The 10 Best Articles on International Security Concerns this week

Each week we provide a collection of 10 must reads from around the web on issues pertaining to international security. Simply click the article title to open a new tab.

This week’s top 10 (in alphabetical order) are:

 

Build Bridges or Borders: Why NATO Cannot Continue with Enlargement Ambiguity by Steven Keil

German Marshall Fund

NATO’s enlargement policy following the 2008 Bucharest Summit has proven ineffective. The Atlantic Organization should now either be deliberate with its future policy of enlargement toward Europe’s east or be clear in its intention to consolidate current borders.

 

Critical Infrastructure Protection in the Cyber-age by Manuel Tornago

ISIS Europe

Infrastructure protection appears to be one of the main imperatives that states face nowadays, and their vulnerability to new technologies has been a reason of increasing concern.

 

Iran, Maliki’s BFF by Afshon Ostovar

Lawfare

The Middle East makes strange bedfellows, as the de facto alliance between Iran and the US in Iraq. Across the border in Syria they support opposing armies, but both countries are helping the Baghdad government confront the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

 

Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, ISIS and Hezbollah by Abdulrahman al-Rashed

Al Arabiya

This week Saudi Arabia offered to the Lebanese army  additional one billion dollar. Expectably, it is not a gift but a political act that comes within the remit of curbing the current strife in Lebanon and its surroundings.

 

Mapping Boko Haram’s Growing Insurgency by Reid Standish

Foreign Policy

The militant group’s rise is leaving a trail of destruction across Nigeria’s northeast. These interesting maps help ease the understanding of the last region developments.

 

Netanyahu: We’re ‘Cooperating’ With the Palestinian Authority by David

Foreign Policy

Latest Israeli military campaign may have just been one episode of a much longer struggle for control of Gaza.

 

Putin’s Wager by Joshua Yaffa

Foreign Affairs

The US and Europe made their own bet with sanctions: that economic isolation will deter Putin from further meddling in Ukraine. And Putin could well prove them right, or instead think he has less than ever to lose in defending his country’s interests, however differently he and Obama may define them. 

 

The Sana’a Illusion by Farea Al-muslimi

Foreign Affairs

U.S. President Barack Obama has suggested that Yemen could be an example for how to bring stability to Iraq.  Nonetheless, the contradiction between their country’s political reality and its reputation as an Arab Spring success story has always been glaring.

 

Sorry, Skeptics: The Iran Nuclear Deal Is Working by Greg Thielmann

The National Interest

Even before the ink was dry on last fall’s interim nuclear deal with Iran, some members of Congress bemoaned the “naiveté” behind its formulation. But the current events seem to show that a final agreement is achievable and far preferable to the alternatives.

 

Welcome to France’s New War on Terror in Africa: Operation Barkhane by Maxime H.A. Larivé

The National Interest

Africa is perceived as a security dilemma by the West. France has implemented a development-security nexus approach to addressing Africa’s challenges, closely connected to the EU strategy. Its operation Barkhane is an illustration of the use of “hard” power in Africa in order to solve a security crisis caused by a regional power vacuum.

 

 

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