Defense & Security Archive

When South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, inked a new agreement in late August to end his country’s 20-month conflict, he seemed to be following a pattern the two warring sides had set in reaching or recommitting to an earlier deal to cease hostilities: Temporarily stave off international and regional pressure by signing, then allow it to collapse under the weight of continued fighting. True to form, clashes have continued into September, with each side accusing the other of attacks. So far, however, neither camp has yet declared the latest deal a failure. And the leaders, though critical of some elements […]

After World War II, the United States reluctantly assumed global power. But most Americans considered this temporary, assuming the United States would disengage once Europe was back on its feet and the world’s war-torn regions were on the way to recovery. But by the time the Soviet Union finally collapsed and the Cold War ended 45 years later, Americans had become so accustomed to global power that there was little serious pressure for disengagement. Global power had become comforting and normal. Yet this, too, proved temporary. Now, weary after decades of containing the Soviet Union and 14 years of fighting […]

On Sept. 13, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced the retirement of Gen. Mohamed “Toufik” Mediene, head of the Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS), days after sacking several top generals who worked under Mediene and weeks after the arrest of a former intelligence chief. Bouteflika’s office claimed that the retirement decision was made “in line with the constitution.” But that muted explanation belied the stunning decision to remove Toufik, as he is widely known in Algeria, who has been the head of Algeria’s state intelligence service for 25 years. Created in 1958 during Algeria’s War of Independence as the Ministry […]

The wave of refugees washing over Europe today is the latest distress call from the remnants of what we still, for simplicity’s sake, refer to as Syria. The immediate reaction has been one of panic, with the European Union’s vaunted open borders—symbol of a generation’s worth of hard-won European integration—now at risk. There is much to criticize in the official and popular reactions in Europe. The flow of migrants from the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan has been building over a long enough time for the EU to have formulated a more effective response. But the shift in routes […]

In early September, Serbia, an aspiring European Union member, conducted a military drill with two people on the EU’s bad list: Russia and Belarus. In Novorossiysk, Russia, in an exercise known as “Slavic Brotherhood,” paratroopers from the three countries played war games and practiced crushing a Maidan-style revolt. “Who can lecture us?” said Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, responding to questions about what impact the drill would have on his country’s image in Brussels. “The European Union is not a military bloc. Let them mind their own business.” The EU was not impressed, given the diplomatic energy it has expended […]

One of the defining declarations of Barack Obama’s 2008 run for the White House was his pledge not only to end the war in Iraq, but also to change the mindset that got America involved in that disastrous war in the first place. In fits and starts, he has adopted that approach as president, particularly in his second term. Unfortunately it appears that Hillary Clinton, his former secretary of state and now the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, still hasn’t gotten the memo. Last week Clinton ventured to Washington’s Brookings Institution to talk about her views on the Iran […]

On Saturday, Tunisians flocked to Avenue Habib Bourguiba, in Tunis, to protest a draft law on “economic reconciliation,” which parliament approved in July. The initiative—strongly backed by President Beji Caid Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes party—would freeze prosecutions of officials and businessmen from ousted President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s era who are being investigated for corruption, and create a special committee to which they would reveal their assets. Those funds would then, the government says, be injected into Tunisia’s flailing economy. Critics point to the evident impunity the law would grant to those guilty of corruption or embezzlement, further undermining Tunisia’s […]

In the first half of August this year, something snapped inside Ban Ki-moon. The secretary-general of the United Nations demanded that the leader of the U.N. operation in the Central African Republic (CAR), Senegalese Gen. Babacar Gaye, should resign. The mission, known by its French acronym MINUSCA, was buckling under the weight of stories about sexual abuse by U.N. troops. “Enough is enough,” Ban told the press. Gaye did not go quietly. He had, he pointed out in his resignation letter, insisted on a “zero tolerance” policy toward the abuse. He previously served the U.N. in the Democratic Republic of […]

