Defense & Security Archive

As tensions over Iran’s nuclear program rise, assertions that Israel’s increasing closeness to Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim state on Iran’s northern border, represents the emergence of an anti-Iran “tag team” are gaining currency. But despite undoubtedly warming ties between the two countries, there is no indication that Baku is in any hurry to sacrifice its national interests by participating in a conflict that could possibly drag it into a regional conflagration. Though a recently signed $1.6 billion arms deal has put the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship in the spotlight of late, an article on the Foreign Policy website, vaulted the South Caucasus […]

NAIROBI — As conflict continues to rage along the poorly demarcated, oil-rich border separating Sudan and South Sudan, international parties are scrambling to avert full-scale war. The African Union (AU) hosted reconciliation talks Monday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. In a result reflective of the AU’s two-year mediation, however, Northern and Southern Sudanese officials failed to reach any tangible resolution. The current crisis constitutes the largest scale of violence between the two national armies since South Sudan officially seceded in July 2011. Each side blames the other for instigating the aggression. South Sudan claims its northern neighbor continues to […]

Over the past few weeks, thousands of young men and children have been forcibly recruited into South Sudan’s army. Armed soldiers have been driving village to village picking up any one they can find to fight for the south against Sudan. World News Videos by NewsLook

Over the weekend, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) seized Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, the three major cities of northern Mali that lie within the region the Tuareg rebel group refers to as “Azawad.” This development highlights the inability of the military-led junta currently ruling the country, the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDR), to stem the MNLA’s advance, despite having deposed Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré for his anemic response to this latest round of Tuareg rebellion. Before his overthrow, Touré had also come under fire from regional and international critics for […]

Bo Xilai, the dismissed Communist Party chief of the western municipality of Chongqing, began his long fall from grace in February, when his police chief, Wang Lijun, sought refuge in the United States Consulate in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. Wang’s short-lived “defection” lifted the lid off a corruption scandal that is likely to complicate the once-in-a-decade transfer of power to new party leaders in the fall, drawing international attention to internal politics that party officials prefer to keep far from public view. The charges currently being brought against Bo, which include disturbing details about his […]

NATO’s upcoming Chicago summit in May offers an opportunity for deliberation about the current state of the military alliance, including operations outside its core strategic area. In this context, the recent military intervention in Libya will likely be hailed as a successful and hopefully replicable model (.pdf). Swift and precise action followed by rapid withdrawal represent a welcome change from the alliance’s drawn-out mission in Afghanistan. In contrast to the Afghan quagmire, the Libyan model, with its prompt termination of military operations and deliberate lack of involvement in the subsequent political transition, looks like a promising alternative. Yet the assumption […]

The civil war in Syria is now more than a year old, with estimates putting the civilian death toll at the hands of the Syrian army at 9,000 people in the past 13 months. As the slaughter continues, President Barack Obama has offered little more than promises of nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition and intonations about establishing “a process” to transition to a “legitimate government.” Inaction in the face of such butchery is easy to criticize, of course, and America cannot intervene everywhere. Nonetheless, Obama’s inaction in the face of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brutality is especially glaring in […]

Since at least 2003, Americans have overestimated our influence in Iraq. Although the U.S. invasion and overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime paved the way for both a bloody civil war and a new form of government, the key actors in Iraq were and remain the Iraqi people themselves. Most recently, GOP critics of the Obama administration have been quick to fault the White House for withdrawing U.S. troops at the end of 2011. But the incessant, myopic focus of many Republicans on America’s military means is wrong-headed and ignores where the administration has actually fallen short in Iraq. The […]

Territorial disputes to determine control of offshore energy reserves and multinational efforts to secure global shipping lanes are increasingly driving naval competition and international politics. Be it in the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, maritime security and diplomacy will in part determine the emerging global order. This World Politics Review special report examines diplomacy and strategy in the world’s waterways. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Not a subscriber? Purchase this document for Kindle or as a PDF from Scribd. Or subscribe to WPR now. […]

Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the bloody 74-day war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas, in the South Atlantic. It was an anniversary that did not go unnoticed in either country, with the islands’ offshore oil reserves largely driving the renewed attention. Exploratory oil drilling commenced in early 2010 in the waters off the string of islands where sheep have long outnumbered people. Several British oil concerns have spent the past two years drilling to assess the potential in the waters surrounding the islands, with increasing success. Though relevant for […]

One issue left unresolved by last week’s Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul is how to integrate the summits with several similar initiatives. Like the summits, these other mechanisms have emerged to respond to a new threat not anticipated by the architects of the original nuclear nonproliferation regime, that of nuclear terrorism. The unprecedented geopolitical and technological developments of the past two decades have enabled terrorist groups and other violent nonstate actors, sometimes supported by state sponsors, to exploit illicit trafficking networks to acquire dangerous nuclear technologies and materials. The process of globalization has also meant that countries lacking adequate nuclear […]

Suspected Muslim insurgents staged the most deadly coordinated attacks in years in Thailand’s restive south, killing 14 people and injuring 340 with car bombs that targeted shoppers and a high-rise hotel. World News Videos by NewsLook

Kadima, the main opposition party in Israel, elected former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as its chairman in primary elections last week. Tzipi Livni, the incumbent, lost by a wide margin, stepping down at the end of what was widely regarded as an ineffective term. Though Kadima is the largest party in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, it is losing popular support. And analysts say its future will depend on whether Mofaz can accomplish what Livni could not: unifying the party, expanding its political base and ensuring that it provides a real alternative to the governing party, Likud. Daniel C. Kurtzer, the […]

Given this administration’s resurging plans for regional missile defense schemes in both Europe and Asia, President Barack Obama’s recent open-mike admission to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have more freedom in his national security decision-making once he wins re-election is not a comforting thought. For a guy who promises “a world without nuclear weapons,” Obama seems awfully intent on incentivizing both Russia and China to field some more. With regard to Europe, America’s case for even limited missile defense is weak. We are told it is all about Iran and has nothing to do with Russia. But if […]