Defense & Security Archive

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, are currently involved in a diplomatic dance over resuming talks on Tehran’s nuclear program. If the talks do indeed come to fruition, Ashton could assume the negotiating role previously played by her predecessor, Javier Solana. While Solana’s diplomatic efforts ultimately did not bear fruit (.pdf), the circumstances that hampered his attempts to resolve the Iranian nuclear standoff — namely, the lack of U.S. participation and Iranian perceptions that the country had little to gain by talking with Europe — have since improved and could be […]

Last month, the Conference for Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) passed an historic milestone, as heads of state and ministers representing 36 Asian nations met for the first time outside of Kazakhstan for a summit meeting in Istanbul. The organization, Asia’s equivalent to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), boasts 22 member nations, ranging from Russia and China to Israel, India and Pakistan. Regrettably, Western media coverage of the summit focused almost exclusively on one sensational event: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tirade against Israel’s interception of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The flavor of this […]

The warning was a dire one, especially considering its source. In the July issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine — the unofficial professional journal of the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard — an officer of the Indian navy, Akash Chaturvedi, claimed that Islamic extremists had teamed up with sea pirates in Somalia to form a “nexus of piracy and terrorism [that] will be dangerous for both the world economy and security.” The world must act, Chaturvedi insisted, to prevent “another 9/11 — this time at sea.” Events this week only heightened the sense of alarm embodied […]

Reports of the imminent death of U.S. hegemony in world affairs go at least as far back as the Nixon administration, and to date, they have all disappointed. While challengers have risen and fallen, none have managed to make themselves full-spectrum superpowers capable of both diplomatic leadership and global military reach, in combination with indisputable economic heft and soft-power appeal. Now, with the “rise of the rest” — concentrated in, but not limited to, the so-called BRIC package of Brazil, Russia, India and China — we are presented with the argument of a collective challenge to American world leadership. Let […]

Russia and the United States are about to learn how much international goodwill their renewed progress toward nuclear arms control, as manifested by the New START Treaty, will buy them in other WMD nonproliferation arenas. The two countries have recently confirmed that they will miss their already extended deadlines for eliminating their stockpiles of chemical weapons, as required by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). In principle, this failure could lead to bitter denunciations as well as concrete sanctions imposed by other countries. At present, though, it looks like Moscow and Washington will escape punishment, perhaps in part due to the […]

Tension between Iran and the United Arab Emirates is rising after the UAE became the first Gulf state to publicly signal endorsement of military force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, should peaceful efforts to resolve the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program fail. The UAE also restricted Iran’s use of Dubai to imports goods sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States. In a statement, the UAE Foreign Ministry described recorded remarks made by UAE ambassador to the United States, Yousef al-Otaiba, at a conference in Colorado as “inaccurate.” Nonetheless, the remarks offer a rare insight into […]

In the two weeks since Gen. David Petraeus was nominated to be the new commander for U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan, continuity has been the dominant theme in describing what his replacement of ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal represents. After all, Petraeus literally wrote the book on U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, which McChrystal tried to apply in Afghanistan over the past year. It only seems natural to expect that Petraeus will maintain the same approach. But continuity is the worst possible option for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, because it would mean maintaining a strategy that appears increasingly unlikely to succeed. […]

With all of the comparisons being drawn between the presidencies of Barack Obama and Franklin D. Roosevelt, it is surprising that one of FDR’s most famous programs has not emerged as a possible model for U.S. policy today: Lend-Lease. That’s not to suggest that the United States should plunge the rest of the planet into world war as a strategy for domestic economic recovery. But consider the following: First, global security challenges are on the rise. The dark side of globalization means that technologies and capabilities that previously were the prerogatives of states have increasingly filtered down to non-state actors […]

At the end of May, the Senate confirmed Army Gen. Keith Alexander as commander of U.S. Cyber Command. The command’s creation had already been controversial, and as a result, the Senate Armed Services Committee delayed Alexander’s confirmation due to questions over roles and missions, authorities and restrictions. After his confirmation, Alexander specified that the new command is responsible for directing the day-to-day operations and defense of Department of Defense information networks, as well as for the “planning, integration, and synchronization of cyber activities, and when directed . . . for conducting full-spectrum military cyberspace operation[s]” to ensure freedom of action […]

