Diplomacy & Politics Archive

To say that the geopolitics of South Asia is in a state of flux might sound like a cliché for a region that is nowadays commonly described as the most dangerous place on the planet. The horrific terrorist attacks on the western Indian city of Mumbai in November underscore the grim reality. The region indeed finds itself at a crossroads. There are huge uncertainties about regional security. The pall of gloom is deepening. The war in Afghanistan inevitably becomes the focal point. But that isn’t everything. Not a day passes without one form or other of violence gripping South Asia. […]

Sino-Indian relations have registered significant progress in the past five years. Beijing and New Delhi have engaged in a series of summit meetings, frequent high-level visits, joint antiterrorism training exercises between the two militaries, and fast-growing bilateral trade. During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China in January 2008, the two countries issued a joint document on a Shared Vision for the 21st Century, pledging to promote a harmonious world of peace and stability and further strengthen the Sino-Indian Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity. These developments have encouraged analysts across the Himalaya to talk about the return […]

The terrorist carnage in Mumbai resulting in more than 170 deaths draws attention to the role of Pakistan, which India instinctively accuses of responsibility. The fedayeen-type attack singled out Americans and Jews as targets, which smacks of an al-Qaida game plan. Delhi initially distinguished between terrorist groups in Pakistan and the Pakistani authorities as such, but that distinction is getting blurred. Islamabad stubbornly rejects imputations of involvement. Reflexes are hardening on both sides. In the competitive environment of domestic politics as India heads for general elections in the next six months, it will be suicidal for the ruling party to […]

The latest assault in Mumbai has brought fresh tensions to fragile India-Pakistan relations at a time when the Pakistani government had made unprecedented friendly overtures toward its traditional rival. The attacks — which at latest count claimed more than 170 lives, while injuring over three hundred — took place just three days after Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari proposed a “no first nuclear strike” policy with India. According to early news reports, one of the captured attackers revealed under questioning that he was from Pakistan’s Punjab province, belonged to the banned extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and had been trained in […]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) party held a three-day meeting in Johannesburg this past weekend that left them considering either moving forward or delaying the country’s elections, which were initially set for April 2009. The ANC, which does not want the elections to fall in the “busy Easter period,” seems more content with calling for snap elections — possibly on March 25 — than delaying the voting. “President Kgalema Motlanthe should decide on the final election date, but the ANC — as the party which deployed […]

Against the backdrop of starvation and warfare, there are signs that Somalia’s decline might soon turn around. At this point in Somalia’s tortured history, the country’s fortunes are tethered to its resurgent Islamist groups. In early November, one of southern Somalia’s major ports fell to an advancing Islamist army. The U.N. had been using the “beach port” at Merka to deliver thousands of tons of food aid to refugee camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu. With its fall to the Islamists, there was concern that food shipments might be disrupted. But Pete Smerdon, a U.N. spokesman in Nairobi, Kenya, told […]

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Amid allegations that the ruling Sandinista party rigged the Nov. 9 municipal elections in their favor, the Nicaraguan opposition is backing a proposal in that country’s Congress that would annul the results and set up new elections. But President Daniel Ortega calls the proposal “illegal” and announced a decree last Friday that he says would block the opposition’s allegedly unconstitutional maneuver. He announced the decree after nearly two weeks of violence that broke out in the capital and other cities upon allegations of electoral fraud from opposition leaders. “I hope that this returns everything back to normal,” […]

The National Intelligence Council (NIC) released Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World last week, with its avowed purpose to “stimulate strategic thinking about the future by identifying key trends, the factors that drive them, where they seem to be headed, and how they might interact.” The release of the report was more specifically timed to inform the thinking of the incoming Barack Obama administration about the broader strategic challenges and opportunities it will confront upon assuming office on Jan. 20, 2009 — and before officials of the new administration become overwhelmed by their daily inboxes. The authors of Global Trends […]

TOKYO — At last week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Japan and Russia had been expected to announce plans for a visit by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Japan by the end of this year. But the decision to instead postpone the visit until early next year is a fair reflection of the state of political relations between the two nations — technically still at war — in recent years. “Relations have remained stunted,” says Joseph Ferguson, adjunct professor at the University of Washington, who argues that political relations currently lag some way behind economic ties. Ferguson, author of “Japanese-Russian […]

