like China, India, and former Soviet bloc allies. In addition, whereas the U.S.S.R. transferred much weaponry under easy commercial terms or without […]

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Donald Abinan, 25, ekes out his existence in this West African metropolis by energetically directing cars in and out of empty parking spaces. He earns, by his estimate, slightly more than a dollar a day. Abinan’s turf is the street in front of the downtown mosque under construction, close to a small shopping center. But when President Laurent Gbagbo’s young partisans marched in often-violent, city-congesting demonstrations in support of their champion, he said he joined in. “I am not pro-Gbagbo, but I like his politics,” Abinan said. What attracted Abinan is not a program of economic […]

There are no good options in Iraq, which means Americans — who are inclined to believe there is a solution to every problem — are ill-equipped to plot a way forward. The country lies in ruins. Bush’s policy of simply lurching from one bloodbath to the next, from one political crisis to the next, has failed. The military is considering a temporary increase in troop strength, or a longer-term plan to embed many more advisers with Iraqi forces. At this point neither of those plans is likely to succeed, but both represent a last-ditch attempt to avert an utter catastrophe […]

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki seemed set Monday on keeping his mid-week rendezvous with President Bush in Amman, Jordan, even though it could mean risking the survival of his government. The summit called by Bush is opposed by Moqtada al-Sadr, the combative Shiite cleric and a crucial prop to Maliki’s government. Al-Sadr, who is virulently against the continued U.S. presence in Iraq, has threatened to withdraw his political support if the prime minister meets Bush on Wednesday. On Saturday, Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television news service, quoted Faleh Hasan Shanshal, al-Sadr’s political aide, as saying, “We have asked al-Maliki […]

What is civil war? The question is often raised about the disorders in Iraq. Does the violence between Iraqi religious and political factions amount to civil war, or is it best described another way? The US-led coalition’s spokesmen, echoing the views of the White House and Downing Street, refuse to call the disorders civil war. Presumably they believe that to do so would be to admit defeat in their project to set up a stable, legitimate new Iraq. To assess the situation in Iraq, it is helpful to understand how a civil war differs from an inter-state, cross-border war. There […]

Five years ago this month, Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, was liberated from the tyranny of the Taliban regime and its “guests,” al-Qaida. Five years later, Afghanistan, and indeed the world, lives under the threat of another brutal tyrant: the narcotics trade and the terrorism it funds. Despite this threat, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who once so passionately announced that counter-narcotics was a top concern, appears to have wilted on the anti-drug message while the opium poppy, from which heroin is derived, flourishes to record levels – the area cultivated increased an astonishing 60 percent over last year, according to the United […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — After more than a year of exploratory talks, the Colombian government and the country’s second largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), decided last month to enter a new phase of negotiations and start formal peace talks. It is hoped that further talks will push forward an eventual peace agreement between the two parties and bring an end to 42 years of fighting between government forces and ELN rebels. Last September, ELN’s commander and spokesperson, Francisco Galan, was temporarily released from a Colombian high security prison, where he is serving a 30-year sentence for rebellion and […]

Rumor has it that Democrats are eager to use their newly acquired power in Congress to “investigate” a variety of “uninvestigated scandals” linked to the Bush Administration: among them, the use of “CIA secret prisons” in the war on Islamic terror organizations. If an inquiry is opened into this latter question, one can expect a Democrat-led congressional panel to follow the pattern of investigations that have already been undertaken by the Council of Europe and the EU Parliament. It is indeed the latter investigations that are largely responsible for having converted a practice of detaining enemy operatives that might otherwise […]

The U.S. military has recently acknowledged that the U.S. and Chinese navies nearly engaged in a direct military clash at the end of last month near the Japanese island of Okinawa. Although the Chinese government has denied knowledge of the incident, U.S. government sources have provided some details of the encounter, which occurred in the international waters of the East China Sea. On Oct. 26, a Song-class diesel-powered attack submarine unexpectedly surfaced within five miles of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. The submarine was apparently rehearsing how to sink the carrier with its torpedoes and cruise missiles — a […]

