Defense & Security Archive

Last September, South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, signed a power-sharing deal with rebel leader Riek Machar, promising to bring an end to the five-year civil war that has crippled the world’s newest country, which declared its independence from Sudan in 2011. It wasn’t the first time. A similar agreement signed in 2015 broke down the following year, leading to fighting that prompted Machar to flee the country. Observers predicted the new agreement would share the fate of its predecessor. What was billed as a “revitalized” peace plan was still silent on many of the underlying drivers of violence and seemed […]

For the third time in four years, Hondurans are calling for the resignation of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, decrying him as a “narco dictator.” In early August, Hernandez was named in a 44-page court filing by the U.S. Southern District of New York, which alleges he funded his 2013 election campaign with $1.5 million in drug trafficking money. Hondurans have poured into the streets since the charges were announced, joining a protest movement against Hernandez that is entering its fifth month. Demonstrations kicked off in the spring against unpopular reforms his government proposed to health care and education. The U.S. […]

In the wake of World War II, the U.S. helped Japan draft a new constitution that forever renounced the use of military force as a means of settling international disputes. Japan has nonetheless maintained a well-equipped military for the purposes of self-defense, even while largely relying on the security umbrella provided by U.S. forces in the region. In a book that came out in April, Sheila Smith, the senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, makes a compelling case that Tokyo is now reevaluating that security posture in response to a militarily ascendant China, a nuclear […]

In a provocative new book, three scholars from the libertarian Cato Institute—John Glaser, Christopher A. Preble and A. Trevor Thrall—counsel the United States to abandon the pursuit of global primacy for a policy of prudence and restraint. “Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America’s Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better)” is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. American foreign policy professionals may cast the United States as a benevolent hegemon, […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The separatist crisis in Cameroon deepened this week after a military tribunal handed down life sentences to the separatist movement’s leader and nine of his followers. As observers warned that the sentences would make it harder to bring the two-year conflict to an end, separatist militias launched reprisal attacks that killed at least two people and forced dozens more to flee their homes. The conflict has its roots in concerns within Cameroon’s minority English-speaking population that they have been historically marginalized by […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Frederick Deknatel and Laura Weiss talk about a recent Pentagon report documenting the Islamic State’s resurgence in Iraq and Syria. They also discuss a controversial abortion case in El Salvador, and prospects for the G-7 summit in France. 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 inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the week, plus three more complimentary articles in […]

At the height of the morning rush hour on Aug. 2, as Bangkok hosted foreign dignitaries attending a high-profile regional security summit, six small bombs exploded across the city, injuring four people. Thai police linked the blasts to southern insurgents, whose leaders denied responsibility. Two weeks later, reports emerged that the main rebel group leading that insurgency, the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, had met Thai government officials for secret talks. The rebels reportedly set out their demands for resuming formal peace negotiations, including “the release of all people detained over suspected links to the insurgency and a transparent investigation […]

Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is on a roll. In April, he trounced incumbent Petro Poroshenko at the polls. Last month, Zelensky’s Servant of the People party won a majority mandate in a snap parliamentary election, so it can press ahead with much-needed reforms. But a bigger challenge looms: finding a path to negotiate an end to the war in eastern Ukraine. Zelensky’s winning streak could be tested when he meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in September. He is seeking more leverage over Russia in an attempt to resolve the conflict that has raged in eastern Ukraine since Russia […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China.Facebook and Twitter took unprecedented action against China on Monday, taking down Chinese government-linked accounts that were being used to sow political discord in Hong Kong and turn global public opinion against anti-government protesters there. It was the first time either social media company had blamed the Chinese government for running disinformation operations. Twitter suspended more than 200,000 accounts that it suspected of being tied to a Chinese government-led influence operation. Following reports that Twitter and Facebook were promoting harmful […]

The peace agreement signed recently in Mozambique by President Filipe Nyusi and the head of the former rebel group Renamo, now a political party, addresses the two critical issues that have festered since an accord in 1992 never fully ended the country’s civil war. The deal includes provisions for the full demobilization of Renamo fighters, with the integration of selected Renamo personnel into the armed forces, and the decentralization of political power. It is the second attempt to end renewed conflict between rebels and the government since 1992, following an earlier agreement in 2014 that was supposed to end a […]

Explore how U.S.-China relations have evolved in the Trump era. Download your FREE copy of U.S.-China Rivalry in the Trump Era today. Integrating China into the liberal trade order was expected to have a moderating effect on Beijing. Instead, under President Xi Jinping, China has asserted its military control over the South China Sea and cracked down on domestic dissent, all while continuing to use unfair trade practices to boost its economy. Download U.S.-China Rivalry in the Trump Era today to take a deeper look the relationship, the Trump administration’s policy, and a glimpse at what the future may hold. […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. After a two-day truce to observe the Eid al-Adha holiday, fighting has resumed in Libya. Any hope that the brief pause might signal a path to the resolution of a conflict that erupted in April, when military strongman Khalifa Haftar began his campaign to conquer the capital, Tripoli, quickly evaporated. Since Haftar launched his assault on Tripoli, 1,100 people have been killed and more than 100,000 displaced. Even as the truce was announced, a car bomb exploded in the eastern city of […]

It’s too early to say what India’s breach of the status quo in Kashmir will mean for long-term stability in South Asia. There are, of course, many fears of where revoking the semiautonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir could lead—from another retaliatory insurgency by militants in Kashmir backed by Pakistan, or worse still a destabilizing war between the two nuclear-armed rivals. Ultimately, though, it is China—not India or Pakistan—that will likely tip the balance in a region teetering yet again on the brink. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party view downgrading Kashmir’s status from […]

He died in a hospital in Phnom Penh, 93 years-old and still portraying himself as a Cambodian hero. Nuon Chea was the senior-most surviving member of the genocidal Khmer Rouge, having served as Brother No. 2, as he was known, under its leader Pol Pot. He was widely seen as one of the major planners of the regime’s rapid, brutal overhaul of Cambodian society from 1975 to 1979, which included emptying Phnom Penh of citizens, murdering a sizable portion of the population, and torturing and killing some 14,000 people at an infamous prison called Tuol Sleng. Nuon Chea was also […]

Last week, the United Nations’ independent fact-finding mission on Myanmar released a new report that documents the economic interests of the Myanmar military and the global network of countries and companies that are financing the country’s genocidal “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority. The report urged U.N. member states to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar and financial sanctions on the country’s military-owned companies. But according to David Scott Mathieson, a Yangon-based independent analyst who focuses on a range of human rights, conflict and peace issues in Myanmar, the mission’s findings are unlikely to significantly alter […]

Earlier this month, a white supremacist gunman opened fire at a Walmart shopping center in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people. According to police, the suspected shooter has admitted to targeting “Mexicans,” and he had apparently posted a manifesto online just prior to his rampage, in which he decried a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” In the same manifesto, he praised another white supremacist gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March of this year. These are sadly just a few of the violent incidents perpetrated in recent years by right-wing extremists around the world. […]

NEWRY, Northern Ireland—One of the main attractions at the local museum in Newry, a bustling market town some 40 miles south of Belfast, is an old wooden sign. Painted on a chalky white background, its tall red letters proclaim in Irish, then in English: “Custaim: Stad, Customs: Stop.” For decades, this sign stood on the road between Newry, in Northern Ireland, and Dundalk, in the Republic of Ireland, demarking the twisting, 500-kilometer border between the two countries. The sign was taken down when Ireland and the United Kingdom joined the European Union’s single market in 1993. By the time the […]