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The Thin Red Line: Mounting Tensions in the Korean Peninsula and Why North Korea Must Soon Come to its Senses

Pradyut Hande is The Future Forum’s Program Director for India and an award-winning youth leader and writer. He has over 250 publications in leading national and international dailies to his credit.

The Korean Peninsula has borne witness to a heightened sense of fractured stability and intensified military tension over the last few weeks. For a region characterised by a perennial state of volatility, recent developments have highlighted the stark reality of uncertainty that presently shrouds the situation. With North Korea adopting an overtly abrasive and belligerent standpoint, ever since the UN censured the “rogue state” with further sanctions in light of its widely condemned recent nuclear test, matters appear to have snowballed into a state of hyperactivity and have consequently, become a cause for concern for multiple stakeholders. Read more

The Balkan Puzzle: Serbia and Kosovo Struggle to Resolve their Ongoing Dispute

Pradyut Hande is The Future Forum’s Program Director for India and an award-winning youth leader and writer. He has over 250 publications in leading national and international dailies to his credit.

Since time immemorial, history has unfailingly taught us many a lesson. One such lesson of grave significance is the well chronicled arduousness associated with tackling critical simmering bilateral or cross-regional tensions across the globe. On Wednesday, bilateral talks between the Balkan States of Kosovo and Serbia over the contentious status of Serb-dominated Northern Kosovo ended, failing in their endeavour to break the ensuing deadlock between the bickering nations. Mediated by the European Union, the talks were supposed to find at least a temporary solution to the diplomatic quagmire that continues to threaten the stability of an already volatile region. Read more

Destiny’s Children: The Falkland Islands Decide on their own Fate, Leave the UK and Argentina on Tenterhooks

Pradyut Hande is a business student and an award-winning youth leader and writer based in Mumbai, India. He has over 250 publications in leading national and international dailies to his credit.

The Falkland Islands have for long been at the centre of a geopolitical tug of war between Britain and Argentina. The infamous war fought over the contentious isles in 1982 is far from a distant memory. Over the years, Britain has consistently endeavoured to thwart Argentina’s earnest attempts at laying claim on the Islands. Although the Falkland Islands possess their very own indigenous Government, it still remains an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, with the British Government responsible for its critical aspects like Defence and International Relations. Read more

Get “Smart”: Paving the Way to a More Efficient Alliance

A version of this post originally appeared on Atlantic-community.org. Atlantic-community.org is the world’s first online foreign policy think tank, and aims to provide a voice for a new generation of thinkers and young leaders on issues impacting the transatlantic community.

Memo 40: NATO’s Smart Defense initiative aims to provide more security for less money. In order to achieve this goal, the Alliance will need to focus on facilitating more cooperation between NATO members, providing efficiency mechanisms, encouraging cooperation amongst like-minded states, and including non-NATO actors in their strategic calculations.

Atlantic-community.org’s “Your Ideas, Your NATO” policy workshop competition, sponsored by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division, the US Mission to Germany, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, challenged students and young professionals to answer the question: How might NATO encourage nations, concerned about diminished sovereignty, to invest in Smart Defense? What mechanisms would make this kind of cooperation efficient and effective?

The five best submissions were published and intensely debated online. Afterwards, the five authors, Bram De Ridder, Samuel Erickson, Moritz Poellath, Max Smeets, and Dmitry Stefanovich, wrote the following policy memorandum. The editorial team of atlantic-community.org facilitated and moderated their online collaboration utilizing a wiki, text chat, and a conference call. Read more

Geo-Graphics: Should the United States Be the Military Lender of Last Resort?

A version of this post originally appeared on Geo-Graphics, a Council on Foreign Relations blog by the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies.

In 2011, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that “there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. . . . to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.” France in Mali is now a case in point; the Obama administration is providing only grudging assistance to an under-resourced French intervention.  As the small upper right figure in today’s Geo-Graphic shows, France has very little of the vehicular equipment necessary to prosecute the Mali operation—less than 5% of what the U.S. has in stock. Read more

North Korea’s Impending Nuclear Test and the Need for Greater Stability in the Korean Peninsula

Pradyut Hande is a business student and an award-winning youth leader and writer based in Mumbai, India. He has over 250 publications in leading national and international dailies to his credit.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has gradually become the international community’s Pariah for multiple reasons over the years. In its well chronicled endeavour at pursuing its own interests, North Korea’s reigning elite have seen their Country being relegated to the status of a “rogue state”. The single minded dedication with which it continues to pursue its enhanced militarization and “nuclear” agenda at the cost of both justifiably incurring the wrath of the global community and its own socio-economic, political and civic progression, especially relative to that of the entire region – hasn’t done its cause any good. The fact that it continues to stand steadfast in its desire to embrace an overtly bellicose, pugnacious, irreverent and insular approach; despite its plummeting international standing; is a matter of grave concern. Read more

Is Chaos in Syria the Way Out?