JAKARTA, Indonesia — When in May 1998 thousands of Indonesian students converged in the streets of the capital, Jakarta, demanding a democratic country and a law system equal for all, the air was filled with tension. Then, when their Reformasi (renovation) movement managed to end the 32-year rule of Dictator Suharto, tension gave way to expectation. Yet, the winds of change have lately turned into just a light breeze, and recent events have shown that in this archipelago nation the law remains lopsided, with the Suhartos and the armed forces still largely outside the reach of justice. The latest slap […]

The Bush administration recently published an unclassified version of its new National Space Policy. Like the 2005 National Defense Strategy and the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, the new policy stresses the vital interest of the United States in remaining a major space power. Although it acknowledges the value of international cooperation in space and the right of “free passage” for all countries’ satellites and other space-based objects, the policy reaffirms the intent to protect U.S. space capabilities by all available means. The new policy will likely intensify Chinese and Russian fears that the United States intends to deploy weapons in […]

DAMASCUS, Syria — On Monday, top Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk announced from Damascus that Hamas supports Mohammad Shabir as the new prime minister of Palestine, a candidate also supported by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. This brings an end to the political deadlock that has crippled Palestinian life since Hamas came to power in January 2006. The outgoing Prime Minister Ismail Haniyya, age 43, came to power with big dreams and promises for Palestinians. Among these were improving the livelihood of average citizens, combating corruption, and punishing those responsible for misuse of public office under Fatah, which reigned […]

LONDON — The head of the British Security Service (MI5), Eliza Manningham-Buller, who rarely makes public pronouncements, rattled off some chilling statistics Thursday about the Islamist terrorist threat to Britain. The service, she said, is investigating at least 30 top-priority terror plots. Under surveillance are about 200 groups or networks, comprising more then 1,600 individuals “who are actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist acts here or overseas,” she said in a speech at Queen Mary College, London. Her under-strength operation (despite a manpower increase of 50 percent since Sept. 11, 2001) has had to make choices about which threats […]

A C-295 aircraft, the first of two candidates to become a new “joint cargo aircraft” (JCA) for the U.S. Army and Air Force, appears to have passed its early flight tests, according to an official from Raytheon Co., the leader of a corporate team bidding for the JCA business. The Army is aiming to speed the acquisition of the new cargo aircraft because of its potential to reduce improvised explosive device attacks. The plane would do so by taking troop convoys off the roads in battle zones such as Iraq, transporting troops by air instead.The flight tests, concluded Nov. 1, […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — Gambling is illegal in China, but Macau, the special administrative enclave on the coast of Guangdong province, is this year expected to outstrip the United States’ Las Vegas Strip with casino revenue turnover of about $7 billion. The explosive growth of casino gambling in the tiny former Portuguese colony is yet another staggering statistic that illustrates the story of China’s breakneck development. Macau has been transformed in a few short years from a relatively sleepy, rather quaint oddity on the South China Sea into a brash waterfront of ugly, modern casino “resorts” that smother the old colonial […]

The second failed test launch of Russia’s experimental Bulava (R-30 SS-NX-30) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) in as many months has renewed doubts about the viability of the country’s strategic nuclear deterrent, and in turn increased fears that Russian policy makers might adopt “hair-trigger” operational procedures to guarantee that their nuclear forces could survive and respond to a first strike. The Bulava is a three-staged missile designed to carry up to six individually targeted nuclear warheads for a range of approximately 8,000-10,000 kilometers. The two back-to-back failures have effectively suspended the test program. Previously, the missile had been scheduled to enter […]

The news last week that six Arab states are beginning efforts to acquire nuclear technology — although the technology is ostensibly for civil power generation — is stark evidence that non-proliferation efforts around the world must not be neglected. The world has been focused on the Oct. 9 North Korean nuclear test and the Iranian nuclear program and its regional consequences. But the threat of nuclear proliferation is not limited to Asia and the Middle East. South America also poses a threat. South American allies Argentina and Brazil abandoned their relatively advanced nuclear weapons programs, signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) […]