Defense & Security Archive

With a territory as large as France, the Republic of South Sudan became the world’s 193rd independent country on July 9. But while the South Sudanese now have an independent state with vast natural resources, they have yet to build a nation out of some 50 different tribes with diverse languages, beliefs and other key characteristics. Many obstacles will impede progress toward this end, and the outcome depends primarily on the South Sudanese themselves. But the international community can make important contributions to help realize this goal. We in the United States know these challenges well. When Americans declared independence […]

On the eve of the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, thousands of Bosnians marched along the same route taken by Bosnian Muslims who had tried to escape the atrocity, 16 years ago.

The American embassy in Baghdad — already the world’s largest — has been expanding as the U.S. transitions from a military to a civilian-led mission in Iraq. On Sunday, the United States opened on a consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.

Last month, Russia announced that it had successfully tested its Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile. In an email interview, Dmitri Titoff, a Washington, D.C.-based foreign policy analyst, and Richard Weitz, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World Politics Review senior editor, discussed Russia’s ballistic missile modernization program. WPR: What is the current state of Russia’s ballistic missile arsenal? Dmitri Titoff and Richard Weitz: Like their Soviet predecessors, Russian government leaders consider having a powerful arsenal of long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads their highest priority. Not only do they represent the core of Russia’s nuclear deterrent against […]

Since the 1980s, the Kurdish separatist group Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK), labeled as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, has been one of the main threats to Turkey’s domestic security. The PKK lost momentum after the group’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in 1999. But since 2003, the turmoil resulting from military operations in Iraq has facilitated the creation of a new safe haven for PKK bases in the Qandil mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan. In the past few years, clashes between Turkish security forces and PKK militants have been interrupted only by sporadic and […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — The appointment by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of his own brother-in-law as the new chief of the army has highlighted a trend that sees Indonesia’s political leaders keen to maintain personal control of the security apparatus, while remaining averse to pushing for civilian democratic control. Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo, the younger brother of first lady Ani Yudhoyono, was sworn in on June 30. Now 56, Pramono graduated at the top of his class at the Indonesian military academy in 1980, and his background includes commanding the Siliwangi Military District in West Java as well as stints […]

The announcement this week of a Somali terror suspect’s transfer to U.S. federal court came just after reports of the U.S. drone war’s expansion into Somalia. Both developments highlight the growing U.S. counterterrorism interest in Somalia and raise questions about how it might be expected to impact the country’s 20-year-old civil war. “American strategy in Somalia has not always matched up with the reality on the ground, and at the moment the reality is shifting very quickly there,” says David Axe, an independent correspondent and World Politics Review contributor who has reported from Somalia. A leading concern for the U.S. […]

Ecuador’s June 28 extradition to Colombia of Fabio Ramirez Artunduaga, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (FARC) 48th Bloc, marks a significant step in the restoration and normalization of ties between the two South American neighbors. Acting on months of intelligence work by Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, Ecuadorean police arrested Ramirez during a sting in Quito, a world away from the jungles where his bloc operates. Citing his status as an undocumented foreign national, Ecuadorean courts promptly announced Ramirez’s extradition to Colombia. Within 48 hours of the arrest, Ramirez was in custody in Colombia. One year ago, […]

Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has set a timer in motion for resolving the outstanding differences between the North Atlantic alliance and Russia over a proposed ballistic missile defense system in Europe. Since the architecture for this shield is expected to be finalized at the May 2012 NATO summit in Chicago, Rogozin said that time is running out to determine what role, if any, Russia will play in the system. “Our current dialogue on missile defense is very difficult,” Rogozin said, “but we must finally either agree or disagree by the end of this year.” If not, Rogozin warns […]

An ongoing effort by the Central African Republic to disarm rebel groups highlights the prominent role that disarming former combatants plays in peace agreements. In an email interview, Robert Muggah, research director of the Small Arms Survey and a research fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, discussed the process of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration. WPR: How significant are disarmament initiatives in post-conflict scenarios, and are there any scenarios in which they are counterproductive? Robert Muggah: Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) is currently a fixture of the stabilization and peacebuilding landscape. The vast majority of the roughly […]

After seven years of debate and impasse, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-nation group of nuclear technology suppliers, agreed at a meeting last month in the Netherlands to revise the guidelines for trade in enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology. The move was immediately criticized in India by the media and opposition parties as a reversal of the NSG’s 2008 waiver allowing the transfer to India of sensitive ENR technology, which can be used for the production of both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The NSG’s original guidelines dated from 1978, three years after the group was formed in response to […]

MAE SOT, Thailand — On June 9, deadly clashes broke out in northern Myanmar between the country’s army and the ethnic minority Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The fighting reportedly erupted after Myanmar’s military moved to secure the Tarpein Hydropower Project, a Chinese-built dam that came online in January. The plant, which sits on a tributary of the Irrawaddy River close to rebel-held areas, has since suspended its operations, and the clashes have spread to surrounding regions, pushing Myanmar’s strategic borderlands to the brink of civil war. Rights activists say the Myanmar army’s offensive has brought a range of rights abuses, […]

When the generals in Myanmar orchestrated their pseudo-democratic pageant last November, the exercise was labeled a “sham” by most of the world. Some in the West, however, speculated that despite the deeply flawed elections, the long-ruling junta might still redeem itself and allow real democratic progress in the wake of the polls. So far, however, the optimists are being proven spectacularly wrong. In the months since the vote, the country has marched in the direction of civil war and intensified oppression rather than toward democratic reconciliation and real reform. The election may, in fact, have made matters worse. Myanmar’s new […]

The Republican Party’s increasing divisions on foreign policy have now moved beyond Tea Party-inspired financial grumbling to find their way into the race for the GOP presidential nomination. Could the party’s 2012 nomination turn on foreign policy? If so, it would echo the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, in which foreign policy played an unusually strong role: Barack Obama is president of the United States today in large part because he opposed the Iraq War in 2003, compared to Hillary Clinton, who had been in favor of the war. However, supporters of a noninterventionist turn in the GOP are likely to […]

Several soldiers from Yemen’s elite Republican Guard, meant to be the most loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, say they have defected to the opposition.

Despite an agreement among the U.S., Russian and French presidents at the G-8 summit in Deauville, France, that it is time for a peaceful settlement to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev failed to make much progress when they met in Kazan, Russia, last week. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the meeting “disappointing,” though she added, the parties “had improved their understanding on a number of issues.” The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has its roots in Soviet-era boundaries that located the Armenian-populated enclave as an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan in 1921. […]

In secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan that concluded in Islamabad on June 25, the two nations decided to set their differences aside and work toward a new future. But even as both sides reassess their ties and mull confidence-building measures, the thorny issue of tactical and strategic missile tests and ballistic missile defense (BMD) continues to cast a long shadow over the bilateral relationship. Recent reports that India is seeking to develop longer-range strategic missiles have raised anxieties in Pakistan. On June 2, the head of Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), India’s premier defense-research agency, declared that India […]