In a January 25 interview with El Tiempo, the United States Ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker, said the administration would request funds for post-conflict initiatives in the event of a peace accord between the FARC rebels and Colombian government. Here is a summary of some key points on security from the interview.
As the Obama Administration continues to loosen its arms export control policies, the United States may end up helping China modernize its military, according to a recent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report. The study titled “Western Arms Exports to China,” which looked at the export policies and practices of Germany, France, United Kingdom and the United States towards China, encourages the international community to develop a more unified approach on the export of arms and military-relevant goods to China to improve control efforts.
This blog was originally posted in The Bug Pit blog at eurasianet.org
The United States is donating over 300 armored vehicles to Uzbekistan's military, American officials have announced. The deal, the largest ever transfer of military hardware from the U.S. to an ex-Soviet Central Asian states, comes just three years after Washington lifted a ban on weapons exports to Uzbekistan because of the...
In highly and extremely fragile countries such as Chad, Nigeria and Yemen, U.S. security assistance may have little to no effect on reducing fragility in these countries, according to a RAND Corporation study from late last year. The report, which is titled “Assessing U.S. Security Cooperation as Preventative Tool,” will likely spark renewed discussion and debate about the proper use of U.S. foreign security aid in volatile countries as well as about the specific types of military and police aid given.
Despite the Honduran government’s insistence that crime rates are improving, a staggering 100 murders were recorded over the first 10 days of 2015 in the Central American nation, Telesur reported, suggesting that President Juan Orlando Hernández’s militarized approach to public security is not working. However the government remains adamant that using the military is the best solution for Honduras’ high violence rates.
For the United States, the continued Houthi expansion also raises concerns about the stability of a partnership with Yemen in the fight against AQAP. According to a recent Security Assistance Monitor country profile on U.S. Security Assistance to Yemen, the United States has allocated $343 million in military equipment and training to Yemen aimed primarily at countering AQAP from FY 2011 to FY 2014.