Asia & the Pacific

Juliette Kayyem provides an update on the lack of implementation of the Synthetics Trafficking and Opioids Prevention Act (STOP Act),  which became federal law last year.  The STOP Act closes a security loophole that has provided drug traffickers with a way of shipping synthetic controlled substances into the country through the postal system.

"The Trump camp's insistence that the intelligence is not worthy of a deep dive has put it squarely in opposition to a fact-based inquiry supported by scores of nonpartisan intelligence professionals. The consequences of Trump's posture are dangerous for his governing in the future (and are a bit of an insult to those who risk their lives to get information for his daily briefings, which he doesn't attend)."

NATO after Afghanistan is an organization that suffers from a certain fatigue pertaining to future stabilization challenges. NATO will not automatically cease to conduct operations after 2014, but the level of ambition will be lower. The Afghanistan experience and the failures of the light footprint approach calls for a thinking that is less liberalist "in the abstract" and more focused on provision of basic services (security, development, and governance).

"Nuclear proliferation is a crime that pays well. Those involved in the Khan network were made very wealthy for their efforts, and the inability of the international community to effectively punish them has resulted in a missed opportunity to provide a deterrent against future black-market salesmen."

An effective police force is critical to countering insurgency. In Pakistan, an understaffed and underequipped police force is increasingly called on to manage rising insecurity and militant violence. This report evaluates the obstacles to upgrading the existing police system and recommends traditional and innovative reform options, including major restructuring of the total civilian law enforcement infrastructure, without which the police force cannot be effectively improved.

"...[T]he killer was a member of the Elite Police—a unit with special training for counterterrorism operations. After the gruesome act, he handed himself over to police and proudly claimed that he did the right thing. This shows pathetic security arrangements and poor management. Some fanatics have already created a Facebook profile of the killer—an indication of divisions within society."