Defense & Security Archive

In late February, India and Pakistan announced a cease-fire along their de facto border in the contested region of Kashmir. In a joint statement, the two countries’ military authorities said that there will be a “strict observance of all agreements, understandings and cease firing,” while also claiming they will seek to “address each other’s core issues and concerns” to ensure sustainable peace between the two long-time enemies. The announcement essentially revives a 2003 cease-fire agreement along the Line of Control, or LoC, as the de facto border is known. It was followed on March 18 by a speech by Pakistan’s […]

In mid-March, the British government released its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, titled, “Global Britain in a Competitive Age.” This was followed a week later by a more focused defense review. The two documents represent the end products of an exercise conducted by the government every five years, a combination of stocktaking, horizon-scanning and threat assessment, with some new policy announcements thrown in. This one began in 2020, but its completion was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The headlines surrounding the latest review have focused on the announcements that the U.K. would increase the size […]

Have know-nothing civilian bureaucrats, lily-livered humanitarian do-gooders and misguided academics tied the military’s hands with increasingly restrictive norms that don’t correspond to the laws of war, let alone the rigors of battle and requirements of victory? That’s the premise of a new article in Military Review by Army Lt. Gen. Charles Pede and Col. Peter Hayden. Pede and Hayden write derisively of the three-decades-old shift in U.S. military doctrine toward enhanced civilian protection, exemplified by the population-centric counterinsurgency approach to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a danger, they argue, since troops trained in restraint and respect for […]

In mid-March, Turkey and Egypt confirmed they’d had their first diplomatic contact since breaking off relations in 2013. Though the talks were described by Egyptian sources as preliminary, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying, “Contacts at the diplomatic level have started.” The thaw comes after a decade of intense rivalry that saw the countries on opposing sides of the war in Libya, the blockade of Qatar by its neighbors and energy disputes in the Eastern Mediterranean. Relations between Ankara and Cairo quickly deteriorated after the military takeover led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the general-turned-civilian president, which toppled […]

In early February, France revealed that one of its nuclear-powered attack submarines had completed a mission in the South China Sea. The rare announcement, two years after the passage of the frigate Vendemiaire through the Taiwan Strait, was a clear signal of a growing French, but also European, interest in the sensitive region. European awareness of its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific is a slow train coming. Even for France and the U.K.—which, as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and nuclear powers with a tradition of power projection, have long been interested in East Asia—there has been […]

Since seizing power in a coup in early February, Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, has increasingly cracked down on civil society and the political opposition. In recent weeks, it has shuttered most independent media outlets; arrested many members of the former ruling party, the National League for Democracy, or NLD; declared martial law in parts of the country; and unleashed security forces on pro-democracy demonstrators. By one estimate, at least 200 people have been killed since protests began against the coup last month, and thousands of people have been detained. The real number of deaths is probably much higher, […]

After months of political and institutional maneuvering, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, has finally unshackled himself from his predecessor, Joseph Kabila. The two had until recently been partners in an uneasy power-sharing arrangement, but Tshisekedi now has the power to make decisions without being constrained by the man who put him in office. The key question is how he will use it. Kabila ruled the country for 18 years but agreed to step down ahead of the disputed 2018 elections, in which his preferred successor lost to Tshisekedi even as his allies gained a sizeable majority of […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Colin P. Clarke is filling in for Candace Rondeaux this week. Rumors began swirling last fall that al-Qaida chieftain Ayman al-Zawahiri had died of natural causes. With no confirmation, counterterrorism analysts and long-time al-Qaida watchers weighed in with various assessments of what it would mean for the terrorist organization if it had indeed lost its leader. Just last week, al-Qaida’s official media arm, al-Sahab, released a video perhaps intended to quell reports of Zawahiri’s demise, with audio clips of Zawahiri addressing the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. But because those messages failed to reference any […]

