Defense & Security Archive

On March 10, at a regular session of the Joint Consultative Group of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, the Russian delegation declared that Moscow was suspending its further participation in the group’s meetings. With the declaration, Russia completed its de facto withdrawal from the most comprehensive conventional arms control treaty in history—one that took decades to negotiate and was a symbol of the end of the Cold War. But the effects of that withdrawal are mostly symbolic, since the treaty has been doubly overtaken by events: The Cold War is long over, and Russia already stopped complying with […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atanbayev in St. Petersburg today, his first public appearance since March 5, when he held a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Moscow. Between then and now, Putin canceled several important meetings, including one intended to mend relations with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev and another with representatives of the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia. Putin offered no explanation for his lengthiest absence since 2012, saying only, “It would be dull without gossip.” Atanbayev also made a point of telling the media that Putin had personally driven him […]

The United States sent its European allies some stern signals about their obligations to the American-led international order last week. On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power visited Brussels, where she warned NATO members to halt their “dangerous” defense cuts and called on European powers to offer more troops to United Nations peace operations. Power argued that European armies, which currently provide less than 10 percent of all U.N. peacekeepers worldwide, could have a “momentum-shifting” impact on beleaguered blue helmet missions in trouble spots such as South Sudan. Instead, she underlined, “European countries have drawn back from peacekeeping,” […]

In the modern security environment, insurgency is the strategy of choice for violent extremists. Even so, the United States insists on clinging to an outdated concept of insurgency steeped more in the anti-colonial struggles of the Cold War than the fluid battlefields where movements like the self-declared Islamic State (IS), Boko Haram and the al-Qaida affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa lurk. During the Cold War, the most dangerous insurgencies blended a leftist ideology with nationalism. This combination gave revolutionary insurgency its reach, appealing to more supporters and recruits than either leftism or nationalism alone could have done. […]

Of the 10 countries with the highest homicide rates, eight are in Latin America and the Caribbean. The region is likewise home to 34 of the world’s 50 most violent cities. The social and economic impacts of those levels of crime are massive, and, as a result, governments and private sectors in Mexico, Brazil and, more recently, Guatemala and El Salvador are looking for new solutions. They have sought advice from two familiar sources in American policing: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and current New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton. Giuliani, and even more so Bratton, are […]

On Monday, 47 GOP senators published an open letter warning Iran’s leadership that any deal on Tehran’s nuclear program concluded solely on the basis of U.S. President Barack Obama’s executive authority would remain vulnerable to being reversed by future congressional and presidential action. While impolitic and a breach of the long-standing protocol that the White House is the primary American interlocutor with foreign governments, the letter starkly and bluntly lays out a series of constitutional and political arguments to make its case. What impact will the letter have on the down-to-the-wire negotiations to reach a substantive political accord with Iran […]

More than ever, Iraq’s Sunnis remain ground zero in the struggle that is being waged against the so-called Islamic State (IS). Recent military successes by the international coalition formed by the United States last summer to counter the jihadis through the intercession of local fighters—particularly Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish militias—make it clear that the war’s outcome will in large part be determined on the battlefield. But any defeat of IS, which arose and has been fed principally by the failure of political powers to grasp the scale of the problem in time, must include a political component addressing Sunni grievances […]

The Ninth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which begins next month, promises to be much more contentious than the previous 5-year review conference held in 2010. However, with a good game plan both before and during the conference, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration can limit the damage to U.S. interests and the nonproliferation regime. Such a game plan should include reaffirming Washington’s commitment to eventual nuclear disarmament; highlighting the United States’ NPT-related achievements in some areas, even if admittedly limited; focusing attention on long-term future possibilities rather than past failures; blaming the relevant responsible actors for missed […]

Since taking office in 2011 after decades of iron-fisted military rule, Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government has faced the challenge of opening up a country long closed to the outside world and delivering on the promise of domestic reform. But it faces major security obstacles, too, in the long-running ethnic rebellions on its borders with India and China, one of which escalated last month in clashes that killed more than 50 Myanmarese troops and 70 Kokang rebels in northern Myanmar. The Kokang and other ethnic rebels have fought for greater autonomy, federalism or control over natural resources in their corners of Myanmar […]

