Defense & Security Archive

Stepped-up hostilities between Turkish forces and Kurdish guerrillas in southeastern Turkey and predominantly Kurdish northern Iraq coupled with a high-powered Iraqi Kurdish campaign to achieve greater autonomy are complicating U.S. efforts to ensure that Iraq remains united once American troops leave the country. The increased hostilities couldn’t come at a worse time for the Obama administration, which is preparing for next year’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The U.S. had hoped that closer Turkish-Iraqi Kurdish cooperation and Ankara’s conciliatory moves toward Turkey’s estimated 15 million Kurds — who account for approximately 20 percent of Turkey’s population — would end […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Washington’s decision to partially lift the ban on contact with Indonesia’s Kopassus special forces command has angered human rights organizations within the country and beyond. The decision, which had been rumored for some time, was announced by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at a meeting last Thursday with Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta. The ban on Kopassus was part of a U.S. military embargo imposed more than a decade ago in response to repeated human rights abuses committed by Kopassus units and by Indonesia’s military, the TNI, in Papua, Aceh and East Timor. The […]

As Gen. David Petraeus takes over the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, he is right to continue a strategy of counterinsurgency and to strengthen it with a plan that seeks to give local Afghan communities the means to defend themselves. However, both the recently announced local defense plan, which pays community members to don a rifle and police uniform, and the over-arching counterinsurgency of which it is a part take the wrong path to reducing violence in Afghanistan. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in 2008, the U.S. “cannot kill its way to victory.” Yet, the Pentagon has emphasized “providing […]

Fifteen days after twin suicide bombings killed 76 people in Kampala, Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni used an African Union summit in the capital city to declare war on the Somali group responsible for the July 11 bombing — as well as on foreign fighters aiding the group. “The terrorists should be wiped out of Africa,” Museveni said on Monday. “Let us act and sweep them out of Africa and to where they came from in Asia and the Middle East.” But to secure its borders, cities and regional interests, Uganda must do more than target terrorists. Roving rebel groups, many […]

In terms of volume, the more than 90,000 documents posted on the WikiLeaks Web site has to be one of the largest publications on the Internet of classified U.S. government material. But in terms of content, the so-called Afghanistan War Logs don’t tell us anything that most people who have been following the war even casually don’t already know. For example, U.S. officials have long complained about support within Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), for foreign terrorist groups — including the Taliban, which the ISI helped establish. The large number of Afghan civilian casualties resulting from coalition […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Kang Guek Eav, a.k.a. Duch, the notorious commandant of Pol Pot’s S21 death camp where about 16,000 people were sent to their deaths, was found guilty on Monday of murder, torture and crimes against humanity by a United Nations-backed court. The decision was hailed by local and international authorities seeking justice for up to 2 million people who perished here between 1975 and 1979, amid one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century’s bloody history. However, many of the victims were upset by the sentence, which could see the 67-year-old former mathematics teacher walk out […]

Diplomats and international officials like talking about conflict prevention, but they are curiously uncomfortable talking about how conflicts actually work. Instead, there is a never-ending quest to explain the economic or social root causes of today’s wars. These explanations have gained in sophistication to the point that no self-respecting analyst today would ascribe violence to “ancient ethnic hatreds,” a phrase that was often applied to the Balkan wars just a decade ago. Instead, economists talk about how greed and natural resources fuel violence, reducing rapacious governments and marauding rebels to rational economic actors. Political experts prefer to highlight the need […]

NEW DELHI — Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s three-day visit to Pakistan last week to move the bilateral Composite Dialogue forward will be joining a long list of Indo-Pak diplomatic debacles, the most recent one being at Sharm el-Sheikh last July. However, even by the abysmal standards of Indo-Pakistani diplomacy, the public spat between Krishna and his Pakistani counterpart, Mehmood Qureshi, at the joint press conference in Islamabad on July 15, marks a new low in bilateral engagement. It has also raised a fundamental question about India’s foreign policy toward its neighbor, one that is deeply dividing an already […]

