The Case for a Populace-Centric Engagement

Unfortunately we experienced a weird server glitch which forced us to remove the “anchor” article for the current biweekly WPR feature issue, The Al-Qaeda We Don’t Know. But I’d like to plug the articles again, in case you haven’t gotten to them yet: Nathan Field’s The Limits of the Counterterrorism Approach, on how defining al-Qaida by its tactics exaggerates its prospects for strategic success. Joe Kirschke’s AQIM, the North African Franchise, on the nature — and limits — of the threat posed by al-Qaida’s North African franchise. Brian Glyn Williams’ The 055 Brigade, on al-Qaida’s little-known conventional fighting brigade in […]

The Syrian Border

Daniel Levy at Prospects for Peace parses all the possible interpretations of the cross-border strike into Syria so I don’t have to. What’s most striking, though, is that even someone as seriously plugged in as Levy ends up reading tea leaves. But it makes for some interesting speculation. Since he wrote that post, I’ve seen reports that Syria had withdrawn troops from the Iraqi border, basically curtailing whatever security cooperation they had been extending. But according to Voice of America, not only have the Syrians denied that, they also seem to be taking a pretty measured and even conciliatory stance […]

WPR Stays a Step Ahead

A handful of stories we’ve brought you recently in WPR are back in the news. Last month, Dorian Merina reported for WPR on a controversial and divisive anti-pornography bill under consideration in Indonesia. Today the IHT reports that the bill was passed into law. A few weeks back, Christina Madden reported for WPR on the Andean Trade Preferences Act that was recently signed into law. Yesterday McClatchy reportedthat the Bush administration’s subsequent suspension of Bolivia’sprivileges under that act will enter into effect today. Finally, the NYTimes has two articles today that cover familiar ground for regular WPRreaders: the first on […]

Russia Plays Conciliatory Role in ‘Other’ Frozen Conflicts

After the Georgia War, I argued that whatever damage Russia had done to its international reputation could be recouped with a demonstration or two of reasonabless and responsibility. I expected the demonstration to come in Abkhazia and South Ossetia themselves, but I underestimated the degree to which the conflict with Georgia was “personal.” Instead, it looks like Russia has chosen the other two frozen conflicts of the region — the breakaway Moldovan province of Trans-Dniester and the breakaway Azerbaijan province of Nagorny Karabakh — to demonstrate that Abkhazia and South Ossetia were a one-off — Russia’s equivalent of the West’s […]

China and Russia Discuss Energy Deal

Looks like Russia is about to suffer some more strategic fallout from the Georgia War, to the tune of $20-30 billion in direct and immediate loans to its oil industry from China. That, in return for guaranteed exports of two billion barrels a year for 20 years. Obviously, Beijing is having some trouble digesting Russia’s recognition of the separatist provinces. Seriously (or if not seriously, then with slightly less irony), it’s quite a bargain compared to what we’ve spent in Iraq securing our oil imports for the next twenty years. Moscow and Beijing are also talking about dispensing with the […]

More Patriotism and the Press in Times of War

Regarding the Bing West column that I mentioned earlier, Andrew Exum and Spencer Ackerman push back very, very, veryhard against West’s criticisms of Nir Rosen. In rereading West’s piece,it strikes me as less thoughtful than it did earlier this morning, butstill thought-provoking, which is probably why I passed over his biases(the hostile tone towards the press and his criticisms of Bob Gates,for instance) and zeroed in on the ethical/legal questions he raised. When I first read Rosen’s article,I never considered Rosen a traitor, or worthy of being shot, asAckerman claim West suggests. But it does seem valid to point out […]

Cyber Crackdowns in Malaysia and Turkey

It appears to be a bad week for free speech online, as both the governments of Malaysia and Turkey are taking steps to crack down on bloggers. In Malaysia, widely read blogger and government critic Raja Petra Kamaruddin has been ordered to serve two years in prision “without charge or trial under a draconian law known as the internal security act,” according to Agence France-Presse. Watch the AFP video report on the situation. For background on Malaysian bloggers’ ongoing fight for freedom of speech, see this May 2007 piece by WPR contributor Fabio Scarpello. Meanwhile, a Turkish court has banned […]

Al-Qaida Makes a Statement on U.S. Election

Terrorism analyst and translator Laura Mansfield reports that al-Qaida has made an “official statement of policy regarding the 2008 U.S. election” on a jihadist Internet forum. The statement: . . . is a ringing “anti-endorsement” for the Republican Party. The “anti-endorsement,” posted on the jihadist forums a week before the Election Day 2008, was included towards the end of the message. The message, from Al Qaeda leader (and Bagram prison escapee) Abu Yahya al Libi, was a Khutba or sermon delivered in honor of the Eid al Fitre holiday. Unlike 2004, when Bin Laden referenced both candidates by name, but […]

In the Long Run. . .

