Defense & Security Archive

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Authorities in Kazakhstan recently passed a constitutional amendment that could allow President Nursultan Nazarbayev to remain in office for the rest of his life, but a Shakespearean drama playing out among members of the country’s ruling family has largely dominated the local media spotlight. At issue is whether Nazarbayev, who has led Kazakhstan since the late 1980s, is running a politically motivated investigation into his son-in-law, who claims to have fallen out of the president’s favor since privately revealing his own interest in running for president in 2012. Actions taken over the past month by Kazakh authorities […]

In his presentation at the June 1-3 annual Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared much more sanguine about the possibilities of establishing a constructive Sino-American military relationship than his own Defense Department. A few days earlier, DOD had released the latest version of its annual publication, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2007” (pdf file). The report’s content is replete with warnings about China’s growing military capabilities, something Gates downplayed at Singapore. As directed by Congress, the report focused on the potential threat posed by China to Taiwan. Its authors warn that China continues to […]

OPATIJA, Croatia — Immediately, the signs along the road started to look familiar. The landscape tried with some success to transport me to an awfully different, dangerous time. I felt my back stiffen a little: back to the Balkans. This time, however, no checkpoints manned by armed men awaited. No bombed out homes marked the path of spreading carnage. Before I even had a chance to blink away the images of the 1990s in this region that brought the world that horrific expression “ethnic cleansing,” my 21st century cell phone beeped with a text message. “Welcome to Croatia!” The same […]

The Russians, Tom Clancy’s old reliable villains, are back. The American techno-thriller author has lent his name to several computer games, including the intricate new title from Ubisoft known as EndWar. The video game’s scenario? In the next twenty years, America deploys a space weapons system to protect the United States and Europe from nuclear attack, while a sullen Russia stays out of the missile shield club. A few years later, the world’s peak oil doomsayers are suddenly proven right and all of the world’s major oil producers — except for Russia — are found to have massively inflated their […]

Russia has put a price tag of half a billion dollars on plans to build a nuclear “research” center in Burma, one of the world’s poorest countries, where electricity is a luxury for most inhabitants. Rangoon’s new diplomatic friend North Korea set a precedent for a destitute country managing to find the means to develop nuclear capabilities. But many Burma watchers take the view that on the issue of nuclear power there is little comparison between the North Korean and Burmese regimes. The former is run by a dynastic demagogue, while the latter is controlled by self-enriching generals who rarely […]

The latest report by illegal logging watchdog Global Witness has received the highest accolade an investigative NGO’s work can receive from the Cambodian Government: It has been banned. The reason? It exposes the country’s largest illegal logging syndicate and its links to senior government officials, including the prime minister. Plus, it details the way the army has been used as a log courier service for the secret trade with Vietnam and China. Now, as Cambodia’s annual pledge-a-thon approaches, international donors are scrambling to react to accusations they haven’t done enough to protect Cambodia’s forests.Global Witness, the U.K.-based logging and blood […]

LAGOS, Nigeria — A key militant group in Nigeria’s troubled Niger Delta region announced a one-month ceasefire Saturday, giving the country’s new president an opportunity to make good on promises to bring an end to the crisis there. The Niger Delta is the center of the oil industry in a country that is the sixth largest producer in the world, but the region is also home to some of Nigeria’s worst poverty. Over the last year-and-a-half, militant groups seeking a share of Nigeria’s oil wealth have sprung up in the delta. The groups have kidnapped Western oil workers and bombed […]

KABUL, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday reaffirmed the United States’ long-term commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan and hailed “real progress” made by NATO forces this year against the Taliban insurgency, despite rising violence in the southern and eastern provinces and the arrival of deadly Iranian-made weapons. Gates, on his second visit to the country since taking the helm of the Pentagon, said that after a round of talks with President Hamid Karzai, NATO commanders and other Afghan officials involved in training the national army, he believes the security situation has improved in recent months. “The Afghan alliance offensive […]

On May 29, the Russian government very ostentatiously tested two different ballistic missiles, designated the RS-24 and R-500. The Russian media characterized both systems as new versions of existing missiles, modified to penetrate U.S. ballistic missile defenses (BMD) more effectively. First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, the former fefense minster, claimed that “these systems can beat any operational and future missile defenses.” According to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, the new RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missile is simply a version of the road-mobile SS-25 Topol (“Sickle”) that had been modified to carry up to 10 multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles […]