Defense & Security Archive

Vladimir Putin has a busy social schedule these days. The Russian president looked a little isolated on May 9, when world leaders largely stayed away from the immense military parade he organized in Moscow to commemorate the end of World War II. But Chinese President Xi Jinping was among the few who did attend, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel went to Moscow for talks one day after the celebrations. Putin has had little time to recover from his big party. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited him in Sochi to talk about Ukraine and Syria. Washington followed […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the South China Sea territorial disputes and the various claimant countries’ approaches to addressing them. Last week, it was reported that the U.S. is considering sending Navy ships and aircraft to waters surrounding islands claimed by China in the South China Sea to demonstrate freedom of navigation. The reports follow a month-long media campaign calling attention to China’s expansion of the islands to accommodate airstrips and military facilities. China’s reclamation activity around the Spratly Islands also dominated conversations at last month’s ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur, with the […]

The U.S. military faces shrinking budgets, but its global commitments remain expansive. One response to this ends-means gap has been a growing interest in robotics, with the hope that this technology can be a force multiplier that allows military units to perform missions with fewer humans. And the United States is not alone: At least 43 countries have active programs to explore military robotics. Military robots are already performing repetitive tasks like moving supplies and loading cargo, as well as particularly dangerous missions like evacuating casualties under fire, disabling explosive devices and collecting information in hostile environments. All experts agree […]

Earlier this month, Senegal’s foreign minister announced that the country was sending 2,100 troops to Saudi Arabia to participate in the coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen. In an email interview, Alex Thurston, a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University, discussed Senegal-Saudi ties. WPR: How extensive are bilateral ties between Senegal and Saudi Arabia, and what has been their trajectory in recent years? Alex Thurston: Senegal and Saudi Arabia established diplomatic relations in 1961, following Senegal’s independence the previous year. The bilateral relationship has been strong. Senegal joined the Saudi-backed Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 1969, the year of […]

Among the many challenges facing President Barack Obama and U.S. officials meeting with Gulf Arab leaders this week, one has abruptly climbed to near the top of the agenda: taking the measure of the rising star of the Saudi firmament, King Salman’s son Prince Mohammed bin Salman. When the delegates from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—which comprises Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman—gather at the presidential retreat of Camp David for the already troubled summit, U.S. officials will channel a significant portion of their energy toward Prince Mohammed. They will be hoping to develop ties […]

Burundi is in the midst of a deepening political crisis that has many observers worried about the prospects of mass violence. Dozens of people have been killed and tens of thousands of people have fled in recent weeks. On Wednesday, Maj. Gen. Godefroid Niyombare launched a coup attempt against President Pierre Nkurunziza. World Politics Review partnered with the Global Dispatches podcast to produce this interview with WPR contributor Jonathan W. Rosen on the situation in the East African country. Rosen, speaking from Kigali, Rwanda, where he is reporting on the evolving situation, is interviewed by Global Dispatches host Mark Leon […]

Last month, India announced plans to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, though a final deal has yet to be signed. In an email interview, Iskander Rehman, a nonresident fellow in the South Asia Program at the Atlantic Council, discussed India’s air force. WPR: What are the current size, capabilities and combat readiness of the Indian air force? Iskander Rehman: On paper, the Indian air force is a large, well-balanced and modern service, whose fighter pilots are considered to be some of the most-capable and well-trained in the world. Recently, however, concerns have grown over the air force’s continued […]

Japan’s postwar constitution, promulgated in 1947 under U.S. occupation, has shaped the country’s international role ever since. But now that may be changing. Since assuming office for the second time in December 2012, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has implemented a rapid succession of security policy reforms. Abe’s efforts to refocus Japan’s attention on its defense needs and adopt policies that have long been seen as taboo have drawn global attention. Japan’s immediate neighbors have decried these reforms, citing their still sensitive World War II-era memories of a very different Japanese military. South Korea has been especially critical of Abe’s […]