A little over a year ago, Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, weighed in on the most pressing political challenge facing Astana at the time: whether or not to change the country’s name. Before any consensus could be reached, however, unidentified men cropped up in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, saying little and admitting less. Twelve months later, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and amid an intermittent war in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and the central government in Kiev, it’s clear that the status quo ante will not return. In just a year, Kazakhstan’s geopolitical environs have shifted more rapidly than at any […]

Here is a modest proposal to resolve the Ukrainian crisis: NATO should invite the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram to send fighters to assist Kiev’s battered military. Die-hard IS and Boko Haram extremists would surely be happy to battle the Russian-backed separatist forces in Ukraine and their Orthodox Christian-nationalist creed. For veteran Islamists, it would bring back memories of past glories in Afghanistan and Chechnya. This whole idea is clearly bonkers. But does it make more sense to ask Russia to help fight threats to Europe from IS and its affiliates in Africa and the Middle East? Last […]

Last weekend, the Iraqi government reopened the country’s national museum in Baghdad 12 years after it was looted during the U.S.-led invasion. The unexpectedly early reopening was a small act of defiance after militants of the self-declared Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIS, released a propaganda video showing a rampage through the Mosul Museum. Some of the objects destroyed by the extremists in Mosul were plaster reproductions, and when toppled over smashed quickly in a cloud of dust. But others were ancient limestone originals, millennia-old, struck with sledgehammers and jackhammers. The museum houses a vast collection of antiquities from […]

When the idea first emerged of giving a speech before the U.S. Congress on the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political advisers must have thought the platform would give him a strong boost in Israel’s upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for March 17. The hero’s welcome they expected Netanyahu to receive would all but ensure success in his quest for another term in the prime minister’s office. Electoral politics, to be sure, were not the only or even the principal reason for Netanyahu’s decision to deliver his controversial address. Netanyahu genuinely sees himself […]

Southeast Asia confronts a diverse range of challenges, from the need for reform in Indonesia to the erosion of democracy in Thailand. Some countries in the region are battling insurgencies at home, while others attempt to counter China’s rising influence abroad. This report draws on articles covering the region over the past year. Governance, Reform and Democracy Ruling Party the Only Significant Loser in Indonesia’s Parliamentary ElectionsBy Andrew ThornleyApr. 25, 2014 For Jokowi, Maintaining Indonesia’s Role Abroad Depends on Domestic ReformBy Prashanth ParameswaranAug. 4, 2014 Jokowi’s Test: Managing Indonesia’s Old Guard—and Civil Society’s HopesBy Sue Gunawardena-VaughnAug. 19, 2014 Corruption Concerns […]

In recent months, Kenya has increased its crackdown on Islamic extremism, including mosque raids and alleged extrajudicial killings. In an email interview, Jeremy Prestholdt, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, discussed Kenya’s counterterrorism policies. WPR: What is Kenya’s current approach to counterterrorism, and how effective has it been at tackling terrorism threats? Jeremy Prestholdt: In recent years Kenya has experienced a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks. This escalation is closely linked to Kenyan military actions against al-Shabab insurgents in Somalia. In the wake of Kenya’s 2011 offensive, al-Shabab and its sympathizers in Kenya initiated a terror campaign […]

Diplomacy has always had a long, hard slog in the effort to find a settlement of the Iranian nuclear question. That slog hit its latest obstacle yesterday: With the U.S. and its negotiating partners in the final stretch of trying to hammer out an agreement with Tehran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress in an attempt to derail the deal. That there is even the possibility of a deal for Netanyahu to derail is itself something of a testament to the negotiators’ Herculean efforts, given the initially diametrically opposed preferences of the two main interlocutors, the Islamic […]

For many years, U.S. special operations forces (SOF) did important, often invaluable work, but were at the periphery of the U.S. military, simultaneously part of the team yet different. Commanders of conventional units often complained that SOF operating in the same area as their troops did little coordination and seemed to have their own objectives. The actions of special and conventional forces were more in parallel than synchronized. Even in the classrooms of the military’s staff and war colleges, the special operators were easy to spot, connected to their fellow students while somehow distinct. Then the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and […]