Defense & Security

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…

Recent negotiations between the U.S. peace envoy Zalmai Khalilzad and the Taliban’s newly appointed political chief Mullah Ghani Baradar have made rare progress, bringing the two sides closer to signing a pact.  Negotiations in Doha, Qatar—the location of the Taliban's political office—were followed by a conference in Moscow where members of…

Negotiating with extremist groups—militant or otherwise—undermines the state's sovereignty and security. In January 2019—in a landmark turn of events—the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted and ordered the immediate release of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman accused of blasphemy and placed on death row in 2010. While her release was cause for…

Great power competition between the United States and China will define the geopolitical landscape of East Asia. The Indo-Pacific region will see a fundamental shift in the geopolitical status quo throughout 2019. This shift is the result of many factors, but the most prominent is China’s rise as a political, economic, and military great power.…

Since Prime Minister Theresa May and then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson announced in 2016 a new Global Britain approach to the United Kingdom's (UK) position on the world stage, much speculation has been cast over precisely what this approach entails. A report recently released by the Henry Jackson Society's Global Britain program offers a more…