War & Conflict Archive

The Thai government announced today that it has agreed to conduct peace talks with one of the groups involved in Thailand’s southern insurgency, following a highly ambitious but unsuccessful raid by insurgents in the country’s south earlier this month. Jeff Moore, an expert on Thailand’s insurgencies, explained the context of the attack and the government’s previous efforts at talks in an email interview from Thailand conducted before the talks were announced. WPR: What has been the recent course of Thailand’s southern insurgency? Jeff Moore: Most recently we’ve seen a beehive of activity. Insurgents have steadily recovered from major government counterinsurgency […]

No topic in American security inspires more heated debate these days than the Obama administration’s use of drone strikes against armed militants, terrorists and their supporters. While debate and scrutiny of public policy is a good thing, a hefty proportion of this criticism is badly misguided, often mistaking the use of drones as America’s strategy itself. In large part this reflects a failure on the part of the Obama administration to develop a convincing narrative to explain the assumptions, logic and ultimate objectives of its strategy. Without seeing the big picture, it is difficult to understand how drone strikes fit […]

One of the issues newly inaugurated South Korean President Park Geun-hye will need to address is the demands from a growing faction of her own party for either the United States to return tactical nuclear weapons to the South or for Seoul to develop its own nuclear arsenal. In light of the apparently successful Feb. 12 North Korean nuclear test, this faction believes that Seoul needs a similar nuclear capability to deter potential North Korean military threats. Extended deterrence of the kind the U.S. currently provides South Korea requires that the guarantor has the capacity to defend the country threatened […]

Will Ban Ki-moon leave a substantial legacy when he completes his second term as secretary-general of the United Nations at the end of 2016? This question may seem premature. Ban has been in office for more than six years, but he has nearly four more to go. Yet, as Ban has already discovered, a U.N. secretary-general’s schedule is consumed by a mix of urgent crises and hollow diplomatic rituals. Last week, for example, Ban oversaw the signing of a new peace deal for the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but also had to make time for a speech launching the […]

Armed groups proliferate like rabbits in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the state’s collapse in the early 1990s through two wars at the turn of the 21st century to today, the lack of government control over the country’s territory makes it easy for a few dozen — or a few thousand — men to take up arms, tax local populations, exploit natural resources and engage in massive human rights abuses against civilian populations. The DRC’s numerous armed groups are formed for a diverse array of reasons, ranging from legitimate concerns over land rights in the country’s eastern Kivu […]

European soldiers, often mocked by American analysts in recent years, are back in fashion. France’s intervention in Mali has inspired commentators on both sides of the Atlantic to wonder whether, in the words of Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post, “the European Union could become the world’s policeman.” French President François Hollande’s willingness to go to war excites those who believe the Obama administration is too cautious in its use of military strength. Philip Stephens of the Financial Times observes that “Europeans have caught the interventionist bug just as the U.S. has shaken it off.” There are some obvious problems […]

As the United States military prepares to move beyond Iraq and Afghanistan and develop new strategies, operating concepts and organizations, policymakers are asking whether there are any useful lessons to be learned from the more than decade-long global war on terrorism. Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines (OEF-P) is an instructive case that can provide possible considerations for the future. The U.S. military’s experience in the Philippines is particularly relevant, as the December 2012 Army Capstone Concept guiding the service’s future operations envisions regionally focused brigade combat teams with the ability to conduct security force assistance with host-nation forces. More importantly, the Capstone […]

Across the globe, partner capacity-building through steady-state theater security cooperation (.pdf) plays an increasingly important role in the forward defense posture of the United States. The Defense Department’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (.pdf) identifies building the security capacity of partner states as a key mission, while the 2010 National Security Strategy (.pdf) argues that the United States can advance its national security by enabling partner states to prevent, deter and respond to transnational security challenges before they pose a threat to U.S. citizens, interests or the homeland. Moreover, at a time of budgetary constraints, partner capacity-building through theater security cooperation […]

From the standpoint of America’s national security, the most important assignment in your military career may not necessarily be commanding U.S. soldiers, but advising or mentoring the troops of other nationals as they battle the forces of terror and the instability within their own borders. – Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, West Point, April 21, 2008 (.pdf) Historically, Western armies have struggled with the task of training, advising and assisting host-nation security forces to defeat irregular adversaries. This is part and parcel of their broader problem with irregular conflict. Conventional military forces are designed for combat against counterpart forces of […]

Governments and independent experts have found countless metrics to evaluate the successes and failures of military interventions such as those in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, judging them on everything from casualty rates to the provision of public services. The number of girls attending school in Afghanistan, for example, has been a standard point of reference for supporters of the NATO mission there. But what metrics can be used to evaluate a deliberate nonintervention? This question is grimly relevant to assessments of the West’s decision not to take military action in Syria to date. Advocates of an intervention have a lot […]

In a recent visit to Southeast Asia, his first overseas trip as Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe openly baited Beijing over the disputed Senkaku Islands. In a direct reference to China, Abe declared, “Open seas are public assets, and Japan will do its utmost to protect them by cooperating with the [Association of Southeast Asian Nations].” During the three-day trip, in which he visited Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, Abe underscored his key concern by repeatedly voicing Japan’s opposition to any changing of the “status quo by force” — especially in territorial disputes involving China and its neighbors in East […]