Year: 2014

End of ISAF, End of NATO?

Medical evacuation training at FOB Farah, Afghanistan.

This article was originally published by War on the Rocks on 29 May 2014. War on the Rocks Editor’s Note: This op-ed is based on the author’s article entitled, “Maintaining transatlantic strategic, operational and tactical interoperability in an era of austerity,” International Affairs 90: 3 (2014) 583–600, May 2014.

It is no accident that forces from NATO member states can actually operate alongside or embedded with one another. Interoperability is, in large part, the product of a war, one that is soon ending: the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)’s campaign in Afghanistan.  Later this year, though, NATO’s extensive involvement in operations in Afghanistan will come to an end, and with it, the alliance’s workshop for building and maintaining an unprecedented level of interoperability.

The end of NATO’s involvement in this war is, of course, not something to be mourned. Between the loss of blood and treasure over the last decade – including nearly 3,500 coalition deaths – and the defense austerity most allies are navigating, the expiration of the ISAF mandate is something to be thankful for. However, it will mean that NATO, and specifically the ground forces of alliance member states, will face greater difficulty in maintaining this unprecedented level of operational and tactical interoperability.

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Geopolitics of Dignity

Risk game, Courtesy of Flickr, avyfain

This article was originally published by Global Policy Journal on 20 May 2014. Republished with permission of the author.

The pursuit of freedom has long been thought of as the driving force of history. Freedom became the mantra of much of the Western interpretation of any popular uprising in a post-authoritarian context. However, the yearning for dignity, demonstrated for example by the Arab Spring, is a more fundamental and more inclusive human need than just the desire for freedom, and it is possible to live in freedom but not in dignity even in mature democracies.

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What Does the Modi Election Mean for India-Pakistan?

Narendra Modi giving a speech at a rally in Rewari, courtesy of Flickr upload bot/wikimedia

This article was originally published on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute‘s blog, The Strategist, on 22 May 2014.

The massive landslide victory of Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India’s recent parliamentary election will have been received with mixed feelings in neighbouring Pakistan. Still, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was one of the first heads of state to call Modi to congratulate him on his election victory.

Reportedly, Sharif stressed his country’s desire for a ‘new beginning’ and his desire to resume the normalisation process with India. In that spirit, he extended an invitation to Modi to visit Pakistan. But that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.

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Bringing Europe into the Middle East Peace Process

John Kerry meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, courtesy of U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/flickr

This article was originally published by the European Council on Foreign Relations on 22 May 2014.

During his trip to South Korea at the end of April, American President Barack Obama announced a “pause” in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, nine months into Secretary of State John Kerry’s flailing initiative. As the plan’s April 29, 2014 deadline approached, progress towards a first framework-agreement remained slow, if not inexistent. Washington hedged its bets on an exchange to prevent the process from complete derailment: the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) acceptance to postpone the deadline for talks, in return for a package making such extension acceptable, including most notably a partial settlement freeze in the West Bank and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s follow up on his July 2013 promise to release a number of Palestinian prisoners.

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Categories
Terrorism Regional Stability

Al Qaeda and a Global Revolt

Al-Qaida training manual found in Afghanistan, courtesy of CIA/wikimedia commons

 This article was originally published by openDemocracy on 22 May 2014.

The collapse of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s regime in Tunisia in January 2011, soon followed by Hosni Mubarak’s in Egypt, had a profound impact across the Arab world. There was an eruption of protest in Oman, Libya and Bahrain, while an incident in the town of Deraa in southern Syria sparked demonstrations that grew and spread into regular events involving thousands of young people.

Almost from the start, Bashar al-Assad’s regime was determined to maintain power, with severe repression of demonstrations leading to violence, injury and death. As non-violent demonstrations escalated into rebellion, the regime’s response was to use greater force while insisting that the stability of the state itself was being threatened by terrorists.

For almost a year this mantra was pushed insistently. By late 2012 it had become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: dedicated young jihadists had formed some of the most cohesive elements of the rebellion, attracting recruits from across the middle east and beyond.

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