Defense & Security Archive

This week, Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince and the presumed real leader of the kingdom, arrives in the United States for a lengthy visit. On his trip, the 32-year-old prince, the architect of a newly bullish Saudi foreign policy, will likely address a wide range of bilateral and regional issues that have, on balance, strengthened U.S.-Saudi ties since Donald Trump became president. The visit is unlikely to herald any breakthrough in the nearly 10-month-long rift within the Gulf Cooperation Council, which pits Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain—plus Egypt—against Qatar. Trump’s pro-Saudi instincts have made […]

Nigeria’s population has quadrupled in the past 60 years, creating a host of pressures on the country’s rural population and pushing farmers and herders into an escalating state of conflict. In 2016 and 2017, four states in Nigeria enacted bans on the open grazing of cattle, aimed at restricting herders and the pastoral communities they support. But the bans haven’t helped reduce violence; over 100 people have already been killed in clashes between farmers and herders this year. In an email interview, Adam Higazi, a research fellow at the University of Amsterdam and an affiliated lecturer at the University of […]

Jordan announced this week that it was suspending its free trade agreement with Turkey, in order to protect Jordanian companies from what it called “unequal competition” from industries supported by the Turkish government. It looks like a setback in ties between Amman and Ankara, yet the geopolitical picture is more complicated. Two weeks ago, over consecutive days in late February, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and its highest-ranking military officer, Gen. Hulusi Akar, visited Jordan for meetings meant to signal both countries’ desire to upgrade their bilateral relationship in light of regional developments. A major impetus is undoubtedly the Trump […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about national drug policies in various countries around the world. On Feb. 17, Portugal’s main opposition party, the Social Democratic Party, formally endorsed the legalization and regulation of cannabis at its national conference. Although Portugal decriminalized the use and personal possession of all drugs in 2001, from cannabis to heroin, the government has not legalized any illicit drugs. The Social Democratic Party’s endorsement is a step toward changing that. If translated into law, it would make Portugal the first country in Europe to legalize and regulate cannabis. In an email […]

Negotiations to bring peace to South Sudan have restarted in earnest, with the parties circulating a power-sharing plan that has failed once before. It is unclear if negotiators have a new strategy to successfully resurrect that agreement or if they are simply out of ideas. What is clear is that there is no end in sight for the current negotiations, even as fighting rages on into a fifth year and aid agencies report that 9,000 people are estimated to be losing access to food every day. Last December, the High-Level Resolution Forum (HLRF) announced a cessation of hostilities agreement between […]

From the homeland security folks who respond to national disasters to the armed forces planning for hostile encounters with state or nonstate adversaries, the U.S. security community understands that climate change affects what they do, often profoundly. Despite the skeptics in the highest ranks of government, there is quiet and steady progress being made to integrate greater knowledge about climate change and its impacts into threat assessments, planning and training for future security contingencies. For more than 20 years, the defense community has been studying the environment and climate change, and their implications for how the U.S. prepares for military […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and associate editors Robbie Corey-Boulet and Omar H. Rahman discuss the announcement of face-to-face talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. For the Report, Eromo Egbejule talks with Andrew Green about how longstanding grievances and heavy-handed security crackdowns are fueling a revived Biafran separatist movement in Nigeria. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered twice a week straight to your inbox. The […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. On March 6, Sri Lanka’s government declared a nationwide 10-day state of emergency as mob attacks targeted the country’s Muslim minorities. Tensions have been rising over the past year between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority, who are mainly Buddhist, and Muslims, leading to attacks on businesses, homes and places of worship. In an email interview, Neil DeVotta, a professor of politics and international affairs at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and an expert on ethnic conflict in South Asia, explains what […]

The Korean Peninsula has long been a very dangerous place. Over the past several years, it became even more so as the North Korean regime began testing nuclear weapons and—most recently—ballistic missiles that could threaten the United States. Alarmed at this, the administration of President Donald Trump has pushed back hard and repeatedly stated that it will do anything necessary to counter this threat, including the preventative use of military force. For the past year, the heightened tensions and belligerent rhetoric on both sides have raised fears of a catastrophic conflict. But in a stunning turnabout earlier this week, North […]

