War & Conflict Archive

Fatah, the party that dominates the Palestinian Authority, just held its first official gathering in 20 years andsome reportsclaimed the conference produced a strong commitment to peace and reconciliation within a rejuvenated organization. The reality is not quite as rosy. The Fatah that emerged from this event has a chance of strengthening its standing against Hamas, and there is a possibility, however remote, that some of the new faces in the leadership can start the scrubbing required to clean up the party’s reputation as a den of corrupt politicians living the high life on international aid — a reputation highlighted […]

In July, the Israeli navy — a force mostly confined to the eastern Mediterranean — sent three of its most powerful warships through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. A Dolphin-class diesel-powered submarine passed through the canal on July 3. Two Sa’ar 5-class corvettes followed, 10 days later. The ships trained alongside Egyptian forces, then returned to Israel by mid-July. It was the largest long-range naval deployment in recent history for the 5,500-strong Israeli navy, and the first since 2005 for an Israeli sub. The naval deployments are part of a wide range of activities meant to reinforce Israel’s […]

Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security appeared on Washington Journal Aug. 11 to talk about thestate of the Afghanistan war. Related from WPR: Abu Muqawama on Afghanistan: An Interview with Andrew ExumSpecial Report: Afghanistan

Recently, U.S. policy in Somalia hit a new low, with the shipment of 40 tons of arms to a government on the verge of overthrow, if not nervous collapse. Worse still, last Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and promised to expand U.S. support. This perpetuates a long history of unsuccessful meddling in the affairs of Somalia, from Black Hawk Down to air strikes against al-Qaida suspects to support for the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006. Somalia would be better off without our spasmodic interference. That’s […]

Thailand’s southern insurgency has becomemore violent of late, but Thai officials say the escalation is inresponse to the government’s increasingly effective counterinsurgencystrategy. Mark Oltmanns reports for WPR.

Thailand’s southern insurgency has becomemore violent of late, but Thai officials say the escalation is inresponse to the government’s increasingly effective counterinsurgencystrategy. Mark Oltmanns reports for WPR.

If July represents the first results of the Afghanistan surge, the portrait is sobering. With 75 troops killed, it was the deadliest month for the coalition since the war began. The British, who have about 9,000 soldiers in the country, were hit particularly hard, with eight soldiers killed in less than 24 hours recently. The painful news sounded political echoes in London. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee announced last week that “avoidable mistakes” have been part of a deficient strategy, leading to mission creep. It singled out the U.K.’s anti-poppy campaign, in particular, as a “poisoned chalice.” All […]

NEW DELHI — Two weeks after issuing a joint statement in Egypt that was welcomed around the world as a much-needed step towards narrowing their differences through dialogue, India and Pakistan have returned to their previously stated, belligerent positions. The two neighbours, whose history of conflict goes back over six decades, have backed off from the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation witnessed after the Mumbai terror attacks last November. But fresh questions are being raised here about Pakistan’s resolve in acting against terror groups active against India. The U.S. has helped keep the peace between the two countries in the past. After the […]

KAMPALA, Uganda — The bus destined for Gulu in northern Uganda hums and vibrates, its black exhaust pouring into Kampala’s deserted downtown streets, as a woman draped in a green dress stands up in front and calls for a prayer. Years ago, when Joseph Kony and his band of abducted child soldiers were still looting, maiming and terrorizing the north, prayer for this journey was essential. Yet three years after Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) were routed from northern Uganda — chased into isolated stretches of jungle in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African […]

There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when Somali clans across East Africa imagined a “pan-Somalia” encompassing former British, Italian and French colonies, in addition to portions of eastern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. The former British and Italian colonies — Somaliland in the north, and the southern U.N. Trust Territory of Somalia, respectively — had taken a tentative first step towards realizing this greater Somali state, when they merged in 1960 to form the Republic of Somalia. But the greater union was not to be. The former French colony declared independence, as Djibouti, and Ethiopia and Kenya each […]

To get a sense of what “complex operations” are, one need look no further than the kind of wars the U.S. fights when it intervenes overseas today. Unlike the total wars of the past, in which the U.S. military battled the national army of an enemy state, today’s struggles for security, stabilization, peace-building, reconstruction, and development in the most fragile states around the world are engaged by several different departments of the U.S. government. That’s it in a nutshell. But clearly, describing it is far easier than doing it. When you listen to how the best minds that are thinking […]

The Spanish government has accused the Basque terrorist group ETA of responsibility for back-to-back bombings last week that killed two people and injured more than 50 others. The bloody attacks came as ETA — short for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or Basque Fatherland and Freedom — marked the 50th anniversary of its founding. Analysts say ETA, which has been considerably weakened in recent years by aggressive counterterrorist police sweeps in Spain and France, hopes the bombings will not only boost sinking morale among its followers, but also force the Spanish government back to the negotiating table. The latest attack, which killed […]

These are nerve-racking times at the Pentagon. For “Big War” adherents, Iraq is not looking like the “one off” that many hoped it would be, as Afghanistan-Pakistan appears to be, if anything, an even harder slog. None of the dominant Big War scenarios are looking good, now that Iran is ever closer to nuclear deterrence, North Korea ever closer to collapse, and Taiwan ever closer to a peace deal with Beijing. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, meanwhile, is locking in a more balanced take on small wars versus large, and the serious Leviathan budget-cutting has begun. Clearly, a tipping point […]