Defense & Security Archive

Piracy in Africa brings up images of Somalia and its neighbors in the Horn of Africa, where maritime security has been an issue for years. On the other side of the continent, West African countries enjoy far more developed governmental structures and security tools and should, in theory, be able to keep piracy at bay. Yet piracy is significantly decreasing in Somalia, while it is growing in the Gulf of Guinea. According to the International Maritime Bureau, there was just one attempted attack in Somalia in the first nine months of 2016, whereas 31 incidents of piracy were reported off […]

When the Gulf Cooperation Council states and their Western defense partners meet, the demand for changes in regional security cooperation and threat management has long come from the outsiders. The Western partners, the U.S. in particular, continue to call for more defense modernization and more integration of effort among these rich oil states. But the Gulf states are clearly not ready to take ownership of regional security, nor do they take the initiative for improving it. The mood on the Arab side of the Gulf is one of worry. The six GCC countries—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, […]

A new, expanded mandate for the Japanese military, known as the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), participating in the United Nations mission in South Sudan went into force Monday. Japanese soldiers are now allowed to rescue humanitarian workers under attack and play a larger role in protecting U.N. camps. In an email interview, Ippeita Nishida, a research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, discusses the Japanese military’s overseas activities. WPR: What U.N. and multilateral security missions is Japan participating in, and what is public opinion toward participating in them? Ippeita Nishida: Japan has a 350-strong SDF engineering unit and some staff officers […]

This may be one of the last times I write about Ban Ki-moon, a thought that makes me unexpectedly melancholic. The United Nations secretary-general will hand over his duties to Antonio Guterres at the end of the month, after 10 years in office. Over that time, I estimate that I have written about 50,000 to 60,000 words about Ban’s performance, in addition to more general pieces on U.N. diplomacy. Quite a few of those words have been unkind: I have frequently criticized Ban for being too cautious, too hidebound by protocol and too slow to grasp many of the U.N.’s […]

After meeting briefly on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged the need for improved ties. Despite the diplomatic gesture, though, relations remain strained. Next year marks the 45th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, but celebrants of that auspicious occasion may unfortunately find little reason to cheer. The most immediate source of tension stems from a deepening confrontation in recent months over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which China claims as the […]

On Dec. 4, a man with an assault rifle entered a Washington, D.C., pizza shop, planning to “self-investigate” a conspiracy theory purporting that Hillary Clinton was at the center of a “pedophilia ring” being run out of the restaurant. The rumor—which has, needless to say, been emphatically debunked—can be traced to Twitter posts with the hashtag #pizzagate, which started trending on Twitter in early November and were subsequently tweeted and retweeted thousands of times over the next several weeks. The incident is one of many that have drawn attention to social media’s changing role in a tense political and social […]

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, it was hard to get a firm grasp on Donald Trump’s intended national security policy. His own lack of experience and his campaign’s scarcity of advisers steeped in defense issues led candidate Trump to rely on broad themes and searing criticism of the policies of the Obama administration—and by extension Hillary Clinton’s likely approach to the world. Now, with only weeks until Trump takes office, he has much of the senior echelon of his national security team in place and is beginning to flesh out his policy. As the Trump strategy emerges, the tensions […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan last month saw the conclusion of an India-Japan nuclear deal that had long been in the works. Not so many years ago, that development would have elicited major international reaction, given India’s status as a nonsignatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The lack of such reaction to the latest bilateral agreement is perhaps due to the fact that India already has 14 such deals in place, with a list of countries that includes the United States, Russia and France. Nevertheless, that India became the first non-NPT country to firm up such […]

Appointing military flag officers to civilian roles in a presidential administration is an American tradition. Beginning with Brent Scowcroft in the Gerald Ford administration, several national security advisers have been uniformed officers, and the Central Intelligence Agency has often been led by one, beginning with Adm. Sidney Souers, its first head. Three of the five Directors of National Intelligence, a position created in 2005, have been retired flag officers. Military men have also held Cabinet positions: George Marshall was both secretary of state and secretary of defense; Alexander Haig and Colin Powell both served as secretary of state. Placing a […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the death of Fidel Castro and the implications for reform in Cuba and normalizing ties with the United States. For the Report, Anouar Boukhars talks with Peter Dörrie about Islamist militancy in West Africa. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: What’s in Store for Cuba—and U.S. Ties—After Fidel Castro? The Costs of Uncertainty With Trump’s Trade Policies Iran Struggles to Grow Its Economy While Adapting to Climate Change How West Africa Became Fertile Ground for AQIM and ISIS Trend Lines is […]