Defense & Security Archive

Libya is a mess and rapidly getting worse. It is a “failed state ravaged by civil war, and a magnet for al-Qaida and Islamic State (IS) recruits,” as Christopher Chivvis put it— “Somalia on the Mediterranean.” The principle victims are Libyans themselves. After suffering through decades of Moammar Gadhafi’s dictatorship, they now face a future that is, in many ways, even worse. But the danger spreads outward. Gadhafi’s weapons have been used to arm extremists across Africa, dragging other nations like Mali toward the abyss. Libya probably has more IS fighters than any place outside Syria, and they now threaten […]

The latest cease-fire between government forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine remains tenuous, but there are some signs it may hold for now. Kiev withdrew heavy artillery from the front today as the Russian ruble rallied for the first time since its collapse in December, prompted both by the cease-fire and by a rebound in global oil prices. While Russia’s economic outlook remains grim, with Western sanctions still in place, Russian President Vladimir Putin can claim some measure of victory after a year of interventions in Ukraine. Meanwhile, to the north, the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—are faced […]

On Feb. 9, Somalia’s parliament finally endorsed a Cabinet, 66 members strong, after Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke had failed in two previous attempts in January 2015 to present a list that could appease all of the country’s fractious clan leaders and political players. Sharmarke is President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s third premier since taking office in September 2012—a product of consistent bickering between Somalia’s top leaders over their respective powers and responsibilities. With only two years left in the government’s mandate, expectations are high that it can work with all stakeholders in Somalia and complete an ambitious post-conflict transition […]

When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, there were 680 prisoners being held in the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Today, there are 122. As The Associated Press has reported, that is “less than half the number when [U.S. President Barack] Obama took office, and the fewest since 10 days after the U.S. began shipping al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, shackled and clad in orange jumpsuits, to the base on Jan. 11, 2002.” A slow trickle of prisoner releases has steadily picked up over the last year and a half, and especially in recent months, as part of a policy […]

This past week, I had the opportunity to attend a roundtable in New York sponsored by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development on the question of whether the West and Russia have entered into a new Cold War. My sense of pessimism that it now seems impossible to get relations between Russia and the West back on track was reinforced by listening to the exchanges. Even if the present cease-fire holds in Ukraine and succeeds in halting open warfare, the effect will only be temporary. Any sort of long-term settlement seems to be beyond reach. Neither Russia nor […]

Four years after the revolution began to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi’s regime with NATO’s help, and amid a worsening civil war, Libya today faces a new and very real threat: militants affiliated with the self-declared Islamic State (IS). Even though Libya has no religious divisions that IS can exploit to establish a foothold, the country’s ongoing political crisis, armed conflict and security vacuum provide a fertile environment for IS to expand its influence to Europe’s doorstep. The Islamic State’s senior leadership in Libya is made up of foreign fighters from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, who were dispatched to Libya by […]

U.S. President Barack Obama’s January visit to India saw some long-awaited movement on the two countries’ Defense Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI), touted by both sides as a means to transform the current buyer-seller defense relationship into one based on coproduction and co-development. In pursuit of this stated goal, India and the U.S. have agreed upon some pathfinder projects for production of U.S.-origin systems in India, in addition to exploring several high-end joint technology development proposals. The moves confirm that the DTTI will be a key element of the two sides’ renewed bilateral defense pact as it moves into its […]

Earlier this month, while visiting Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart, China’s defense minister expressed Beijing’s opposition to the deployment in South Korea of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system. That followed a similar declaration by China’s ambassador to South Korea in November, and the topic was reportedly also raised by Chinese President Xi Jinping in talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye during Xi’s visit to Seoul in July. The vocal expressions of Chinese concern are puzzling, since the U.S. and South Korean governments have not held any formal talks on such […]

For almost a decade now, since the publication of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s brilliant, discursive rumination “The Black Swan,” conventional wisdom has held that the biggest threats to strategy—in national security as well as areas like finance—come from sudden and unexpected events. A black swan, as Taleb named such an event, is at its core both a shock and a surprise. It is an “outlier,” Taleb writes, “as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility.” He goes on to claim that such events are the engines of history. “A […]

