Sec&Def Europe

It is worth drawing attention to this article in the Washington Post , entitled 'Our best chance in Afghanistan'. The key messages a...

Under the code-name Operation Christmas , the Colombian Army are erecting giant Christmas trees in FARC-held territory in an attempt to pers...

As we approach the end of the year and as the Americans release their Strategic Review of the campaign in Afghanistan, many will take stock ...

Much has already been said and written about Wikileaks, not just about the diplomatic cables themselves but indeed about the very notion of ...

Given the theme of this blog, it is worth highlighting the recent defence cooperation agreement between the UK and France. On 2 November, a...

This story is not one that would be immediately associated with the subjects usually covered by this blog but, ultimately, money has reperc...

Hillary Clinton has made some interesting and fairly forthright statements on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, most notably on Islamabad...

By Patrick Shaw-Stewart I saw a man this morning Who did not wish to die; I ask, and cannot answer, if otherwise wish I. Fair broke the day ...

The following musings are on a subject which seems to arouse strong feelings in certain quarters. The role of NGOs in a conflict environment...

This week the UK revealed its Strategic Defence Review (SDR) , a much anticipated document due to the inevitable defence cuts it would conta...

Chechnya is rarely headline news nowadays, but an attack last week shows that the province's problems are far from over. In a coordina...

This story from the AFP deserves comment - it states that some 60% of the population of Afghanistan suffers from some kind of mental health...

The BBC tells the story of Dr Mohammad Farooq Khan, who was shot dead by the Taliban in Swat last week. Dr Farooq ran a school - or more ac...

The title is taken from this New York Times editorial, which suggests the UK should scale-back its plans for a like-for-like Trident replac...

That's the real question after all - how do we measure success in Afghanistan? The Rand Corporation have provided a tool to do just that...

As the U.S Senate moves closer to a vote on the new START agreement with Russia, many observers are beginning to ask questions about where t...

It may seem incredible but Germany has only just finished paying off the war debt imposed on it after its defeat in the First World War. Thi...

Asia Times reports once again on the reconciliation process in Afghanistan, which at the moment appears to be little more than back-channel...

I recently wrote about the ongoing debate in Uganda over the country's participation in AMISOM, the African Union peacekeeping mission ...

I'm currently re-watching the - still excellent - BBC series The World at War from the 1970s. In this day and age of multi-national mil...

The fall-out from Bob Woodward's latest book, Obama's Wars , has seen much heated debate on President Obama's handling of nation...

Just as many European nations debate what course of action to take in Afghanistan, with troop withdrawal becoming an increasingly serious op...

For all the varied western interpretations of the current situation in Afghanistan, this critique from former Indian diplomat M. K. Bhadrak...

An IAEA Board of Governors Report , made public this week by the Institute for Science and International Security, claims that Iran is inter...

This study by the IISS provides an interesting snapshot of the bigger geostrategic picture surrounding the war in Afghanistan. It takes a l...

For the second time in four years (and the fourth time overall), the armed Basque separatist group ETA have announced a ceasefire... or ra...

There is a lot of noise on Afghanistan these days and not much of it seems balanced or reasoned. Jim Molan's article in the Australian ...

During the past week, President Obama has stirred a great deal of emotion in the United States after lending support to the construction of ...

The BBC has an interesting story on alleged back-channel communications between dissident Irish Republicans and the British and Irish gover...

President Obama's attempted re-set of relations with Russia was criticised by many U.S. Republicans who claimed the policy would leave G...