Defense & Security

Foreign Brief analysis by Tommy Chai (May 31, 2019) What's Happening?China’s military expansion is occurring at a time when Taiwan is becoming more resistant to cross-strait reunification, and the U.S. is altering its commitment to Taiwan, suggesting an increasingly dangerous decade ahead in the Taiwan Strait. Key Insights Taiwan’s democratic…

Russian disinformation campaigns continue to increase, and increasingly seems to be part of a coordinated campaign to overwhelm democracies. In 2017, Catalonia held an illegal referendum on independence from Spain, despite it having been declared unconstitutional by the Spanish Constitutional Court. While 92% of referendum voters supported…

On April 21st, Sri Lanka suffered from several lethal terrorist attacks that killed at least 359 people and injured over 500 more. Of the victims, thirty-five were citizens of foreign states. According to Sri Lankan authorities, multiple terrorists attacked large hotels and Christian churches with explosives. Sri Lankan security services have…

Correctly appraising the rise of China is the sine qua non for engaging with it.In contrast to its predecessors, the Trump administration has brought about some relevant changes to U.S. foreign policy towards the People’s Republic of China. According to the 2018 National Defense Strategy, "inter-state strategic competition" has reappeared as the…

The obsession in the United States with the “war on terror” entered a new phase when U.S. President Donald Trump formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).  According to the statement, the designation is “the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another…

Eight years after Qaddafi's fall, Libya remains in a state of chaos due to the fragmentation of power and contrast between West and East Libya (Tripoli and Tobruk)—as well as tribal conflicts (especially in the Fezzan). This affects both the rebuilding of active state institutions and the process of national reconciliation. While the Libyan…

The world stood on the precipice of a nuclear war in the final week of February 2019. This article is a continuation of a previous analysis of the Pulwama attack that examined how the attack and the way in which India responded threatened South Asian security.  Following a terrorist attack on an Indian security forces convoy in Pulwama, Kashmir,…

The Pulwama Bombing, India’s Response, and its Impact on South Asian Security The Pulwama bombings in Kashmir on February 14th, 2019 sent shockwaves throughout South Asia. An unstable and tense region, to begin with, the bombing brought about greater instability and tension between the region’s two leading powers: India and Pakistan. The terrorist…

On multiple occasions over the past several years, Afghan and Pakistani forces have clashed with one another along the Durand Line that demarcates the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line was drawn in 1893 by Britain, the ruling power in the region during the 19th century. The implementation of the line resulted in the…

Pandora's Box of cyber warfare was opened when the United States and Israel initiated the Stuxnet attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure in the summer of 2010. In response, Iran hit back by attacking the computer systems of Bank of America and Saudi Aramco—affecting around seventy-five percent of the latter corporation's computer systems.…

From the very beginning, the war in Afghanistan has been about managing expectations. Why is the United States there, what does it intend to achieve, what is the desired end-state, and what is the theory of victory? Nobody expected the U.S. and its NATO allies to turn Afghanistan into another Switzerland—nor did Afghans and the international…