The 2014 Afghan security plan unveiled by President Hamid Karzai this week at the international conference in Kabul raises once again the question of whether the U.S. and NATO are moving towards a 21st century variant of the “Najibullah strategy” as they seek to determine their end game in Afghanistan. The reference is to the regime of Mohamed Najibullah, the Afghan leader at the time the Soviet Union withdrew its combat forces from Afghanistan in 1989. The Afghan government that the Soviets left behind controlled the major population centers as well as some of the rural regions of the country, […]

KAMPALA, Uganda — Nearly two weeks after three bombs exploded in Uganda’s usually tranquil capital, killing at least 73 people and injuring scores more, the investigations into the attacks seem to be moving swiftly. Experts from countries including the United States and Israel are providing forensic assistance to help piece together the operation and trace those behind it. Police say they have arrested more than 40 people, including 11 Somalis and 16 Pakistanis, and images of two suspected suicide bombers, reconstructed by Interpol, were released earlier this week. In claiming credit for the attacks, the Somali insurgent group al-Shabab effectively […]

One of U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus’ first moves after taking command of the nine-year-old NATO war effort in Afghanistan three weeks ago was to begin forming what the top U.S. military spokesman characterized as “community policing units” to help bolster local security in Taliban-plagued areas. The impetus behind the scheme was simple enough. “We clearly do not have enough police forces to provide security in enough of the populated areas,” top Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell admitted. Nevertheless, reaction to the plan was swift and alarmed. Afghan President Hamid Karzai reportedly objected to it — and for good reason. On […]

The member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) finally took resolute action to assist fellow member, Kyrgyzstan, which remains vulnerable to further mass violence and other disorders due to its multiple difficulties. At a meeting this weekend, the foreign ministers of the 56-state grouping endorsed a package plan to increase the OSCE’s presence in the region as a catalyst to mobilize additional international support for the beleaguered country. The same governments will meet again in a few days, at a session of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, where they should endorse the intervention package. […]

RIO DE JANEIRO — Two years ago, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso led the call for a “paradigm shift” (.pdf) in the country’s drug policy. Instead of squelching supply through policing, Cardoso advocated for reducing demand by treating drug abuse as a public health issue. Cardoso’s appeal won plaudits from analysts who have grown impatient with a U.S.-led anti-drug policy that many argue has increased violence without significantly stemming drug abuse. But now it appears that Brazil not only remains committed to treating drugs as a problem for the police, it is also in the process of becoming the […]

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project tightens the straightjacket that our current terrorist list system has placed on American diplomats and social scientists. In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect groups or individuals who provide “expert advice or assistance” or “training” for pacific means to proscribed terrorist groups. For non-governmental peacebuilding groups that conduct workshops and promote dialogue as critical elements of their work, this decision is catastrophic. Now, even individuals who, through direct communication, urge proscribed terrorist groups to disarm and participate in negotiations are vulnerable to […]

With his recent selections of Gens. David Petraeus and James Mattis for command in Afghanistan and Central Command respectively, President Barack Obama signals his understanding that his previously established deadline of mid-2011 to begin drawing down combat troops in the “good war” cannot be met. The two were co-architects of the military’s renewed embrace of both counterinsurgency operations and the associated nation-building project that by necessity goes along with it. Neither flag officer can be expected to preside over a Vietnam-like exit that once again puts troubled and untrustworthy Pakistan in charge of Afghanistan’s fate. And so, despite the conventional […]

Indian National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon had plenty on his diplomatic plate during his three-day visit to China earlier this month. Apart from exploring new avenues of cooperation, the trip also focused on broadening existing bilateral ties and charting out a roadmap for future engagements. With the trip coming after a year of renewed strains between the two countries, including reports of incursions by Chinese troops into disputed border areas as well as a spate of trade quarrels, Menon’s task was by no means an easy one. Moreover, the trajectory of Sino-Indian relations has historically been unpredictable since the […]

U.S. strategies in two key fronts of the ongoing struggle against terrorism and extremism — Afghanistan and Somalia — are predicated on one critical element: the eventual emergence of a central government that can establish its writ throughout the territory nominally under its jurisdiction. And in both cases, the central governments that exist on paper seem to offer little hope for success. Diplomats may recognize Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the head of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), as president of Somalia, and Hamid Karzai has held the presidency in Afghanistan for many years now. But oftentimes it seems that both […]