Last week, the United Nations was thrust back into the center of international crisis management in the Arab world. In Geneva, U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura kicked off new consultations on the Syrian conflict. In New York, European diplomats worked on a Security Council resolution authorizing military measures against people-smugglers in Libya. Yemen’s government-in-exile called on the council to authorize a full-scale intervention by ground forces in its country to defeat the Houthi rebel group, which has endured six weeks of Saudi-led airstrikes. Does all this activity imply that the U.N. is still a useful mechanism for debating war and […]

After a steady decline in Islamist extremism in Southeast Asia over the past decade, during which the region shed its post-9/11 image as a possible second front for al-Qaida, the rise of the self-declared Islamic State (IS) has some governments fearing a new threat. In response, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore in particular are acting individually, bilaterally and regionally to stem recruitment, radicalization and the flow of foreign fighters. Over 500 young Southeast Asians are returning home after fighting for IS, as many did during the Afghan mujahedeen’s jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Given that over […]

Last week, Saudi Arabia’s new monarch, King Salman, replaced Crown Prince Muqrin—who had been chosen by Salman’s predecessor, the late King Abdullah—with 55-year-old Mohamed bin Nayef as next in line to the throne. He also installed his own 29-year-old son, Mohamed bin Salman, as deputy crown prince. The royal shuffle was presented by palace loyalists as an attempt to stabilize Saudi succession for the next few decades, consolidate power and inject what King Salman seems to believe is a greater sense of stability in the kingdom’s internal affairs. But it also marks an important shift in the monarchy’s trajectory. Although […]

Today none of America’s adversaries is close to matching the U.S. military’s capabilities, but U.S. defense leaders, both uniformed and civilian, worry that others are using advances in force-multiplying technologies to catch up. Should these opponents ever come to believe they’ve forged ahead in this race for cutting-edge capabilities, they might be tempted to resort to armed aggression, unleashing a war that would otherwise have been deterred. After all, strategic superiority is not simply a matter of who has the most troops and weapons, who spends the most on defense and who has today’s most advanced technologies. It is also […]

The French Parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill yesterday that will give authorities the ability to tap phones and read emails without first getting permission from a judge. The bill now moves the French Senate, where is it likely to pass. In addition to phone tapping, the law would allow French intelligence services to monitor telecom and Internet operators’ networks and servers, as well as track the behavior of suspected terrorists using algorithms that analyze metadata. French lawmakers have considered expanding the state’s surveillance capabilities since 2012, after Mohammed Merah committed a series of attacks on French troops and a Jewish […]

When the United States assumed chairmanship of the Arctic Council last month, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the U.S. government’s priority would be to manage the impact of global climate change on the region in cooperation with the other countries that have a major presence in the Arctic. Climate change is certainly an important issue, and one that is having a greater impact in the Arctic than in any other region. But as U.S. officials are aware, the tensions between the United States and Russia could impede their bilateral cooperation on this and other Arctic-related issues. Climate change […]

Last week, the value of Syria’s currency hit a record low against the dollar. On the black market in Damascus, dealers told Reuters, a dollar cost as much as 315 Syrian pounds. That wasn’t even as bad as other parts of Syria, where the currency traded for as much as 328 pounds to a dollar—a precipitous spike since the start of the year, when the rate hung around 220 pounds to the dollar. In 2011, when the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began, it was around 47 pounds. The collapsing currency was the latest sign of the Assad regime’s […]

Would you rather follow David Cameron or Francois Hollande into battle? The British prime minister and the French president have both had to navigate a steady stream of small wars, and both face criticism for their responses. Cameron was an early advocate for the international intervention in Libya in 2011, but stands accused of mishandling its chaotic aftermath. Hollande won praise for sending troops to stem the conflicts in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) in 2013, but France has struggled to extract itself from either of its turbulent former colonies. The two leaders’ decisions have been under particular […]

Deciding whether to remove a dictator by force has long been a vexing problem for American policymakers. With the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, many dictators fell with little direct U.S. involvement. But that simply weeded out the herd, leaving the most ruthless and hardened, like Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Kim dynasty in North Korea and the Assad dynasty in Syria. After the attacks of 9/11 and U.S. President George W. Bush’s “global war on terror,” they, too, were in America’s sights to one extent or another. The insurgency in Iraq should […]