Security & Defense

New NATO division to deal with Emerging Security Challenges

By NATO

From NATO:  A new Division within the NATO International Staff has been created in order to deal with a growing range of non-traditional risks and challenges. The new Emerging Security Challenges Division (ESCD) started its work beginning of August and will be focusing notably on terrorism, the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, cyber defence, […]

NATO and Russia: Trust, but make military plans

By the Economist

From the Economist:  In the heart of NATO’s military headquarters, SHAPE, near the Belgian city of Mons, an unspoken revolution is taking place: planners are thinking about how to defend eastern European members from Russian attack.

NATO’s Cyber Threat

By James Joyner, the National Interest

Cyber Attacks and Article 5

By James Joyner

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization completes its new Strategic Concept, it should be resist expanding its guarantee of automatic response to include cyber and other unconventional attacks. Otherwise, it may fracture the alliance while, perversely, decreasing security against said actions. In a February speech to the Atlantic Council, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly suggested that […]

Deciding on an OSCE Summit

In the issue brief “Behind the Eight Ball: Deciding on an OSCE Summit,” co-authored by the Chairman of the task force, Senator Chuck Hagel, Patriciu Eurasia Center Director Ross Wilson, and Vice President and International Security Program Director Damon Wilson argue that the U.S. focus on Central Asia since 9/11 through the prism of the […]

Uncertain Kyrgyzstan: Rebalancing US policy

The international community is failing to respond in ways commensurate with the crisis

Pakistan in the danger zone

By Shuja Nawaz

The Atlantic Council presents the executive summary from its new report, Pakistan in the Danger Zone: a Tenuous U.S.-Pakistan Relationship by Shuja Nawaz, Director of the Council’s South Asia Center. The Afghanistan war may be lost on the battlefields of Pakistan, where a vicious conflict is now being fought by Pakistan against a homegrown insurgency […]

NATO rethinks its mission, perhaps too reluctantly

By the Christian Science Monitor

From the Christian Science Monitor:  NATO is years overdue for a major review of its purpose. The last time the transatlantic military alliance looked in the mirror was 1999 – before 9/11, before widespread cyberattacks, before Russia veered from the democratic path under Vladimir Putin.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan theater: Militant Islam, security & stability

What is the optimal strategy for the United States and its allies to pursue in Afghanistan? Observers across the political spectrum agree that military operations alone are not enough to secure Afghanistan against a powerful insurgency linked to global jihadism. There is increasing consensus as well that Pakistan – a refuge for important al-Qaeda figures, […]