Global Security
Global Security
Fair Observer's analysis of issues in governance, constitution, law, enforcement, and justice both nationally and internationally.
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360° Analysis / Gateway House / Kim Jong-Un / Korean peninsula / North Korea / Nuclear / obama / President Park / Pyongyang / Reshma Patil / Seoul / South Korea / United States / Washington DC / Global Security / AsiaBy Reshma Patil The new provocations from Pyongyang heighten the risk of a military showdown with the US, South Korea and Japan. China, the only power with sway over the regime, is exercising limited options for peace on the peninsula. An untested 30-year-old dictator declares a ‘state of war’ with South Korea, threatens to set Seoul ablaze in ‘a sea of fire’ and launch missile strikes on US military bases. He rules a rogue nuclear state; its army as large as India’s and its isolated population as small as Mumbai’s. Just how dangerous is North Korea now? Since taking over in December 2011 from father Kim Jong-il as the supreme leader of North Korea, the...
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360° Analysis / Alawite / Assad / Carl Anthony Wege / Civil War / Hezbollah / Iran / Iraq / Politics / Popular Committees / Resistance Axis / Revolutionary Guard / Sectarianism / Shia / Sunni / Syria / Middle East / Global SecurityCarl Anthony Wege, a renowned expert on the Levant region, decodes the complex sectarian dynamics behind the conflict in Syria and argues that the Syrian linchpin in the Shia crescent has vanished. The modern borders of Near Eastern states stretching across the Levant reflect little more than arbitrary remnants of 19th Century Western politics. Sometimes with intentionality, European colonial powers drew borders that ignored ethnic groups and natural boundaries, creating a politically unstable sectarian and geographic admixture. Syria’s Complex Sectarian Identities That unstable admixture exploded with the boiling ambition of both secular revolutionaries and Sunni Islamists into...
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1991 Gulf War / 360° Analysis / AIPAC / al-Qaeda / Congress / Ehud Barak / George W. Bush / Iraq / Iraq War / Israel Lobby / Neoconservatives / Politics / Saddam Hussein / Stephen Zunes / terrorism / United States / US Imperialism / WMD / Middle East / Global SecurityStephen Zunes argues that the blame for the Iraq war should not be put on the Israel lobby, but the Bush administration and US imperialism. This is the first of a two part series. Given the enormous tragedy of the US invasion of Iraq, the war's tenth anniversary has inevitably raised the question of “why?” As many of us predicted in the lead-up to the war, the official rationales for the US invasion of Iraq — namely, that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” and had operational ties to al-Qaeda — were false. And the corrupt, inept, and repressive sectarian government the United States helped establish in Baghdad has undermined any...
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1950 / 360° Analysis / Atal Bihari Vajpayee / Chinese incursions / Chinese military / Chinese troop / Communist China / Indian Army / Indo-China / Ladakh / Manmohan Singh / Nehru / Northern India / People’s Liberation Army / Politics / Salman Khurshid’s / war in 1962 / BRIC / Global Security / AsiaBy Mayank SinghWith the recent incursion of PLA soldiers inside Indian territory, Mayank Singh argues that the bilateral trade agreement with China needs to be made an instrument to resist Chinese aggression. “Not a blade of grass grows there,” proclaimed Jawaharlal Nehru in 1959, while referring to the Chinese incursion in Aksai Chin in the Ladakh region of Northern India. Nehru was then at the peak of his popularity. Therefore, the few dissenting voices who contested Nehru’s myopic view of Indo-China relations and sought to know the truth behind the Chinese incursions, received this self deceptive reply. Emboldened by the craven policies of a leader warped in the...
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1962 war / 360° Analysis / Beijing / Chinese military / economy / India-China War / Indian Army / Manmohan Singh Chinese troops / Mulayam Singh Yadav / Nisar Ahmed / Nitin A. Gokhale / Politics / Salman Khurshid / BRIC / Global Security / AsiaThe longer the India-China border face-off persists, the worse it will for the Indian government since the perception that New Delhi is unable to deal with Beijing’s bullying tactics will only get reinforced with time. For Nisar Ahmed, the sudden arrival of television crews into Leh, Ladakh’s capital, last week was disconcerting. As a top hotelier, he was sprucing up his two properties to get ready for domestic tourists who start flocking in droves to this high altitude desert. But last week he also had a small worry. A border incident in which Chinese troops had entered 19 km deep in the Indian Territory and stayed put, created quite an international stir. For Ahmed,...
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360° Analysis / Asian Football Development Project / Assad / IMF / Jordan / King Abdullah / Politics / Qatar / Refugees / Saudi Arabia / Soccer / Syria / UN / Water Crisis / Zatari Refugee Camp / Middle East / Global SecurityA groundswell of Syrian refugees pouring into Jordan threatens to increase social and political tension as a result of greater claims to limited resources and differing perceptions of refugees’ rights and obligations. The risk for Jordan is heightened by the fact that it could upset King Abdullah’s cautious reform policy aimed at preventing widespread discontent from morphing into a popular revolt. The unending flow of Syrian refugees into Jordan has placed acute pressure on the kingdom’s ability to cope with the crisis. It threatens to increase social and political tension as a result of increased claims to limited resources and differing perceptions of refugees’...
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360° Analysis / America / Justin Dargin / Kim Jong Un / Nishtha Chugh / North Korea / obama / President Park / Pyongyang / Seoul / South Korea / United States / Washington / Global Security / AsiaJustin Dargin, a geopolitics expert from the University of Oxford, speaks to Fair Observer's Nishtha Chugh about the implications of North Korea’s nuclear program and why its latest test is essentially a show of strength by its young leader. Nishtha Chugh: What is your evaluation of North Korea’s nuclear program compared to other nuclear states and industry technical know-how? Where do you think it stands? Justin Dargin: North Korea is a very recent nuclear state. It has conducted three nuclear tests so far, with the latest one conducted in February this year. When it conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, which was conducted underground, it did not produce the desired...
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360° Analysis / Kim Il-sung / Kim Jong-Un / North Korea / Nuclear / Nuclear Missile / Nuclear Program / obama / President Park / South Korea / United States / United States / War / Global Security / AsiaNorth Korea’s recent rhetoric is neither new nor surprising. While nuclear weapons in the hands of a volatile and irrational leader are cause for concern, it is unlikely that Pyongyang is on a suicide mission. The ongoing tensions between North Korea, South Korea and the United States have once again highlighted the vulnerability of the Korean Peninsula, a region often plagued by the possibility of war. The threat this time is from the untested 29-year-old Kim Jong-un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea and grandson of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung. The supreme leader has threatened to turn Seoul, the capital of South Korea, into a “sea of fire”, with...
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360° Analysis / Asia-Pacific / Kim Jong Un / Kim Jong-il / Michael Bassett / North Korea / obama / Pyongyang / Seoul / South Korea / United States / War / Washington / Global Security / AsiaBrinksmanship is a logical tactic deployed by North Korea when it feels backed into a corner with nothing to lose, because it has everything to gain. [View, In Pictures: A Note From North Korea (Part 2)] The annual round of brinksmanship between the US and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is seemingly more intense than in years past. This is a tactic that makes perfect sense for the DPRK, as no country has any political power over it. It is a tactic that is usually initiated by North Korea for the purpose of forcing the external world to give it concessions, and hopefully, a little respect. The DPRK wants mutual recognition and normalization of relations, and it sees...