Defense & Security Archive

DENPASAR, Indonesia — The recent spate of popular uprisings in the Middle East has surprised and captivated public attention. It is now widely expected that policymakers in Washington, Brussels and the U.N., among others, will draft pro-democracy aid packages for the region, many of which will focus on security sector reform (SSR). This is a welcome development, but in the rush to support Egypt, Tunisia and possibly Yemen and Libya, aid donors should not forget countries that are already going through a similar process. Indonesia is a case in point. The archipelago nation, with its 240 million inhabitants, happens to […]

The United States faces a serious but silent intellectual crisis: U.S. national security elites have separated into two tribes of specialists, technical and nontechnical, who are incapable of communicating with each other. The implications of the divide between experts in science and technology on one hand and experts in politics on the other are dangerous and far-reaching. If the United States policymaking community cannot bridge the gap between these communities, we risk making mistakes with repercussions running all the way from wasting scarce resources to war. While hardly a golden age of national security policy decision-making, the Cold War set […]

CAMP KHELAGAY, BAGHLAN, Afghanistan — What most impressed the Hungarian army captain about his Afghan army counterparts wasn’t so much their proficiency at maneuvering and holding their own under enemy fire — they’ve been at it for a while, after all. Rather, it was their increasingly apparent ability to plan and execute entire operations almost on their own that impressed the captain, whose name must be withheld under standard Hungarian army media rules. The Afghans have proven capable of conducting difficult and dangerous missions such as finding and disposing of deadly roadside bombs laid down by the Taliban, the biggest […]

Full-blown civil war may have been averted in Côte d’Ivoire, but it remains to be seen how the post-election turmoil might influence the behavior of power players in other African elections. “The most important thing in an election is not the voting process but the aftermath,” asserted a recent BBC commentary, which went on to ask, “Will losers accept the verdict? Will the winner humble the vanquished?” Richard Downie, deputy director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington, believes Côte d’Ivoire’s election is “a case of precedent,” particularly within the context of U.S. policy […]

When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, the Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF) coordinated and carried out the initial response to the catastrophe. For the first time ever, the ground, air and sea components of the JSDF formed a joint task force for dealing with the disaster. With the support of the United States Navy, the JSDF has assisted with relief of stricken areas and the general management of the disaster. It is no exaggeration to say that the earthquake has spurred the most significant Japanese military operations since the end of World War II. The experience […]

The Russian government has effectively managed to balance its competing interests regarding Libya, despite having much less influence on events there than many other governments. The Russian delegation to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) voted to impose sanctions against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime for its violent suppression of peaceful demonstrators, but abstained on the crucial March 17 vote authorizing the use of force to protect civilians from the Libyan government. Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said that Moscow could not support the resolution since it lacked clearly defined limits on using military force. After Western countries initiated wide-ranging military operations against […]

Amid high tensions in the Middle East, Omani Foreign Minister Yousef bin Alawi recently met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran and committed to strengthening bilateral ties. The two countries also held joint military exercises in February. In an email interview, David Dunford, a U.S. ambassador to Oman from 1992-1995 who currently teaches political science at the University of Arizona, discussed Iran-Oman relations. WPR: What is the current state of Iran-Oman trade and diplomatic relations? David Dunford: Oman and Iran have long had diplomatic relations, and there was no break in those relations after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. […]

On April 5, the Obama administration delivered a stark evaluation of Pakistan’s counterterrorism campaign to Congress, stating that “there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency” (.pdf) festering in the country’s northwestern regions. Over the past decade, militants have killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and wreaked devastation on the country’s fragile economy. And since 2001, 2,575 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. Why, then, have Pakistan’s leaders failed to develop a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy? It is true that Pakistan has made important progress against militancy in recent years. Starting in mid-2009, the army began a […]

This is the second of a two-part series examining diversification efforts by Latin American drug-trafficking networks. Part I examined the FARC’s illegal gold-mining operations in Colombia. Part II examines Mexican drug traffickers’ use of oil-tapping to generate revenues. Mexico’s crime syndicates are well-known as exporters of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines, importers of firearms, and perpetrators of violence. Their business has produced bloody internecine turf wars, with rival gangs battling it out for control over distribution routes mainly within the drug-producing states of northern Mexico. But over the past five years the drug trade has been squeezed between the pincers of […]

President of Yemen is rejecting the offer from Gulf Cooperation Council nations, led by Qatar, to sponsor mediation over political transition in the country. “We derive our power and legitimacy from the people of Yemen,” he said, as thousands of supporters and opponents gathered in capital Sanaa.

A recent issue of the prestigious European magazine Europe’s World contains an eye-catching advertisement for NATO: “Question: Which organization adopted a new vision of its geopolitical role in Lisbon? Hint: It wasn’t the European Union!” The ad’s not so subtle jibe has been borne out by the Libyan crisis, which caught the EU, but not NATO, by surprise. Despite the $43 million the European Commission made available for humanitarian assistance to those in Libya and neighboring countries most affected by the crisis, as well as the EU’s prompt imposition of an arms embargo and an asset freeze on the Libyan […]

One year ago, Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya was being praised for its efforts to become a responsible stakeholder in the international system. Meanwhile, Gadhafi’s children, especially his son Saif al-Islam, were being cultivated as the best hope for initiating a process of political and economic reform, so that Libya might replicate the path blazed by Taiwan, where another dynastic transfer of power from father to son led to democratization. Indeed, Gadhafi’s son Khamis was in the United States on a professional internship when the current crisis broke out. He was quickly recalled to take command of the 32nd Reinforced Brigade of […]

The Israeli President met with American politicians in Washington over the political crisis in the Arab World. But he expressed optimism over the wave of political change.

This footage offers an inside look at the fighting by rebels in Libya. According to the Russia’s government-owned global news network Russia Today, rebels in Libya say they’ve been hit by a NATO airstrike, with some reports suggesting as many as 13 people have been killed. This comes as UK officials are investigating Libyan claims that British planes destroyed the Arab state’s largest oil field, killing three guards.

SHANGHAI — North Korea has long been an important link in East Asia’s organized criminal networks. But recent reports suggest that, as the collapse of the country’s planned economy continues, the scale of these activities may be expanding and the dynamics behind them changing. While Chinese, South Korean and other Asian criminal networks have historically been active in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), traditionally the North Korean government was also a major participant in illegal activities. It is known to have been engaged in narcotics production and trafficking, people trafficking and currency forgery. However, as the country’s planned […]

One of the worst-case scenarios looming over the West and moderate Muslims in Arab countries is that extremist groups could hijack the current wave of pro-democracy revolutions or otherwise take advantage of the unrest to expand their footprints and strengthen their operational capabilities. Nowhere are those fears better-founded than in Yemen, where conditions have for years made the country a prime candidate to succeed Afghanistan as a base of operations for al-Qaida. While an outcome that benefits al-Qaida is far from assured, there are strong reasons to believe this is a plausible scenario and clear factors that would make such […]

The potential long-term impact of the Libya intervention has more to do with changing people’s thinking than with changing the reality on the ground in Libya. The past 40 years have already demonstrated that the West can manage the discrete problem represented by Moammar Gadhafi. What it cannot handle is the aggregate problem represented by a continuation of the status quo, both in the broader region but also in the shifting geopolitical landscape beyond it. By highlighting a number of major shortcomings in that status quo, the Libyan intervention just might be the wake-up call needed to generate a more […]