Briefing Archive

DENPASAR, Indonesia — The appointment by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of his own brother-in-law as the new chief of the army has highlighted a trend that sees Indonesia’s political leaders keen to maintain personal control of the security apparatus, while remaining averse to pushing for civilian democratic control. Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo, the younger brother of first lady Ani Yudhoyono, was sworn in on June 30. Now 56, Pramono graduated at the top of his class at the Indonesian military academy in 1980, and his background includes commanding the Siliwangi Military District in West Java as well as stints […]

Ecuador’s June 28 extradition to Colombia of Fabio Ramirez Artunduaga, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (FARC) 48th Bloc, marks a significant step in the restoration and normalization of ties between the two South American neighbors. Acting on months of intelligence work by Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, Ecuadorean police arrested Ramirez during a sting in Quito, a world away from the jungles where his bloc operates. Citing his status as an undocumented foreign national, Ecuadorean courts promptly announced Ramirez’s extradition to Colombia. Within 48 hours of the arrest, Ramirez was in custody in Colombia. One year ago, […]

After seven years of debate and impasse, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-nation group of nuclear technology suppliers, agreed at a meeting last month in the Netherlands to revise the guidelines for trade in enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology. The move was immediately criticized in India by the media and opposition parties as a reversal of the NSG’s 2008 waiver allowing the transfer to India of sensitive ENR technology, which can be used for the production of both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The NSG’s original guidelines dated from 1978, three years after the group was formed in response to […]

MAE SOT, Thailand — On June 9, deadly clashes broke out in northern Myanmar between the country’s army and the ethnic minority Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The fighting reportedly erupted after Myanmar’s military moved to secure the Tarpein Hydropower Project, a Chinese-built dam that came online in January. The plant, which sits on a tributary of the Irrawaddy River close to rebel-held areas, has since suspended its operations, and the clashes have spread to surrounding regions, pushing Myanmar’s strategic borderlands to the brink of civil war. Rights activists say the Myanmar army’s offensive has brought a range of rights abuses, […]

In Senegal, popular anger over chronic electricity shortages and the autocratic behavior of octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade have produced several waves of protest since last summer. The same anger flared again on June 23, when protesters took to the streets to denounce Wade’s plans to amend the constitution and lower the threshold necessary to win in the first round of next February’s presidential election. Shaken, Wade backed down from what was widely perceived as a power grab. The protesters’ triumph does not mark the end of the conflict, however: Wade still intends to run for a third term, and protests […]

Despite an agreement among the U.S., Russian and French presidents at the G-8 summit in Deauville, France, that it is time for a peaceful settlement to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev failed to make much progress when they met in Kazan, Russia, last week. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the meeting “disappointing,” though she added, the parties “had improved their understanding on a number of issues.” The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has its roots in Soviet-era boundaries that located the Armenian-populated enclave as an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan in 1921. […]

In secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan that concluded in Islamabad on June 25, the two nations decided to set their differences aside and work toward a new future. But even as both sides reassess their ties and mull confidence-building measures, the thorny issue of tactical and strategic missile tests and ballistic missile defense (BMD) continues to cast a long shadow over the bilateral relationship. Recent reports that India is seeking to develop longer-range strategic missiles have raised anxieties in Pakistan. On June 2, the head of Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), India’s premier defense-research agency, declared that India […]

A stalemate has set in between President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress over the president’s authority to initiate and continue combat operations against Libya. This should surprise no one. The limits on the president’s constitutional authority to wage war are as uncertain today as they were when the Constitution was ratified. Complicating this uncertainty is that pesky law passed by Congress in 1973 over President Richard Nixon’s veto: the War Powers Resolution (WPR). Enacted in response to the widespread belief that it had become far too easy for a president to commit the nation to war, the WPR sought […]

This week, Alain Le Roy, U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, announced that he will stand down in August. Known as a generous man with a healthy distaste for the U.N.’s bureaucratic politics, the former French diplomat will have served for three years. Over that time, he has helped navigate U.N. operations through tough times, from a disaster in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to an unlikely success in Côte d’Ivoire. When Le Roy joined Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s team in the summer of 2008, he faced multiple bureaucratic and operational challenges. His predecessor, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, had worked with Kofi […]