Defense & Security Archive

Last week, I observed that the most striking feature of the Ukrainian crisis was “just how limited it remains to date.” This proved to be a grotesquely untimely remark. My basic point remains valid: Although Russia seemed ready to mount a full-scale incursion into eastern Ukraine as early as April, it avoided such an open challenge to the West. The U.S. and Europe reciprocated by limiting sanctions against Moscow in the second quarter of this year. But these signs of restraint have given way to chaos. Since roughly one week ago, pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have responded increasingly aggressively […]

The United States, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are frantically trying to address the humanitarian crisis unfolding on both the U.S. border and in Central America’s Northern Triangle. Children and families have been fleeing from that region to the United States in record numbers since 2009, although the numbers have spiked dramatically in the past two years. Approximately 60,000 unaccompanied minors—children under 18 traveling without an adult—have been apprehended at the U.S. border since Oct. 1, overwhelming an immigration system designed to handle 6,000 to 7,000 in that time. Another 39,000 families, mostly women and children, have been taken into […]

Since the Sunni militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took control of Mosul last month, Iraq has also seen an increase in clashes between Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces. In an email interview, Phillip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland, discussed the growing threat of Shiite militias in Iraq. WPR: What are the major Shiite militias in Iraq today, and what differentiates them from one another? Phillip Smyth: Major Shiite militias in Iraq can be split into a number of different categories and groups. First among them are the Iranian proxy organizations: Asa’ib […]

Yesterday’s downing of Malaysian commercial airliner MH17 near Donetsk, killing 298 civilian passengers and crewmen, marks a shocking turn in the ongoing conflict over eastern Ukraine. New information is still coming out, but as of this writing we know that some of the passengers were researchers and activists heading to an international AIDS conference in Melbourne.* At least nine nationalities were represented on board, ranging from the Netherlands to the Philippines, and possibly, though the State Department has yet to confirm, some number of Americans. While nothing has been conclusively proven, all signs point to a surface-to-air missile launched by […]

The United States missed out on a rare geopolitical opportunity this past week. Vice President Joe Biden, who has emerged in Barack Obama’s second term as more of an alter ego for the president on both the domestic and international stages, should have taken a short trip to Brazil for the World Cup final. Sure, the U.S. team had already been eliminated, but as the fabled “reassurer” who travels to different parts of the globe to shore up American commitments, Biden still had a plausible excuse to drop in at the close of the tournament: to congratulate Brazil on a […]

SEOUL, South Korea—Washington’s plan to shift its attention toward Asia, the famed “pivot,” has been postponed or at least slowed by the rash of crises in the Middle East over the past three years. But East Asia, as it turns out, is not waiting for the U.S. Major countries in the region, including America’s key allies and its top emerging rival, are actively jockeying for influence, assertively reassessing relations with their neighbors and generally stirring for what could become a significant realignment of power in the world’s fastest-growing region. America’s strategic and diplomatic position on the eastern shores of Asia […]

World attention is riveted by the ongoing violence between Israel and Hamas. After the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers and a retribution killing of a Palestinian youth, Israeli airstrikes on Gaza were followed by Hamas rocket barrages that reached as far as Tel Aviv. The two desperate enemies continue to pummel each other, seemingly seeking revenge rather than discernible political objectives. “The damage is already gruesome,” as Natan Sachs put it, “and bound to get worse.” Calls have arisen for a new Intifada across the Palestinian Territories on one side, and an Israeli ground invasion of the Hamas-ruled […]

Western governments mostly welcomed the re-election of Mauritania’s strongman, President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, last month, despite low turnout and an opposition boycott. Mauritania’s growing importance in regional counterterrorism and security efforts against al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other militant groups has shielded Aziz from outside pressure to reform. Yet the West should not confuse Aziz with the entire Mauritanian regime. His authority has limits and largely depends on the backing of the military. Moreover, though Aziz has proven to be a shrewd political operator, he is not immune to internal dissent, including among the military. Strengthening the […]

