By Dawit Giorgis, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Dawit Giorgis is a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The views expressed are the writer’s own.
As Washington has assessed the implications of Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint, a crisis has loomed in another critical maritime energy corridor: the Gulf of Guinea.
The strategic importance of West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea – the stretch of coastline spanning from Gabon to Liberia that includes 15 states which have huge economic importance to the United States and the West – is hard to overstate. For one, the U.S. is expected to import a quarter of its oil from the Gulf of Guinea nations by 2015. Indeed, 70 percent of Africa’s oil production comes from the Gulf of Guinea. And with the recent discovery of offshore hydrocarbon deposits, these numbers are only going to rise.
And yet this crucial naval passage has witnessed an alarming spike in piracy and maritime crime in recent years that rivals the Horn of Africa. Last year, the International Maritime Bureau attributed only 75 attacks to pirates operating in Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, down from 237 in 2011. In the Gulf of Guinea, in contrast, piracy is on the rise, with 58 incidents recorded in 2012. The IMB has raised the alarm that the Gulf will overtake the Horn of Africa as the world’s top piracy hotspot.
By Danielle Pletka, Special to CNN
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. The views expressed are her own.
This small war between Hamas and Israel will pass. The just announced ceasefire may be sustained. Or Israel may move from aerial bombardment to a ground incursion, which will deter Hamas from relighting the fuse for some time. But not forever, because Hamas exists only to fight with Israel. It has no other purpose. Those who counter that Hamas governs need only look at Gaza to understand that governance is far from Hamas’ aims or abilities. Will this late 2012 battle end differently for the Palestinians? Advance a two state solution? Heal the ills of the Palestinians? Allow Israel to live in peace and security? No.
Another question: Will the realignment of the Middle East to an order more congenial to Hamas matter? Clearly, Hamas believed that with its Muslim Brotherhood brethren at the helm in Egypt and the new spiritual leader of the region’s Sunni Islamists at the helm in Turkey, this adventure would end differently. Of course, Hamas’ hope was not to destroy the state of Israel. Rather, it was to gain the upper hand in its endless and fruitless battle against Fatah for the Palestinian political mantle, ideally with the wind of the Arab world’s Islamist revolutions at its back. That won’t happen either. Egypt’s Mohamed Morsy and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan are willing to lend rhetorical support and a few visits to Gaza, but they’re never going to do anything substantial for Palestinians because they neither care enough about actual Palestinian people nor wish to queer their pitch with Europe and the United States.
Editor's note: Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, is a director at the New America Foundation and the author of the new book, "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden - From 9/11 to Abbottabad."
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
On Monday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate a series of recent leaks that critics charge are designed to bolster the national security credentials of the Obama administration. ...
The recent leaks involve stories in The New York Times, Newsweek and the Associated Press that range from the hitherto undisclosed role of the United States in cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear facilities to details about the president's decision-making surrounding the selection of the targets of the CIA drone program in Pakistan and Yemen and the penetration by a spy of al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate.
Have those leaks, as Romney claimed on Monday, "put American interests and our people in jeopardy"?
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey testified today before the Senate appropriations subcommittee, which is looking into the State Department's current budget request. Dempsey faced a number of questions related to his interview last week with Fareed Zakaria.
Here's an excerpt of an article about his testimony from CNN's excellent Security Clearance blog:
....Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey was asked to clarify a comment he made about Iran's nuclear ambitions during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee.
In an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria earlier this month, Dempsey said the United States should view Iran as a "rational actor" despite Iran's belligerent actions and rhetoric surrounding their nuclear program and ambitions. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, told Dempsey she thought such a remark sends Iran the "wrong signal." FULL POST
CNN’s Security Clearance blog reported yesterday that according to the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the Obama administration may transfer combat helicopters from existing Marine inventory to Turkey.
“The DSCA has formally notified Congress of a possible sale of AH-1W Super Cobra Attack helicopters to Turkey. The notification was required under the U.S. Arms Export Control Act. Turkey's ongoing fight against the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, is one of the reasons for the proposed sale a State Department official told CNN.”
This arms sale has led some to ask: Could this come back to haunt the United States, leading the PKK to carry out terrorist attacks against American targets? FULL POST
Editor's Note: Adam Segal is the Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Matthew Waxman, also a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is Associate Professor at Columbia Law School and member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law.
By Adam Segal and Matthew Waxman - Special to CNN
With companies and governments seemingly incapable of defending themselves from sophisticated cyber attacks and infiltration, there is almost universal belief that any durable cybersecurity solution must be transnational. The hacker – a government, a lone individual, a non-state group – stealing valuable intellectual property or exploring infrastructure control systems could be sitting in Romania, China, or Nigeria, and the assault could transit networks across several continents. Calls are therefore growing for a global treaty to help protect against cyber threats.
