Defense & Security Archive

A historic change is underway in the global security system. As Harvard political scientist Stephen Walt wrote, the world is witnessing “a sharp decline in America’s ability to shape the global order.” In the future, Walt and others believe, “the United States simply won’t have the resources to devote to international affairs that it had in the past.” Christopher Layne of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University is even more blunt: “The epoch of American dominance is drawing to a close, and international politics is entering a period of transition: no longer unipolar […]

This month, India announced plans to buy eight mine-countermeasure vessels from a South Korean company in a deal worth $1.2 billion. In an email interview, Scott W. Harold, an associate political scientist at the RAND Corp., discussed the state of the South Korean defense industry. WPR: What is the current state of South Korea’s defense industry, and what is driving its growth? Scott W. Harold: From an extremely low base in the 1970s, the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) defense industry has been maturing in a number of areas including ground systems, precision strike capabilities, electronics and shipbuilding. It has also […]

In diplomacy, it is easier to pull off a stunt than sustain a long-term strategy. Last week Saudi Arabia managed some multilateral acrobatics at the United Nations by winning a seat on the Security Council unopposed and then almost immediately renouncing it. Most states lobby for a council seat for years and cling desperately to the kudos that it offers. But the Saudi Foreign Ministry declared that the U.N.’s failures to resolve the Palestinian issue and intervene effectively in the Syrian civil war add up to “irrefutable evidence and proof of the inability of the Security Council to carry out […]

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh signed an agreement to enable future civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries. While the text has not been made public, it appears that the agreement will not include a so-called Gold Standard provision proscribing Vietnam from enriching uranium or reprocessing plutonium. The agreement marks the latest installment in a decade-long effort by the United States and other major nuclear powers to limit the further spread of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies (ENR), which can provide both fuel for nuclear power and fissile […]

The first round of talks between Iran and the P5+1—China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.S. and the U.K.—in Geneva earlier this week ended on an upbeat note, with the concluding joint statement noting that the meeting had been conducted in a “positive atmosphere. A U.S. official was quoted as saying, “We really are beginning that type of negotiation where one could imagine that you could possibly have an agreement.” Having received the Iranian proposals, the negotiators are returning to consult with their respective governments and will reassemble in early November to assess the proposals submitted by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed […]

After three decades of protracted conflict and four years of relative peace, a recent event has emerged as a sign that democracy, albeit ailing, is still alive in the island-nation of Sri Lanka. On Sept. 21, 2013, for the first time in 25 years, provincial council elections were held in the war-ravaged Northern Province, offering the country’s ethnic Tamil minority, largely present in the region, the opportunity to choose its own political destiny. Sri Lanka established provincial councils in 1987 as a result of the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement that called for the devolution of power to the provinces in a […]

In early September, the United States and Indonesia participated in joint counterterrorism exercises, part of a trend of growing military ties between the two countries. In an email interview, Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, associate research fellow with the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, explained Indonesia’s goals in modernizing its military and its military partnerships. WPR: What are Indonesia’s goals in modernizing its military? Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto: Indonesia’s military modernization is currently based on the Long-Term National Development Plan for 2005-2025, which calls for achieving a “minimum […]

Western powers tried to keep their poker faces, displaying calculated restraint in describing positive signs from the meetings with Iran this week in Geneva. In keeping with the new tone since the election of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, the atmosphere is by all accounts much more conciliatory, with talk of an end-game for resolving the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. While there is no denying the sharp contrast between the old insult- and evasion-laden interactions that characterized the days when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Iran’s president, there are a number of worrisome signs that indicate the current process is not as […]

Nearly 1,000 people died in military detention in Nigeria in the first half of 2013, Amnesty International reported Tuesday, citing a senior officer in the Nigerian army. The detainees’ deaths occurred in the context of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s offensive against the Islamist movement Boko Haram, which is waging a violent insurgency in the country’s north. In May, Jonathan declared a state of emergency in several northeastern provinces, authorizing security forces to round up hundreds of prisoners, many of whom were shot or suffocated in detention, according to Amnesty. Nigeria has employed similarly heavy-handed tactics against Boko Haram since the […]

