Diplomacy & Politics Archive

For all their inflamed partisan passions and heated rhetoric, the 2010 midterm elections were conducted in a virtual foreign policy vacuum. In stark contrast to every election since 2002, national security played almost no role in either the Republican or Democratic national campaigns, with both parties preferring to argue about domestic issues such as the economy, unemployment, and government spending. The Republicans won soundly, taking control of the House of Representatives, and narrowing the Democratic majority in the Senate. But the domestic focus of this election means the new Republican representatives and senators will come to power with a fundamentally […]

Before President Barack Obama embarked on his 10-day Asian trip, his longest overseas visit since taking office, he highlighted the tour’s economic objectives. But given that government leaders generally exert more control over political-military decisions than over economic trends, the strategic goals of Obama’s trip are perhaps more important and certainly worth examining. Obama has already completed the first and longest leg of his trip in India. Some Indian leaders who place great stock on status and symbolism grumble that despite enthusiastic rhetoric, the Obama White House has effectively downgraded the U.S.-Indian partnership compared to his predecessor. Unlike the Bush […]

South Korea is set to host the G-20 leaders’ summit in Seoul on Thursday and Friday, the fifth such gathering since the onset of the global financial crisis. While past summits have focused on coordinated stimulus, global financial regulation and reform of the major international financial institutions, this week’s meeting is gearing up to be known as the “trade and currency summit.” It is also likely to be more tense and contentious than any of its predecessors, whether leaders admit it publicly or not. This is especially true when it comes to the ongoing economic prize-fight between the G-20’s two […]

The rapid economic growth of the People’s Republic of China has fueled a demand for energy that has now outstripped domestic sources of supply. As a result, China can no longer sustain its economic expansion without importing massive quantities of energy. To compensate for the projected underproduction of domestic energy sources as well as further increases in anticipated energy consumption, the Chinese government has pursued a subtle energy security strategy that includes three major components: first, reforming the domestic energy sector to maximize production and attract foreign direct investment; second, expanding China’s energy mix to reduce the nation’s dependency on […]

BEIJING — Forty years after the establishment of modern diplomatic ties between Italy and China, Rome has become one of Beijing’s most-trusted partners in Western Europe. Following recent high-level talks in both capitals, the two countries have enhanced cooperation in a range of areas. With China keen to increase its influence in the Eastern Mediterranean and Italy in desperate need of fresh economic impetus, the potential benefits to both sides could be significant. In contrast to China’s engagement with resource-rich and emerging nations, its interest in Italy is motivated by the Mediterranean country’s geographic advantages and advanced technological capabilities. Since […]

Judging from the accounts of virtually every pundit, the Chinese emerged as the foreign threat of choice in the just-concluded U.S. elections, with the breakthrough “Chinese Professor” ad being compared by the always-calm James Fallows to such incendiary hall-of-famers as “Daisy Girl” (1964) and “Willie Horton” (1988). I’m with Fallows: The exceedingly clever ad represents a crystallizing moment in our increasingly contentious relationship with China, elevating the Chinese far beyond Iran’s mullahs and Osama Bin Laden as the pre-eminent fear-driven threat dynamic motivating calls to get our house in order. The ad portrays a high-tech college lecture hall in Beijing, […]

It was all smiles and friendly talk of brotherhood and shared destiny at the presidential palace in Caracas yesterday, as the leaders of Colombia and Venezuela met to reaffirm their commitment to fully restore diplomatic ties and put recent bitter disputes behind them. The two neighboring Andean nations began work to restore broken relations shortly after Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos took office in August. “We are determined that no one or anything will derail us,” said Santos during his second meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez since August. “We’ve gone from good-intentioned statements to concrete accords,” he added. The […]

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s midterm elections, President Barack Obama again sounded the theme of bipartisan cooperation, speaking of the need to find “common ground” and calling on both Democrats and Republicans to unite around solving the country’s pressing challenges. In theory, bipartisanship is a golden rule when it comes to foreign policy, where politics is supposed to stop at the water’s edge. That notion was first articulated by a Republican, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, who at the outset of the Cold War, under the administration of Democratic President Harry Truman, argued that America’s position in the world would be weakened […]

On the same day that voters in the United States went to the polls to throw a punch into the gut of the political establishment, some 5,000 miles away, police in Greece had their hands full with a series of bombs mailed to foreign embassies. Greek investigators say the bombs, 11 of them in all, were probably the work of militant activists who, in their own violent way and to a much greater degree, also aimed to overturn the political and economic order. In recent months, angry efforts to take on the system have gained steam throughout the developed world […]

The room came to order. The negotiators, some still exasperated by the day’s events, sat anxiously awaiting the final results. “Congratulations, delegates,” the moderator announced. “You have negotiated a comprehensive successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.” The delegates erupted in deafening applause, screams of joy and relieved laughter. No, these were not real-life climate-change negotiators. In August, we designed and ran a daylong scenario to simulate the international climate-change negotiations that will launch in Cancun, Mexico, on Nov. 29. Our goals were to gain a sense of how events may play out in Cancun when the real international negotiators meet […]

To trace the deterioration of Côte d’Ivoire from 2002, when a civil war pitted north against south, through Oct. 31, 2010, when ballots were cast in a presidential election five years overdue, one only needs to look at the dance trends that came and went during that time in the nightclubs, living rooms and village squares around the nation. First there was 2002’s “Coupé-Décalé,” which roughly translates to “Cut and Run.” Then in 2004, the theme was “Abidjan Est Gâté” (“Abidjan Is Ruined”), a lament about the fate of the economic capital, Abidjan. In 2006, people flapped and squawked their […]

Expeditionary warfare is built into the DNA of the British military establishment. Historically, Great Britain conducted war not by creating a great continental army, but rather by using the Royal Navy to deliver the relatively small British army to its enemies’ weak points. Wellington’s expedition to the Iberian Peninsula helped defeat Napoleon, and even the great formations sent to France in 1914 and 1939 were called the British Expeditionary Force. The idea that wars should be fought at a distance has informed British military policy for centuries. To this end, the United Kingdom has historically structured its military forces with […]

Although opinion polls show that foreign policy will have little impact on today’s congressional elections, the war in Afghanistan will certainly be an important subject of concern for the new Congress. And last week’s unprecedented joint Russian-U.S. drug raid against several narcotics laboratories in Afghanistan is a hopeful sign. The raid suggests that Russian-American differences over the war are narrowing, and raises the possibility that Moscow will provide additional support to the coalition’s war efforts in Afghanistan in coming weeks. In a commando operation that took place in the early morning hours of Oct. 28, Russian counternarcotics officers for the […]

Oil and gas discoveries in the eastern Mediterranean are ratcheting up tensions in a region that already has its fair share of pernicious disputes. Rival communities on the divided island of Cyprus, as well as Turkey and arch-enemies Lebanon and Israel are staking claims in one of the world’s newest oil frontiers. The region’s deposits are minor compared to the Persian Gulf, but for small nations like Israel and Cyprus they hold substantial promise. But rather than providing an opportunity for stability through economic cooperation, the discoveries raise the specter of renewed conflict as the parties push ahead with deals […]

Writing recently in the Financial Times, long-time economic journalist Gideon Rachman lamented the passing of a post-Cold War “golden age,” in which “countries shared a belief in globalization and Western democratic values.” In Rachman’s calculation, that consensus has been battered by the global financial crisis, which ushered in a “new, less-predictable era.” Rachman, whose book entitled “Zero-Sum Future” comes out next February, is clearly prepping the literary battlefield by positioning himself as an “anti-Robert Wright.” The latter’s book, “Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny,” argued that human progress has been characterized by — and thus depends on — our increasing […]

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s tour of Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam this week gave a boost to India’s “Look East” policy, underscoring the need for greater integration and deeper engagement between India and East Asia in trade and other strategic sectors. Singh, who traveled to Japan and Malaysia for bilateral visits and to Vietnam for the 8th ASEAN-India Summit, has made it clear that his government’s foreign-policy priority will be East and Southeast Asia, which are poised for sustained growth in the 21st century. India’s efforts to make itself relevant to the region come at a time of great turmoil […]

With elections underway or imminent in Ivory Coast, Niger, Tanzania and Guinea, Africa seems to be entering a season of democracy. But it follows a year that saw democratic governments and processes take a hit across the continent. Meanwhile, U.N. peacekeepers have struggled to contain violence in eastern Congo, tensions are rising in Sudan in anticipation of January’s referendum on Southern Sudan’s independence, and power-sharing agreements are being tested in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Hovering in the background, the continent’s regional power, South Africa, struggles to realize the promise of its post-apartheid potential. World Politics Review offers a closer look at […]