Defense & Security Archive

In late February, communist rebels killed five Philippine soldiers in an ambush in the northern Ilocos Sur province. In an email interview, Patricio Abinales, a professor of Asian studies at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, discussed the Philippine communist insurgency. WPR: What are the objectives of the New People’s Army, and how has their insurgency evolved over the past decade? Patricio Abinales: The New People’s Army (NPA) is the armed group of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), established in 1968 to wage a Maoist-style “protracted people’s war” aimed at “surrounding the […]

In January 2017, a new U.S. president will move into the White House. He or she will immediately instruct the National Security Council to assess American national security strategy and provide policy options, particularly for key regions and issues. In all likelihood, no assessment will be more complex and important than the one dealing with the Middle East. After the end of the Cold War, U.S. strategy in the Middle East focused on promoting stability largely by supporting like-minded regional states. While nominally opposed to the more nefarious dictators in the region, before 2003 the U.S. did not do much […]

As The Associated Press reports, “After marathon negotiations, the United States, Iran and five other world powers announced a deal Thursday outlining limits on Iran’s nuclear program so it cannot lead to atomic weapons, directing negotiators toward a comprehensive agreement within three months.” A fact sheet distributed by the U.S. State Department provides the key parameters of the framework nuclear deal, with surprisingly specific terms. Iran has agreed to reduce its number of installed centrifuges by approximately two-thirds and not to enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for at least 15 years—a level suitable as fuel for nuclear power plants, but […]

On March 11, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian unveiled an updated version of the Military Programming Law for 2014-2019, a five-year blueprint for the country’s force structure and defense budget that will be debated in Parliament in June. As part of the revised law, previous plans to reduce the armed forces have been walked back, with the government announcing new investment to meet persistent threats at home and abroad. However, in a climate of stagnant economic growth and austerity-driven fiscal constraints, doubts persist about how sustainable this approach is. Le Drian’s announcements are a direct consequence of the Charlie […]

U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to secure an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program have exposed rifts with America’s long-standing Middle Eastern partners, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. While these three countries share important security interests with Washington, they are by no means fully aligned with the preferred American vision for the region. For its part, Saudi Arabia has always feared Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, no matter who sits in power in Tehran. Riyadh was no more supportive of Iranian claims to regional leadership, and in fact opposed efforts to enshrine Iran as America’s Middle Eastern […]