Defense & Security Archive

Progress in reducing the spread and use of weapons of mass destruction is never linear. But these days, there seem to be more steps backward than forward. From the failure to stop North Korea from becoming the world’s ninth nuclear power to the tragically incomplete diplomatic work to rid Syria of chemical weapons, the efforts to advance global norms to reduce the threats from weapons of mass destruction are falling short. Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which advocated for the new nuclear disarmament treaty that 122 countries voted for at the United […]

Is Germany about to retreat from the world? Berlin has become an essential advocate for liberal internationalism in recent years. But it may turn inward again. Germany has long been a payer rather than a player at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions. While disbursing large quantities in foreign aid, and cautiously experimenting with stabilization missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan, Berlin generally avoided taking a real leadership role in global affairs. The priority for Berlin was always Europe, and that remains the case. But as Germany has become more powerful within the European Union, it has discovered that […]

Despite many years of effort by the United States and its NATO allies to stem opium production in Afghanistan, this year saw a record crop. Drug production is an integral component of Afghanistan’s complex and seemingly intractable problems. Not only does opium directly support the Taliban, which taxes its manufacture and transportation, it also undercuts broader attempts to stem corruption and expand the legal Afghan economy. As often happens in today’s interconnected security environment, Afghanistan’s security issues are not contained within its borders. The transportation of Afghan opium funds extremists across Central Asia and threatens governments in that part of […]

On Nov. 26, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro handed over leadership of the national oil company, PDVSA, to Manuel Quevedo, a general with no experience in the energy sector. The move comes after a series of arrests of officials within PDVSA on corruption charges, including six earlier in November. In an email interview, David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America and curator of the blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, discusses Maduro’s underlying political motivations for the moves and the military’s increasing control of Venezuela’s economy. WPR: Maduro has arrested around 50 PDVSA officials since August, […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss North Korea’s latest missile test and why it is so difficult to de-escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula. For the Report, David Ucko talks with Peter Dörrie about the troubling signs of Islamist radicalization in the multiethnic and multicultural island nation of Mauritius, and what this “rainbow nation” can do to address it. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think about supporting our work by subscribing. We’re […]