Defense & Security Archive

MONROVIA, Liberia — Almost a year ago, President Barack Obama used his long-awaited speech in Ghana to address a question with which the African continent is all too familiar: corruption. “No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves,” Obama lectured his audience in the Ghanaian Parliament. Since then, the question of corruption has taken on added urgency, and not just in Africa. The visit this week to Washington by Afghan President Hamid Karzai highlighted the degree to which U.S. concerns over widespread Afghan corruption have taken a back seat to war-time priorities. […]

Last week, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was informally tapped to mediate negotiations between Iran and the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly told his “brother,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, that Iran was prepared to accept Brazilian mediation “in principle.” The starting point for talks will be the same as last fall’s nuclear fuel swap deal, whereby Iran was to ship its enriched uranium to France and Russia for reprocessing, after which the reprocessed fuel would be returned to Iran for use in the Tehran medical reactor. But while Lula is […]

It was a rare refuge in a country that had known only war for 19 years: In Afgooye, a town just a few miles outside Mogadishu, the staff of the Dr. Hawa Abdi camp offered food, medical care and protection to as many as 6,000 Somali families at a time. Through two decades of war and occupation, the staff and its charismatic director carefully maintained their neutrality — and managed to preserve the camp’s delicate infrastructure despite the chaos that raged just beyond the walls. On May 5, all that changed. A faction of Islamic fighters occupied the camp, killed […]

Much of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s activities in Washington this week will center on his efforts to secure American support, both diplomatic and financial, for his new peace plan — and specifically, the controversial issue of negotiating with the Taliban. The Afghan government and its foreign backers differentiate between reconciliation and reintegration. The former concept involves negotiating a political settlement with senior Taliban leaders who are willing to break with al-Qaida. By contrast, reintegration entails inducing lower-level Taliban fighters — who might have become Taliban fighters for non-ideological reasons, such as financial incentives — to stop fighting and return to […]

BANGKOK — Red Shirt anti-government protesters have conditionally accepted Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s roadmap for national reconciliation in a move that is expected to end the rallies that have paralyzed parts of the capital for months. Opinions are mixed over whether the plan can bring lasting peace to a country whose unity has become increasingly fractured along lines of wealth, development and the urban/rural divide. But many analysts believe the proposed dissolution of Parliament in the second half of September followed by a general election on Nov. 14 will see the Red-Shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) bring […]

At a recent NATO foreign ministers meeting in Tallinn, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States would not withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) from Europe in the near-term future. Clinton also said that these weapons should only be drawn down if done so simultaneously with similar Russian systems. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen echoed these sentiments and stated that U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe are an integral part of the alliance’s deterrent. But in addition to being increasingly unpopular among U.S. allies, the estimated 150-200 U.S. TNWs in Europe (.pdf) also lack military utility and […]

Iran’s alleged clandestine pursuit of a nuclear-weapon capability dominated the headlines last week during the ongoing Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. However, beyond the theatrics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s verbal exchange, it is important to remember, and ultimately to address, the root cause of the Iranian nuclear problem — namely, the spread of dual-use technologies such as uranium enrichment to countries outside the ring of first-order world powers. The problem with uranium enrichment is its ambiguity: It is a vital component of the civilian nuclear power industry, yet it can also be […]

A few weeks ago, the United States had cautious grounds for optimism in terms of both Iran and Iraq. Election results in Iraq had opened the possibility of a more inclusive national government being formed, one that might finally begin to build on the breathing room obtained at such cost by the surge — and which would permit the orderly drawdown of U.S. forces over the next year. On Iran, there seemed to be an emerging international consensus that Iran’s nuclear program was deserving of sanctions: Both Russia and China signaled that they were prepared to consider new measures designed […]

MANILA, Philippines — Whoever wins the Philippines’ upcoming presidential election on May 10, it is likely that the special ties that bind the country to the U.S. will remain largely unaffected. In Manila, however, those ties are considered a necessity, not a choice, and some perceptible changes in attitude have emerged. The shift is aided by China’s inroads into what has historically been considered “the United States’ backyard.” Segments of Filipino civil society have long opposed what they perceive as Washington’s interference in the country’s internal affairs, as well as the U.S. military’s presence during lengthy training exercises. Politicians, including […]

