WPR Blog Archive

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, fresh off a visit to Paris where he met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, reportedly told an Israeli cabinet meetingthat he was prepared to hold peace talks with Syria, either directly orelse through an honest broker. Netanyahu ruled out Turkey for such arole, saying that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan would notbe a “fair mediator.” Since Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ruled out direct talkswith Israel in a meeting with Sarkozy two days after Netanyahu’s Paris visit, that could mean aFrench role. But the French side stated it supported the Turkishmediation effort. So France might […]

I’ve felt for a while that the “safe havens don’t matter” argument — the idea that somehow terrorist networks can’t substitute online connectivity for actual physical space — is the weakest argument against the strategic relevance of the Afghanistan war. For all sorts of reasons having to do with training, esprit de corps and loyalty bonds, actually having a physical place to solidify operational networks is probably essential and definitely advantageous. That said, one area where online connectivity really does outweigh the importance of physical space is in the financing networks that make farflung terrorist operations possible. So an EU […]

This NY Times piece, “No Parade for Hans,” is a great illustration of how Afghanistan has remilitarized European militaries, but not European opinion. Apparently, that goes double for Germany. There’s been increasing pressure on Germany to assume a higher military profile globally. This article gives a good idea of what that pressure is up against. The same popular opposition to the Afghanistan war exists here in France, as does the indifference to those serving. But anecdotally, I haven’t sensed any hostility toward French soldiers themselves for their involvement in Afghanistan. Of course, France has a less complex relationship to its […]

This point by Flyntt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett about the recurring “Russia okays sanctions on Iran” meme is well-taken. For a while now, the bleak prospects on the Iran nuclear standoff have caused us to hear what we’d like Moscow to be saying, rather than what it actually is saying. That said, one thing the Leveretts don’t mention is that Russia’s recurring delays in bringing the Bushehr nuclear reactor online represents in some ways a hidden sanction on Iran.

Joshua Pollack has a very useful rundown of just what the recent mention of Turkey as an “escrow” holder of Iranian enriched uranium could look like. There’s no reason to be any more optimistic about Iran’s response to this option, compared to the deal as it now stands, even if it does remove the “trust card” from the Iranian negotiating arsenal. But given that IAEA chief Mohamed El-Baradei has explicitly referred to the Turkish option as a proposal he’s floating with U.S. approval, it might be time for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to back off from the “no renegotiation” […]

After advocates of counterinsurgency were dubbed COINdinistas, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the Fashionistas entered the doctrinal fray. I suppose it could be worse.

Over at the Interpreter, Hugh White writes that despite its (predictable) drawbacks, the F-35 remains the best option for Australia’s air force. White’s argument echoes the major outlines of the Australian defense debate, which Craig Snyder examined in his WPR Strategic Posture Review for Australia. Essentially, that boils down to whether Australia has a vocation to compete with “Asian major powers” (White’s term that I assume refers to China, India and Japan), or just with the lesser powers on its periphery in Southeast Asia. I’m flagging the article not so much to wade into that debate myself, but rather to […]

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn joins the growing chorus of Western voices calling for a stronger Yuan to address unsustainable global trade imbalances. The overvalued Yuan is not the only structural adjustment necessary, of course. Clearly, American consumers (both private and public sector) are going to have to ween themselves off of their dependency on debt. But just as clearly, correcting the Yuan’s valuation is part of anydurable fix to the glaring problems in the global trade order. One way or the other, China is going to have to bite the bullet on the value of its dollar holdings and the […]

Press freedom advocates are condemning a decision by an Azerbaijani court on Wednesday to convict two bloggers on charges of hooliganism and causing bodily harm, in a case widely viewed as political retribution. “This trial has been a sham from beginning to end and has concluded with outrageous and unjust sentences. The trial was orchestrated solely to censor and punish two politically committed bloggers who dared to criticize the authorities,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. In July, Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade were involved in a violent confrontation with two men in a restaurant. When they went to […]

