Defense & Security Archive

Last month, the European Union renewed the mandate of the European Network and Information Security Agency, its principal cybersecurity agency, giving it expanded responsibilities. In an email interview, Alexander Klimburg, a fellow at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs specializing in cybersecurity as well as EU foreign and security policy, explained the state of EU cyberdefense and its role in EU-U.S. relations. WPR: How is responsibility for cybersecurity divided among EU member states and the institutions of the EU? Alexander Klimburg: In the EU Cyber Security Strategy, published earlier this year, the EU committed itself to all five of the […]

In Mali, a West African country once seen as a model of democracy but now in the midst of an internal conflict, presidential hopefuls are campaigning for July 28 elections that some fear are coming too soon. John Campbell, Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the elections should be postponed, “both because of the inadequacy of the technical preparations for the elections but also the concern that the occasion of the elections raises the possibility of terrorist attacks and very low turnout,” he said. Low turnout might detract from the legitimacy […]

Despite unfolding disasters in Egypt and Syria and the damage to American security from the bizarre Edward Snowden episode, Afghanistan, which had begun to seem like last year’s news, is grabbing headlines again. The Obama administration is undertaking yet another review of its options following the planned drawdown of U.S. military forces in 2014. Reports are that the administration, frustrated with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is considering a “zero option” that would leave no American troops in Afghanistan. But before wholesale disengagement is even officially on the table, opposition to it is flaring. Angry at the idea, House Armed Services […]

Last week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a comprehensive hearing devoted to assessing the post-2014 U.S. transition in Afghanistan. A central issue was the question of whether the Obama administration is genuinely considering a “zero option,” as news reports suggested last week, that would withdraw all U.S. military forces from the country by the end of 2014. While many oppose this option, the hearing made clear that it might happen if the Afghan government fails to hold free and fair national elections next year. The Obama administration has yet to announce how many U.S. troops it will maintain in […]

The first major development in Mexico’s fight against drug organizations under the Enrique Pena Nieto administration came early yesterday morning when Mexican marines arrested Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, known as Z-40, the head of the ultraviolent Zetas organization. While lauding the arrest, analysts are largely united in the assessment that Z-40’s arrest will result in more violence in the near term, as the struggle to fill the power vacuum left by the arrest unfolds. The arrest also throws into relief the issue of the so-called kingpin strategy of targeting top leaders of Mexico’s drug organizations, which the Pena Nieto administration […]

A rather small country by its size and population—65 million, less than 1 percent of total global population—France is nevertheless one of five to 10 countries that can claim to be major powers in today’s world. The French economy is, however, plagued with sluggish growth, an unemployment level now hovering around 10 percent of the active population, a budget that has been in deficit for more than three decades and a public debt that represents more than 90 percent of its GDP—with more than 60 percent of that debt held by nonresidents, as opposed to about 30 percent for the […]

Should the West attempt to make the Syrian civil war drag on for as long as possible? The question may sound morally offensive and politically wrong-headed. The U.S. and its allies have consistently called for a rapid cessation of hostilities and a negotiated settlement. Yet they are currently pursuing military, diplomatic and humanitarian strategies that could contribute to prolonging the conflict. This could result in either a stalemate inside Syria or even more violence in the country and across the Middle East. As the Syrian war escalated from steady but limited violence to large-scale bloodletting in 2012, many Western observers […]

The confusing web of alliances in Middle Eastern politics has gotten even more tangled after the forcible deposition of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and the attempt by the military to decapitate the Muslim Brotherhood from power. Dividing lines once seen in Washington as unchangeable may now be in flux as a result of the Egyptian turmoil. The implications for Syria, in particular, are most compelling. Amid concerns that the Syrian opposition to President Bashar al-Assad—which contains a number of pro-Muslim Brotherhood factions—might line up with their Egyptian counterparts in opposing the new government, the provisional administration in Cairo has now […]

