Defense & Security Archive

In July, according to spokespeople for Thailand’s government, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha will come to Washington for a White House visit. It promises to be a substantial diplomatic and reputational boost for both Prayuth, who led the coup in May 2014 that deposed Thailand’s most recent elected government, and the junta running Thailand, which remains a U.S. treaty ally. Former President Barack Obama did not offer Prayuth a White House invitation, although Obama did meet with him as part of a summit in California of Southeast Asian leaders in February 2016. The Thai junta repeatedly expressed anger at the Obama […]

As the fight against the so-called Islamic State approaches its endgame, the United States seems to be stumbling its way up the escalation ladder in Syria. Repeated U.S. airstrikes against Syrian forces and allied militias in southeastern Syria had already caused alarm that the U.S. might be drawn deeper into the country’s civil war. The downing of a Syrian warplane by a U.S. fighter jet over the weekend punctuated those concerns. In response, Russia announced it would suspend the use of a communication channel to “deconflict” air operations over Syria—that is, avoid unintended confrontations between Russian and American jets—although the […]

KADUNA, Nigeria—The funeral took place on a sunny, late March morning in Goska, a village in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state. Against the backdrop of mud homes covered with corrugated zinc roofing, people bustled down the single dusty road that runs through the town to a patch of land next to a church. Hundreds formed a crowd around a brown casket to bury 50-year-old Gideon Morik, a community leader who died on March 16. One of Gideon’s solemn-faced wives made her way silently to the center of the field. She dabbed her face with a handkerchief as she placed a vase […]

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a bill imposing new sanctions on Iran and Russia. Even if the bill makes it through the legislative process to become law, it should not derail the 2015 agreement that curtails Iran’s nuclear activities. But more intangible factors, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s recent comments on the Iranian regime, could do harm to the agreement’s durability. The sustainability of the Iran nuclear agreement, one of former President Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievements, has been in doubt since Donald Trump’s presidential election. On the campaign, Trump mocked the agreement and suggested that he […]

There is a lot of talk at the United Nations about tailoring peace operations to address the specific needs of the countries and communities that they serve. But from the vantage of the Security Council, there are really only two types of peacekeeping missions: the ones the French like, and the ones the Americans and British like. The entire edifice of U.N. operations rests on a delicate network of bargains among Paris, London and Washington about how to balance these two groups of missions. France has pushed for peacekeepers in a series of its former colonies including Cote d’Ivoire, Mali […]

Like the rest of the world, Turkey was blindsided by the sudden decision by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to cut all diplomatic, trade and transportation ties with Qatar earlier this month. Ankara is now scrambling to respond coherently to this new headache over Qatar, a state with which it has deepened ties in recent years. This is a strategic dilemma of the first degree for Turkey. If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fails to stand by the only true Arab ally he has left, he could lose all semblance of influence in the Arab world. […]

Buoyed by his party’s resounding success in last weekend’s parliamentary elections, France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, is off to a strong start. While some were skeptical of his youth and inexperience—not to mention his brief participation in the unpopular government of his predecessor, Francois Hollande—Macron’s party, La Republique En Marche, is poised to become a dominant force in French politics. As one of its candidates told the Financial Times, “I’m again proud to be French.” That enthusiasm is no surprise: The French were tired of Hollande, who left office with dismal approval ratings and 10 percent national unemployment—a rate that […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the contrasting fortunes of British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron, and the implications of the British and French elections for the EU. For the Report, Laura Kasinof talks with Peter Dörrie about how, amid the chaos of Yemen’s ongoing crisis, former Yemeni President Ali Adullah Saleh has maneuvered himself back into a position of power. If you’d like to sign up for the beta version of WPR’s Africa-only subscription, you can do so here. It’s free for the first two […]

Albania’s “on again, off again” election is back on after the opposition ended its threat of a boycott last month. But allegations of a spiraling drug-trafficking problem, and claims and counterclaims of criminal links to politics, are still an unedifying sight in a European Union candidate state. Prolonged political deadlock over recent months is a sign not only of Albania’s deep political divisions and dysfunctions, but also of the EU’s limited ability to use its leverage in the increasingly restive Western Balkans. On May 22, Albania’s government confirmed a deal that put opposition figures into government positions, a compromise that […]

