Defense & Security Archive

Security has crumbled on Tunisia’s western border with Algeria in recent months. A small but destructive group of jihadi militants with links to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has infiltrated the region, with weighty security implications for both Tunisia and Algeria. To successfully rout the jihadists in the short term, the Tunisian military needs better equipment, which the government has promised to deliver. But it is not yet clear whether Tunis is ready to pursue the deeper military and economic reforms needed to quell the terrorist threat in the long term. Tunisian government forces have so far failed to […]

As President Barack Obama learned during his whirlwind trip to Mexico in early May 2013, President Enrique Pena Nieto, like his predecessors, is eager to lessen his nation’s security, economic and trade dependence on the United States. During the visit, the U.S. chief executive discussed economic cooperation, education, border infrastructure, migration and the drug war. “We’ve done a lot of work with the previous Mexican administration on security issues and on economic issues. But sometimes the relationship gets characterized just as being about borders or just about drug cartels,” Obama told the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Proximity, joint assembly ventures, and […]

The Philippine Coast Guard opened fire on a Taiwanese fishing vessel two weeks ago, killing a Taiwanese fisherman and provoking a diplomatic deadlock between the Philippines and Taiwan in a period of growing tensions over disputed waters in the region. “This proves again that accidents happen and so all the more reason to have mechanisms in place to address accidents before they spin out of control,” Richard Bush, director of Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, told Trend Lines. Bush explained that because Taiwan found the apology offered by the Philippines for the incident inadequate, the […]

KABUL, Afghanistan—In a surprise move in mid-April, Germany announced it is ready to provide between 600 and 800 troops to the as yet undefined NATO training contingent that will replace the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan after it comes to an end in 2014. It was the first such announcement by any country, including the United States. Washington is in the process of negotiating with Kabul the bilateral strategic agreement that should lay out the framework for a reduced but continued presence of American troops starting in 2015. Germany’s attempt to pull ahead of the pack is […]

Editor’s note: Guest columnists Megan Gleason-Roberts and Alischa Kugel are filling in for Richard Gowan, who is on vacation this week. June will be the start of a new phase of United Nations engagement in Somalia, when the new U.N. Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) will replace the long-standing U.N. Political Office in Somalia (UNPOS), in place since 1995. In late-April, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon tapped Nicholas Kay, a former British ambassador and Africa director at the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as the secretary-general’s new special representative in Somalia. When Kay takes up his duties as the head of […]

The government’s decision to charge surviving Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with the use of a weapon of mass destruction struck many Americans as peculiar. At first glance, the Tsarnaev brothers’ bombs do not seem to match the definition or popular perception of a WMD. For decades, that term has been interpreted as referring to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, which uniquely possess the ability to kill people in numbers large enough to be considered massive. Two factors, among others, help explain the government’s decision: The charge is seen by prosecutors as relatively easy to level—and prove—compared to other possible […]

This month, the Cote d’Ivoire government announced a plan to repatriate 200 former rebel fighters who had been exiled to Togo in the wake of Cote d’Ivoire’s post-election violence in 2010. In an email interview, Arthur Boutellis, a research fellow and adviser to the Peace Operations and Africa programs at the International Peace Institute, described the state of Cote d’Ivoire’s security sector reform and the obstacles to further progress. WPR: What has been the recent trajectory of Cote d’Ivoire’s security sector since the violence surrounding November 2010 elections? Arthur Boutellis: The security sector could have been a key driver of […]

If I were a strategist sitting in Beijing, I would see the prospects of any U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war as being very beneficial to China. This might seem counterintuitive, given that Beijing, following Moscow’s lead, has resolutely blocked any effort in the U.N. Security Council to authorize any sort of action in Syria. But while China is not interested in giving a green light to legitimize U.S. involvement, Beijing would quickly seize the opportunity to take advantage should the U.S. decide to entangle itself more closely in Damascus’ affairs. For one thing, China has a good track […]

