Archive for February 8th, 2010

Three Australian shipments to Iran have been secretly blocked by Defence Minister John Faulkner amid fears the cargo was destined for use in a weapons-of-mass-destruction… »

The Obama administration’s deadline for Iran to enter discussions on the nuclear issue has passed. As the White House and its allies weigh new policy options, Washington is still running with the old line that “all options are on the table.” Not really. Amid a global recession and double-digit unemployment, bombing Iran’s nuclear installations is… »

Despite the recent squall in U.S.-Chinese relations, both countries have powerful reasons to cooperate with one another. These have grown over the past two decades, a progression that both countries seem to… »

Cyberattacks on Google might be just the beginning. America’s former director of National Intelligence says the US should do what is necessary to defend itself before there is a catastrophic… »

Four British firms set to drill for oil north of Falkland Islands, in move Argentina calls a ‘violation of… »

Insurgent violence has continued unabated in the North Caucasus this week, with five federal servicemen dying in a shootout with insurgents in Chechnya and Russia’s security services again accusing Georgia of aiding militants in the North… »

Libya is banning YouTube and other websites used to disseminate messages against the… »

Iran’s proclaimed ambitions in Africa are particularly worrying for Israel, which once had a lot of friends on the continent and wants to keep the few that… »

Several African leaders, their relatives and associates used Western banks, including British ones, to move hundreds of millions of dollars out of their countries and into accounts and companies they controlled, according to a US Senate report released late last… »

The State Department has presented the credentials of Robert Ford, former U.S. deputy ambassador to Iraq, to the Syrian government for approval as ambassador in Damascus, according to the Syrian government. The ambassador’s residence in Damascus has been empty ever since the George W. Bush Administration accused the Assad regime of orchestrating the 2005 assassination… »

Traditional acts of terrorism and conventional military crises in Southwest Asia have nearly escalated into wars and, more recently, even threatened Indian and Pakistani nuclear use. Certainly, the war jitters that attended the recent terrorist attacks against Mumbai highlighted the nexus between conventional terrorism and war. For several weeks, the key worry in Washington was… »

Contested Commons is an edited volume featuring five chapters and a capstone piece on the future of American power in the sea, air, space and… »

The mismanagement of a national energy crisis has given Chavez’s opposition impetus to make a good showing at September legislative polls, yet the Venezuelan president’s own administrative missteps are more likely to lose him seats – by Samuel… »

On February 5, 2010, after multiple delays, Russia finally published its new Military Doctrine, which replaces an earlier document adopted in 2000. At the same time as he signed the Military Doctrine, President Dmitri Medvedev also signed “The Foundations of State Policy in the Area of Nuclear Deterrence until 2020,” which has not yet been… »

The current surge in United States military forces in Afghanistan part of a strategy designed to bring the war to an end from a position of strength. The great strains within the US military mean that the deployment of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan can be sustained only if forces can be withdrawn from Iraq at… »

The Report describes a world in which many countries still perceive external threats from both states and non-state actors and are modernising their militaries accordingly.

Western militaries have to judge against the recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan whether they need to prepare more for ‘war among the people’, or whether they can safely abstain from… »

Georgia has twice offered its territory as a potential transit corridor for Western military shipments to Afghanistan — first in February 2009, and again this week, when President Mikheil Saakashvili revived the proposal in an interview with the Associated… »

Si moltiplicano le voci, a Parigi e a Londra, di possibili più stretti accordi tra i due paesi nel campo della difesa. All’origine ci sono pochi semplici dati di fatto: Gran Bretagna e Francia, da soli, assicurano il 43% delle spese per la difesa dei 27 paesi dell’Unione europea (se aggiungiamo Germania e Italia arriviamo… »

For most of the past decade, Russian leaders and their top officials and businessmen have believed that their huge reserves of oil and gas would guarantee them prosperity and global influence for decades to come. But suddenly some cracks are emerging in that confidence. As often happens, technology is changing the conventional… »

