War & Conflict Archive

Over the past several weeks, a series of articles have noted the absence of any discussion of the Afghanistan War in the U.S. presidential campaign. President Barack Obama might be avoiding the subject, but for better or worse, his policy is a matter of record. By contrast, GOP candidate Mitt Romney has yet to articulate an Afghanistan policy. Of course, it shouldn’t strike anyone as curious that the Romney campaign is as reluctant to talk about Afghanistan as the Obama administration. After all, the war is terribly unpopular. The administration has apparently determined the safest thing to do politically is […]

Syrian rebels say the Prime Minister’s defection is “turning point” while amateur video showed government forces dropping bombs on Aleppo. World News Videos by NewsLook

Well over a year since forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara overthrew Ivory Coast’s former leader Laurent Gabagbo, Ouattara is still struggling to stabilize his country. Video News by NewsLook

AZAAZ, Syria — As the fighting intensifies between government forces and the opposition Free Syrian Army for control of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, the rebels are consolidating their hold over large tracts of territory elsewhere in northern Syria. Azaaz, an important city close to the Turkish border, fell to the FSA on July 19, after a month of heavy fighting. In that battle, government forces had been pushed back to a single compound, where they held out for weeks while the Syrian army tried to relieve them with tank incursions, helicopter gunships attacks and artillery shelling. Yet rebel forces managed […]

Syria’s Kurds, hostile to a regime that has oppressed them and suspicious of the opposition, are focusing on unity and managing their own region in the face of an uncertain future. World News Videos by NewsLook

When the United States led an international coalition in a military intervention against the regime of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi last year, I was among those who argued the campaign was not in the vital interests of the United States. Libya, a country of just 6 million people and around 3 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, was simply not important enough to risk the lives of U.S. servicemen — or any more treasure, given what the United States had already spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. My own experiences in both of those countries as a soldier have […]