Defense & Security Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. In October 2016, a 31-year-old Moroccan fishmonger named Mohsen Fikri got into an altercation with police in the northern town of al-Hoceima. The police had confiscated Fikri’s swordfish, and when he tried to retrieve it from the back of a garbage truck, he was crushed to death. The incident sparked a wave of protests known as al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or the Popular Movement, that was intended to draw attention to the lack of development and general marginalization of Morocco’s northern […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s just-announced summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the implications for U.S.-Russia and trans-Atlantic relations. For the Report, Ana Santos talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about efforts to hold Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for abuses committed in his bloody crackdown on drugs and petty crime. 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 straight to your […]

The bitter Arab rivalry in the Persian Gulf is reshaping traditional spheres of influence and exacerbating fault lines farther south, in the Horn of Africa, the continent’s most volatile region. The spat between fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which began a year ago when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led an embargo of neighboring Qatar that shows no sign of ending, has sparked frantic diplomatic and economic activity across the Red Sea, with serious security consequences. Thrust center-stage into these changing political geographies is Somalia, among the world’s poorest and most conflict-prone countries. The fragile nation, […]

Over the past few decades, the U.S. military has had to shift its focus several times as the security environment and American national interests evolved. Until the end of the Cold War, it concentrated on preparing to fight the Soviet Union, potentially with nuclear weapons. In the 1990s, most of the military’s attention was on conventional wars against what were called “rogue states,” particularly Iran, Iraq and North Korea. After the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. military retooled for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. Now that era, too, is ending. Today, as the United States disengages from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Russia and […]

European leaders are widely expected to maintain Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia at this week’s European Council summit in Brussels, despite disagreement among some member states. With Italy’s newly formed populist government looking at improving ties with Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly preparing to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month, the key player holding together an EU-wide consensus on sanctions policy is Germany. In an email interview, Susan Stewart, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, or SWP, in Berlin, discusses the impact of sanctions on German-Russian relations and how they are […]

South Korean President Moon Jae-in returned from a three-day visit to Russia on Sunday, the first South Korean leader to make a state trip there since 1999. In Moscow, Moon addressed the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, held talks with President Vladimir Putin, and signed agreements to expand economic cooperation. He capped off the visit with a World Cup match between South Korea and Mexico in the southern port city of Rostov-on-Don. Putin’s aims in hosting Moon seem straightforward enough. He wants to mitigate the hostility he faces from the West by reaching out in the other […]

CALOOCAN, Philippines—The battlefield of this war looks like any other bustling urban district in the Philippines. The sidewalks are crammed with street vendors selling everything from food to underwear. Pedestrians zigzag through the roads, avoiding motorized rickshaws known as tricycles and careening jeepneys, the colorful converted jeeps that are the country’s most common form of public transportation. The air is thick with smog and heavy with the sound of blaring horns and screeching tires. Set back from the streets are rows of makeshift homes stitched together by pieces of wood, corrugated steel and tarpaulin. This is Bagong Silang, an informal […]

BRATISLAVA—Slovakia, a NATO member that has called itself part of the “core of the European Union,” may talk positively about its Western orientation, but its actions recently suggest an increasingly closer alignment to Russia and its interests in Europe. Many observers point to the junior partner in its coalition government, the Slovak National Party, or SNS, as the reason why. The party’s nationalist, euroskeptic leader, Andrej Danko, the speaker of the Slovak parliament, has visited Moscow twice in the past eight months. Earlier this month, Slovakia’s Defense Ministry, which is headed by a member of the SNS, postponed a long-awaited […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. Last week, the Pakistani daily Dawn reported that its distributors and vendors were experiencing harassment and intimidation in several cities to prevent them from delivering the paper to subscribers. That followed an incident in April, in which the country’s largest television channel, Geo, was blocked by its cable operators across 80 percent of the country. Many in Pakistan saw the hand of the military behind the incidents. In an email interview, Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the high-profile political crises over Italy’s refusal to offer safe haven for boats carrying rescued asylum-seekers, and the Trump administration’s family separation policy for asylum-seekers at the southern border. For the Report, Joe Penney talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the U.S. military’s growing presence in West Africa, the secrecy that often obscures it, and what that means for the region’s fragile democracies.If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for […]

Following last week’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. President Donald Trump trumpeted the potential for economic development in a country that most of the world has long considered a pariah. “Think of it from a real estate perspective,” Trump said, suggesting that instead of building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, North Korea could have “the best hotels in the world.” While it is easy to attribute this seemingly peculiar position to Trump’s inexperience at statecraft, it actually runs deeper than that. It is one more manifestation of the enduring difficulty Americans have understanding how other cultures […]

Bogota—Colombia’s new president-elect, Ivan Duque, has promised to unite a divided country behind his plans to toughen the landmark peace accord with the former FARC guerrillas when he takes office later this year. The right-wing former senator comfortably won Sunday’s run-off election with 54 percent of the vote against his leftist rival, Gustavo Petro, who garnered 42 percent. Duque, who will turn 42 just before taking office on Aug. 8, will be the youngest elected head of state in Colombia’s 132-year history as a republic. His running mate, Martha Lucia Ramirez, who is a former minister of defense, will be […]

Recent controversies involving the U.S. military in Africa highlight how the Pentagon uses ambiguous language and outright secrecy to obscure its activities. At times, this has involved subverting democratic processes in partner countries, an approach that runs counter to years of diplomatic engagement. AGADEZ, Niger—In early May, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the head of U.S. Africa Command, addressed a group of journalists gathered in a staid, gray room at the Pentagon. The press conference had been called to disclose the main findings of the Defense Department’s investigation of an ambush seven months earlier in the West African nation of Niger. […]

Since his elevation to the presidency following the November 2017 military intervention that removed Zimbabwe’s longtime ruler Robert Mugabe from power, Emmerson Mnangagwa has embarked upon a global charm offensive. This has been designed to restore the country’s reputation, which was badly battered by the turmoil triggered by Mugabe’s violent land seizures; repression of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC; and a series of rigged elections. In stark contrast to the belligerent anti-imperialist rhetoric of Mugabe, Mnangagwa has adopted the vocabulary of “reform” while seeking to build bridges to previous adversaries such as Britain and […]

Last month, Pakistan made one of the most important political moves in its 70-year history. Parliament passed legislation, officially the 25th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which paves the way for the merger of Pakistan’s semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas with the neighboring province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. On May 31, Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain signed the bill into law. Pakistan’s tribal belt will now come under the writ of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s provincial government. North Waziristan, South Waziristan and the rest of Pakistan’s seven tribal agencies will become districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. No longer will they be loosely administered by national government representatives known as political […]

The world has been fixated this week on the Singapore summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, the ruler of North Korea. As the first-ever meeting between the serving leaders of these two bitter enemies, it was seen as an opportunity to redirect a relationship that only a few months ago seemed to be lurching toward armed conflict, and the risk of nuclear war. The outcome from Singapore, though, was less an equitable step forward than a clear win for Kim. Since the unexpected summit was put together very quickly, while surviving a sudden and soon-reversed cancellation […]

It seemed, at first glance, like a fairly humdrum story about bilateral cooperation among African officials. Earlier this week, The Star, a Kenyan newspaper, reported that lawmakers from Zambia had traveled to Kenya to meet with members of the government’s Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission at their offices in Nairobi. The Zambians’ goal, the report said, was “to learn how to effectively fight corruption.” In the current political environment in Kenya, however, the story prompted immediate expressions of derision and exasperation. As it made the rounds on social media, a number of Kenyans made clear their conviction that if Zambian officials […]