Just how bad is Europe’s strategic situation? Over the past week, senior European politicians and officials have piled up dire predictions about the continent’s security. Italy’s foreign minister called for a United Nations peacekeeping force to halt Libya’s collapse into violence “before it’s too late.” The French defense minister attacked other European Union states for failing to do enough against terrorist groups in Africa. NATO’s deputy military commander warned that Russian forces could launch an assault aimed at seizing territory from an alliance member similar to its operations in Ukraine, sparking an “existential”—meaning nuclear—war. This all sounds rather like panic. […]

Late last month, the transitional government of Burkina Faso officially announced that presidential and legislative elections would take place in October. That came after two months of lengthy negotiations between the new government and the Independent National Electoral Commission, known by its French acronym, CENI, along with political leaders and civil society. The elections will formally conclude a consensus-based but nevertheless precarious political transition. It will also mark the one-year anniversary of popular protests that forced the resignation of Blaise Compaore, who ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years. After the violent demonstrations last October against Compaore’s attempts to modify constitutional […]

Iraq is an artificial creation cobbled together from provinces of the old Ottoman Empire by outsiders. The ethnic groups and religious sects that live there were not always mortal enemies, but there was an undercurrent of enmity among them that turned malignant when Saddam Hussein imposed a murderous domination by his group, the Sunni Arabs. When the United States waded into Iraq, it hoped that this precarious political entity could hang on in part as a barrier to Iran. After the removal of Saddam in 2003, Washington encouraged Baghdad to develop an inclusive government balancing the interests of its component […]

Days after ordering airstrikes on targets of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in eastern Libya, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi may be in hot water with his Gulf Arab patrons—not over the strikes, but for comments made in their aftermath by an Egyptian official at the Arab League. On Thursday, the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) backed Qatar’s decision to withdraw its ambassador from Cairo after Egypt’s representative to the Arab League accused Doha of supporting “terrorism” in Libya. The accusation came during an Arab League debate on Egypt’s actions in Libya; Qatar’s representative had apparently raised some reservations. […]

Editor’s note: It came to our attention after this report was published that it contained several passages closely resembling or directly duplicating previously published work by other authors, as well as previously published work by the author. After initially amending the report to include the missing attributions, we subsequently decided to remove the article. WPR regrets the error, and we apologize to the authors concerned and our readers.

The latest installment of horror delivered by the propaganda machine of the so-called Islamic State (IS) confirmed one of the terrorist group’s principal strategies, the evidence of which has been gradually emerging as IS captures territory, seizes hostages and carries out barbaric acts that are promptly disseminated for publicity purposes. A video released Sunday showed the execution of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians captured by IS members in Libya over the past few months. The Egyptians appear marching single-file on the beach, wearing the familiar orange jumpsuits worn by hostages in previous IS videos, as their captors lead them to their […]

This past weekend, militants in Libya aligned with the so-called Islamic State (IS) brutally executed 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians they had captured. As the victims’ blood flowed into the Mediterranean Sea, their executioner declared, “We will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission.” Even as most of Europe’s attention remains focused on the east and the fighting in Ukraine, the horrific murders highlight the threat the continent faces to the south. They also serve as yet another reminder, if one were necessary, that the operation to depose former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, once praised as a successful example of the responsibility to […]

The fate of the latest cease-fire in Ukraine remains precarious, and even if the current truce unexpectedly endures, a lasting settlement to the Ukraine conflict will still prove elusive given the players’ conflicting strategic aims. Russia wants to keep Ukraine weak and divided, while the Ukrainian government—backed by the United States—wants to rule a reunified country, to include Russian-occupied Crimea. For their part, many Europeans would seem content with almost any settlement that ended the fighting and the sanctions they have imposed on Russia. But despite these differences, the truce might buy time for progress on other measures that would […]