Military Archive

The ongoing civil war in Syria has spread across the Iraqi border in recent months, putting Iraq back at the center of the region’s security agenda. As the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) take control over a large part of Iraq, the Kurdish population has become increasingly assertive in the pursuit of its own autonomy, and Iraq has once again become a policy challenge for Washington. This report examines the implications of the growing conflict for Iraq, the U.S., Syria and a potentially independent Kurdistan, drawing on articles published in the past year. ISIS in […]

Last week, three former Soviet republics—Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova—signed association agreements with the European Union. All three countries contain breakaway territories that Russia either effectively controls or directly supports. While the world was riveted by Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008, and the crisis over Ukraine’s eastern regions continues to make headlines, far less attention has been paid to the case of Moldova. On the country’s eastern edge, between the Dniester River and the border with Ukraine, sits Transnistria, a self-declared state home to about 500,000 people of mostly Slavic descent that announced its independence during the collapse of the […]

In remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Manila early last month, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg praised the elite counterterrorism unit sent to advise the Philippine military after the attacks of 9/11, known as the Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines (JSOTF-P), as having “gained the trust and earned the respect of our host nation partners.” The unit, he pointed out, was also the “first element of the U.S. Armed Forces to deploy” to areas affected by last November’s typhoon. But after more than a decade in the Philippines, the United States is phasing out the task force. […]

Last week, the Stimson Center, an important Washington think tank that studies global security, released a major report on U.S. drone policy. This was noteworthy both because the topic is such a hot one and because of the stellar cast involved. The task force that produced the report was led by retired Gen. John Abizaid, former commander of the U.S. Central Command, and Georgetown University law professor Rosa Brooks, who recently served as counselor to the undersecretary of defense for policy. The other task force members also brought deep and wide-ranging experience in the military, security policymaking, law enforcement and […]

The Democratic Republic of Congo has changed. Five years ago, the country’s eastern provinces were entering a second decade of low-intensity violence marked by the proliferation of armed groups perpetrating atrocities that had enveloped the region since the collapse of the Zairian state in 1996-1997. The ineffective, grossly undersized United Nations peacekeeping mission struggled to keep track of the chaos around it, and diplomatic efforts to address the conflict had little impact. The national army, known as the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), was useless at best and actively harmed the population at worst. When rebels […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today announced a major shift in the posture of Japan’s military, known as the Self-Defense Force, that could allow it to engage in combat on foreign soil six decades after it was founded. Japan’s military has for decades maintained a defensive mission under Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, which states that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” The move was greeted with protests both at home and abroad. Local polls showed at least half […]