As a step in that direction, the British government is convening next week the London Conference on Cyberspace to promote new norms of cybersecurity and the free flow of information via digital networks. International diplomacy like this among states and private stakeholders is important and will bring needed attention to these issues. But the London summit is also likely to expose major fault lines, not consensus, on the hardest and most significant problems. The idea of ultimately negotiating a worldwide, comprehensive cybersecurity treaty is a pipe dream. FULL POST
Editor's Note: The following text is from GlobalPost, which provides excellent coverage of world news – important, moving and just odd.
By Sandro Contenta, GlobalPost
The Canadian government will spend $28 million to remind Canadians that their national identity was forged in a largely forgotten war against the United States.
“Without the War of 1812, Canada as we know it would not exist,” Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore said Tuesday, while announcing a three-year-long commemoration of the conflict.
“Not enough Canadians know about the importance of the War of 1812. It was the fight for Canada,” Moore told reporters. FULL POST
By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
For anybody who lives in New York, the United Nations General Assembly is a nightmare. It means lots of traffic, snarl-ups, blockades, and policemen stopping people every time the foreign minister of some small country decides he wants to go to some diner for breakfast. But nothing compares with when the President of the United States decides to leave his hotel - or even, for that matter, to stay in his hotel.
I was trying to get to a restaurant two blocks away from where President Obama was staying. I ended up being half an hour late for my meeting because the President was going from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel straight up Park Avenue to a fundraiser. You would think this would be a pretty easy logistical challenge. But, instead, it seemed like half the New York police force had come out. Something like 30 blocks were sealed off. There were at least 100 vehicles involved in the motorcade blockading side streets - all so he could travel 40 blocks uptown. FULL POST
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Editor's Note: Tune in this Sunday in the U.S. at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. for a special edition of GPS: "9/11 and the World". (If you're watching internationally, tune in Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. ET and Monday 7 a.m. ET.) Fareed will have a one-on-one with former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and an expert panel on how the world has changed - and not - since September 11, 2001.
By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
Those of us who live in New York have our own special memories of 9/11/2001. I was driving down the Long Island Expressway, about to begin a month-long leave from my job at Newsweek to work on a book. Around 9 a.m., I switched from the CD player to the radio to listen to the news. The reports were chaotic but the outlines of what had happened were clear. I turned around and headed back to New York to get to my wife and 1-year-old boy. As I approached the Triborough Bridge I saw huge barricades and dozens of police cars. All bridges and tunnels were closed. Manhattan had been sealed off. Cell phones were useless that morning because 8 million people were trying to use them simultaneously and the result was cellular gridlock.
I turned around and headed to my destination in Long Island, the home of friends where I had been planning to work on the book. As soon as I got there, I turned on CNN and watched with horror and anger. Finally, I was able to talk to my wife and knew that she and my son were fine. But soon I got a call from one of my dearest friends, my roommate from college. His brother, Chris, worked on one the high floors of the Towers. No one had heard from him. I began calling friends and contacts at the New York Police Department, the FBI, the CIA - anyone who might have any ideas about what I might do to help. I remember looking at the hospital emergency rooms, with beds set up on the streets, waiting for patients to come streaming in. But, of course, they were all empty. No one ever came. Chris was never heard from again. FULL POST
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Editor's Note: Soner Cagaptay is a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is the co-author, with Scott Carpenter, ofRegenerating the U.S.-Turkey Partnership.
By Soner Cagaptay - Special to CNN
The Arab Spring and recent dramatic deterioration of Turkish-Israeli ties present Israel with a uniquely threatening security environment. Since 1949, Israel has always had the comfort of having Turkey, one of the two major Levantine powers, as its friend. This is no longer the case. In fact, conflict seems to be looming between Turkey and Israel.
Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.
By Jonathan Masters, CFR.org
In August 2011, the cybersecurity firm McAfee released an eye-opening report (PDF) detailing its investigation into a multi-year, most likely state-sponsored cyberattack that includes intrusions into the U.S. federal government and defense contractors, resulting in the theft of massive stores of intellectual property.
The report's author and McAfee's vice president of threat research, Dmitri Alperovitch, describes these attacks, known as Operation Shady RAT, as a profound threat, indicative of a larger trend that may result in "the complete destruction" of the U.S. economy. Rather than focus on the potential for a theoretical "cyber Pearl Harbor," he says that U.S. policymakers should use all of the nation's power to stem the steady theft of national secrets. FULL POST
Editor's Note: John Mueller is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University. He is the author of Atomic Obsession and a co-author, with Mark Stewart, of the forthcoming book Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security. He is also editor of the webbook Terrorism Since 9/11: The American Cases. The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The chief lesson of 9/11 should have been that small bands of terrorists, using simple methods, can exploit loopholes in existing security systems. But instead, many preferred to engage in massive extrapolation: If 19 men could hijack four airplanes simultaneously, the thinking went, then surely al Qaeda would soon make an atomic bomb.
As a misguided Turkish proverb holds, "If your enemy be an ant, imagine him to be an elephant." The new information unearthed in Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, suggests that the United States has been doing so for a full decade. Whatever al Qaeda's threatening rhetoric and occasional nuclear fantasies, its potential as a menace, particularly as an atomic one, has been much inflated. FULL POST
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