. . .Keynes was right. According to a new report,at the rate we’re consuming the earth’s resources, we’ll need twoplanets by the year 2030. The authors cleverly call it an “ecological creditcrunch.” My cosmological worldview isn’t so species-centric as to be terriblyconcerned about the planet Earth. When people say we must save theplanet, what they’re really saying is we’ve got to save ourwelves. Theplanet did just fine without us for billions of years. And while it’s awonderfully beautiful place that we really ought to take better careof, it will do just fine without us, too. But just for the sake […]

Patriotism and the Press in Times of War

Speaking of Nir Rosen’s Rolling Stone article, Bing West discusses some of the ethical and legal issuesit raises over at Small Wars Journal. West manages to present some verythorny and potentially explosive issues passionately but not stridently(quite a feat these days), keeping the piece both thoughtful andthought-provoking. Mostly light, with just enough heat (and in theright places) to make it resonate. I’m not quite sure I agree with his answers, but he’s asking the right questions. West addresses two aspects of Rosen’s “embed” that had occurred to mewhen I read the piece. First, that he was basically agreeingto the possibility […]

Afghan Opinion Trends Downward but Isn’t Hopeless

The Asia Foundation just released its latest Afghanistan public opinion survey to general disinterest. You can find a summary of the key findings at the foundation’s In Asia blog, as well as past surveys here at the Asia Foundation’s site. The key indicators show a downward trend in terms of overall optimism. But as Josh Foust at Registannotes in his preliminary analysis, the report still seems lesspessimistic than a lot of recent Western commentary (my own included). The emerging disparities in terms of security between various regionsof the country reminded me of something that occurred to me whilereading Nir Rosen’s […]

The Syrian Strike and the Iraq SOFA

I mentioned how the cross-border attack into Syria was certain to unnerve the Iraqis, and sure enough, a government spokesman condemned it today. I did some digging to see whether this sort of attack would even be allowed by U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, and the best I could come up with was this dated draft version of the broader strategic framework agreement (.pdf) via the Guardian: . . .[T]he U.S. does not seek to use Iraq (sic) territory as a platform for offensive operations against other states. (p. 2) That clause is sufficiently vague to be meaningless. The attack […]

Europe’s ATM

It’s ironic that just a week after Nicolas Sarkozy proposes a coordinated European economic governance that emphasizes European sovereign wealth funds designed to protect European companies in strategic industries from “cash-flush foreign investors,” Gordon Brown heads off to the Middle East to try to convince some of those cash-flush foreign investors to sink some of their cash into the IMF’s bailout fund, dangerously undercapitalized at $250 billion. (Question: Will the IMF impose the same kind of Draconian restrictions it applied to Third World economies when it comes time to bail out industrialized Western nations?) Meanwhile, Robert Manning at the New […]

WPR Feature: The Al-Qaida We Don’t Know

If any of you are in the habit of entering the site through the blog without taking a look at some of the frontpage content, I encourage to click through to our latest biweekly feature issue, “The Al-Qaida We Don’t Know.” Three articles (here, here and here) on the various ways in which, seven years into the “Global War on Terror,” we’ve yet to fully take the measure of just who our principal enemy is. Click through. You’ll be glad you did.

The British Are Coming (to EU Defense)

In thinking about how France’s EU presidency has been dominated bycrisis management, I recently found myself wondering what’s become ofthe ambitious European defense agenda that was so dear to NicolasSarkozy’s heart? It doesn’t really answer that question, but this Times of London (via Defense News) interview with British Defense MinisterJohn Hutton is eye opening nonetheless: John Hutton has becomethe first defence secretary to back a French plan for a European army,branding those who dismiss it as “pathetic”. In a wide-ranginginterview with The Sunday Times, he said: “I think we’ve got to bepragmatic about those things. Where it can help, we […]

Syrian Cross-Border Strike

Laura Rozen’s got the background over at the MoJo blog on what the U.S. was after in the crossborder strike into Syria: an AQI operative named Abu Ghadiya. Apparently the American government had been trying to get the Syrians to hand him over for a while, and finally got tired of waiting. There will always be operational justifications for this sort of strike in a counterinsurgency, and it’s not like we’ve been making a habit of violating the territorial integrity of Iraq’s neighbors. In fact, if even half of what we’ve been hearing about Iran and Syria is true, we’ve […]

Showing 1 - 17 of 701 2 3 5 Last