War & Conflict Archive

In June 2009, a computer worm called Stuxnet was unleashed against the nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz, Iran. Designed to infect the operating system used by the Iranians to control their nuclear centrifuges, Stuxnet significantly disrupted, and thus delayed, Iranian nuclear efforts, according to a New York Times report on Jan. 15, 2011. The Times report also provided a breathtaking peek behind the scenes of what appears to have been a large and complex covert operation to develop the Stuxnet worm. If the revelations are true, then the Stuxnet attack provides significant insights about the potential character of war by […]

The World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report is out, and this year’s version highlights the interplay between “conflict, security, and development.” That’s a welcome theme to someone who’s spent the last decade describing how globalization’s spreading connectivity and rules have rendered certain regions stable, while their absence has condemned others to perpetual strife. But although the growing international awareness of these crosscutting issues is long overdue, the report ultimately disappoints by focusing only on the available tools with which great powers might collaborate on these stubborn problems, while ignoring the motivations that prevent them from doing so. First, the good […]

The uprising against the 41-year rule of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi began peacefully. But when government troops used force to suppress the demonstrations, they escalated into what increasingly looks like a civil war. Opposition forces, based mostly in the east, are fighting the much better-equipped and better-trained Gadhafi troops. But their leaders are trying to change that.

The Obama administration’s reluctant involvement in the Libya operation recalls the Biblical adage, “One man sows, another reaps.” The United States agreed to undertake the heavy lifting needed to get the air campaign started, in particular handling the precision strikes to disable Moammar Gadhafi’s air defenses, suppress some of his heavy weapon capabilities and target the very centers of his regime’s power in Tripoli. But the understanding was that responsibility would subsequently be transferred onto the shoulders of others: the Libyan rebels, our NATO allies and other partners. In every speech and statement, President Barack Obama was quite clear that […]

Calls by demonstrators for greater political freedoms are getting louder in Damascus and, according to reports from Aleppo, Syria’s second city, one hundred anti-government protesters have demonstrated at the main university there. Three students have been arrested in what is thought to be the city’s first demonstration during the recent wave of unrest.

The world’s emerging economic giants have called for a reform of the global financial system at their annual summit. According to this report by the Russian government-owned global news station Russia Today, the so-called BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — have also commented on NATO’s operation in conflict-torn LIbya.

CAMP KHELAGAY, BAGHLAN, Afghanistan — What most impressed the Hungarian army captain about his Afghan army counterparts wasn’t so much their proficiency at maneuvering and holding their own under enemy fire — they’ve been at it for a while, after all. Rather, it was their increasingly apparent ability to plan and execute entire operations almost on their own that impressed the captain, whose name must be withheld under standard Hungarian army media rules. The Afghans have proven capable of conducting difficult and dangerous missions such as finding and disposing of deadly roadside bombs laid down by the Taliban, the biggest […]

Full-blown civil war may have been averted in Côte d’Ivoire, but it remains to be seen how the post-election turmoil might influence the behavior of power players in other African elections. “The most important thing in an election is not the voting process but the aftermath,” asserted a recent BBC commentary, which went on to ask, “Will losers accept the verdict? Will the winner humble the vanquished?” Richard Downie, deputy director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic International Studies in Washington, believes Côte d’Ivoire’s election is “a case of precedent,” particularly within the context of U.S. policy […]

The Russian government has effectively managed to balance its competing interests regarding Libya, despite having much less influence on events there than many other governments. The Russian delegation to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) voted to impose sanctions against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime for its violent suppression of peaceful demonstrators, but abstained on the crucial March 17 vote authorizing the use of force to protect civilians from the Libyan government. Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said that Moscow could not support the resolution since it lacked clearly defined limits on using military force. After Western countries initiated wide-ranging military operations against […]

President of Yemen is rejecting the offer from Gulf Cooperation Council nations, led by Qatar, to sponsor mediation over political transition in the country. “We derive our power and legitimacy from the people of Yemen,” he said, as thousands of supporters and opponents gathered in capital Sanaa.

A recent issue of the prestigious European magazine Europe’s World contains an eye-catching advertisement for NATO: “Question: Which organization adopted a new vision of its geopolitical role in Lisbon? Hint: It wasn’t the European Union!” The ad’s not so subtle jibe has been borne out by the Libyan crisis, which caught the EU, but not NATO, by surprise. Despite the $43 million the European Commission made available for humanitarian assistance to those in Libya and neighboring countries most affected by the crisis, as well as the EU’s prompt imposition of an arms embargo and an asset freeze on the Libyan […]

One year ago, Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya was being praised for its efforts to become a responsible stakeholder in the international system. Meanwhile, Gadhafi’s children, especially his son Saif al-Islam, were being cultivated as the best hope for initiating a process of political and economic reform, so that Libya might replicate the path blazed by Taiwan, where another dynastic transfer of power from father to son led to democratization. Indeed, Gadhafi’s son Khamis was in the United States on a professional internship when the current crisis broke out. He was quickly recalled to take command of the 32nd Reinforced Brigade of […]

The Israeli President met with American politicians in Washington over the political crisis in the Arab World. But he expressed optimism over the wave of political change.

This footage offers an inside look at the fighting by rebels in Libya. According to the Russia’s government-owned global news network Russia Today, rebels in Libya say they’ve been hit by a NATO airstrike, with some reports suggesting as many as 13 people have been killed. This comes as UK officials are investigating Libyan claims that British planes destroyed the Arab state’s largest oil field, killing three guards.

The potential long-term impact of the Libya intervention has more to do with changing people’s thinking than with changing the reality on the ground in Libya. The past 40 years have already demonstrated that the West can manage the discrete problem represented by Moammar Gadhafi. What it cannot handle is the aggregate problem represented by a continuation of the status quo, both in the broader region but also in the shifting geopolitical landscape beyond it. By highlighting a number of major shortcomings in that status quo, the Libyan intervention just might be the wake-up call needed to generate a more […]

This is the first of a two-part series examining diversification efforts by Latin American drug-trafficking networks. Part I examines the FARC’s illegal gold-mining operations in Colombia. Part II will examine Mexican drug traffickers’ use of oil-tapping to generate revenues. For more than 40 years, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has waged a bloody war against the Colombian government, financed largely through cocaine trafficking. Over the past decade, as the Colombian government marshaled U.S. military assistance to greater effect, the FARC has seen its guerilla ranks diminished by about half. Meanwhile, coca eradication programs in the Colombian countryside […]

On Sunday, Guido Westerwelle announced his resignation as German vice chancellor and leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition government. Endless disputes had already bogged down Merkel’s second administration even before it stumbled in its response to Japan’s tsunami-triggered nuclear crisis and its vote on the U.N. resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Last week, however, the bill came due, and the coalition was trounced in two crucial state elections. Since then, with the FDP in open revolt, the coalition government has been in utter chaos, and the fate of its […]