As the British armed forces rebuild after more than a decade of sustained military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the strategic components of the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” have come under intense scrutiny. At the politico-strategic level, while London remains committed to working alongside the U.S., there is deep concern that Washington has become a less than reliable partner. Indeed, there is a widespread view among British policymakers that in spite of the casualties taken by the British in support of a failed U.S. policy, Washington now prefers Germany to Britain as its “special” European partner. Were it not for the […]

Last week, Efrain Rios Montt, the former Guatemalan dictator who ruled the country during the most violent years of its civil war, was found guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide and sentenced to 80 years in prison. Guatemalan courts only recently began prosecutions for crimes committed during the civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. Rios Montt was convicted of overseeing the massacre of some 1,771 villagers of Guatemala’s Maya Ixil indigenous group during his 1982-1983 dictatorship. And the conviction may yet be overturned. Reuters has reported that a judge who presided over earlier hearings said she could […]

Last week’s congressional hearing on the September 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, reignited the controversy over allegations that the Obama administration covered up or lied about details of the attack. The dispute will consume Washington for some time, ultimately influencing President Barack Obama’s effectiveness during his second term as well as the way the U.S. military responds to future crises. There are three big questions about the Benghazi attacks: Did the Obama administration, particularly the State Department, take prudent steps to assure the security of embassy personnel in Libya before the attacks? Has the administration […]

The full motivation for China’s recent incursion into Indian territory along their disputed border in eastern Kashmir is as yet unclear. But the incident brings to the fore the issue of unpredictability in Chinese foreign policy implementation and Beijing’s frequent recourse to low-level aggression, often deployed to shape the backdrop to formal diplomatic negotiations. With specific regard to India, despite a general trend toward deepening cooperation, the incident lowers hopes that China’s new leadership would move to clear up uncertainty in bilateral relations and create a firmer basis for cultural and economic exchange. On April 15, in the Depsang Valley […]

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Mohammed Morsi, a former Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egypt’s first post-Arab Spring president, even as Russia continued to back Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus against an assorted opposition that includes the Syrian branch of the Brotherhood. This apparent contradiction illustrates the challenges Russia is facing in the post-Arab Spring Middle East. Like virtually everyone else, Moscow was surprised by the groundswell of change that began in the Arab world in early 2011. Experts advising the Russian government call this a tectonic shift and compare its impact to that of the two defining periods […]

Does the U.S. genuinely want its European allies to police their geopolitical backyard? When it comes to the Syrian crisis, the answer seems to be no. Last week, the Obama administration signaled that it intends to set the diplomatic pace over Syria as the U.S. and Russia announced joint plans for a peace conference. This was not only an accommodating gesture to the Russians—who, as I argued in this column last week, have made immense political capital out of the conflict—but also a setback for Britain and France, which have agitated for a more hawkish Western line, including arming the […]

The United States and Russia have announced a diplomatic initiative that would bring together representatives from the Syrian regime and opposition forces to negotiate a framework to end the Syrian conflict. Russia previously demonstrated little desire to help forge an agreement between the Syrian regime and opposition, but now seems committed to current efforts to form a transitional government. David Hartwell, principal Middle East and North Africa Analyst at IHS Jane’s, emphasized that the current round of diplomacy is significant as much for relations between the U.S. and Russia as for Syria. “If this entails Americans and Russians working very […]

Talk of America’s “pivot” toward Asia echoes around graduate school classrooms and foreign ministry corridors. The Obama administration believes the United States has overinvested in the Middle East and underinvested in the Asia-Pacific, where the bulk of its future opportunities and challenges lie. So now America is rebalancing its investment portfolio. A defense white paper from America’s most reliable ally in the region, Australia, should therefore be closely read in Washington. The message from the Australian Government’s 2013 Defense White Paper is that if the United States is rebalancing, then so is Australia. This white paper is very cautious in […]

Late last month, the government of France issued a defense white paper outlining its priorities and plans for the military through 2019. In an email interview, Rachel Utley, an expert on French defense and security policies at the University of Leeds, explained the context and implications of the white paper. WPR: What are the major implications of the defense white paper, in terms of impact on force structure and capabilities, and any shifts of emphasis in terms of strategic focus and forward-deployed forces? Rachel Utley: French defense white papers used not to come along too often: 1972; 1994 in the […]