This past spring, the international community put discussions about the future of Bosnia, a country crippled by institutional dysfunction, on ice until after the upcoming elections on Oct. 3. But even should the election’s winners have the will to address the gridlock that blocks effective governance, they will not have the power. The best that can be hoped for is that the country’s profound political frustrations continue to be expressed peacefully. The internationally brokered Dayton Accords brought an end to the Bosnian civil war in 1995 and subsequently safeguarded the political prerogatives of the country’s Serb and Croat minorities in […]

The Great Asia Rebalancing: The Ghost of Huntington

I just wanted to flag two thought-provoking articles on the strategic shifts associated with China’s rise, which I’ve taken to calling, “The Great Asia Rebalancing.” The first is by Hugh White (excerpted from a longer essay here), the second by Michael Clarke. Together, they offer fascinating insights into the strategic choices faced by two historic U.S. allies, both of whom face very real constraints on their ability to keep up with the dramatic changes shaping the global security environment. Clarke notes that with the end of any real security threat either originating from or menacing Europe, the U.S. has effectively […]

Critics of the New START treaty charge that, if ratified, it would constrain U.S. missile defense plans. Whether or not the treaty’s non-binding preamble supports their argument, the broader question regarding the future of missile defense is an important one. Missile defenses bolster deterrence and strengthen the security of U.S. allies, giving them a significant role to play in a fluid and dynamic contemporary security environment. But regardless of the New START treaty, the Obama administration will have to limit U.S. missile defense plans if it wishes to remain credibly committed to future arms reduction agreements with Russia, as well […]

When Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov meets with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the Pentagon tomorrow, they will have a lot to discuss. Although Serdyukov has been defense minister since 2007, this will be his first official visit to the Pentagon. That’s primarily because he has focused his attention back home, implementing the most comprehensive reform of the Russian military in almost a century. Indeed, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell noted last week that Gates and Serdyukov “are both taking on very bold, very ambitious reform initiatives within their respective militaries, and I think they want to talk about […]

When George Osborne, Britain’s new chancellor of the exchequer, recentlyannounced that the Ministry of Defense (MoD) must now pay for the modernization of the Trident submarine-based nuclear deterrent out of its own day-to-day budget, it marked a stark change from previous policy, by which the Treasury has traditionally footed the bill for nuclear weapons development. Though the plans are not new, the announcement caused a public row between Defense Secretary Liam Fox and Osborne. Fox has warned that with the MoD’s budget already in tatters, it will be impossible to maintain the MoD’s other capabilities if it has to meet […]

BP and Off-Shore Drilling in the Mediterranean

Reaction in the Mediterranean to BP’s plans to start drilling five off-shore wells off the Libyan Gulf of Sirte in October has been surprisingly low key given the British oil giant’s recent track record in the Gulf of Mexico. So far, the only group to express vigorous concern, at least in public, has been archeologists: The seabed off that stretch of the Libyan coast is rich in ancient sites and artifacts, including the remains of a sunken port once vital to Roman shipping. Yet there is nothing particularly reassuring about BP’s new $900 million operation, even as the company continues […]

Agence France Presse reported last week that Russia signed a five-year military cooperation agreement with Israel. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced the agreement, which includes joint defense education and medical training, on Sept. 6, after meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, in Moscow. Fifty Russian crewmembers are already in Israel training to operate the 36 drones Moscow that ordered after its 2008 war with Georgia, and the Russians are now proposing a joint production line to manufacture Israeli-designed UAVs in Russia. The defense agreement comes just weeks after former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens wrote an op-ed in […]

Clinton’s Speech: Obama Likes Europe. Really.

Perhaps because there was so much to digest in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s review of the Obama administration’s foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on Wednesday, her olive branch to Europe has been largely overlooked. Yet some members of her distinguished audience did a double take when she said, “President Obama and I have reached out to strengthen both our bilateral and multilateral ties in Europe. And the post-Lisbon EU is developing an expanded global role and our relationship is growing and changing as a result. . . .. There is no doubt that a […]

Global Insider: Russia-Armenia Defense Ties

Armenia agreed to extend Russia’s lease of a military base in the city of Gyumri until 2044. In an e-mail interview,Kim Iskyan, a director in the Russia and Eurasia practice at Eurasia Group, discusses Russia-Armenia defense relations. WPR: What has historically been Russia and Armenia’s defense relationship? Kim Iskyan: Russia and Armenia have long shared a close relationship, with defense as a critical dimension. Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there were Soviet bases in all three countries of the Caucasus, but Azerbaijan and Georgia subsequently engineered the departure of the Russian military presence. Armenia, though, wanted […]

Brazil, Russia Postpone Decision on French Defense Purchases

Bad day for the French defense industry: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that the final decision on a fighter jet purchase will be made after the upcoming Brazilian presidential elections on Oct. 3, but before he leaves office on Jan. 1, 2011. The contract, expected to be worth upwards of $3 billion, was all but awarded to the French Rafale earlier this year, before the Brazilian Defense Ministry objected to a decision being made before its tender and performance evaluation had been completed. Meanwhile, Russia opened its search for amphibious command vessels to an international tender, after […]

WPR on France 24: The World Last Week

I had the pleasure of participating in France 24’s week-in-review panel discussion program, The World This Week, last Friday. The other guests were the IHT’s Matthew Saltmarsh, Newsweek’s Chrostopher Dickey and France 24’s Annette Young. We discussed the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the “end of combat operations” in Iraq, Tony Blair’s autobiography, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign to expel illegal Roma immigrants from France. Part one can be found here. Part two can be found here. I managed to leave the studio and make it home without having compiled a long “I should have said . . . ” list, […]

French Defense Outsourcing

A few more eyebrow-raisers in terms of France’s defense purchases: The head of France’s procurement agency traveled to Washington over the summer to discuss the purchase of Reaper UAV drones, and the French military is anxiously awaiting delivery of a batch of already purchased Javelin missiles for use in Afghanistan. The Javelins are a minor purchase, and needed to fill an urgent operational gap. But they come on the heels of similar gaps in light-armor vehicles being filled with second-hand U.S. equipment last year. The drone purchase, on the other hand, marks a pretty significant strategic choice hanging in the […]

At the beginning of July, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus signed a number of protocols establishing a customs union between the three countries. The union, scheduled to be fully operational in January 2012, will create a single common market of about 170 million people and represents the latest of several attempts by Moscow to create an effective trade bloc with its newly independent neighbors since the break-up of the Soviet Union. In addition to the economic ties maintained through the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Russia first committed to a union with Belarus in 1994. That was followed […]

European Military Reform and American Power Projection

This is a good point by Galrahn at Information Dissemination, on the disconnect between trends in European military reform and trends in U.S. strategic thinking: We will have to wait and see what Germany ultimately decides to do, but in reading military reform arguments from various nations across Europe, including Russia, the 21st century army models of expeditionary forces most often include discussions regarding amphibious lift capacity and numbers of medium and heavy lift helicopters. In other words, the capabilities that most mimic the U.S. Marines are more desired by the rest of the world than the capabilities of a […]

Showing 18 - 31 of 31First 1 2