| | | | Guess Who's Cozying Up to Strongmen Again? | | At the time, the Arab Spring seemed to spark a realization among European nations of the risks of cozying up to authoritarian leaders. Fast forward to today, and it's clear that awkward reality is being swept under the rug, The Economist suggests.
"Driven by a fear of migrants, European governments have once again embraced strongmen," The Economist writes.
"In Libya, where EU members helped overthrow Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, they now work with warlords to round up migrants. Italy has paid off local militias, which hold migrants in abysmal conditions."
Meanwhile, "[t]he EU has offered only tepid criticism of Egypt's army-backed government. Until this summer, none of it was aired publicly."
"The conditions that sent millions of Arabs across the Mediterranean still exist. Egypt's population is young, poor and restless. Militias in Libya today can be just as brutal as Mr Qaddafi's regime was. And Mr Assad, needless to say, is not a stabilizing force. The EU might succeed in sending some refugees home. More will come."
| | The (Encouraging) Truth About Global Terrorism | | | News of Tuesday's incident in London involving a vehicle crashing into pedestrians and cyclists might have an uncomfortably familiar ring to it. That shouldn't distract from a more encouraging trend, suggests Adam Taylor in The Washington Post: The number of terrorist attacks is actually declining.
"[S]tatistics released this month by the University of Maryland suggest that 2017 was the third consecutive year that the number of terrorist attacks around the world — and the deaths caused by them — had dropped. So far, 2018 looks on track to be lower still," Taylor writes.
"The university's Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) program found there were 10,900 terrorist attacks around the world last year, which killed a total of 26,400 people, including perpetrators. That was a drop from 2016, which was in turn a drop from 2015."
Why?
"Though there was a surge in terrorist attacks in Europe in recent years, most attacks still occur in the Middle East and Africa, and those regions saw a big decline in 2017. The number of terrorist attacks in the Middle East and North Africa dropped by 38 percent year on year according to START; the number of victims declined by 44 percent." | | The Folly of Revoking Security Clearances | | | The White House announced Wednesday that the decision to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance was aimed at fulfilling the President's "constitutional responsibility to protect the nation's classified information." Kel McClanahan argued in Politico Magazine recently that such a move makes no sense.
"The idea that these officials' security clearances are the reason people are interviewing them, booking them for speaking engagements and buying their books is laughable. It's a basic truth of life that we tend to give more credence to the opinions of people who know what they are talking about," McClanahan writes.
"In this particular case, the fact that the targeted officials were once senior members of the intelligence community is the reason people listen to them. Stripping them of their clearances won't change the fact of their expertise. Former top national security officials—including those who served in the Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon administrations—are still interviewed as experts on the topic despite the fact that most of them probably haven't had an active clearance in this millennium, yet nobody considers them any less credible." | | What Mattis Should Tell His Hosts in Latin America | | James Mattis is on his first trip to South America since becoming defense secretary. He might want to gently remind some of his hosts that using the military for domestic security is a slippery slope – and usually ineffective, too, writes Rebecca Bill Chavez in The New York Times.
"The logic behind the decision to use the military is that the underfunded and often corrupt police have failed to ameliorate a situation of extreme citizen insecurity. Latin America accounts for 8 percent of the world population but 33 percent of global homicides. The homicide rate in Latin America is 21.5 per 100,000 citizens, which is over three times the global average of eight," she writes.
"The need for security is urgent and undeniable, but the Mexican case illustrates that the military is not the solution. Since 2006, when President Felipe Calderón summoned the armed forces to lead the struggle against violent criminal organizations, violence and crime have increased dramatically."
"Mexico's track record reveals another important danger: Once a country starts down the path toward militarization, it is difficult to change course. Both Mexico and Colombia illustrate that reliance on the military weakens the incentive to strengthen the police."
| | How to Understand the New Afghan Conflict | | The Taliban offensive in the Afghan city of Ghazni in the past week is a reminder of how the conflict in the country has morphed, writes Peter Apps for Reuters. It's now less about capturing territory, and more about political posturing.
"The insurgents remain adept at savage, one-off attacks, grabbing headlines and continuing to seize control of rural areas," Apps says. "But they have proved unable to grab control of Afghanistan's key urban areas from a government with access to US and Western air power as well as its own increasingly capable security forces."
"Now more than ever, for the Taliban action on the battlefield is aimed at political effects as much as military. This week's assault looks less like an attempt to capture ground and more a deliberate demonstration of the group's reach and capability, essentially setting the groundwork for negotiations already quietly underway." | | | | | | |
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