Security

How Qatar seized control of the Syrian revolution

May 17, 2013

Source: FT Related : Qatar bankrolls Syrian revolt with cash and arms A short drive from the rising skyscrapers of Doha’s West Bay, emblems of the once-sleepy Qatari capital’s frenetic growth, the three-starred flag of the Syrian revolution can be seen fluttering over a modern villa guarded by police cars. The villa is the new [...]

Read the full article →

Fearing Afghan instability, Russia mulls border troops

May 17, 2013

Source: Reuters Russia, predicting instability once NATO-led troops withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of next year, is considering deploying border guards on the Tajik-Afghan border, Moscow’s envoy to Kabul told Reuters in an interview. Moscow, still sore from its disastrous, decade-long war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, is increasingly concerned by what it describes as the combined threat [...]

Read the full article →

Marine rapid reaction unit moved to Italy amid escalating crisis in Libya

May 15, 2013

Source: Stars and Stripes Just weeks after arriving in Spain, a “small element” from a new 550-Marine-strong rapid reaction force has repositioned to southern Italy amid deteriorating security conditions in nearby Libya, where there have been a series of recent evacuations by western diplomats, defense officials said Wednesday. “The unit, which is temporarily deployed to [...]

Read the full article →

‘Minority Report’ policing comes to the UK

May 15, 2013

Source: Telegraph Kent Police is using computer software to analyse historic offending and criminal behaviour to try and pinpoint where crimes will happen next. It is an echo of the Tom Cruise science fiction film Minority Report in which “pre-crime” units use psychics to predict future criminals and arrest them before they have even offended. [...]

Read the full article →

Energy security, power and technology

May 14, 2013

Editor’s Note: Major U.S. military operations/actions to protect oil Source: Fuel Fix A team of journalism graduate students has published a detailed project on energy security, geopolitics and technology that debunks several national myths about oil. The team of nine graduate students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism spent three months investigating “vulnerabilities in U.S. [...]

Read the full article →

China’s Strategic Energy Security Pivot : Myanmar Pipelines to Benefit China

May 12, 2013

Source: WSJ Two pipelines in the highlands of northeast Myanmar will soon begin pumping oil and gas into China, representing a major step in Beijing’s quest for energy security. At the end of a bumpy road here, a 45-minute ride from the nearest town, Cheng Chong Zhen, a 40-year-old Chinese electrician working for state-owned energy [...]

Read the full article →

U.S. Troops Replaced by an Outsourced Army in Afghanistan

May 9, 2013

Source: Fiscal Times The United States is preparing to withdraw the majority of its troops from Afghanistan next year, ending more than a decade of war that has cost this country hundreds of billion of dollars and 2,126 lives to date. But the military withdrawal does not mean the United States is out of the [...]

Read the full article →

Total re-conquest of Mali:Western powers are circling their wagons

May 9, 2013

Source: AT Russia, China grapple with Mali’s future [...] Indeed, the western powers are circling their wagons. The Pentagon disclosed that its C-17 military aircraft have been transferring French troops and equipment and it is considering deploying aerial refueling tankers. The US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the US is providing intelligence. Italy is sending [...]

Read the full article →

New Algeria: Is Tunisia heading towards its black decade?

May 9, 2013

Source: MEO Press reports warned Thursday that Tunisia was “at war with international terrorism” after the government revealed that jihadists being pursued by the army have ties to Al-Qaeda and the Islamist rebellion in Mali. French-language daily Le Temps raised fears of “a spiral of deadly violence similar to the one that ravaged Algeria” during [...]

Read the full article →

5 Of the World’s Most Elite Mercenary Armies

May 9, 2013

Source: Policy Mic Have you ever wanted to know about the word’s elite mercenary armies? Have you been too afraid to ask because they are the world’s most elite mercenary armies? Well, never fear because we’ve complied a list of some of them right here. These private military contractors are stationed throughout the world in conflicts that [...]

Read the full article →

US wants to keep 9 bases after combat troops finish withdrawal in 2014

May 9, 2013

Source: AP|MG The U.S. wants to keep nine bases in Afghanistan after U.S. combat troops withdraw in 2014 which is fine as long as America makes “security and economic guarantees” in exchange, President Hamid Karzai said Thursday in his first public overture in what have been private talks on a future pact between the uneasy [...]

Read the full article →

Major U.S. military operations/actions to protect oil

May 8, 2013

Source: By Kevin Wang and David Kashi -Oil Change America’s role in protecting oil: The U.S. military has used force or the threat of force to protect its energy interests around the world, primarily in the Middle East, for more than five decades, safeguarding foreign oil sources and the sea lanes through which they pass. According to Roger Stern, [...]

Read the full article →

The Gulf Union: defense first

May 8, 2013

Source: Al Arabiya In 2011, when Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah announced the intention to create the Gulf Union, one facet of the initiative stood out immediately—that of defense. The idea of the Gulf Union is to unify many aspects of the GCC under a new mantle, across a number of fields from economics to social issues [...]

Read the full article →

Pentagon announces anti-satellite weapons drive

May 8, 2013

Source: IET The US has announced a “long overdue” effort to develop anti-satellite weapons to protect its own space resources. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter yesterday said the U.S. military had launched a drive to safeguard US national security satellites and develop ways to counter the space capabilities of potential adversaries. “We have established, really, [...]

Read the full article →

Chaos in Libya Threatens Entire Sahel Region

May 6, 2013

Source: Al Monitor How easy it is for world powers to mourn the fatigue that sets in following battles, a weariness owing its existence primarily to the reluctance of their electorates to wage extended wars. One example of this battle fatigue came five months after the end of NATO’s first air campaign against Libya (March 19, 2011); [...]