In what has become a tragically predictable cycle, a new war breaks out every few years in the heart of the Middle East. And a quick scan of the region today points to a dizzying number of possibilities for potential conflicts that might erupt. Yet, most people in the region generally agree about where the next major clash will start and which armies it will involve — at least as its principal combatants. As for when the fighting will begin, nobody knows that with certainty. But the drumbeat of warning signs that the moment could come soon is growing louder […]

The United States and Japan commemorated the 50th anniversary of their security alliance last month with an uneasy sense of ambivalence. On the one hand, the sheer fact that the alliance, firmly rooted in the common interests and shared values of both countries, has persisted for so long is reason enough to celebrate. The U.S. and Japan, in addition to being democracies, are the world’s top two economies and two of the largest funders of multilateral institutions. They share a long list of common objectives, from ensuring that China’s rise is peaceful and deterring a nuclear North Korea to policing […]

On Sunday near Okinawa, the Japanese navy spotted two Chinese warships sailing south into the Pacific. The Chinese vessels were in international waters, but their proximity to Okinawa, which hosts a preponderance of U.S. and Japanese military forces, alarmed Tokyo. As a courtesy, navies traditionally announce their routine cruises in advance, particularly when one nation’s ships might pass close to another’s territory. Sunday’s infraction of that protocol was not the first for China. Just three months prior, two Japanese warships patrolling around Okinawa had discovered an unannounced flotilla of at least 10 Chinese vessels, including two submarines. During the encounter, […]

This World Politics Review special report is a compilation of WorldPolitics Review’s top articles on Afghanistan from December 2009 through June 2010. It is an update of WPR’s first special report on Afghanistan, published in 2009. Below are links to each article, which subscribers can read in full. Subscribers can also download a pdf version of the report. Not subscriber? Not a subscriber? Subscribe now, or try our subscription service for free.Obama’s Afghanistan Plan: The Partner ProblemBy Richard WeitzDecember 2, 2009 Navigating Roadblocks in AfghanistanBy Nikolas GvosdevDecember 4, 2009 Can Spheres of Influence Solve Afghanistan?By Nikolas GvosdevDecember 11, 2009 The […]

Virtually unnoticed, U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu have quietly set the stage to move forward Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, mend their tense personal relations and build a working relationship that takes the legitimate interests of their two countries into account. In a series of low-key moves, both men have worked to ensure that their meeting today at the White House demonstrates improved relations since Netanyahu last visited Washington in March. Differences then over Israeli settlement policy in Jerusalem produced one of the tensest moments in U.S.-Israeli relations in recent history. Netanyahu canceled subsequent talks scheduled for […]

Almost everyone would welcome greater cooperation between Moscow and Washington on ballistic missile defense. But decades of frustrating experience have taught us that this is precisely the wrong issue to make the centerpiece of the U.S.-Russia reset, notwithstanding what Andrew Futter argues in his WPR Briefing from last week. Rather than waste additional time and goodwill on the endeavor, we need to think more creatively about deepening bilateral collaboration regarding other issues, including promoting regional security in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Nevertheless, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statements during her visit to Poland last weekend show that the Obama […]

Having reached an agreement on the New START treaty in April, the Obama administration’s next step in its pursuit of a new strategic partnership with Russia appears to be establishing some type of joint collaboration on ballistic missile defense (BMD). These recent efforts should be applauded, as they hold the potential to reinforce trust and cooperation between the two powers, as well as to solidify a united defense against the growing threats from Iran and North Korea. Such an accord would also appear to be integral to the prospects of achieving further nuclear arms reductions agreements and working gradually toward […]

What exactly is President Barack Obama prepared to do in order to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons? And just how committed is the American president to curtailing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear enrichment efforts? Taken together, these questions represent one of the most important and most consequential unknowns in the realms of diplomacy, foreign policy, and geostrategic planning today. It is no exaggeration to say the course of history will be shaped by what lies behind the veil that is hiding Obama’s true plans for Iran. Bit by bit, an image of the Obama administration’s long-term views on how to […]