As Russian warplanes continue to attack targets in Syria, the apparent decisiveness of Moscow’s actions, at least in the view of some observers, has obscured an important reality: the poor readiness of Russia’s accident-prone military, which could increase the risk of an error with significant political or military consequences. The United States and Russia have been engaged in so-called deconfliction talks to prevent accidental contact or clashes between American and Russian jets in the skies above Syria. But as a reportedly errant cruise missile strike in the early days of Russia’s intervention showed, along with Russian planes consistently breaching Turkish […]
Defense & Security Archive
Free Newsletter
Syria’s most successful rebel alliance may have just barely avoided breaking apart. Over the spring and summer of this year, the coalition of Islamist rebel groups known as Jaish al-Fateh, or the Army of Conquest, scored a series of dramatic victories over the regime of Bashar al-Assad in northwest Syria. But in the past several weeks, just as Jaish al-Fateh announced a major new offensive, one of its most hard-line factions, Jund al-Aqsa, very publicly quit the coalition. The acrimony that has followed the withdrawal of Jund al-Aqsa—an ultra-extreme splinter of al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra—has exposed the persistent and […]
Last month, 5,400 troops from across Africa participated in a military exercise in South Africa, the last joint exercise before the African Standby Force becomes fully operational. In an email interview, Gilbert Khadiagala, a professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, discussed the state of multilateral security cooperation in Africa. WPR: What are the planned objectives for African multinational security cooperation, in terms of institutional architecture and force structures, and where do those plans currently stand in terms of implementation? Gilbert Khadiagala: The African Union’s (AU) Peace and Security Architecture includes the creation of […]
Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of corruption and various countries’ efforts to combat it. Corruption wracks Latin America, but some governments across the region have taken measures to improve transparency and accountability. In an email interview, Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America, discusses El Salvador’s approach to combating corruption and organized crime and the challenges that remain. WPR: How big of a problem is corruption in El Salvador, and in what areas is its impact felt most strongly? Geoff Thale: Like Honduras and Guatemala, El Salvador […]
With the U.S. presidential election only about a year away, no candidate for either party has laid out a comprehensive national security strategy or even a broad philosophy of America’s role in the world and the purpose of U.S. power. To the extent that national security has been raised at all, the presidential hopefuls are clamoring to appear the toughest, whether against the self-declared Islamic State, Iran or Russia, and to offer unqualified support for Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The candidates have talked of reviving America’s influence in the Middle East and restraining Russia, but they haven’t […]
After an uptick in violence in June threatened peace talks between Colombia and the country’s largestguerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, progress since July, when the FARC reinstated its cease-fire, led both sides to declare recently that a final deal was close at hand. But even if an agreement is reached, challenges to establishing a sustainable peace will persist, both for Colombia and its international partners. All of the articles linked below are free for non-subscribers until Nov. 19. The Road to a Deal: Since negotiations began in October 2012, the peace talks have divided Colombians, […]
After months of anti-corruption protests, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez recently announced an agreement with the Organization of American States (OAS) to create an anti-graft body, the Mission to Support the Fight Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras, known as the MACCIH. A similar, U.N.-led initiative next door in Guatemala, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), strengthened the rule of law, helped to root out corruption and brought down Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina. Yet despite those relative successes, observers should temper their expectations that the MACCIH will have any meaningful impact on corruption and impunity in Honduras. […]
Several weeks ago, Hillary Clinton spent 11 hours testifying before a congressional committee about the deaths of four Americans, including the then-U.S. ambassador, Chris Stevens, in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012. For anyone watching this spectacle, little new was gleaned, except for the fact that Clinton is a remarkably disciplined politician—and that whatever threat the GOP’s Benghazi obsession might have posed to her presidential prospects in 2016 is effectively over. What would have been of far greater interest, to both policy analysts and voters, is a look back on the U.S. decision to intervene in Libya, which Clinton strongly supported. […]
On Monday, following through on a threat issued last week, Iraq’s parliament voted unanimously to block Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi from passing anti-corruption measures and other pledged reforms without its approval. The move is just the latest sign of Abadi’s tug-of-war with Iraqi lawmakers. In August, in response to growing protests over graft and dysfunctional utility services, Abadi announced a series of reforms to deal with corruption and mismanagement. Most prominent among them were plans to eliminate several senior political offices that had become patronage vehicles, including Iraq’s three vice presidents and two deputy prime ministers, and to cut back […]
The war in Afghanistan has been both a boon and curse for neighboring Central Asia. The conflict placed this sparsely populated region, long disconnected from the globalization taking place around its borders, on the front lines of the international community’s 15-year effort to stabilize Afghanistan. Central Asia became a staging point for coalition military forces, a transit corridor, a donor as well as a recipient of aid and at times a pawn in a larger strategic competition playing out between the United States and Russia. The region also found itself on the receiving end of Afghanistan’s noxious exports: extremism, drugs […]
A new date of Dec. 13 has been set for national elections in the Central African Republic, after the vote was postponed again last month due to renewed violence. A constitutional referendum, which was also scheduled for October, will now be held on Dec. 6. However, there are many who fear the electoral process is being rushed. Legislative and presidential elections were originally scheduled to take place in February 2015, but were repeatedly delayed due to security concerns and the failure to register all voters. Another outbreak of deadly violence in the capital, Bangui, in late September—in which at least […]
Three months after Burundi held its third elections since the end of its long civil war, violence has only deepened in the country. July’s fraught presidential vote took place in an environment tainted by government crackdowns and fear, and there has been an alarming upsurge in arrests, detentions and killings, with bodies found almost daily in the streets of Bujumbura, the capital. On Monday, President Pierre Nkurunziza warned that Burundians must give up any illegal firearms by Saturday, or risk being “dealt with as enemies of the nation.” Burundi had already descended into crisis in April, following the announcement of […]
Last month, the board of governors of the World Bank gathered for their annual meeting in Lima, Peru. To much fanfare, they released new data demonstrating that for the first time, the percentage of the global population living in extreme poverty—that is, on less than $1.25 a day—has dropped below 10 percent. The international community has much to celebrate with this achievement, but the work is not done. In fact, the remaining zones of abject poverty around the world are the toughest cases yet. They are often located in zones of habitual conflict where, repeatedly, the World Bank, the United […]
Is it riskier to be an austere politician or a humane one? Since the global financial crisis broke in 2008, economic austerity has been the single biggest source of contention in global politics. Some leaders, like British Prime Minister David Cameron, have persuaded voters to accept big cuts to state spending. Others, such as outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have lost power to rivals that offered less painful fiscal alternatives. Yet if politicians talk up “austerity” at their own peril, they may find that the “humane” label is becoming equally costly. In Europe in particular, governments are struggling with […]