January 2007

NATO, U.S. neglect 'psychological warfare' The United States and its allies must pay more attention to 'psychological warfare' as they battle insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, an influential think-tank said on Wednesday. "Insurgents and jihadists have proved adept at conducting successful information campaigns that reach a global audience and foment violence elsewhere," the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said. "But Western militaries have shown insufficient capability in their own attempts to...
IISS criticizes size of US reinforcements The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London Wednesday criticized as inadequate the recent US troop reinforcements in Baghdad and accused the Iraqi government of 'lacking the political will' to rebuild the country. In its annual report The Military Balance 2007, the IISS said the US deployment of a further 21,000 troops was not enough and neglected the 'subtler aspects of counter-insurgency doctrine.' The proportion of 'one US soldier for every 184 Baghdadis' was well...
Shunning "timeout" , Iran, West face conflict "There is still time for diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Even if Iran begins installing centrifuges in the underground facility, it won't have 3,000 up and running for a year or more at the earliest," said Mark Fitzpatrick, non-proliferation scholar at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Iran still "2-3 years" from atom bomb Iran is at least two to three years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon, a leading global think-tank said on Wednesday. But the International Institute for Strategic Studies said pressure on the United States to stop the programme, including possibly through military strikes, would increase this year as Tehran mastered the process of enriching uranium.
Iran two to three years from nuclear weapon Iran could be only two or three years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon, the head of a leading international security think tank in London has said. John Chipman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Iran had stockpiled 250 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), which, when enriched, would be enough for 30 to 50 weapons. But he stressed that Iran still faced other obstacles before it could build a weapon.
Iran is 2-3 years away from a nuclear weapon Iran is as little as two to three years away from building an atomic bomb, a leading security think tank reported Wednesday. The estimate given by the International Institute for Strategic Studies is lower than that given by John Negroponte, the head of national intelligence for the U.S., who said that Tehran could build such a weapon in as little as four years. The London-based institute said domestic opposition to Iran's outspoken president could still put a brake on its contentious nuclear...
Strategy Experts Urge US To Use Psychology The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London Wednesday urged the United States and its military allies to add a "psychological component" to their operations in conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. The renowned institute, presenting its annual report The Military Balance 2007, said it was no longer sufficient to respond to "complex warfare missions" by deploying more soldiers.
US ‘has lost ability’ to impose global agenda The US risks being pulled into Iraq’s raging sectarian conflict and has lost the ability to impose its global agenda, one of Britain’s leading think tanks said on Wednesday. The International Institute of Strategic Studies said that President George W Bush’s push to regain the initiative in Iraq had too few troops and too little support from the government of Nouri al-Maliki. “We can’t control a government that wants ethnic cleansing and we don’t have enough...
Troops Need to Battle for Hearts and Minds The International Institute for Strategic Studies, the London-based military and political think-tank, has suggested in its annual report that the United States and its allies need to pay more attention to the hearts and minds of local populations in the battle against terrorism. “Our judgment is that military planning procedures need to incorporate so called ‘influence activities’ as an integral part of pre-deployment preparation for complex warfare missions,” said Dr....
US too weak to implement international agenda Great power relations are in a state of flux due to the US not being strong enough to enforce the international agenda it seeks to impose, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "US power is strong enough to establish an agenda for international activity but is too weak effectively to implement that agenda globally," IISS Director General John Chipman said. "The power of others, whether states or sub-state actors, is strong enough to resist an...
Iran years from nuclear weapons While Iran could conceivably build a bomb in two years, a three-year time frame was more likely, said Mark Fitzpatrick, a nonproliferation expert at the institute. He said estimates floated by U.S. intelligence were conservative — a likely result of its chastening experience in Iraq. "The CIA is being extra cautious these days," he said. Chipman said Wednesday that Iran was on track to complete its goal of producing 3,000 centrifuges for producing highly-enriched uranium by the...
Israel's Peretz says 2007 critical year The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a leading global think-tank, said on Wednesday that Iran was at least two to three years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
China's defense budget hides real figure China had an estimated $87.15 billion to spend on defense in 2004 -- more than three times the official government figure, according to a report released in London on Wednesday. Experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a military think tank, said that Beijing's official figures always underestimated real spending.Their comments come as China continues to increase its military spending amid mounting U.S. concern. The official budget for 2006 went up by 14.7 percent to $35.3...
Bold step needed on Middle-East dialogue OVER three days last week, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi reiterated the urgency of solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. First, in his talk at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, he rejected the notion that a clash of civilisations is the cause for the violence in the Middle East, saying: "What the world is burdened with is the consequence of its inability to construct a global order that can maintain the peace, restrain the strong and protect...
NATO chief calls for better ties with EU Collectively the EU countries spend some 190 billion U.S. dollars on defense every year compared to the U.S. expenditure of 290 billion U.S. dollars, according to figures from theInternational Institute for Strategic Studies.
Interview transcript: Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Quentin Peel, international affairs editor of the Financial Times, interviews the Rt Hon Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, prime minister of Malaysia. The interview was conducted at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, on January 23.
Tehran To Ponder UN Offer To Delay Sanctions Iran analyst Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, says that in presenting this initiative el-Baradei is using an old diplomatic ploy aimed at bringing some movement to a standoff. "The suggestion to have both kinds of suspension simultaneously is a frequent diplomatic method [used] when two sides are at loggerheads in a negotiation, asking each other to do something," he said. "If they do it simultaneously this is often a way to get out...
West dismissive of call for 'timeout' in Iran Non-proliferation analyst Mark Fitzpatrick, from the London think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said the key to ElBaradei's approach "would be that the West would have to take Iran's word that it had stopped the enrichment activity." The problem, however, is that "in the past every time a deal to stop enrichment was made, it was not completed and was only temporary, so the West does not have much confidence that there will be a real suspension...
Bush defends new policy on Iranians in Iraq Toby Dodge of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said the confrontational U.S. tone toward Iran was likely to appeal to many in Congress."This is a way to explain to the U.S. public that Iran is partly to blame for Iraq's problems," he said. "It's a way to rally public opinion and forge some kind of consensus."
Cracks widen in 'surge' debate Iraqi exiles and Middle East experts also have been dismissive of the new Bush plan. Toby Dodge, a consulting senior fellow for the Middle East at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the political component of the strategy amounts to little more than a "rearranging of the deck chairs on the Titanic."