The rigid-hull inflatable boat with 10 U.S. Navy sailors aboard pulled up alongside the blue-and-white dhow on the choppy, sapphire waters of the Gulf of Aden. The dhow’s six occupants, dressed in sandals, loose pants and t-shirts, stood to meet the heavily armed Americans. Seeing the sailors’ assault rifles, some of the dhow crewmen raised their hands to show they were unarmed. So began an encounter last December between suspected pirates and the men and women tasked with hunting them. With their hulking, gray home vessel, the destroyer USS Donald Cook, looming in the background, the sailors tried to initiate […]

This World Politics Review special report is a compilation of World Politics Review’s top articles on the global nuclear agenda from July 2009 through April 2010. The report includes articles on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. Below are links to each article, which subscribers can read in full. Subscribers can also download a pdf version of the report. Not a subscriber? Subscribe now, or try our subscription service for free. Disarmament Movement Needs Youth Involvement to Counter Cynicism By Johan BergenäsJuly 30, 2009Moving Past STARTBy Richard WeitzAugust 4, 2009Obama’s Challenging NPT AgendaBy Miles A. PomperAugust 4, 2009Keeping Swords, Building PlowsharesBy […]

In recent weeks, the members of the Obama administration have developed a comprehensive strategy for the Eighth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which began yesterday. The administration’s declared position is to use the conference and other opportunities to strengthen all three of the treaty’s core objectives or “pillars”: disarmament, nonproliferation, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. U.S. officials have stressed their support for the fundamental trilateral bargain behind the NPT: Countries with nuclear weapons will move towards eliminating them; states without nuclear weapons will not seek to obtain them; and all countries will enjoy access to peaceful […]

When President Barack Obama first announced his plan in early 2009 for withdrawal from Iraq, it initiated a debate within U.S. national security circles: Would Shiite insurgents operating in the country stage a final attack on U.S. troops as they withdrew? Initially it was believed that such an attack would happen in the summer of 2009, as Coalition Forces consolidated to bases removed from local population centers, as per Obama’s plan. But 2009 passed without incident, leaving analysts slightly reassured about the impact of relentless Coalition Force operations targeting three key Shiite insurgent groups — Kata’ib Hezbollah, Jaysh al-Mahdi, and […]

As Iraq’s political leaders crisscrossed the region holding meetings in various neighboring capitals in the run-up to and aftermath of the March 7 parliamentary elections, they provided a running display of the country’s continued vulnerability to the actions, both benign and malign, of its regional neighbors. While these cordial meetings were described as friendly consultations and information-sharing exercises, they reflect a stark reality: Iraq’s future is not solely in its own hands, and due to its weakness, the country’s future course will be shaped by both the actions and interference of its neighbors. Less clear is Iraq’s contribution to the […]

Over the space of the next 5-10 years, Iraq’s political leaders must grapple with a series of deeply contentious issues that cut to the core of the design of the Iraqi state. Many of these divisive issues — such as the division of powers between the central government and the regions, control over the oil and gas sector, and the future status of disputed territories in northern Iraq — are intertwined, and relate in one way or another to the current and future status of the Kurds in Iraq. In the broadest sense, then, the “big picture” question facing Iraq […]

On March 7, President Barack Obama made a brief appearance in the Rose Garden to comment on Iraq’s just-completed parliamentary election. Obama hailed the vote as a success and condemned the insurgents who carried out a few scattered attacks in Baghdad. Then he returned to what is for him a familiar theme, casting the ballot as yet another milestone on the road to ending the seven-year-old Iraq War. “The Iraqi people must know that the United States will fulfill its obligations,” Obama said. “We will continue with the responsible removal of United States forces from Iraq.” Perhaps the framing was […]

President Barack Obama’s multipronged approach to minimizing nuclear risks — embodied in the simultaneous roll out of the Nuclear Posture Review, the START follow-on treaty with Russia, and the Nuclear Security Summit — is nothing if not ambitious. Taken together, these steps mark a potential turning-point for U.S. nuclear strategy by reducing the role of nuclear weapons and by prioritizing efforts to lock down weapons-usable material, clamping down on nuclear terrorism, and strengthening international rules against proliferation. As the Nuclear Posture Review puts it, “Changes in the nuclear threat environment have altered the hierarchy of our nuclear concerns and strategic […]