Read the full article →

Countering China’s ‘string of pearls’

May 6, 2013

Source: WT With China’s “peaceful rise” giving way to a more muscular approach, Beijing has broadened its “core interests” and exhibited a growing readiness to take risks. As if to highlight its new multidirectional assertiveness, China’s recent occupation of a 12-mile-wide Indian border area close to where the borders of India, Pakistan and China converge has coincided with its escalating challenge to Japan’s [...]

Read the full article →

U.S. Security Strategy in South Sudan – an Anti-China Strategy?

May 3, 2013

Source: All Africa The cornerstone of an academic debate which took shape over the last twelve years among Marxist scholars – since the publication of Empire (2000) – focuses on what can be considered the mother of all questions for scientists of international politics: what is the structure of the current geopolitical world order we [...]

Read the full article →

Pentagon deploys small number of troops to war-torn Mali

April 30, 2013

Source: WP The Pentagon has deployed a small number of troops to Mali to support allied forces fighting there, despite repeated pledgesby the Obama administration not to put “boots on the ground” in the war-torn African country. About 10 U.S. military personnel are in Mali to provide “liaison support” to French and African troops but [...]

Read the full article →

Deutschland Bundeswehr soldiers ‘for hire as mercenaries’

April 30, 2013

Source: Local DE German soldiers are moonlighting illegally at private security firms while off-duty, a newspaper revealed on Monday. Working as heavily armed guards on freighters or in war-zones, some do it for the cash and others for the adrenaline kick. As members of the German army, Bundeswehr, soldiers are not allowed to work as mercenaries [...]

Read the full article →

Western forces deployed in the energy-rich Gulf

April 29, 2013

Source: Reuters The United States and some Western allies deploy weaponry and other military equipment in the energy-rich Gulf to provide security to Gulf Arab states at short notice. Here is a list of equipment currently deployed, according to research institutions, mostly at bases shared with host states. KUWAIT USA CENTCOM: 23,000 personnel. One Heavy [...]

Read the full article →

France extends its mission in Mali

April 23, 2013

Source: New Europe According to the Euronews, France’s parliament decided to extend its military mission in Mali. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that French operation in Mali had been a success. However, the Islamist rebels continue the attacks in the north of the country. On 6 April the French government announced its intention to keep 1,000 [...]

Read the full article →

Chinese troops set up post 10km inside Ladakh

April 19, 2013

Source: Times of India In yet another deep incursion into Indian territory, Chinese troops apparently made inroads into the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) sector of eastern Ladakh and erected a tented post there this week. Indian Army officials were, however, not too perturbed about the incursion, holding that it was a common occurrence. “In that area, patrols do have a [...]

Read the full article →

With Pacific pivot, Marines eye ‘Single Naval Battle’ strategy

April 19, 2013

Source: Marine Corps Times As the Marine Corps and Navy expand their presence throughout the Asia-Pacific region, officials are examining how best to move personnel and equipment and tackle the logistical challenge of operating in a theater so vast and dispersed. The emerging strategy will go well beyond traditional three-ship configurations in which 2,200-member Marine [...]

Read the full article →

War in Mali: Geopolitics, France, China, Economic Conflicts,Terrorism, Energy Security, Elites and Sea Lines of Communication

April 16, 2013

Source: JTW The Republic of Mali witnessed a number of military and security developments, with the onset of 2013. French Army launched military operations into Northern Mali, where the fundamentalist groups took ground, so that it could render help to the African forces. In fact, social unrest in this region has historical roots in the demands [...]

Read the full article →

Hegemonic transitions

April 16, 2013

Source: RK Throughout the human history empires have risen and fallen. In its praxis the subordinate states survive under the implied means of power, the threat of force, rather than by direct military force by the leader state. After the end of cold war US dictated internal politics and social character of the subordinate states [...]

Read the full article →

US AirSea Battle strategy could result in nuclear war

April 14, 2013

Source: AGE A US military strategy being mapped out to deal with the growing power of China in the western Pacific – a plan that would inevitably involve Australia – could escalate into a nuclear war, a leading think tank has warned. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has written in a new paper that the [...]

Read the full article →

Pentagon’s Pivot to Asia – 33% of global crude oil and over 50% of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) passes through the South China Sea each year.

April 13, 2013

Source: EIA Stretching from Singapore and the Strait of Malacca chokepoint in the southwest to the Strait of Taiwan in the northeast, the South China Sea is one of the most important energy trade routes in the world. Almost a third of global crude oil and over half of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) passes through the [...]

Read the full article →

France Needs to Support Mali to the Full: President Hollande and Shadows of Al-Qaeda

April 12, 2013

Source: MTT The nation of Mali needs France to maintain its full support towards this nation because in Afghanistan and Somalia, and in other nations, the forces of al-Qaeda (and other Islamist factions) have often disappeared under heavy pressure and then re-entered at a later date. President Hollande was widely celebrated by the people of [...]

Read the full article →

Jihadist Control at Israel’s Northern Borders Casts Shadow of War

April 8, 2013

Source: JP Middle East power vacuums are fuel for war. A withdrawal of Assad’s army from across the Golan Heights, and fierce clashes between Hizbullah and Syrian rebels, threaten Israel on both northern fronts. Fierce clashes between Syrian rebels and Hizbullah at the Lebanese-Syria border, coupled with anarchy across from Israel’s Golan Heights, point to [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries