Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Argentina is a medium-sized country of 41 million inhabitants and moderate global strategic and economic importance. The country’s foreign policy, defense policy and strategic priorities are driven primarily by the domestic political concerns of the country’s political leaders. In addition, the behavior of Argentine politicians is fundamentally guided by a pragmatic approach toward politics, within which political elites are far more concerned about the accumulation of power and the control of politically valuable financial and material resources than with ideology and specific policy goals. What’s more, the time-horizon of Argentine politicians is very limited, with a short-term perspective most commonly […]

The swiftness with which the global media spotlight withdrew from Egypt’s Tahrir Square has been rivaled by the break-neck pace at which Egypt is implementing reforms. In what today’s Washington Post called a “crash course in constitutional confusion,” 40 million Egyptians are expected to vote Saturday on proposed constitutional amendments, the most significant of which would curb runaway executive powers that were exercised for more than 30 years by ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Noting the referendum is “the first in decades that doesn’t amount to a sham,” the Post cited pundits and politicians expressing “deep concern that citizens are ill-prepared […]

In one of the most violent confrontations since troops killed seven protesters last month, police used tear gas and water cannon to break up demonstrations against the kingdom’s royal family on Sunday, March 14. Witnesses said rubber bullets were also fired by police. Bahrain is gripped in its worst unrest since the 1990s For several weeks now the Shi’ite majority has held rallies complaining against what it says is discrimination by the ruling Sunni minority.

If President Barack Obama’s handling of the events in Libya exemplifies his own definition of a “post-American world,” then we have moved past a G-Zero reality, which is how Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer described a G-20 that can’t agree on how to rebalance global power, and into what I would describe as the “G-Less-Than-Zero” world, where America purposefully abdicates its global leadership role. A realist reading would present Obama as having committed himself to economic renewal at home while contenting himself with just nudging events abroad. Indeed, that’s basically what the buried headline of his 2010 National Security Strategy […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a five-part series examining security and development aid and capacity-building in East Africa. Part I provides an overview of the challenges facing East Africa. Part II will examine the overlap between public health and security challenges. Part III will examine the overlap between small arms trafficking and WMD nonproliferation. Part IV will examine the overlap between counterterrorism and efforts to contain criminal violence. Part V will provide success stories for the security-development model and discuss next steps. According to the World Bank, more than half of the people in sub-Saharan Africa live in […]

Over the weekend, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered a glimpse into China’s apprehension toward the popular uprisings in the Arab world when he rejected comparisons between China and the Middle East. “We have followed closely the turbulence in some north African and Middle Eastern countries,” said Wen, according to the Associated Press. “We believe it is not right to draw an analogy between China and those countries.” His remarks coincided with two worthy op-eds in the U.S. media questioning the likelihood that unrest may spread to China. “The communist government in Beijing is clearly worried,” wrote Francis Fukuyama in the […]

India has vehemently opposed the imposition of a no-fly zone in strife-torn Libya. Though New Delhi supported U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970, authorizing ecomonic sanctions against Col. Moammar Gadhafi and referring Libya to the International Criminal Court, India has made it clear that it stands against any kind of military intervention in the troubled state. However, New Delhi’s aversion to intervention is far from consistent: When it comes to South Asia, in particular, intervention in the internal matters of other states has long been part and parcel of India’s foreign policy. In 1971, India fought a war with Pakistan and […]

The CNN effect is alive and well in 2011, even if its 2.0 incarnation might now be labeled the Al-Jazeera effect. The fact that U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron are now talking about a “full spectrum of possible responses” to support the opposition to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and NATO is considering endorsing a “no-fly zone” over the embattled North African state — even as the war in Afghanistan rages and Iraq is far from settled — testifies to the ongoing power of the global media to drive even a superpower’s foreign policy agenda. But […]

Myanamar has opened with one of its biggest ever precious gem sales where the government will flaunt its ruby industry. However, the country won’t be showing off it’s virtual slave behind the business that brings in billions of dollars to prop up the country’s ruling junta.

