beyond the horizon 2017 belize sergeant major

The US, he said, ‘might do its own thing’ unless European allies started spending more on defence. US President Donald Trump returned to a familiar theme at the July 2018 NATO summit. They will celebrate the Alliance’s accomplishments, though likely be aware that while external actors may be bent on undermining Euro-Atlantic cohesion, uncertainty also comes from within. In early April 2019, NATO foreign ministers are due to convene to mark the Alliance’s 70th anniversary, just days after the United Kingdom’s scheduled departure from the European Union. In late 2018, Russia began flexing its muscles once more, this time in the Sea of Azov. In Europe, NATO’s eastern members worry about Russia, while simmering conflict continues in eastern Ukraine. However, although summits continued, there remained no progress on the issue of North Korea’s denuclearisation. In Asia, the unexpected North Korean moratorium on missile testing led to renewed diplomatic contact on the peninsula, and between Pyongyang and Washington.

Tentative diplomatic progress at the end of 2018 raised hopes that the effects of the conflict in Yemen might be alleviated, if not an immediate end brought to the war. Meanwhile, the civil war in Syria grinds on, with the regime in the ascendant. And while the war in the Middle East against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, might have succeeded in eradicating its territorial base, ISIS could revert to insurgent tactics. The threat from terrorists persists, as does the impact of conflict and instability in Africa. At the same time, while Western armed forces – particularly after Russia seized Crimea in 2014 – are refocusing on more traditional security challenges, though characterised by disruptive new elements, they are having to do this alongside, not instead of, the range of post-9/11 tasks. China perhaps represents even more of a challenge, as it introduces yet more advanced military systems and is engaged in a strategy to improve its forces’ ability to operate at distance from the homeland. Great-power competition still dominates contemporary Western policy discussions, but now it is not only Moscow’s actions that generate attention. The international security environment is again as uncertain today as it was then. Editor’s Introduction This 2019 edition of The Military Balance is published 60 years after it first appeared as an 11-page pamphlet in late 1959.

Beyond the horizon 2017 belize sergeant major