Defense & Security Archive

In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the annual arrival of the holiday season brings with it the sinking realization that no matter the developments of the preceding 12 months, the end of the year will be accompanied by more violence, more sexual assault and more displacement of the civilian populations living in the shadow of the darkly beautiful volcanoes in the Kivu provinces. This year’s tragedy is tinged peacekeeper blue. The world’s largest and most expensive U.N. peacekeeping mission, MONUC, has now conducted nine months of joint operations with the Congolese army, the FARDC. But that dismal and undisciplined force […]

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — When the gate opened at the U.S. Army outpost in Baraki Barak district on the morning of Oct. 25, it seemed the Army’s long-planned strategy to win over local farmers might fail. For weeks, Able Troop, an element of 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry, had prepared to provide free veterinary services to potentially hundreds of local farmers — coordinating with the local government, hiring vets, stockpiling medicine, and spreading word of the event. The idea was to win the farmers’ allegiance, and create what 3rd Squadron commander Lt. Col. Thomas Gukeisen called “dislocated envy.” That would, in […]

ISLAMABAD — With Pakistani security forces taking over several Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds in South Waziristan, thousands of militants have apparently fled to other parts of the country — raising fears that militancy will spread and escalate. On Nov. 5, Pakistani military and paramilitary security forces reclaimed Laddah, an important Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, leaving only Makeen in the hands of the Pakistani Taliban movement called TTP. However, tribal leaders and local observers from South Waziristan have confirmed that thousands of TTP, Arab al-Qaida and other foreign militants — including Uzbeks and Chechens — have escaped to other areas […]

China’s fifth generation of leaders is coming of age at a critical juncture in the history of the People’s Republic of China. Slated to assume power in 2012-2013, they will face both opportunities and challenges. Despite the current global economic and financial crisis, most projections of China’s continuing rise have it assuming the No. 2 spot in the international pecking order by that time, with further enhanced economic and political influence, but also heightened expectations and demands for Beijing to take the lead in global and regional affairs. At the same time, domestic issues, from ethnic unrest to growing income […]

BEIJING — One of the issues President Barack Obama will inevitably discuss when he visits China next week is the deadlocked Six-Party Talks seeking to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis. Perhaps the most important difference between the 1994 Agreed Framework (.pdf), which settled the 1992-94 nuclear crisis, and the current Six-Party Talks is that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been considerably more involved in supporting the latter process. Chinese policymakers initially promoted the Six-Party Talks primarily as a means of preventing Washington from adopting more coercive measures — whether severe sanctions or military attacks — toward the […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Since the ouster in 1998 of the Suharto regime, Indonesia’s process of democratization has made remarkable progress. The peaceful re-election of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono this year for a second five-year term served as the latest chapter, adding yet another layer of political stability to the country’s democratic advances. However, an extraordinary saga that sees the country’s independent anti-corruption commission (KPK) locked in a battle for survival against the police and the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) is an indicator of some of the difficulties the country still faces in its quest to grow into a mature democracy. […]

Saudi Arabia’s possible purchase of at least $2 billion of Russian military equipment has the potential to be the most significant Russian arms deal in the Middle East since the Soviet Union transferred SA-2s to Nasser’s Egypt. By all indications, it seems that the two countries have reached an agreement for the arms transfer, after a two-year negotiation period. The deal may be part of a larger process that leads to a significant realignment in the external relations of both parties. The arms transfer agreement, which covers a broad spectrum of weapons, is guided by the agreement on cooperation in […]

TORREÓN, Mexico — Ever since Mexico’s Felipe Calderón took office in 2006, his presidency has been irrevocably identified with one issue more than any other: security. Calderón has staked the credibility of his administration, not to mention the country’s bilateral relationship with the United States, on attacking drug runners, dismantling kidnapping syndicates, and making Mexico an overall safer country. But despite some improvements in Mexico’s institutional capacity to fight crime, Calderón’s security gamble has largely backfired. The present levels of drug-related violence are worse than ever before, and Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, has become the […]

For roughly four decades, a clear foreign policy rule set has existed between the United States and Latin America, centering largely on the question of counternarcotics. Starting with Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs,” an explicit quid pro quo came into existence: U.S. foreign aid (both civilian and military) in exchange for aggressive Latin American efforts to curb both the production and trafficking of illegal narcotics (primarily marijuana and cocaine). By virtually all accounts, that logistics-focused strategy has proven to be a massive failure. America’s focus on interdiction and prohibition has not stemmed domestic drug abuse. Instead, all indications are that […]

As we near the final year of the decade that brought us 9/11, it’s worth recalling one lesson our experience on that date has etched with painful clarity: Failed states can become breeding grounds for violent extremists — with devastating consequences far beyond their borders. Before 9/11, no one could have predicted that attacks concocted in remote, impoverished Afghanistan might have such a cataclysmic impact on history. Now we know that we ignore such states at our own risk. That’s why remote and impoverished Yemen, a country undergoing what by all appearances is a slow-motion collapse, is likely to draw […]

TOKYO — Those seeking political symbolism for Asia’s faultlines need look no further than the Dalai Lama’s press conference here on Saturday — complete with criticism of China, and delivered before he heads off for an extended stay in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Perched on India’s frontier with China, Arunachal Pradesh’s disputed border has been the focus of growing tensions between New Delhi and Beijing. On Friday, former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra became the latest in a series of respected Indian commentators warning of possible Chinese military action. The two countries fought over the state, which China […]

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — “Let’s go get blown up,” Staff Sgt. Ashley Hess quipped as he climbed into his armored vehicle on a hot, bright mid-October morning. Sgt. Hess and the rest of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Platoon, Able Troop — part of the 3rd Squadron of the 71st Cavalry regiment deployed to this fertile agricultural province south of Kabul — steered their vehicles down a dirt road code-named Route New York. The route is a favorite with insurgent bomb teams, who prefer burying their explosives directly under a vehicle’s path — something that’s nearly impossible on paved roads. Many […]

Brazil has had a lot to celebrate recently. Its economy has been growing at a slow but healthy clip, thanks to prudent fiscal policies that have helped it weather the financial crisis better than many. The nation has taken on an increasingly important role in matters of regional diplomacy and has emerged as the de facto political and economic leader of Latin America. Foreign leaders as varied and diverse as U.S. President Barack Obama, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and South African President Jacob Zuma have all recently met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in efforts to strengthen […]

Today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will become only the second German leader in history to give a speech to both houses of the U.S. Congress. One issue she may avoid raising is her new coalition government’s controversial commitment to remove all U.S. nuclear weapons from German soil within the next few years. By formally adopting the commitment as a core element of its platform, the German government has dramatically focused attention on what has until now been a low-key debate within NATO over whether to retain nuclear weapons as a core element of the alliance’s strategy. Although the precise number […]

Ten years ago last month, the U.S. Senate failed to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. A decade later, the dangers posed by the potential spread of nuclear weapons and materials to additional states and terrorists have increased dramatically. Stopping proliferation will require a global effort — and an early, essential step in that effort must be U.S. ratification of the test ban. The test ban is clearly consistent with U.S. security interests. Because the United States does not conduct nuclear tests and has no plans or the need to do so, the United States should take advantage of the […]