In terms of U.S.-North Korean relations, the year began auspiciously, mysteriously, or even inauspiciously, depending on how one interpreted North Korea’s New Year’s state-run media editorial. The full text can be found here. The passage most frequently quoted in the Western press seemed promising. The editorial stated: The fundamental problem arising in guaranteeing the peace […]
Al Jazeera reports on the global response to Haiti’s earthquake: The PBS Newshour reports on the disaster relief efforts of the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti (MINUSTAH): And the New York Times elaborates on the Pentagon’s response: Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that 9,000 to 10,000 American troops […]
The argument that climate change is a long-term security concern is strong (see CNA’s report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change). The argument is also fairly strong that American power would benefit if the U.S. were to take the lead on innovating energy technology (see Thomas Friedman’s recent column, in which he warns […]
In the midst of a debate about whether the Boumediene v. Bush decision granting habeus corpus rights to Guantanamo prisoners should apply to prisoners at Bagram, the U.S. has arranged for Afghan officials to take control of the prison.
Another missed-during-holiday-hiatus story worth looking at comes from ArmsControlWonk. Peruse the results of a 2005 survey of nonproliferation experts: More than 78% of respondents agreed that one or two new nations would acquire nuclear weapons during the next five years. More than 89% agreed that between one and three new nuclear nations would emerge during […]
* From Juan Cole – Find out about Andy Worthington’s comprehensive research on Guantanamo detainees. * From Opinio Juris – Find out about the recent D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision on some Guantanamo habeas petitions.
In a pre-Christmas New York Times op-ed, Alan Kuperman wrote about the potential downside to a U.S.-led preventive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities: As for knocking out its nuclear plants, admittedly, aerial bombing might not work. Some Iranian facilities are buried too deeply to destroy from the air. There may also be sites that American […]
Holiday hiatus is now officially over. Much happened over the past two weeks, of course – an attempted terrorist attack against a U.S. commercial airplane, a Chinese prosecution of a dissident, an Iran-Iraq border dispute, an Iranian crackdown on Ashura, the shift of U.S. public attention to Yemen which, as a New York Times op-ed […]
I’ll be away for the next couple weeks on holiday hiatus. For your special holiday surprise, click….. HERE! See you in 2010.
This year has been rife with “law and security strategy” activity. Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, infiltrating Gaza in an assault that later prompted the controversial Goldstone Report. Pakistan struck “Sharia law for peace” deals with the Taliban to stave off social unrest in Pakistani territory. The UN General Assembly debated the fate of the […]
* Is the war in Afghanistan moral? Patrick Frost of FPA Afghanistan and I have found ourselves debating the issue in the comments sections of one of his posts. Check it out. * Though maybe we could forgo this whole moral debate and simply seek the advice of robots. * And on an unrelated note, […]
Speaking of R2P, might I wet your palate with a preview of the FPA-produced Great Decisions episode on R2P? The whole thing will air on PBS next year…
The Council on Foreign Relations has published a report authored by Matthew Waxman about the responsibility to protect (R2P). Waxman asks “whether the current international legal regime with regard to the use of military force – that is, international law regulating the resort to armed intervention – is appropriate and effective in determining and stopping […]