ISTANBUL, Turkey — This past July, the president of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, spoke to an assembled crowd of Shiite Turks, known as Alevis. The speech, calling for unity and acceptance of minorities, came less than a month after Gul’s Islamist-oriented Justice and Development Party (AKP) was spared closure by the constitutional court for anti-secular activity. Much of the Turkish press hailed the moment as a new beginning, the start of a more inclusive and tolerant atmosphere in the country. However, three months later, with the Kurdish dominated southeast alight with riots and the Alevis holding a 50,000-strong demonstration in Ankara […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Venezuelans will take to the polling stations over the weekend in nationwide elections that are being seen as a litmus test for the future of President Hugo Chávez and a golden opportunity for the opposition to regain its presence in local government. The local elections, which include 22 state governorships and over 300 mayoral posts up for grabs, are the first real test of Chávez’s popularity following his narrow defeat in a referendum on constitutional reform — which would have allowed Chávez’s indefinite re-election — last December. Four years ago in the last local elections, pro-Chávez candidates […]

Andrew Sullivan makes a good point in responding to Ross Douthat’s assertion that Barack Obama’s foreign policy will be “to the right of Bill Clinton’s”: Ross is not wrong, but the “left-right” rubric is dated, it seems tome, especially in foreign policy, where any return to realism afterBush means, on the old compass, a hefty shift to the right. The “left-right” rubric in foreign policy is a vestige of the Cold War, when in fact there was a confrontation between two semi-coherent ideologies that aligned along that axis. If there is one region where it still has some semblance of […]

MADRID, Spain — Spain is on high alert for a possible terrorist attack following the arrest on Nov. 17, of the head of the Basque terrorist group, ETA. Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, known by his nom de guerre, Txeroki (Cherokee), was detained along with another ETA suspect in a pre-dawn raid by French police in the southern French Pyrenées region, near the Spanish border. Aspiazu, 35, who is believed to be behind several recent attacks, including the bombing of the Madrid airport in 2006, is the second key ETA leader to be captured within the last six months. In May, […]

JERUSALEM — Political posters are beginning to appear on Israeli streets, sending early signals to voters in advance of next February’s parliamentary election. In Jerusalem, discreet posters show Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu touting his pledge to “Watch over Jerusalem.” In more progressive parts of the country, the ever-serious visage of Kadima’s Tzipi Livni, the current foreign minister, highlights her pragmatic vow to do “What is good for Israel.” With three months to go, the tight contest is shaping up as a duel of personalities between Netanyahu and Livni. Livni, who failed to form a coalition after Ehud Olmert announced his […]

On the same day that American voters elected Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, Bolivian President Evo Morales showed U.S. narcotics agents in his country the door. Morales gave the Drug Enforcement Agency three months to pack up and leave Bolivia, accusing DEA operatives of “political espionage” and inciting violence in the country. The U.S. strongly denies the accusation. Yet the move is just one of a string of recent incidents that have capped nearly a decade of deteriorating relations between governments in Latin America and Washington under the Bush administration. Rapid changes in the political makeup […]

When Thailand’s new prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, paid his first visit to the country’s insurgency-wracked southern provinces last month, he was cautiously optimistic, commenting at the time, “I have been briefed by regional bodies and I consider the situation has improved, but we still cannot be complacent.” Somchai was wise to strike a note that balanced satisfaction with concern. Even skeptics grudgingly acknowledge that the Thai government is making progress in its fight against the insurgency in the restive Malay-Muslim provinces, annexed by the predominantly Buddhist country in 1902. Violence has plummeted by a jaw-dropping 50 percent compared to last […]

On Oct. 30, Murat Zyazikov resigned as president of Ingushetia — a small, mainly-Muslim republic in Russia’s North Caucasus region. Zyazikov’s fate was likely sealed two weeks previously, on Oct. 18, when a military convoy was ambushed by insurgents between the villages of Alkhasty and Surkhakhi, leaving approximately 50 servicemen dead. The ambush was the largest of its type yet seen in the republic. Ingushetia lies directly to the west of Chechnya (the Ingush and the Chechens are close ethnic relatives), and the leaders of the insurgency in Ingushetia have drawn inspiration from their Chechnyan counterparts, who have been fighting […]