Defense & Security Archive

Iranian celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution earlier this year were marred by a suicide bombing in southeastern Iran that killed 27 members of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The soldiers had been traveling near the Pakistani border in Sistan and Baluchistan province, where armed Sunni insurgents have waged a decades-long campaign to achieve greater autonomy from the Shiite-led government in Tehran. Iran accuses hostile foreign powers like the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan of supporting the insurgency in the predominantly Sunni region. In an email interview with WPR, Patrick Clawson, director of research […]

In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Mira Rapp-Hooper and Rebecca Friedman Lissner make a compelling case for a more restrained U.S. foreign policy. The United States, they write, should abandon messianic liberal internationalism for the more realistic goal of an open world. Such a prudent policy has a lot to recommend it. It would also take America back to the future—to the grand strategy that President Franklin D. Roosevelt endorsed during World War II. As I argued in my 2009 book “The Best Laid Plans: The Origins of American Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War,” it was […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman talk about the challenges facing Sri Lanka in the wake of the Easter bombings and what that attack says about the evolving threat of terrorism. In light of the U.S. decision to stop issuing waivers for major importers of Iranian oil this week, the editors also analyze the Trump administration’s arbitrary and ultimately counterproductive use of sanctions against Iran. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can […]

Ukraine’s hybrid conflict with Russia over the past five years has not just unfolded in annexed Crimea and the regions of eastern Ukraine where Russia continues to back separatist groups. It has also been felt in Kiev and across the rest of the county, as Russian interference continues to destabilize Ukrainian politics. In an effort to defend against Russian disinformation and propaganda, Ukraine’s government has responded with measures that have led to a substantial erosion of digital freedoms for journalists, activists and the wider Ukrainian public. A country once heralded as one of the most progressive in Eastern Europe for […]

A decade ago, President Barack Obama came into office promising a different kind of American foreign policy, having been elected on a platform of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, repairing America’s global image, and reviving American diplomacy and even restraint. Americans may have wanted their nation to adjust its global strategy, but for reasons that had more to do with domestic politics than world events, the debate over how to do so devolved into rancor and caricature under Obama. America was headed in the right direction until hyperpartisanship derailed everything, leaving the public convinced that something is wrong […]

Authorities in Cameroon are jailing opposition politicians and barring their supporters from holding rallies. Security forces and separatist groups continue to carry out atrocities in the country’s restive Anglophone regions. More and more civilians are being forced from their homes, adding to a tally of displaced people that already exceeds half a million. These problems and more were cited in a speech delivered last week to the European Parliament by Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s top foreign policy official. Her words painted a picture of an increasingly volatile country, just six months after 86-year-old President Paul Biya coasted to reelection […]

Large-scale terrorist attacks destroy lives, but they also have the power to upend political realities. That, after all, is their goal. The Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka are no exception. Whatever the larger objectives of the perpetrators of the suicide bombings at three churches and three hotels, their actions have sent political shockwaves across Sri Lanka, just as it prepares for presidential elections later this year. The political reverberations of the attacks were almost immediate. As Sri Lankans grappled with the human toll—more than 350 dead and hundreds more injured—revelations that authorities had received detailed warnings about an impending […]

As Christians around the world were flocking to churches for Easter services Sunday, Sri Lanka was already in mourning. A string of deadly, coordinated explosions early Sunday, which tore through churches and luxury hotels in Colombo and across the island nation, killed over 321 people, including some 38 foreigners, and injured around 500 others. Seven of the eight attacks were suicide bombings. A ninth explosion was prevented late Sunday when security personnel defused an improvised explosive device on the road to Colombo International Airport. Among the churches attacked on Sunday morning was the 18th-century St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo, St. […]

THAAD and other missile defense systems offer clear military advantages for countries that deploy them—but they could alter longstanding and delicate political balances. Missile defense has become an increasingly important focus of security policy around the world. On the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s provocative missile tests have led Seoul to move toward deploying U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile batteries, despite opposition from China. Proponents argue that THAAD deployment in South Korea is necessary to meet the evolving challenges posed by the North’s arsenal of short- and medium-range missiles. U.S. forces in South Korea face limits with Patriot […]

