Defense & Security Archive

There are two interesting U.S. angles to the recent spate of high-level defense contacts between Israel and China. The first has to do with the respective roles each country plays in the domestic U.S. discourse, with Israel universally portrayed as the United States’ most stalwart ally and China increasingly portrayed as our most likely future peer competitor. This Manichean view is especially pronounced among the Tea Party and Christian Zionist wings of the GOP, but is also present in moderate Republican and Democratic circles. So it will be interesting to see how a closer defense relationship between the two plays […]

In thinking about how to support the twin goals of deterrence and assurance, the Obama administration has been struggling with how best to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons, conventional forces and missile defenses into a coherent strategic posture. Now budgetary pressures are making the trade-offs involved in striking the necessary balance for such an initiative even sharper. These three military tools interact in complex ways. Nuclear forces are very powerful but for the most part unusable due to their destructiveness and the taboo associated with their use. Their main value is therefore to deter adversaries and reassure allies, thereby helping to […]

Despite the jubilation that followed South Sudan’s largely peaceful vote for independence in January, relations with northern Sudan have since deteriorated. In May, just weeks ahead of South Sudan’s July 9 independence day, the Sudanese army occupied the contested Abyei border region. In response, the United Nations Security Council authorized a peacekeeping mission, UNIFSA, to monitor the border and protect civilians there. On Aug. 4, four Ethiopian peacekeepers deployed with UNIFSA were killed after their vehicle struck a landmine in Abyei. Three of the soldiers reportedly died from their injuries after a United Nations medical evacuation helicopter was delayed three […]

As the Republican-controlled House advances its legislative agenda, U.S. civilian assistance to Pakistan looks likely to be one of the early casualties. In addition to new conditions on assistance to Pakistan, approved by two House panels, White House officials expect that the overall aid package is likely to shrink as well. But before lawmakers cut aid to Islamabad, they should consider the role it plays in realizing long-term U.S. interests. The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, more commonly known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act, tripled financial assistance to Pakistan’s civilian institutions by pledging $1.5 billion annually for five years. […]

Despite numerous statements by Philippine and U.S. authorities over the past few years highlighting progress in the fight against terrorism, recent events in the southernmost corner of the Philippines show that the battle there is far from won. On Aug. 1, seven Philippine marines were killed — five of them beheaded or mutilated — and 21 others wounded after being ambushed by some 300 alleged members of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in Patikul, in the Sulu Archipelago. Unconfirmed reports say that 11 ASG members were also killed in the fighting. The ASG, often labeled a local terrorist group, has […]

The riots this past week in the United Kingdom, coming on the heels of the terrorist attack in Norway last month, the protests in Greece and the tsunami and subsequent nuclear accident in Japan earlier this spring, should be a wake-up call to Europe and the rest of the developed world that it cannot ignore the domestic side of the national security equation. It is time to dispense with the hubris of thinking that natural disasters, civil unrest or terrorism produces instability only in countries like Haiti or Iraq. And as Reuters correspondent Peter Apps notes, while a massive police […]

Many Somalis, starving and searching for safety, are risking their lives, crossing into Kenya and taking up residence in Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp. This video by no comment TV shows images from inside the camp.

Of all the uprisings underway in the Middle East, none has the immediate potential to tilt the regional balance of power to the degree that Syria’s does. Under the Assad dynasty, Damascus has played a pivotal role in determining the relative strength of rival powers. Now, with the government of President Bashar al-Assad under pressure from its own people and with the brutality of the regime’s repression raising a popular outcry throughout the world, the principal powers in the Middle East are maneuvering to solidify their positions and reinforce their claim to regional leadership. Mideast powers are moving their chess […]

The latest crisis in Kosovo, which erupted in late-July, seems to be abating after a NATO-brokered deal between Belgrade and Pristina. However, the incident focused attention on the region’s most-recent frozen conflict: Kosovo’s north. The crisis followed the decision of the government in Pristina to impose a trade ban on goods from Serbia, in belated retaliation for Serbia’s 2008 ban on imports from Kosovo after its declaration of independence. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence and still considers it to be an integral part of its territory. Most of the international community, under U.S. leadership, has recognized Kosovo as an […]

China has launched its first aircraft carrier on a maiden voyage, in a move that may prompt anxiety among its neighbors about its naval ambitions.

With the U.S. expanding the role of CIA operatives and possibly private security contractors in Mexico’s drug war, there were reports this week that both countries are intent on circumventing Mexican laws that prohibit foreign military and police from operating inside the country. That Mexican President Felipe Calderón would openly embrace such a strategy is “not entirely surprising,” says Hal Brands, a historian at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, who notes that Mexican laws have long left the country in an awkward position when it comes to seeking security assistance from its northern neighbor. “The problem is that […]

The downing of a Chinook helicopter carrying 31 Americans on Sunday graphically highlighted the continuing costs of fighting the war in Afghanistan. The presence of Navy SEALs among the dead made an emotional connection with the May killing of Osama bin Laden almost inevitable. The logic of that connection, though, has largely remained implicit: With bin Laden now dead, how long should the United States continue to accept the loss its very best in Afghanistan? Ending wars can be very difficult, even when the strategic ends of a war no longer justify the costs incurred. For the U.S. in Afghanistan, […]

The expanded military crackdown being orchestrated by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against his own people has triggered a wave of global criticism and prompted Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait to recall their ambassadors from the country. The move early this week by regional powers to distance themselves from the Assad government effectively means that Syria has lost the support the Gulf Cooperation Council, notes Andrew Tabler, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That, combined with the visit to Syria by [Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu] today, is a big loss for the Assad regime,” he told […]

Hundreds of people took part in a demonstration in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, in solidarity with neighboring Syrian people as Syrian security forces heightened their crackdown on peaceful protesters and civilians.

The State Department is currently planning to assume leadership of the U.S. mission in Iraq on Oct. 1, 2011. Yet, recent proposals in Congress to cut further the department’s budget for Iraq, following two reductions in planned spending last year, threaten to defeat a transition plan that, if not quite representing victory, offers the best hope of achieving an outcome acceptable to U.S. interests as well as to the Iraqi people. The planned handoff of the U.S. mission in Iraq from the Defense Department to State includes positioning some 17,000 political, economic and security personnel under the authority of the […]

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has withdrawn his country’s ambassador for Damascus.

Two days of angry clashes in parts of north London have seen 26 police officers injured and over 160 arrests. Small pockets of unrest remain active, according to Scotland Yard.