To be clearer about what I had in mind when I wrote yesterday that the U.S. should be preparing military options for Libya, I think the no-fly zone is a red herring. It’s essentially shorthand for, “Do something, but make sure it’s sanitized so there are no messy consequences.” The problem is that it won’t be sanitized, and it’s unlikely to have a significant impact. It also requires an ongoing operation and commitment of resources. If we are going to make that kind of extended commitment, it should be in terms of logistical support — humanitarian, organizational and military — […]

When Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi reacted to popular demonstrations by shooting protesters, he triggered a torrent of international condemnation. Gadhafi and his harsh crackdown became the target of pointed denunciations by the international community and by top government officials on every continent. There was, however, one region where Gadhafi found words of support from a number of powerful leaders: Latin America. The reaction to events in Libya and other Middle Eastern country from leftist leaders in Latin America says much about their worldview, about the way they define themselves and about their commitment to their political principles. Consider Nicaraguan President […]

Who is ready to talk to Moammar Gadhafi? Last week, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela announced that his Libyan counterpart and longtime ally would accept an international “Committee of Peace” to end the rebellion that threatens to destroy him. Rebel leaders in Benghazi dismissed the proposal out of hand. Yet there is a good chance that outside mediators — if not necessarily Chávez — will eventually play a part in ending the Libyan civil war. A negotiated end could in fact come quite soon if the rebels regain their early momentum and push on to Tripoli. Although Gadhafi says he […]

The battle against piracy off the coast of Somalia is not going well, with pirates continuing to attack and seize vessels and, in some cases, becoming more violent. The recent deaths of four American missionaries at the hands of pirates served to highlight the helplessness of the world navies gathered in the Gulf of Aden: Four American warships, including the USS Enterprise, monitored the situation, but none were able to prevent the tragedy. While the multinational naval flotilla — primarily CTF-151, but including some other navies — off Somalia has seen some notable successes, it has not defeated the pirates […]

I have to admit that I have been very tempted by the argument — best expressed, to my mind, by Thomas P.M. Barnett, here and here — that the U.S. should take some sort of military action to make sure that Moammar Gadhafi does not hold onto power in Libya. The idea that there are no American interests at stake is based on such a narrow definition of American interests that I find it not very compelling at all. And the calls for restraint, while sound as a guide to U.S. policy in general, seem strikingly out of place here. […]

Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota recently paid his country’s first high-level visit to Venezuela since the inauguration of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in January. In an e-mail interview, Kurt Weyland, professor of Latin American politics at the University of Texas at Austin, discussed Brazil-Venezuela relations. WPR: What is the recent history of Brazil-Venezuela relations? Kurt Weyland: Economic exchange between Brazil and Venezuela has intensified greatly in recent years, and political relations have been officially close, despite a divergence of interests beneath the surface. Brazil has taken great advantage of the oil-fueled boom that Venezuela experienced in the 2000s, selling increasing […]

I had the pleasure of taking part in France 24’s panel discussion program, The World This Week, on Friday. The other guests were Matthew Saltmarsh of the IHT, Billie O’Kadameri of Radio France International and Simon Kuper of Financial Times. The discussion focused on events in Libya, but we also covered Ivory Coast and the resignations of former French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodore zu Guttenberg. Part one can be found here. Part two can be found here. I recommend the discussion on Libya in particular, because Billie O’Kadameri offered some very useful insights into […]

With Indian newspapers still carrying obituaries of the country’s strategic doyen, K. Subhramanyam, who passed away in February after almost a half-century at the forefront of New Delhi’s strategic debates, it is worth considering the object of Subhramanyam’s concern during his final days: the implications for India of a proposed U.S.-China grand strategy agreement hammered out by a group of policy experts in Washington and Beijing. The document proposed a series of strategic compromises between China and the U.S., including a massive Chinese investment in the U.S. economy in return for an informal nonaggression pact, particularly with regard to the […]