– Interesting, given the climate of anxiety in Washington over China’s military intentions, that in the week before President Barack Obama’s first state visit to the PRC, Beijing announces plans for closer military cooperation with Togo and Khazakhstan, to say nothing of Macedonia yesterday. – Fresh off a successful counterinsurgency campaign, a general quits his command amid rumors of a future in politics. Yet another reason Gen. David Petraeus will be keeping an eye on Sri Lanka. – When all you’ve got is nukes . . . In a leaked internal review, Russia’s military gets low grades on combat readiness. […]

– Good thing Greece blocked Macedonia’s NATO bid in 2008. Now the Macedonian army chief of staff is in Beijing looking to improve military cooperation with China. – For that China-Taiwan MoU on banking regulation, the signature’s ready, but the title it goes over is holding things up. – After Malaysia, Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Singapore. His way of letting President Barack Obama know just whose neighborhood it is? – Don’t hold your breath on Turkey-Armenia reconciliation. – France and Turkey have reportedly reached an agreement on Turkey’s EU accession: France will continue to oppose it, without blocking continued […]

Here are a few of the week’s highlights from WPR’s video section: As Germany celebrates 20 years since the Berlin Wall crumbled, some vintage footage from PBS’ NewsHour provides a look back to what policymakers and pundits of the day were thinking. From utter shock and surprise to apprehension, then-Sens. Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, arms negotiator Paul Nitze, former National Security Adviser Walt Rostow, and former ambassador and economist John Galbraith explore what this new East Germany might look like. So, how did they do? In Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s latest dig at Thailand’s current government, Cambodia has […]

I can’t help but feel like all the efforts to draw general conclusions on national security from the Ft. Hood tragedy miss an obvious point — namely, the ways in which terrorism at the low end of the hierarchy overlaps with mental illness. That’s something that’s obscured by our tendency to focus our discussion on the political and strategic goals of the upper echelons of terrorist leadership, which are national security issues. But at the ground level, terrorists are essentially insane. That’s not to say they are not able to function “normally,” or that they should not be held accountable […]

I mentioned last week that Poland’s shift toward EU defense had become more pronounced since the U.S. shift on European-based missile defense. But Nicolas Gros-Verheyde’s (French-language) summary of the French-Polish joint declaration on security cooperation really underscores that point. Time will tell how all of this will play out in terms of concrete developments. But as Gros-Verheyde observes, the potential for a French-Polish engine driving further EU defense cooperation is clearly in place. The declaration covers bilateral security cooperation in terms of training and industrial partnership, but places it in the context of European security. While it makes a point […]

There’s no longer any question that Europe is feeling a growing sense of frustration with the Obama administration. But for the most part, thecritiques to date have been more on the level of personal rapport andform (how the missile defense decision was announced, for instance)rather than substance. Now, Olivier Debouzy, who Jean-Dominique Merchetdescribes as a “discreet but recognized specialist on strategicmatters,” offers both a structural and policy critique from a European perspective that’s worth noting. Debouzy begins by arguing that President Barack Obama’s foreign policyis incoherent, something he explains by both the absence in theadministration of a strategist on the […]

Ambassador Robert O. Blake, recently appointed to his new role as assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs, spoke to a room teeming with India experts yesterday at the Asia Society in New York. Though Blake has been a career diplomat, spending 2003-2006 as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Mission in New Delhi, his message was clear — the future of U.S.-India relations rests on the shoulders of the private sector. In advance of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s upcoming visit to the White House, Singh’s first state visit since President Barack Obama has been in office, […]

– Among the agreements signed during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Malaysia was an MoU on banking regulation. This seems to be an increasing priority for Chinese regional policy. – Count World Bank President Robert Zoeller as the latest believer in the Yuan as an alternative reserve currency. – If China is looking to raise its profile in the Gulf, Qatar makes for a logical partner. – It looks like Japan and the U.S. have agreed to downgrade the Futenma base dispute, in advance of President Barack Obama’s imminent arrival in Tokyo. – China agrees to sell $1.4 billion […]