September 2006

Democracy will not end tyranny By Dr. John Chipman CMG, Director-General and Chief Executive, The International Institute for Strategic Studies
Mind the military gap Yet the Europeans are fielding more peacekeepers than they used to - hence the over-stretch. While Britain and France are doing most, others are doing more. According to International Institute for Strategic Studies data, last year 21 EU states had troops in Kosovo, 19 in Afghanistan, 18 in Bosnia and nine in Iraq, while smaller numbers of EU governments deployed troops in a further 18 countries.
Bush tries to quell uproar on Iraq report Mamoun Fandy, a security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London, was skeptical of parts of the report. "If the Americans got it wrong on Iraq the first time around, what makes you sure they got it right this time?" he asked. But he strongly concurred about the threat to Europe. "Jihad in Europe is of course on the rise," Fandy said, partly because of the failure to assimilate Muslim immigrants. "The European challenge is huge. Unless...
Israel 'not worried' about a nuclear Egypt Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, an anti-proliferation organization, told the BBC the plans by Egypt, Turkey, and Iran, let alone Israel, could have a domino effect. "Having a nuclear infrastructure is the step which a country needs to accomplish if it decides to embark on the path of nuclear weapons. Pakistan took that route," Fitzpatrick said.
Egypt's intentions queried Mark Fitzpatrick, non-proliferation expert at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the significance of Egypt's plans should not be exaggerated. But he said there did appear to be a security dimension to the project. "The world should not be jumping up and down but it's something to be watched," said Mr Fitzpatrick. "Egypt, with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, are the most likely to respond to Iran going nuclear. And plans to start building up a scientific...
Concern over Middle East nuclear plans "It is easy to exaggerate and it is true that these countries have a right to seek all sources of energy but it is indisputable that there is also a strategic element to this," said Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow in non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Having a nuclear infrastructure is the step which a country needs to accomplish if it decides to embark on the path of nuclear weapons. Pakistan took that route," he said.
The challenges in Afghanistan According to the 2006 edition of "The Military Balance," published annually by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the United States spends about 4 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on national defense. The other 25 members of NATO collectively spend less than 2 percent on defense, including Germany (1.4 percent), Italy (2 percent), France (2.6 percent), Canada (1.2 percent), United Kingdom (2.3 percent), Spain (1.3 percent) and Turkey (3.1 percent). By...
Nations raise stakes in arms race “One of the biggest dangers of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability is that it would spur a nuclear arms race in the region,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “The three countries most often mentioned are Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” He said that a civilian nuclear programme was the obvious first step in the process of building an atomic bomb, a route taken by Pakistan...
A Virtual US-Iran Dialogue Nearly every think tank worth it's name has been disseminating studies of the Iranian nuclear issue. The best I've see are Scott Sagan's article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "How to Keep the Bomb from Iran"; Mark Fitzpatrick's article, "Assessing Iran's Nuclear Program," in the current edition of the journal Survival published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies; an informative survey by the Center for Strategic and International Studies,...
The First Five Years Over the last year, the Iranian issue has raised concerns about the SCO in Western capitals. “It strikes me as strange that one would want to bring into an organization that says it’s against terrorism... one of the leading terrorist nations in the world,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Singapore on the eve of the summit.
Previous coups in Thailand May 1992: Suchinda is forced from power when troops gun down at least 50 pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok. In the aftermath of the violence, his appointed prime minister resigns. King Bhumibol Adulyadej intervenes to end demonstrations, and parliament votes to reduce the power of the military in Thai politics. Sources: The Associated Press and The International Institute for Strategic Studies' Armed Conflict Database.
International Day of Peace? After all, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, there are 65 ongoing international and internal armed conflicts across the world today, and this 24-hour event is meant to observe peace and allow unimpeded access of humanitarian aid and flow of information, as much as freedom of movement and relief, from armed onsets.
The Start of a Long War The Fourth International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Global Strategic Review meeting, which took place in Geneva on Sept. 8-10, dealt with the topic, "New Thinking on Conflict and Peace." Around 400 hundred intellectuals, politicians, diplomats, academics, and military actors from 50 countries discussed the challenges which the world is facing today and its future. Indeed, the world is now not only "flat" (to quote Thomas Friedman) but also more dangerous than...
NATO fight in Afghanistan risks long-term aim But the involvement of British and Canadian troops in some of the heaviest violence since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 shows that logic was flawed, and has put the relatively benign image of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the country in jeopardy. "It's hard to convince people whose house you've just bombed that you are on their side," said Col. Christopher Langton, head of defense analysis at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies...
Russia and Japan: facing dire straits Vladivostok, home of the Russian Pacific Fleet, is bigger. But Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka peninsula is the only large, northern Pacific naval base that stays ice-free almost year-round. Here, the Pacific Fleet bases its main ballistic-missile force, perhaps the fleet's single most important element. In the words of an International Institute for Strategic Studies survey, "The [Pacific] fleet's primary operational mission seems to be to protect [this Petropavlovsk- based force] and to...
Iranian nuclear issue putting region at risk The outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 and the nuclear tests conducted by Pakistan and India in May 1998 pushed Iran to consider the ownership of nuclear weapons as an authorized capital for its national defense. The growing political problems in the Middle East, especially the existence of Israel nuclear capability has also increasingly pushed Iran to consider possessing nuclear weapons. The U.S. Ambassador for IAEA, Gregory L. Schulte estimates that Iran now has -- to quote the...
Blair calls for alliance of global values Last week, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies reported that the more dramatic external ambitions of the US were being informally buried by the Bush presidency. "Its unilateralism had put in question the legitimacy of its actions. It was seen to have over-reached itself. It was losing friends even among its natural allies, for example in Latin America," the IISS said in its annual Strategic Survey.
Taliban romp in the poppy fields The increased volatility has posed great difficulties for the coalition troops and for the governments who have decided to send them there. At the obvious security level, the question is whether these troops can stand their ground in the face of rising attacks. "The answer to that question is really based on whether or not the international community has the stamina, the commitment to go on supporting the Afghan government in its efforts to bring about security and reconstruction,"...
Some see Pakistan's truce as a defeat The truce is "recognition of previous military policies not being successful," Patrick Cronin, a South Asia expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, said by phone. Musharraf himself has said as much. But the key question is whether the cure will aggravate the disease. Cronin said that North Waziristan is already "a haven for terrorists," and that the wait-and-see approach of Afghanistan, the U.S. and their allies toward the peace deal could be...
S. Korea, U.S. to revisit alliance But the Roh government's policy of engaging North Korea contrasts with Washington's hardening line against Pyongyang over its nuclear programs. The North Korea issue -- and growing fears in Seoul that the U.S. wants to use South Korea to promote its own interests across the region -- have strained the alliance, said Adam Ward, executive director of the U.S. arm of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "There's no common understanding now of what the...