In recent media interviews, representatives of both the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taliban have signaled willingness to engage in peace talks with the other side. In an email interview, Sadika Hameed, a fellow at the Program on Crisis, Conflict and Cooperation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained the prospects for the talks. WPR: What are the factional interests—on the part of the national and provincial governments, the militants and others—in holding peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban? Sadika Hameed: Many political parties campaigned in the elections held in May on the basis of talks with the […]

Americans can be brutally effective against another nation that relies on conventional military power. The Confederacy, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union all found this out. They “fought fair,” so the United States was able to out-spend them all and eventually win. But Americans are not so adept against enemies that do not fight fair, whether dispersed, amorphous organizations not easily crushed through military action, hostile ideologies or cultures, or systemic instability. Impatient for quick results when none are available, the United States gravitates to short-term problem solving, teetering from crisis to crisis. That is where we are today. Critics […]

Two men died in an explosion in Addis Ababa yesterday in what the Ethiopian government described as a failed attempt to build a suicide bomb. The government’s claim that the two men were Somali nationals raises the specter of attacks by the militant group al-Shabab within Ethiopia. According to Catherine Cheney’s report for Trend Lines in the wake of last month’s al-Shabab attack on a Kenyan mall, Ethiopia’s military intervention into Somalia has made it a potential target for terrorism. Ethiopia . . . has kept troops in Somalia near the Ethiopian border since 2006. “It’s not clear how many […]

The Nobel Committee’s decision to award this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is welcome news. The organization is struggling with difficult missions in Syria and elsewhere, with a frozen budget and obsolete equipment, and the prize will provide a needed boost to the organization’s profile. Unfortunately, the peace prize will not make the many challenges the OPCW faces any easier. Even with the elimination of the Syrian, Libyan and eventually Russian and U.S. chemical weapons arsenals, the threat of chemical weapons use is likely to persist. The OPCW lacks the authority […]

On Sept. 16, 2013, European and African nations reached an agreement called the New Deal Compact, pledging $2.7 billion to help Somalia build peace and consolidate its government. In an email interview, Aisha Ahmad, an assistant professor of international relations and comparative politics at the University of Toronto who also serves as chief operating officer of the Hawa Abdi Foundation, a nongovernmental relief organization in Somalia, explained the New Deal and the requirements for its success. WPR: What is new in the New Deal for Somalia? Aisha Ahmad: Representatives from across the European Union and Africa signed the New Deal […]

If you had to make a reckoning of the United Nations’ failures in recent years, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Syria would both rank high on the list. The U.N.’s setbacks over Syria have been extensively chronicled. The trouble in CAR is less well-known, but equally depressing. In March this year, U.N. political officers in the persistently unstable country were caught off-guard as rebels advanced on its capital, Bangui. Their reports to New York were delayed and got no serious response—U.N. personnel were evacuated just in time, as the rebels triumphed and launched a reign of chaos that still […]

Amid the diplomatic breakthrough at the Security Council and arrival of the United Nations chemical weapons inspection team in Damascus, many observers have lost sight of two key questions about Syria: How did the regime get its chemical weapons, and how might tragedies like the Aug. 21 chemical attack on Syrian civilians be prevented in the future? While Syria has had the technological means to manufacture chemical weapons for decades, it does not currently produce the precursors for the sarin nerve agent we now know was used outside of Damascus. Outside sources were necessary. Some have suggested Iran and North […]

After months of halting but positive movement, the peace talks between the government and Colombia’s largest rebel group, the FARC, may have hit a roadblock. That obstacle, as WPR’s Frida Ghitis wrote last week, is Colombia’s fast-approaching elections. Ghitis warned that the electoral schedule is casting a shadow over the negotiations: “As the clock runs down to the May 2014 presidential election, the prospect of peace hangs in the balance for the country. Colombians are getting restless, taking a decidedly unfavorable view of the president and becoming increasingly suspicious of the secretive process.” Over the past week, signs have emerged […]