Tunisia is often considered a success story compared to other Arab countries caught up in the popular uprisings of 2011. Unlike Syria and Libya, it has been spared armed conflict. And unlike Egypt, which is descending deeper into authoritarianism, it has implemented impressive democratic reforms. Yet such comparisons risk overlooking the many ways in which Tunisia is still fragile eight years after protests toppled longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. As Francisco Serrano notes in this week’s in-depth report for WPR, the security forces are struggling to counter the threat posed by Islamist extremists based near the border with […]

KASSERINE, Tunisia—The blast that claimed the life of Cherifa Hilali was likely meant for a soldier, not a civilian. One day in May 2016, Hilali, 40, was out picking rosemary on Mount Semmama, an area near the border with Algeria where Islamist extremists routinely battle Tunisian security forces, when a land mine detonated. The explosion killed her and another woman and left a third woman injured. “They were walking through a trail normally used by the military,” Hilali’s husband, Makki Hilali, told me when I met him in February. Rising up from fields of olive trees and cacti, Mount Semmama […]

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan held a summit meeting in Vienna last month, their fourth face-to-face meeting in six months. The two countries’ foreign ministers have also held several rounds of talks, including a meeting this week in Moscow, heightening expectations for progress on resolving the frozen conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. But while there have been some tentative signs of progress, the two sides still differ fundamentally on how they view the conflict over the territory, which broke away from Azerbaijan before the collapse of the Soviet Union and has been under de facto Armenian administration […]

During his presidential bid, Donald Trump hammered on about the threat posed to America by the self-styled Islamic State, and how he would defeat it. As an issue, it was perfect for him, since the Islamic State’s sociopathic brutality fueled fear and anger among his core supporters—emotions that candidate Trump was able to harness and use to his benefit. Although the Islamic State emerged from the insurgency in Iraq that was unleashed by the American invasion in 2003, the extremist group grew more powerful during President Barack Obama’s administration, so Trump could wield it as a political weapon against Obama […]

On Monday, the European Union’s member states approved a package of controversial reforms to the bloc’s copyright laws, known as the Copyright Directive, that the European Parliament passed last month. It came just after Australia implemented a new law to police certain content on social media following the mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand, which the attacker had livestreamed on Facebook. And last week, the United Kingdom entered the fray, releasing a widely anticipated white paper on “online harms” about keeping citizens safe online. Together, all three developments represent ways that democratic governments are building out content-filtering regimes […]

Sudan has experienced more change in the past week than in the previous three decades under President Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed in a coup d’état on April 11 following four months of mass protests. Many Sudanese, however, have had little time to savor the euphoria of Bashir’s departure. Their most immediate task is to preserve and protect their revolution from the military leaders they fear will subvert it. Protesters have had some initial success, rejecting the self-appointed head of the new transitional military council, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, who was considered unacceptably close to the old regime. […]

Indonesians go to the polls this week to elect their president and a new parliament. It is the first time in Indonesia’s modern history that both elections will be held on the same day. But most of the focus is on the presidential race and incumbent Joko Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, who remains the strong favorite against challenger Prabowo Subianto, a former lieutenant general whom he defeated in a tight election five years ago. Most polls show Jokowi with a wide lead, although Prabowo’s campaign could be picking up steam in its final days. If Jokowi is reelected, he […]

In late February and early March, India and Pakistan engaged in a series of aerial skirmishes after a suicide bombing killed 40 Indian security personnel in the disputed territory of Kashmir. The crisis marked the worst escalation between the two nuclear-armed countries in nearly two decades. In an interview with WPR, Avinash Paliwal, a lecturer and deputy director of the South Asia Institute at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, discusses the longer history of the dispute over Kashmir and what it will take to prevent future crises from escalating. World Politics Review: Recent tensions between India […]