Germany has never been an entirely comfortable power at the United Nations. The Security Council is, as Russian diplomats like to note, still run by the countries that defeated Hitler in 1945. East and West Germany did not even join the U.N. until 1973. Nevertheless, Berlin now pays over 7 percent of the U.N. budget, while Britain and France cover less than 6 percent each. At regular intervals, the Germans launch quixotic campaigns to win a permanent seat on the Security Council. Time and again, these plow into the sand. Despite these bids for a bigger role, German diplomats often […]

The Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen began as a war waged from the skies, but as it drags on, it is increasingly moving to the ground. In the past week, Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have deployed more soldiers to Yemen, capped by 1,000 ground troops from Qatar. Egypt reportedly sent 800 of its own soldiers, after rumors last spring of its willingness to join a potential ground war to drive the Houthis out of territory they have seized in Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. The Qatari and Egyptian troops join a 3,500-strong battalion of soldiers from […]

Today the world is riveted by the tragic migrant flows from North Africa and the Middle East into Europe. Driven by conflict in their homelands, hundreds of thousands of refugees have risked—and sometimes lost—everything in search of security and opportunity far from their troubled nations. While addressing this humanitarian crisis is the most pressing concern for Europe, the United States and the rest of the world community, political leaders must also look further into the future: Today’s migrant crisis is the bow wave of tomorrow’s security challenges. In the contemporary security environment, a peace settlement or the removal of a […]

The governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, arguably the Arab world’s two most influential states, continue to express their determination to strengthen an alliance that has grown under Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. In late July, el-Sisi and Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman signed a deal they called the Cairo Declaration, a strategic blueprint to advance bilateral cooperation in a host of areas, especially defense and the economy. Since 2013, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states have helped keep el-Sisi’s regime afloat, with billions in economic aid. Egypt, in turn, has been a partner in […]

As the plight of Syrian refugees and their harrowing attempts to enter Europe dominate international media, calls have mounted for the United States to play a greater role in managing the crisis. Last week, a photo of the lifeless 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach, went viral, only intensifying demands to address the humanitarian needs of many Syrians fleeing the civil war that has raged since 2011. European countries—the target for many migrants—have responded unevenly; Germany and Sweden are liberally accepting European Union-bound refugees and have called on other member states to absorb more migrants, though prospects […]

President Barack Obama has now won enough support among Democrats in Congress to ensure that the nuclear agreement reached between world powers and Iran will move forward. But while indisputably a major political achievement, the victory is not any guarantee of long-term success. We can now see the outlines of the next phase of the struggle, in which profound disagreements over the deal persist in Washington, denying any semblance of consensus on one of the president’s most important foreign policy wins. First, to savor the success. It remains unknown whether Senate Democrats will manage to prevent the resolution of disapproval […]

In April, Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, announced that he would run for a third term in the 2015 presidential election, stoking outrage among his opponents. Unrest swept the capital, Bujumbura, and protests devolved into violence as security forces increasingly cracked down on dissent against the ruling CNDD-FDD party. An attempted coup was quickly quashed, leading to a series of arrests and beatings of its accused perpetrators, and unleashing more violence in the streets, causing thousands to flee. Officials in neighboring Rwanda called on Burundian authorities to mitigate a humanitarian catastrophe and quell unrest. That deviated from other East African nations, […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part column on the Islamic State’s use of extreme brutality as part of its strategy. Part I looked at the roots and intended effects of that brutality. Part II examines whether extreme brutality is sustainable or will be the group’s downfall, and what that means for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State. The past week brought another example of the deranged brutality of the so-called Islamic State. In this case, a video surfaced showing the extremists burning alive four prisoners from a Shiite militia group. Far from an anomaly, this was […]

The death of 71 migrants in a truck in Austria last week and Wednesday’s horrifying photos of a drowned Syrian child on a beach in Turkey have shone a light on the plight of migrants fleeing from war, violence and poverty in Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea and elsewhere, as well as Europe’s total inability to coherently address the crisis. In the latest Global Dispatches podcast, host Mark Goldberg speaks with World Politics Review columnist Ellen Laipson about the migrant crisis, the European Union’s infighting over how to handle it and why Syrians are not trying to seek refuge in Gulf countries. […]