War & Conflict Archive

In thinking about the trajectory of President Barack Obama’s approach to the Afghanistan War, from the initial March 2009 strategy review to the December 2009 troop surge to last night’s address, it occurred to me that, when it comes to the politics of the war, Afghanistan has gone from being the “Good War” to being what is now the “Subprime War.” The administration’s initial March 2009 review was the equivalent of a “nothing down” mortgage. As I noted at the time, it threaded a political needle, articulating a strategy — a counterinsurgency approach to counterterrorism — that allowed everyone to […]

I just wanted to add a couple of final thoughts to my post last week on the Libya . . . war. I initially agreed with the Obama administration’s sense that the U.S. participation did not rise to the constitutional threshold of war powers. But just about every online writer whose opinion I respect considers that assessment to be not only unconvincing but ridiculous on its face. That, combined with the fact that we now know the administration arrived at it by cherrypicking its own internal legal advice, makes me realize that I, like the Obama administration, was taking an […]

Muammar Gadhafi’s forces have shelled the Libyan rebel stronghold of Misrata. The damage to property, livestock and morale shook residents who believed the siege was over.

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on rebel groups in Central Africa. Part I examines recent moves toward peace and stability in Chad and the Central African Republic. Part II will examine ongoing instability in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On June 12, the government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and the country’s last major rebel force, the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace, signed a peace agreement. The following day, mediators in Chad reached a peace deal with the Popular Front for Reconstruction, a rebel movement based in the CAR […]

Nationalists and unionists clash in a second night of violence in Northern Ireland.

Sen. John McCain is worried about the direction of U.S. foreign policy, especially within his own party. Some Republican presidential contenders have questioned the nation-building mission in Afghanistan. Others point out that the undeclared war in Libya is neither necessary nor constitutional. “This is isolationism,” an aghast McCain declared on the ABC News program “This Week.” Isolationism? The term “isolationist” is little more than a slur. It essentially means someone who thinks the U.S. should engage in fewer foreign wars than the speaker does. The term emerged in the late-19th century, when it was made popular by the ardent militarist […]

Two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired a parting broadside at the NATO alliance. Gates argued that many European countries have chronically underfunded defense, to the extent that they are now incapable of contributing to the multilateral expeditionary operations that have become part of the alliance’s portfolio. Gates’ exasperation focused mainly on operations in Libya, which have now considerably outlasted expectations and may soon outlast the will and capability of NATO’s European members. It is worth noting, however, that protection of Libyan civilians through airstrikes sits so far outside NATO’s founding purpose that the framers of the 1949 treaty […]

A month after the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden, defense analysts are pointing to a growing collaboration between conventional and irregular forces and are calling for a lighter global military footprint, one based on raiding and strike capability rather than ponderous presence. The newfound enthusiasm for “collaborative warfare” is reviving a concept once thought dead: network-centric warfare (NWC). Paradoxically, NWC has proved itself well-suited to low-intensity operations and the culture of special operations forces, where once it was commonly associated with high-intensity conflict against a peer competitor. But NWC’s low-intensity revival also suggests that it will continue to face […]

The Asan Institute for Policy Studies held its first Asan Plenum in Seoul, South Korea, from June 12-15. The plenum, which the institute plans to make an annual event, gathered representatives of the world’s leading think tanks to discuss a single global challenge, which will vary from year to year. The goal is for the dialogue to then influence the policies of the world’s governments toward the chosen issue. This year’s plenum addressed “Our Nuclear Future,” with the goal of providing “a much-needed comprehensive reassessment of safety and security issues which have crucial implications for our nuclear future.” Some 250 […]

It is tempting to view the Obama administration’s new cyber strategy as the creation of yet another “conflict domain” to worry about in U.S. national security. Thus, in our enduring habit of piling new fears on top of old ones — nuclear proliferation, terror, rising powers and failed states, among others — we imagine yet another vulnerability/threat/enemy to address with buckets of money. In truth, the strategy document is just our government finally acknowledging that, as usual, any fruitful international dialogue on this subject awaits the first move by the system’s most advanced military power. The same stalemate exists in […]

The announcement this week by India that it would be withdrawing its four remaining attack helicopters from the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo highlighted a long-simmering problem: The U.N. is desperate for more military helicopters. According to Alain LeRoy, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, military helicopters are badly needed for peacekeeping missions, particularly in Africa. While the shortage is serious and severely limits the U.N.’s ability to successful implement its mandates, there are several straightforward changes that the U.N. can make to its policies and procedures that would make contributing the needed helicopters more […]

Swathes of settlements on Syria’s northern border now appear to be little more than ghost towns. The Syrian army is reportedly sweeping through the region, as it tries to stamp out widespread anti-government dissent.

Tax and customs fees collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority are supposed to be used to pay wages. However, according to this report by the Russian government-owned news network Russia Today, Israel has refused to hand over the cash on several occasions, saying it could be used to fund terrorist attacks.

It has been roughly 90 days since the Libyan intervention began, and roughly 89 that it has been criticized for being a demonstration of strategic and operational incompetence. It has also been used as proof of the demise of everything from U.S. leadership to Europe’s expeditionary capabilities to NATO’s viability as an alliance. There’s something very familiar to me about this kind of over-the-top reaction: I recognize it as my own following every U.S. intervention of the past 20 years. There is perhaps nothing more maddening than watching one’s country engage in a war that one does not believe in. […]

The CIA’s plan for a secret Persian Gulf base to launch drone attacks on suspected terrorists in Yemen has escalated the debate over just how far the United States can go with such attacks before violating accepted principles of international law. “The whole use of drones in Pakistan and Yemen raises the question of whether the United States is really in a war with a loosely organized terrorist organization whose members seem to pop up in diverse locations,” says Geoffrey Corn, a former military lawyer and World Politics Review contributor who teaches at South Texas College of Law. “People like […]

The Obama administration appears to be in the throes of yet another debate about the long-term U.S. commitment to Afghanistan. Inside the administration, officials are weighing not only the material costs of remaining in Afghanistan, but also the political and bureaucratic implications of continuing the war. Undoubtedly, some are asking the question, “What would a withdrawal from Afghanistan say about the United States?” Some might answer that a withdrawal would embolden America’s enemies and indicate that the United States is both weak and unwilling to stand behind its friends. The late, esteemed George Kennan suggested another interpretation of such a […]

Kenya and Ethiopia recently agreed to boost security along their shared border following deadly cross-border raids in May. In an email interview, Edmond J. Keller, chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles,* discussed Kenya-Ethiopia border security. WPR: What are the main areas of concern with regard to the Ethiopia-Kenya border? Edmond J. Keller: The border between Ethiopia and Kenya is more than 500 miles long and rests in very remote and underdeveloped parts of both countries. On the Kenya side, elements of the Turkana cattle herders are the population; on the Ethiopia side, […]