The Yemeni archipelago of Socotra in the Indian Ocean is located some 80 kilometres off the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometres South of the Yemeni coastline. Socotra is at the crossroads of the strategic naval waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It is of crucial importance to the US military…. »

Concerned about greenhouse gases and conventional energy supplies, the International Energy Agency declared in its World Energy Outlook 2009 that the world needs a “much faster roll-out of renewables” through investment exceeding USD 4 trillion over the coming two… »

Coup-mongering is nothing new to Thailand, but speculation about an impending putsch was revved-up last week when over 20 armored vehicles were seen careering along the streets of… »

The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s victory in the presidential election held on January 26 becomes a defining moment for regional security. The speed with which western countries endorsed his victory has a deeper meaning than what meets the eye insofar as it came at the culmination of a barrage of incessant criticism of the… »

Fears are spreading from the Baltic to the Black Sea that Russia may be on the move again. According to experts, Moscow has put out feelers to some half a dozen Western European nations in bids to acquire advanced military hardware. If it bears results, the potential multibillion-dollar Russian shopping spree would be the first… »

UNASUR podría ser la respuesta a los problemas de seguridad y conflictos fronterizos entre Colombia y… »

Abu Mazen visited Russia from January 26 to January 28, 2010, as part of a round of meetings that included visits to Germany and Britain (his previous visit to Russia took place in April 2008). The Russians said that the purpose of the visit was to discuss renewing the peace process in the Middle East,… »

While the Obama Admistration’s three-year freeze on discretionary spending is a bad idea, it’s made even worse because unprecedented Pentagon spending is exempted from it. Exempting all security-related expenditures from common sense cuts will have serious consequences for almost everything the government does–from job creation, poverty reduction and alternative energy development, to aid for cash-strapped… »

Della recente visita di Silvio Berlusconi in Israele sono stati discussi soprattutto le implicazioni di politica internazionale. Minore attenzione è stata dedicata al suo significato per la politica estera italiana – l’asserito spostamento da una posizione percepita come filo-araba e filo-palestinese a una più equilibrata – e per la politica interna – la volontà di… »

President Obama is calling on NASA to cancel the program that was to return humans to the Moon by 2020, and focus instead on radically new space technologies. Mr. Obama’s 2010 budget proposal for NASA asks for $18 billion over five years for fueling spacecraft in orbit, new types of engines to accelerate spacecraft through… »

A key deadline for countries to submit emission reduction goals to the United Nations as part of the recently negotiated Copenhagen Accord passed last Sunday. The U.N. received commitments from 55 nations, but 139 countries remain unsupportive of the political statement, leading the international body to push back the commitment deadline… »

While US conservatives continue to push for a national ballistic missile defense system, even by invoking the film ‘Reefer Madness,’ the Pentagon is maneuvering away the idea and focusing more on theater… »

Over the past several months, a number of reports have circulated that address the subject of drug trafficking ties between South American narcotics trafficking interests and terrorist organizations, principally Al Qaeda and its smaller affiliates now known to be based in Northern Africa. These assessments have cited evidence pointing to a disturbing ring, an “unholy… »

Iraqi security officials joined their U.S. counterparts in inaugurating a section of a Syrian border security fence as tensions with the outlawed Baath Party escalate. The primary purpose of the fence was to prevent smugglers and other criminal elements from crossing into… »

Just a few months ago, Ramzan Kadyrov’s position as Chechen Republic head appeared unassailable. He was even named in December as a possible candidate for the post of federal official responsible for the entire North Caucasus. But since the start of the year, he has incurred veiled criticism from both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and… »

Oil and natural gas companies play a central role in CO2 emissions. How can the industry meet the challenge from climate change… »

In mid-January, a largely unknown body called the Justice and Accountability Commission issued an order disqualifying 511 candidates from participating in the Iraqi general election, slated for March 7, 2010, on grounds of membership in, or sympathy to, the dissolved Ba’th Party which ruled Iraq for 35 years. The commission’s chairman is Dr. Ahmed… »