Defense & Security Archive

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Freddy Deknatel and Prachi Vidwans talk about the protests against police brutality and systemic racism in the United States and Europe, and the issues and grievances driving them. They also discuss what these movements share in common and what distinguishes them, the central role played by commemorative statues as legacies of historical racism, and the particular challenge the U.S. protests pose for civil-military relations. Listen: Download: MP3 Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | Spotify Relevant Articles on WPR:America’s Struggle for Racial Justice Is a Barrier—and a Bridge—to the WorldAmerica […]

It may be overshadowed by everything else roiling the United States right now. But the 82-page legal brief filed Wednesday rebuking the Trump administration for its controversial motion to dismiss federal perjury charges against former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn matters immensely for the future of American democracy. John Gleeson, a retired federal judge appointed to evaluate the government’s highly unusual move, argued that Justice Department prosecutors tried to conceal the real reasons for dropping the charges against Flynn last month and that its attempt to wipe Flynn’s record clean was a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power.” There […]

Some of Latin America’s most serious challenges—violent crime, drug trafficking, economic inequality and public corruption—all have one thing in common: money laundering. In Mexico alone, the government’s Financial Intelligence Unit reported that drug cartels and other illicit actors laundered an estimated $50 billion in 2019— crucial revenue for cartels that has also contributed to Mexico’s record-high homicide rate in recent years. Money laundering has helped Brazilian gangs like the Primeiro Comando da Capital, or First Capital Command, expand their criminal networks into neighboring Paraguay and Bolivia. In Venezuela, it has enabled a dramatic theft of public resources by officials tied […]

In early May, a high-speed boat pulled alongside the Rio Mitong, a Panama-flagged cargo vessel, just off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. Using ladders to board the ship, a group of assailants kidnapped two crew members, taking them back to the shore, where they subsequently held them for ransom. Another ship was reportedly attacked that same night, elsewhere in the Gulf of Guinea. These attacks are just two among many recent incidents in this vast and strategically significant body of water, where armed robbery, piracy and kidnappings at sea have escalated in recent years. Though piracy overall has decreased globally, […]

In the early weeks of 2020, the signs pointed to progress in Myanmar’s convoluted effort to finally end 70 years of ethnic strife in its border areas. On Jan. 8, representatives from the government and the 10 ethnic armies that are party to a 2015 cease-fire deal convened in the capital, Naypyidaw, where they reached an eight-point agreement on the next steps to continue implementing that cease-fire. They also vowed to meet for a fourth national peace conference by the end of April, to build on three earlier summits held between 2016 and 2018. That fourth summit would have signaled […]

When the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, agreed to demobilize as part of Colombia’s landmark 2016 peace agreement, it ended 50 years of armed conflict. It also left the Colombian army without its chief adversary. The country still faces internal armed threats, like the smaller guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, and about 10,000 fighters are scattered across dozens of smaller militias, some of them led by former FARC members. But for Latin America’s largest army, the adjustment has been fraught with difficulty. The army built up a formidable intelligence apparatus during the country’s decades of internal conflict, […]

It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment when this feeling of suffocation began. For so many born and raised here in Washington, D.C., it probably began early in life when their parents sat them down for “the talk,” about how to comport themselves safely during encounters with the police. But for me, the air in Washington became almost unbreathable on Monday when I saw Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, striding along Lafayette Square in his battle fatigues as helicopters in the sky above my neighborhood roared westward across Capitol Hill to the […]

As Mozambique enters the third month of its lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, fighting between government troops and a shadowy Islamist militia has escalated significantly in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a global monitoring group, insurgents have stepped up attacks in 2020, with more than 100 “violent events” this year, the precise term ACLED uses based on its methodology—an increase of 300 percent over the same period last year. In roughly 90 of those incidents, militants attacked civilians, resulting in more than 200 reported fatalities, including one […]

Ha Abia is a sprawling, dusty neighborhood on the outskirts of Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. Bisected by the main highway heading south from the city, it flashes past in a blur of roadside taverns, small grocery stores, street vendors and the ubiquitous honking of local taxis. Since 1998, it has been the political home of Lesotho’s two-time prime minister, Thomas Motsoahae Thabane. In the past year, Thabane has faced growing political opposition, which came to a head in April, when he was charged in connection with his ex-wife’s murder in 2017. Thabane tried for weeks to negotiate a deal […]

BAGHDAD—The Islamic State is stepping up its attacks in Iraq, fulfilling the expectations of many analysts that the extremist group would mount a comeback after the Iraqi government declared victory over it in 2017. While the Islamic State has yet to show the same capabilities it had at its peak in 2013 and 2014, when it gained control of several provinces and population centers—including Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities—the tempo of attacks has been increasing for over six months. This coincides with a period of domestic unrest due to widespread anti-government protests. The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State […]

President Donald Trump’s recent decision to withdraw from the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, which has helped keep the post-Cold War peace, raises the long-term risk of armed conflict in Europe. While unfortunate, abandoning this 34-nation confidence-building measure is consistent with Trump’s years-long policy of confidence-demolition. First proposed by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1955 and negotiated under the George H.W. Bush administration, Open Skies allows signatories, including the United States and Russia, to fly unarmed observation aircraft over one another’s territory. This helps build a measure of transparency and trust regarding each countries’ military forces and activities, thereby enhancing stability and […]