Last month’s appointment of former Sen. Russ Feingold as the new United States special envoy for the African Great Lakes region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) signals an important surge of energy into American diplomacy in this troubled region. His appointment should be seen in the context of other recent positive steps, including the “Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region,” a February 2013 agreement among 11 African states known as the PSC Framework. The framework aims at ending the decades-long instability, violence, multiple humanitarian crises and grave human […]

The world is riveted by the ongoing turmoil in Egypt as that nation frantically searches for a political identity and a path to stable democracy. Because Egypt has long been one of America’s most important political and security partners, Washington is particularly worried about a collapse into violence or the seizure of power by extremists. Such concern is warranted, but more than just the future of Egypt is in play: The problems there are not unique or isolated, but emblematic of a crisis of governance engulfing the entire world. This will have a profound effect on U.S. security. In the […]

Prior to 1992, Philippine-U.S. security relations were framed by several bilateral defense arrangements. The two countries became formal allies in 1951 upon signing the Philippines-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. Both countries also became members of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in 1956. However, the most important of these bilateral defense arrangements predated the collective defense treaties binding the two countries: the 1947 Philippines-U.S. Military Bases Agreement, which facilitated the hosting of major American naval and air facilities in Philippine territory. The U.S. military bases in the Philippines, including the Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base, extended vital logistical support […]

Maritime crime and disorder have plagued the Gulf of Guinea for decades, as weak and corrupt maritime security regimes emboldened thieves, smugglers and traffickers to exploit the littoral realm. The bountiful vessels serving Nigeria’s oil fields have presented a particular brand of pirates with a lucrative array of targets. With piracy no longer confined to Nigerian waters, however, West and Central African states have now recognized piracy as a regional crisis, as highlighted by a June 24-25 summit in Yaounde, Cameroon, to address the issue. “No country can withstand the growing challenges individually. That is why we agreed to put […]

During the Cold War, the U.S.-Japan alliance was variously described as the cornerstone and the linchpin of U.S. Asia strategy, but over the past decade the role of this strategic alliance has come under increasing scrutiny. New dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region have prompted a rethinking of U.S. priorities in Asia. China’s rise has called for a more complex assessment in both Tokyo and Washington of the circumstances under which the alliance might be tested. Japan’s struggle with slow economic growth and a rather unpredictable effort at political reform has made strategic adjustment difficult. Similar concerns in the United States […]

The U.S. missile defense program suffered perhaps its most serious test failure in recent history last week. The July 5 setback should serve as a warning to the Pentagon for the need to hedge against further deficiencies in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, a core element of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). On Friday afternoon, the Defense Department launched a missile from the Army’s Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Several minutes later, the Pentagon launched an unarmed Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) aboard a rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California […]

The alliance between the United States and South Korea arose from the postwar liberation of southern Korea by U.S. forces and then the subsequent attack on the newly independent country by North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union and Communist China, in June 1950. U.S. forces have remained in South Korea ever since, though their numbers have fluctuated over time. During its first decades as an independent country, South Korea’s policy with regard to Pyongyang focused on being able to repel another North Korean invasion in partnership with the United States. The longer-term aspiration was to exploit the anticipated eventual […]

Last week, the British government announced that it would ban khat, an herbal stimulant popular in the Middle East and Africa. In an email interview, Axel Klein, a lecturer in the anthropology of conflict, criminal justice and policy at the University of Kent’s Center for Health Services Studies, explained the rationale for the ban and its likely effect on khat-consuming communities within the U.K. WPR: What was the British government’s rationale for banning khat? Axel Klein: Interestingly, the arguments for the ban were not laid out clearly. All the home secretary said in her statement was that khat had been […]

If a Western policymaker had sketched out a dream scenario for the Arab world in 2013, it would have looked something like this: In Egypt, President Mohammed Morsi would gradually mature into a semi-competent leader. In Syria, his counterpart Bashar al-Assad would fall quickly and the fragmented opposition would cobble together a half-decent government. Other countries in the region making the transition from dictatorship, such and Libya and Yemen, would make halting progress to lasting stability. Some Western officials had even greater ambitions. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has made restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process an early priority since […]