Defense & Security Archive

For those in the West eager to uncover another Tiananmen-like crackdown by Chinese authorities last week in the Xinjiang provincial capital of Urumqi, the true story disappoints, even as it points to a potentially far-more-destabilizing social phenomenon: the emergence of race riots inside allegedly homogenous China. Note that President Hu Jintao’s embarrassingly rushed departure from the G-8 meeting in Italy was not provoked by Sunday’s riots by angry Uighurs, but rather by Tuesday’s even uglier revenge riots by even angrier — and better-armed — Han Chinese. The makings of this unrest should strike us Americans as painfully familiar. The influx […]

The New York Times reports that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb “has carried out a string of killings, bombings and other lethal attacks against Westerners and African security forces in recent weeks that have raised fears that the terrorist group may be taking a deadlier turn.” For some great background on AQIM, see Joseph Kirschke’s October 2008 feature article for WPR, “AQIM: The North African Franchise.” To read it in full online, or as part of the January-February 2009 issue of our digital journal (which can also be downloaded as a .pdf file) you can sign up for a free […]

When I taught American foreign policy, I always began my lectures on Vietnam by showing the class Lesson No. 9 from “The Fog of War,” Errol Morris’ penetrating documentary about former Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. The lesson? In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. Undoubtedly, that contradictory logic has justified some of the United States’ most ferocious acts abroad. The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the bombing of North Vietnam, are two extreme examples. Immediately after the clip ended, I would survey the 40-odd college students’ faces looking up at me […]

The ethnic rioting that has rocked China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang over the past few days has badly poisoned the already tense relations between the region’s Uighurs — Muslims who make up a plurality of Xinjiang’s residents — and the Han Chinese. It could also complicate China’s increasingly important ties with its neighbors in ex-Soviet Central Asia. The Chinese presence in Central Asia has grown in recent years, especially in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Trade between China and Kyrgyzstan — much of it exports of cheap Chinese manufactured goods — tripled between 2004 and 2006 (the last year for which […]

NEW DELHI — While India’s immediate military aim is to build a potent strike force against Pakistan, it also harbors long-term plans to field a credible deterrent against China. This reflects the fact that although military efforts to counter Pakistan, such as the strengthened deployment along India’s western frontiers, are usually given precedence, the perceived threat from China remains very much on the radar. A case in point is India’s recent decision to buttress its military presence in the Northeast frontiers by basing its latest “air dominance” Russian Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters there. The move is meant to check China’s buildup […]

It was a question worth killing over, in the minds of some Somali Islamic extremists. In May, Ahmed Omar Hashi, a reporter for Mogadishu’s Radio Shabelle asked Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki to explain his country’s support for al-Shabab, the hardline Somali Islamic group. Afwerki explained that Eritrea only wanted to enable “Somali nationalists” in their efforts at “ensuring Somali unity, sovereignty and independence.” Just days prior to the interview, which took place in the Eritrean capital of Asmara, al-Shabab had launched a major assault on the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu. The attack came as moderate Islamist Sharif Sheikh […]

After a protracted election campaign, the 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finally selected Yukiya Amano of Japan as its next director general earlier this month. Amano’s tenure will begin following the retirement of current IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei at the end of November. Ambassador Amano will certainly face no shortage of challenges when he begins his four-year term. As detailed in a 2008 report (.pdf) by a panel of senior experts, the IAEA must surmount major weaknesses if it is to manage the surge in dangerous nuclear material that will result from the growing […]

As a kid, I was constantly subjected to fear-mongering on population growth, which was not only out of control, but certain to lead to widespread conflict, political repression, and freakish efforts at human survival. (“Soylent Green,” anyone?) Now, in my middle years, I find myself increasingly assaulted with the opposite “dangers”: too few babies, and a rapidly and unevenly aging world. Somehow the dire predictions of what the consequences will be have remained the same. Funny how that works! Some things we know intuitively from our history, both personal and global. An easy example: In the modern world, single men […]

The United States took an important step yesterday toward leaving Iraq by moving combat troops out of Iraqi population centers in anticipation of the June 30 deadline specified in the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). This redeployment has focused attention on Iraq’s current security situation and triggered stepped-up efforts by insurgents to undermine the symbolic importance of the transition, by launching attacks generally aimed at Shiite civilians. It has also provided fodder for those in the United States who wish todelay withdrawal. However, looking at Iraq solely through the prism of short-term security trends clouds thinking about how the […]

In 2006, when Dutch forces occupied Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan, they expected to wage a traditional counterinsurgency campaign focused on winning the support of the local population. “We’re not here to fight the Taliban. We’re here to make the Taliban irrelevant,” said Dutch commander Hans van Griensven. An Australian reconstruction team subsequently joined the Dutch battlegroup, to help rebuild schools and roads, and to provide vocational training to local workers. Dutch and Australian troops were working at a pair of schools in July 2007 when the Taliban attacked. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside one school in the […]