Amid all the focus on whether the Trump administration will recertify the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, has rekindled nuclear ambitions of its own. Later this month, Saudi Arabia will announce the winner of a multibillion-dollar contract to build the nation’s first two nuclear reactors, set to be constructed along the Persian Gulf. A U.S. consortium is competing with many others in what has become a geopolitical contest, but not without controversy. The United States has participated in over 100 nuclear deals like this before, so what makes one with Saudi Arabia so divisive? Riyadh wants […]

In mid-February, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he would pay government forces a bounty of nearly $500 for each communist rebel they killed, according to The Associated Press, suggesting this would be a cost-effective way to combat a decades-long insurgency. His remarks, which were widely denounced as inflammatory, came amid an uptick in violence between government forces and the rebels and increasingly bleak prospects for peace talks, which broke down last year. In an email interview, Renato DeCastro, a professor of international studies at De La Salle University in Manila, explains why the peace process has stalled, what progress has […]

Late last week, during his annual speech to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled a raft of new and exotic military weapons systems that were in development, and in some cases ready to be deployed. Putin’s inventory included an enormous, new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile known as “Sarmat”; new maneuverable re-entry vehicles that will, in theory, be fitted onto Russian ballistic missiles to help them overwhelm American missile defenses; a nuclear-powered cruise missile apparently able to fly for thousands of miles just feet above the surface of the earth; and a nuclear-armed underwater drone potentially able to lay dormant […]

A report released on Feb. 20 by the parliamentary commissioner for Germany’s armed forces revealed serious deficiencies in the military’s readiness, with many weapons systems nonoperational and 21,000 officer positions vacant. The state of the German military raises concerns for NATO and its response force, the effectiveness of which has gained new urgency since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014. In an email interview, Patrick Keller, coordinator for foreign and security policy at Konrad-Adenaur-Stiftung in Berlin, explains how Germany’s military got to this state, and what it will take to get its house in order. WPR: How concerning for Germany […]

UMUAHIA, Nigeria—Six months after the raid, the house still lies in shambles. Its walls are pocked with bullet holes; clothes are strewn about the grounds; and the windshields of the cars on the property are shattered. Located in the city of Umuahia, the capital of Abia state in southeast Nigeria, the house belongs to the family of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB, a group that wants this corner of the country to form a breakaway nation dominated by members of the Igbo ethnic group. On the morning of Sept. 14, Kanu and other members […]

On March 11, Colombians vote in what could be the biggest test of the country’s democracy in decades. For the first time, the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, will compete at the polls as a newly formed political party. No matter how it performs, the FARC, now known as the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force—maintaining its old acronym in Spanish—is guaranteed 10 seats in Congress overall, with five in the Senate and five in the House of Representatives, as part of the landmark 2016 peace agreement. But the former guerrillas are aiming higher. Running on a message of […]

Security assistance is a longstanding American tool to build up cooperation with key countries, including regional heavyweights like Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan, where security deficits have consequences for the United States. But security cooperation often requires bureaucratic agility and a true convergence of interests between the sender and receiver. Both elements have been in short supply recently, and new efforts to reform the enterprise seem unlikely to transform these difficult partnerships. In the past few weeks, Trump administration officials have engaged in several public dialogues about efforts to improve the suite of government-funded programs called security sector assistance. As with […]

If peacemakers want to have any chance of ending today’s wars, they must learn to think like cold-blooded killers. From Syria to Myanmar, armed forces are pursuing unrelenting military campaigns and indiscriminately punishing civilians in their search for victory. Over the past week, Syrian troops and their allies have kept up intense pressure on the rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta despite a chorus of international condemnation. Although the government forces have allowed a small amount of aid into Ghouta, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has promised to keep up the offensive. Having pressed previous sieges, like that of Aleppo in late […]