In early 2003, with U.S. military intervention in Iraq increasingly likely, the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command had detailed plans in place to defeat Saddam Hussein’s military. But because the George W. Bush administration insisted that the invasion would be short and American troops rapidly withdrawn, military plans for stabilizing and reconstructing Iraq after the battlefield victory were woefully inadequate. To remedy this, Conrad Crane and Andrew Terrill, two former U.S. Army officers on the faculty of the U.S. Army War College, led a study project that brought together a wide range of experts on both Iraq and military stabilization […]

The attacks have been small in scale, but they’ve come at a steady pace: On May 24, eight security officials were killed in a pair of roadside bombings in eastern Kenya. A week later, seven officers and one civilian died when their armored personnel carrier hit an improvised explosive device in Mangai, near the coast. And last week, the victims were four aid workers driving near the Dadaab refugee camp. In all, according to the Associated Press, at least 34 people, 20 of them police officers, have died in a recent string of explosions near the border with Somalia claimed […]

CAIRO, Egypt—In November 2016, Egypt’s major cities experienced something that has become rare since a military coup led by then-Gen.—and now President—Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013: protests. In the streets and at universities in Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said, Egyptians took great risks in sight of the police to gather and demonstrate against price hikes and bread shortages. Until then, the country had appeared to have settled into a period of relative calm. Five years after the uprisings that brought down former President Hosni Mubarak, and three years on from the coup that felled his democratically elected successor, Mohamed Morsi, […]

Last week, while a great deal of attention was focused on the aftermath of the terrorist attack in central London, another wave of jihadi killings unfolded a continent away, in the heart of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The perpetrators of the June 7 operation in Tehran struck directly at regime targets, hitting the country’s parliament and the shrine to its founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, killing 17 people and wounding more than 50. The so-called Islamic State quickly took responsibility for the attacks in both London and Tehran, adding evidence to the theory that as it loses ground in Syria […]

On June 2, authorities in the U.K. charged Agnes Reeves Taylor, the ex-wife of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, with torture in connection with crimes she allegedly committed during the West African nation’s prolonged period of civil conflict. The arrest makes Reeves Taylor the latest in a series of high-profile Liberians to be arrested in Europe and the United States in recent years. In Liberia, meanwhile, there has been no progress on justice initiatives under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Charles Taylor is serving a 50-year sentence in the U.K. for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but his trial dealt […]

As the dust settles from President Donald Trump’s first visit to the Middle East, his policy in the region, such as it exists, is harkening back to the years before his predecessor, Barack Obama. Obama only sought minor recalibrations in long-standing U.S. policy toward its allies in the region, and his criticisms of them amounted to the mildest rebukes. But Trump’s visit made it clear that Saudi Arabia and Israel are, once again, the unmistakable pillars of America’s Middle East posture. Egypt also seems more firmly in the U.S. orbit than ever, given Trump and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s mutual […]

In March, to mark—and taunt—the two-year anniversary of the military intervention launched by Saudi Arabia in northern Yemen, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh marched down a major thoroughfare in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, surrounded by throngs of adoring supporters. Bodyguards cleared his path as a crowd of tens of thousands cheered him on. The Sanaanis, as the capital’s residents are called, were overjoyed to catch sight of the man they consider their leader—even though he was forced to step down as president five years prior. Saleh delivered a speech to the crowd in his clipped northern accent, triumphantly declaring that […]

The United Nations Security Council faces a prolonged crisis of confidence. Mounting tensions between the United States, Russia and China have stopped the council from taking serious action in response to crises in Syria, Ukraine and Burundi, among others. If those underlying tensions continue to worsen, the forum is likely to become ever more marginal to global affairs. The Security Council is a lot more active than it was in the worst days of the Cold War. In 1959, it mustered the will to pass just one resolution. It has churned out 20 in the first half of 2017. But […]