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While the death of Osama bin Laden represents the long overdue demise of one man, its impact on the long-term trajectory of American foreign policy is likely to be more profound: Along with bin Laden, so too dies the “global war on terrorism.” This does not mean that there are no longer any terrorists who want to kill Americans and other Westerners. Neither does it mean that al-Qaida will simply disappear overnight. And another major attack could return the U.S. and its allies to a war footing. But bin Laden’s death does mean that the exaggerated role that terrorism has […]

Taiwan recently announced plans to build a new 500-ton stealth corvette in response to China’s ongoing naval buildup. In an email interview, Richard A. Bitzinger, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, discussed Taiwan’s domestic arms industry. WPR: What is the current state of the Taiwanese arms industry, and what is prompting its growth? Richard A. Bitzinger: The growing military threat from China, together with the refusal of most countries — except the United States — to sell arms to Taiwan, are the primary rationales for maintaining an indigenous arms […]

President Barack Obama reshuffled his national security team last week, and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive. The White House proclaimed that this was the “strongest possible team,” leaving unanswered the question, “Toward what end?” Obama’s choices represent the continued reduction of the role of security as an administration priority. That fits into his determined strategy to reduce America’s overseas military commitments amid the country’s ongoing fiscal distress. Obama foresees a smaller, increasingly background role for U.S. security in the world, and these selections feed that pattern. First, there is Leon Panetta’s move from director of the Central Intelligence Agency to […]

Exactly one year after explaining that a future Conservative government would be “highly active and activist in European affairs,” William Hague, now the British foreign secretary, signaled quite the contrary when he appeared before the U.K.’s House of Commons Defense Select Committee on March 9. His comments in Parliament showed a worrying misunderstanding of the capacities of the two key European institutions of which the U.K. is a member — the European Union and NATO. In response to questions on international alliances and the U.K.’s perspective toward them, Hague argued that NATO is singularly designed for national security whereas the […]