Defense and Military Articles
Top Story - Column
By Robert Farley
22 Feb 2012
Column
The case for attacking Iran relies on the concept of uncertainty. We don’t know if the Iranians want to build a bomb, or if they can build a bomb, or what the consequences will be if they do build a bomb. It’s understandable how so much uncertainty can trigger anxiety. What is less clear is how we arrived at the notion that airstrikes against the Iranian nuclear program can eliminate this uncertainty.
By Prashanth Parameswaran
21 Feb 2012 |
Briefing
The U.S. relationship with Singapore has been and continues to be one of its most important and successful in the Asia-Pacific. Today, the city-state is America's 13th-largest trading partner, hosts U.S. naval ships in its waters and offers valuable strategic advice on a variety of policy questions. Yet while ties are at an all-time high, the relationship still faces lingering concerns and challenges.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
20 Feb 2012 |
Column
The national rebuilding project now facing America has us toggling between bouts of renewed self-confidence and crippling self-doubt. But the same thread runs through both cycles of this national bipolar disorder: the assumption that we must bear this burden alone. That assumption is our greatest weakness right now. Frankly, Americans should know their own history better and trust in themselves more.
By Catherine Cheney
17 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
Though all eyes have been on Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping this week, the heir apparent to Chinese President Hu Jintao will not be the only new face to emerge in China's leadership transition.
By Catherine Cheney
15 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
After years of controversy and disagreement, the U.S. and Japan agreed last week to decouple the terms of an agreement to close the U.S. Marines’ Futenma air base in Okinawa, after negotiations over relocating the base elsewhere on the island had reached a stalemate.
By Robert Farley
15 Feb 2012 |
Column
Over the past two weeks, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps conducted an exercise off the Atlantic seaboard designed to refine expertise in amphibious operations and test new amphibious capabilities. The exercise demonstrated the continued importance of amphibious capabilities within the U.S. policy “toolbox,” while also providing an opportunity to refine and extend those capabilities.
By The Editors
13 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
In an email interview, Courtney Richardson, a research fellow at the International Security Program at Harvard University's Belfer Center and a doctoral student at Tufts University's Fletcher School, discussed China's peacekeeping deployments.
By Nikolas Gvosdev
10 Feb 2012 |
Column
After a period of healthier ties following the much-heralded reset, U.S.-Russia relations appear to be deteriorating. Nor does the immediate future bode well for "resetting the reset." But does this mean that the U.S.-Russia relationship is doomed to fall back to a more confrontational posture, as occurred in 2007 and 2008, when analysts were warning of a "new Cold War"? That depends on several factors.
By The Editors
10 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
In an email interview, Alexander Nikitin, director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, discussed Russia’s involvement with international peacekeeping.
By Saurav Jha
09 Feb 2012 |
Briefing
The United States' oft-expressed desire to support India’s emergence as a great power in fact reveals the distance that still separates the two. The U.S. struggles with India’s non-alignment impulses, while India sees relations in a globalized era as depending on balance of interests, not balance of power. This differing approach to globalization prevents the two from fully consolidating relations.
By Catherine Cheney
09 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
CIA operatives and special operations forces, who were the first in to Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, will also likely be the last out.
By Robert Farley
08 Feb 2012 |
Column
The four-decade-and-counting saga of the A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft continued last week, when the Air Force announced it would cut five A-10 squadrons to reduce costs. Defense wonks met the announcement with a storm of criticism, but little surprise. The fight over the A-10 represents not so much a disagreement over technology, but rather a bureaucratically driven dispute over the nature of warfare.
By The Editors
08 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
In an email interview, W. Alex Sanchez, a research fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, discussed UNASUR defense cooperation.
By Iain Mills
08 Feb 2012 |
Briefing
China's policy of non-interference in the affairs of other nations fails to protect its expanding overseas interests and has caused a trust deficit with regard to China’s intentions at an intergovernmental level. This raises the question of how long the non-interference policy can be sustained, and whether Chinese interests would be better served by abandoning it for a less rigid position.
By Catherine Cheney
07 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
Over the past 10 days, 54 Chinese nationals have been taken prisoner in Sudan and Egypt, putting greater pressure on China to protect its 800,000 citizens working overseas in resource-rich but high-risk investment environments.
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
06 Feb 2012 |
Column
Arguably the greatest strategic gift offered by America to the world has been our consistent willingness to maintain a high entry barrier to the “market” that is great-power war. However, a case can be made that the greatest threat to this component of global stability is now a U.S. national security establishment intent on pressing the boundaries of this heretofore sacrosanct responsibility.
By The Editors
06 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
In an email interview, Joseph N. Pelton, the former dean of the International Space University and director emeritus of the Space and Advanced Communications Research Institute at George Washington University, discussed the Wideband Global Satellite Partnership.
By The Editors
03 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
In an email interview, James R. Holmes, a specialist in Asian sea power at the U.S. Naval War College, discussed the Indian navy.
By Nikolas Gvosdev
03 Feb 2012 |
Column
Now that the Western powers have endorsed the Arab League’s call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, even if that formulation is ultimately edited out of any U.N. Security Council resolution, it is time to start making plans for the contingencies that may erupt on "the day after." This means moving beyond the optimistic scenarios most Western policymakers continue to cling to.
By Shehzad H. Qazi
02 Feb 2012 |
Briefing
On Nov. 26, NATO helicopters mistakenly killed 26 Pakistani soldiers at the Salala checkpoint. In the aftermath of the incident, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Committee on National Security began a comprehensive review of relations with the U.S. After nearly two months of deliberations, the PCNS is set to release its recommendations, with both positive and negative implications for the scope of future ties.
By The Editors
01 Feb 2012 |
Trend Lines
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez last month appointed as defense minister a general allegedly linked to a Colombian rebel group, raising concerns that the move might jeopardize the two countries’ recent thaw in relations. In an email interview, Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security at the Washington Office on Latin America, discussed the Colombia-Venezuela security relationship.