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Mischa Hansel and Olga-Maria Hallemann: With all the talk about China’s rise, people sometimes forget about India, the second most populous country on the globe. This commentary takes a look at India’s strategic thinking in light of shifting world dynamics and how India must now make decisions amidst these changes.
This year a group of analysts and policy makers have published a report Nonalignment 2.0 - A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty First Century. Even though the document does not claim in any way to represent the views of the Indian administration, its importance for the strategic thinking in India can not be denied. It concerns a general analysis of India's international environment and domestic security ...More
Peter J Fusco: The Obama administration is setting a very dangerous global precedence for sending drones over borders to kill enemies (sometimes innocents). These drone strikes lack the congressional oversight of the executive branch. At the same time, employing drones qualifies as a “moral hazard.”
The Obama administration is setting a very dangerous global precedence for sending drones over borders to kill enemies (sometimes innocents). These drone strikes lack the congressional oversight of the executive branch while Congress does little to oppose it. At the same time, employing drones qualifies as a "moral hazard."
Drone warfare, like all developments of new military technologies, require close examination of their ...More
Salahodin Aryapur: Ever since the beginning of the global “war on terror”, the issue of democratic governance and reforms in the Muslim world has been high on the list of issues. This master’s thesis takes a look at whether the theories of state found within Islam are compatible with democratic values.
This research attempts to analyze the efficiency of Islamic states and to measure their compatibility with democracy. The author tries to answer the question of whether the state theories in Islam could lead Islamic societies towards implementation of democratic values such as political participation, rationalism in legislation, implementation of the international norms and respect for human rights or not. In this respect, the ...More
Aaron D. Fernando: Terrorism is very much a disease: it is better to take preventive measures to stop it in the first place. The American approach does not take this bigger picture into account. In focusing on killing individuals, the United States is losing the greater war and helping societies to become ever more radicalized.
In the 2000s, a debate was raging about how to combat HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. The question was whether the global effort should be focused on treatment or prevention. Treatment consisted of offering subsidized medication to those with HIV, while prevention entailed education and the promotion of practices that prevented future cases.On one side of the debate, a group of Harvard academics argued that Sub-Saharan nations needed to ...More
Editorial Team: In celebration of the 12th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, atlantic-community.org invites you to participate in our next Q&A session with NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, Ambassador Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. She will be answering questions on “Women, Peace and Security”.
Security is not equivalent to equality. Nonetheless, security is required to ensure women's rights. Twelve years ago, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325. The resolution called upon all member states to allow increased and equal representation of women at the decision-making level in resolving and preventing conflict and participating in peace-building and post-conflict ...More
James Kratovil: America must step up its support of aid to the Syrian opposition in the form of weapons and must increase its intelligence assets to provide a more informed picture of who should receive this support. By expanding its capabilities within Syria, the United States will be able to shape the events acceptable to Syrians and Americans and will not have to depend on Saudi Arabia influence in the country.
As Syria’s civil war grinds on with no end in sight, the United States is slowly letting slip its opportunity to influence events on the ground and the broader outcome of the war. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have advanced a policy of providing “lethal aid” to the militias of their own choosing, with some guidance from the US. The Jihadist elements ebbing and flowing into the country from the surrounding region are on the rise and are irrefutably ...More
Ievgen Vorobiov: The US and the EU should tread carefully in their policy on Syria, as an increase of weapon supply to rebels advocated by some Arab countries and American politicians might turn the horrible status-quo into an irreversible geopolitical disaster. Decision-makers across the Atlantic should resist supplying heavy arms to the rebels, amplifying their efforts for a diplomatic solution instead.
Recent foreign policy debate on Syria has seen bold calls in the US and some Arab countries to allow the shipment of heavy weapons to Syria in order to support their resistance against the Assad regime. These proposals have invoked both humanitarian reasons (on GCC side) and strategic calculations (favored by Republican leaders in the US). While arguments for greater external involvement may appear to present policy-makers with a ...More
Natalia Sharova: During this spring’s Russian presidential elections, Vladimir Putin used anti-American rhetoric to strengthen his image as a great defender against the West. Yet, when political conversations were not for public viewing, Moscow’s dialogue with the Obama administration was much friendlier and more attuned to cooperation.
Since the elections, anti-Western remarks have been replaced by amicable dialogue. Although some disputed issues remain unresolved, the future of relations between the two countries looks promising. One of those benign meetings includes the 2012 Moscow Nonproliferation Conference held in September. Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary for Arms Control, said at the conference that the United States and Russia should partner on common ...More
NATO: Bombs and bullets are not the only danger faced by soldiers in the field. There is also the threat of infectious diseases and bioterrorist attacks. In an example of smart defense, NATO is working on building up a multinational system that identifies and tracks not only bioattacks but also naturally occurring maladies.
A red light comes on in the epidemiological surveillance system alarms. An abnormal increase in diarrhea cases is reported by the Bundeswehr naval unit physician in Djibouti: 13 cases out of 70 staff in under 48 hours. The NATO Deployment Health Surveillance Capability (DHSC) confirms this information and sounds the alarm. This early warning system, patented by the Health Service of the French Army, could be added to the equipment of NATO's armed ...More
David Murdo Ian Macdonald: The Arab Spring has created a number of significant regional challenges for Turkey, whom was caught off guard by the magnitude and speed of events. Several neighboring regimes quickly became destabilized, threatening the delicate balance of regional relations that Turkey had built up.
Turkey built up its relations through its foreign policy approach, dubbed 'Zero-problems with neighbors.' The Zero-problems approach entailed actively seeking positive engagement with neighboring states, including those whom Turkey has had strained/hostile relations in the past, such as Syria. This approach was designed to enable a de-securitization in Turkish regional policy, promoting economic and diplomatic ties to ...More
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