Maksymilian Czuperski has worked on the crisis in Syria with the SRCC and spent extensive time following the region’s developments both domestically and from Israel. A version of this post originally appeared on DC Linktank.

Earlier this week, Israel’s military reported ‘direct hits’ on targets in Syria after a series of mortar shells hit an open area in the vicinity of an IDF post in the central Golan Heights. This incident is startlingly similar to last month’s skirmishes along the Turkish border where a series of mortar shells landed on Turkish territory, forcing Ankara to launch a series of warnings towards Damascus. Even so, tensions continued to increase and so did the number of mortar shells landing on Turkish soil, eventually leaving five civilians dead in the Turkish town of Akcakale. In response, Turkish Armed Forces retaliated by firing on Syrian targets.

Monday’s incident in the Golan Heights wasn’t the first involving Assad’s troops and the Israeli Defense Forces; future confrontation seems likely. Early last week IDF soldiers observed Syrian tanks moving through territory in the Golan Heights, putting Israeli officials on high alert. While Israeli officials reacted to the first incident with surprising calm, the escalating crisis in Syria, and spilling tensions in Lebanon, have produced escalating concerns in Israel. Read more

Planning for 2013: What Are the Next Threats?

A version of this post originally appeared on Politics, Power, and Preventive Action, a Council on Foreign Relations blog by the Center for Preventive Action.

If you ask ten forecasters to predict the next conflict, you’ll likely get ten very different answers. But, they will agree on one thing: it is impossible to know for sure where and when the next conflict will emerge. Even the U.S. military acknowledges this certainty of uncertainty. Recently, Major General H.R. McMaster quipped: “We have a perfect record in predicting future wars…And that record is 0 percent.” Although experts have called for improved statistical models and “assigning more explicit, testable, and accurate probabilities” to improve existing U.S. government methodologies, prediction will always be an imperfect science.

How should U.S. policymakers plan for and prevent future conflicts? Every year, we at the Center for Preventive Action conduct the Preventive Priorities Survey (PPS) to help U.S. policymakers prioritize their planning efforts by ranking the importance of contingencies to U.S. national security interests. Previous surveys were sent only to a targeted group of experts, but this year, we are bringing the public into the process.

What contingencies are you are worried about erupting or escalating in 2013? Please put your suggestions in the comments section below. Keep them short and to the point: for example, “an outbreak of widespread civil violence in Yemen.” Compelling suggestions will be included in this year’s survey, which will be published in December.

See the original post on Politics, Power, and Preventive Action.

Afghanistan: Mission Accomplished — Now Let’s End This War

In 2003, President George W. Bush famously stood in front of a banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced that the war in Iraq was a “mission accomplished.” President Bush’s announcement was eight years premature as combat troops did not ultimately exit Iraq until the end of last year. But in Afghanistan, it’s time to raise the banner and bring our troops home. Our mission is accomplished, and we must now end this war. Read more

What would ‘President Romney’ do about Syria?

Andrew C. Miller is a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relation’s Center for Preventive Action. A version of this post originally appeared on Christian Science Monitor.

WASHINGTON – Judging from headlines, one might think Mitt Romney has a radically different approach to the Syria crisis than President Obama: “Romney slams Obama Syria policy, calls for arming rebel forces” (The Hill) is just one example. As Syria continues to unravel, Mr. Romney continues to criticize the president – even giving Mr. Obama an “F” grade in foreign policy partly for his handling of the crisis. Romney devoted much of his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nev. last Tuesday to lambasting Obama’s foreign policy.

How then would “President Romney” handle Syria? Contrary to his condemnations, Romney would effectively have the same policy as Obama. The lack of specific alternatives on Syria in his VFW speech only underscores that reality.

Romney suggests that the president has done little except “sublet” the crisis response to Russia and the United Nations. Obama’s actions are even “emboldening Assad and discouraging the dissidents,” according to the GOP candidate. Last Monday, he told CNBC “I think from the very beginning we misread the setting in Syria” and that “America should’ve come out very aggressively from the very beginning and said Assad must go.” Read more