Military Archive

According to Washington’s punditocracy, there are only two ways to interpret the Pentagon’s announcement Wednesday that it plans to move ahead with withdrawing nearly 12,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Germany. One view is that President Donald Trump is capitulating yet again to pressure from Russian President Vladimir Putin and handing Putin a gift in the form of a weakened NATO. The other take is that the White House decision to pull troops out of Germany, as Trump has long wanted, is a foolish escalation in his standoff with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. […]

Earlier this month, a prominent researcher and security expert in Iraq, who was close to the new prime minister and to Western governments, was gunned down outside his home in Baghdad. While the identify of his assailants remains unknown, Hisham al-Hashimi had many enemies, given his history of speaking out against the Islamic State and against Iraq’s powerful Shiite militias. In the weeks leading up to his murder, he told friends and relatives that he had received serious threats from both Sunni and Shiite extremists. His associates, as well as Iraqi government officials, have focused in particular on Kataib Hezbollah, […]

At the opening of the World Health Assembly in mid-May, Chinese leader Xi Jinping announced his country would spend $2 billion over two years to help other countries fight the coronavirus pandemic. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, had already announced the U.S. would halt funding to the World Health Organization. His administration began the process of withdrawing from the WHO in early July. A week after Xi’s announcement, a 14-person medical team from China arrived in Tajikistan, which has had over 7,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 56 deaths. The Chinese squad brought 9 tons of medical equipment, bringing its total […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. China is expanding its amphibious military capabilities with an aim to “project power far from home,” Reuters reported this week, posing a challenge to America’s naval dominance. For decades, China’s main aspiration for its military was to secure its borders and dominate its coastal waters. But recent evidence suggests that under the ambitious leadership of Xi Jinping, Beijing’s military ambitions are going global. In the past year, China has launched two new Type 075 amphibious assault ships. Akin to […]

When Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled his country’s updated defense strategy earlier this month, his remarks mentioned China only in passing. But according to Sam Roggeveen, director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute, Beijing’s mounting military prowess is becoming an increasingly serious concern for Australia’s national security community. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, Roggeveen joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman from Canberra to discuss the Morrison government’s recent strategic reset in the context of China’s rise and the relative decline in the United States’ influence in the Asia-Pacific. Listen to the full conversation here: And if […]

A series of mysterious explosions have rocked Iran over the past several weeks, including in two locations known to be military and nuclear sites. Although it remains unclear what—or who—is causing the blasts, it is becoming increasingly reasonable to assume they are not mere coincidences. Meanwhile, a leaked document this week purportedly revealed the outlines of a 25-year strategic partnership agreement being negotiated by Iran and China, by which Beijing would provide Tehran with much-needed investment and great-power patronage in return for heavily discounted oil. Both developments highlight the wisdom of the now-teetering Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the […]

In a recent speech outlining his government’s national defense and regional strategy, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison emphasized the need to “prepare for a post-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous, and that is more disorderly.” But the coronavirus pandemic is not the only challenge confronting Australia. A rising China appears increasingly willing and able to project power in East Asia and the South Pacific. Meanwhile, as President Donald Trump’s administration has shown, Australia may not always be able to rely on its No. 1 ally for support. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman […]

With public pressure growing on the Trump administration to take action in response to the reported Russian scheme to pay bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill American troops in Afghanistan, a natural question to ask is, “What is to be done?” Much of the congressional attention for now will inevitably focus on who in the White House knew what and when about intelligence on the Russian plot. But the reality is that Washington has a limited range of policy options to manage an escalation of tensions with Moscow, and this Congress isn’t likely to do much months before an election. […]

With the unrelenting news of soaring coronavirus cases in the United States, and the historic push to address long-ignored questions of racial and social justice, one of this era’s most consequential issues has received less attention, but it will soon stand out again. How should the United States and the West more broadly respond to the continuing rise of China? Consider some major developments in recent weeks, starting with the imposition by Beijing of a new security law on Hong Kong. The law sharply curtails what was left of Hong Kong’s semiautonomous status, which was promised to last for 50 […]

From the moment The New York Times broke the news that U.S. forces had found massive amounts of cash during raids in Afghanistan, and ultimately concluded that Russia has been offering bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American and coalition troops, the focus has centered on President Donald Trump and his failure to take action in response. Observers have paid much less attention to whether this is the kind of operation Russia would run—and why Moscow might undertake activities so brazen that if discovered, they might qualify as a casus belli, risking armed confrontation or at least a sharp deterioration […]