Helicopters and expanded patrols now monitor Saudi Arabia’s 500-mile long northern border with Iraq. In early July, Riyadh sent 30,000 troops there, apparently steeling itself against the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which now calls itself the Islamic State. To many observers, it was a sign of Saudi Arabia reaping what it had sown. Private financial support to jihadi groups in Syria such as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra—al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate—and others has been widely reported during Syria’s civil war. Funds coming from Saudis and Kuwaitis to the most hardline rebels in the conflict often underscored the […]

Is Ukraine a promising model for the management of future international crises? At first glance, it looks like nothing of the sort. Kiev is in the middle of a bloody military campaign to regain control of towns and cities in the east of the country from pro-Russian rebels. More and more civilians have been caught in the crossfire. As Janek Lasocki of the European Council on Foreign Relations has noted, roughly 200,000 Ukrainian citizens have registered as internally displaced persons inside the country or moved to Russia. “In the past week alone,” he adds, “over 10,000 more have formally registered, […]

The high cost of major military programs, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the next-generation ballistic missile submarine, is a continuous source of headaches as the Obama administration struggles to balance the books. Successive administrations and Congresses have tackled the ways in which the U.S. military buys things, often with little effect. Yesterday the Pentagon made the case to Congress for a different approach for keeping costs down: empowering the people who actually purchase weapons and equipment for the military. Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, acknowledged […]

Last month, in Brussels, Ukraine’s newly elected President Petro Poroshenko signed an association agreement with the European Union. This was the same agreement his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, declined last November, triggering mass demonstrations in Kiev, Yanukovych’s flight from the country and the ongoing conflict with Russia over Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions. Poroshenko pointedly signed the agreement using Yanukovych’s pen. While integration with the EU has long been unpopular in Ukraine’s contested east and in the Russian-annexed Crimea, the mood in the country’s west is far more enthusiastic. Western Ukraine, a loosely defined area centered on the major city of […]

Almost all European Union member states have seen some of their young citizens, often Muslims between the ages of 18-29, leave their countries to join the jihad against the Assad regime in Syria. The issue of foreign fighters is not new: The conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan had already seen young European Muslims join the fight. However, the threat appears more public and pronounced with Syria, partly because many foreign fighters document their journey on social media outlets. At least 12,000 foreigners have fought in Syria over the first three years of its civil war, including 300-700 French nationals, […]

It is no secret that the survival of Iraq within its current official borders is very much in doubt. The lightning-fast battlefield victories of the extremist Sunni group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—which recently renamed itself the Islamic State and anointed itself as the new caliphate—have revived the old debate about a potential partition of the country. Iraq, a product of European colonial mapmaking, could split into three states: one Sunni, one Shiite and one Kurdish. But as Iraqis fret and international observers debate the country’s future, Israelis across the political spectrum have come forth to declare […]

The collapse of the Iraqi army as it faced an extremist onslaught shocked many Americans, particularly those who had worked hard to help create it. The $25 billion of American money and seven years of intense effort seemed wasted as four of Iraq’s 14 divisions simply crumbled. In Washington, flustered policymakers and military leaders scrambled, searching for an effective response and trying to understand how the disaster happened. In the flurry of finger-pointing, pundits and politicians missed the bigger issue: The slow reaction to Iraq’s failure is one more manifestation of a deep flaw in the way Americans think about […]

Late last month, the White House unveiled a request for $65 billion in additional spending for the war in Afghanistan and other defense programs, on top of the approximately $500 billion in the Pentagon’s base budget. Over $58 billion of that request would fund the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), which cover military activities that would have previously fallen under the Bush-era rubric of the war on terror. The rest would go to the State Department. The OCO request, which is more than $20 billion less than the placeholder amount in the fiscal year 2015 budget request announced last March, […]

The ongoing civil war in Syria has spread across the Iraqi border in recent months, putting Iraq back at the center of the region’s security agenda. As the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) take control over a large part of Iraq, the Kurdish population has become increasingly assertive in the pursuit of its own autonomy, and Iraq has once again become a policy challenge for Washington. This report examines the implications of the growing conflict for Iraq, the U.S., Syria and a potentially independent Kurdistan, drawing on articles published in the past year. ISIS in […]