Last year was a turning point for the shadowy, Islamic State-linked jihadist group that is operating in the Cabo Delgado province of northern Mozambique. First, the operational tempo of Ahlu-Sunnah Wa-Jama, or ASWJ—locally known as al-Shabab, though it has no known connection with the Somalia-based extremist group—took off dramatically. According to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED, the group launched 437 attacks in 2020, compared to 256 between 2017 and 2019. Second, ASWJ managed to assert control over major transportation routes. Its presence has impeded safe travel on the primary north-south road connecting the […]

Pope Francis traveled to Iraq earlier this month, his first trip overseas since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and the first-ever papal visit to the war-torn country. Francis said he wrestled with concerns that the three-day visit could facilitate the spread of COVID-19, but ultimately deemed it a worthwhile opportunity to encourage and show solidarity with Iraq’s dwindling Christian minority. During his travels, the pontiff also highlighted a number of issues that he has devoted considerable attention to throughout his papacy, including poverty, interfaith dialogue and conflict resolution. Joshua McElwee, the Vatican correspondent and international news editor for the […]

Three months after former U.S. President Donald Trump’s startling decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, President Joe Biden’s own policy regarding this long-disputed territory remains undefined. Yet he may be forced into action soon, as there are signs the conflict is heating up: Renewed fighting between Moroccan forces and the pro-independence Polisario Front broke out in November, ending a 30-year cease-fire. Washington seems to be in no hurry, given that the fighting is so far low in intensity. U.N. sources say they have so far only confirmed the deaths of two Moroccan soldiers, though neither side acknowledges any […]

Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine prompted much international outrage but little meaningful action. President Vladimir Putin was able to forcefully redraw his country’s borders, shrugging off the international sanctions that the United States and European Union imposed in response. Putin’s success augmented “the belief among some that bigger nations can bully smaller ones to get their way,” as U.S. President Barack Obama put it at the time. Given Crimea’s location in a small country—and the complex, often ethnically tinged territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia—the world was not willing to fight for it. History may not […]

Over the weekend, something extraordinary happened. A working group within the United Nations, comprising all 193 of its member states, adopted a consensus report on norms for responsible state behavior in cyberspace. The report itself represents fairly limited progress, in terms of its contents, although there are some shiny objects for the cyber nerds like me who have been following this process closely. What is most significant is that there is consensus among all U.N. member states in a field that has been wrought with division and contention, especially for the past five years. Most surprisingly, this process originated from […]

Editor’s Note: Every Monday, Managing Editor Frederick Deknatel highlights a major unfolding story in the Middle East, while curating some of the best news and analysis from the region. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Middle East Memo by email every week. It is probably the most documented conflict in history. Since Syria’s civil war began following the Assad regime’s suppression of a popular uprising a decade ago, activists, citizen journalists and everyday Syrians alike have uploaded videos and images of the conflict for anyone around the world to see. Reporters may have been widely barred from the […]

Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, stands between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Faced with the fact that the United States has lost patience with the Afghan government’s dithering negotiations with the Taliban, Ghani now has little choice but to orchestrate a deal that will likely end his presidency—and almost certainly result in a destructive civil war. Whether Washington decides to honor a bargain struck with the Taliban under the Trump administration, which calls for the exit of 2,500 American troops by May 1, or whether the Biden administration extends their mission by another 90 or 180 days, is almost […]

The Pentagon confirmed this week that President Joe Biden has imposed new, temporary restrictions on counterterrorism drone strikes outside of active battlefields, making them subject to review by the National Security Council. According to The New York Times, which first broke the news, the rules were quietly put in place on Biden’s first day in office, as a stopgap measure while his national security team conducts a broader review of U.S. counterterrorism operations. According to Charli Carpenter, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst specializing in the laws of war, the Biden administration’s review is a long-overdue opportunity to rein […]

The news hit Brazil like an earthquake. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, was suddenly free to run for president in next year’s election. That was the principal, if potentially reversible, result of a surprising decision issued Monday by a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, tossing out criminal corruption cases against the iconic leftist leader. The 2022 presidential race has now taken on a dramatic new player who poses a major threat to the reelection of Brazil’s controversial far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. The court ruling, which still faces possible challenges, sets the stage for an extraordinarily […]