Diplomacy & Politics Archive

The future of women’s rights in the Arab Spring countries has been an open worry in recent months. Observers have noted there are no women in the transitional government in Egypt. Fundamentalist elements in Yemen that had opposed raising the marriage age for girls, currently at 8 years old, are among the chief opposition forces trying to bring down the Saleh government. Paraphrasing T.S. Eliot, spring might well be the cruelest season for women in the Arab world. It is in this context that recent reports in the Egyptian media are so troubling. According to the Egyptian Center for Women’s […]

After the whirlwind of headlines surrounding last week’s high-level talks between China and the United States, few seemed to notice this week that senior Chinese military leaders have been touring a variety of sensitive U.S. military bases. The visits came at the invitation by the Obama administration and have prompted some to question the extent to which military relations between the two powers — which were frozen by China amid tension over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan — may finally be turning around. “I don’t think it’s a turnaround, I think it’s a continuation of where we were before China […]

Apparently President Barack Obama’s speech on U.S. Middle East policy has created quite the uproar among those who are shocked to learn that there is gambling going on in Rick’s place. So be it. For me, I’ll limit my textual analysis to the speech’s few sentences that might end up having a real-world impact. First place goes to this one, which represents the kind of contractual language against which future U.S. policy should be held accountable: Our support for these principles is not a secondary interest — today I am making it clear that it is a top priority that […]

If terrorism recedes as the central defining question of contemporary international relations, will “natural security” rise to take its place? Thom Shanker sees natural security emerging “not just by competitive economic growth, but also by potentially disruptive scarcities — depletion of minerals; desertification of land; pollution or overuse of water; weather changes that kill fish and farms.” Natural security, and its potential to fuel new conflicts between states, is becoming an issue because of the rapid growth of a truly global middle class — projected to encompass some 5 billion people by 2030. Two of the drivers of a middle-class […]

The Stuxnet computer worm, WikiLeaks and the social-media-facilitated revolutions of the Arab Spring have already provided ample reason for a high-level U.S. policy on cyber issues. Now the killing of Osama bin Laden has provided an opening for a broader strategic dialogue in Washington, one that includes cyberspace in its proper context. This policy discussion has been a long time coming, and it has now arrived in the form of the Obama administration’s “International Strategy for Cyberspace” (.pdf), which presents concepts and ideals on a cluster of diplomatic, commercial and security issues related to the global information space that the […]

In a press conference yesterday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that disagreements over European-based missile defense might erupt into a new Cold War. In an email interview, Richard Weitz, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World Politics Review senior editor, discussed the state of NATO-Russia missile defense talks. WPR: Where do discussions between the U.S. and its NATO allies and Russia on missile defense stand? Richard Weitz: At the November 2010 NATO-Russia Council Summit in Lisbon, NATO and Russia agreed to expand their cooperation on tactical missile defense and take measures to overcome their differences on territorial ballistic […]

When the Arab Spring began erupting late last year, most world leaders responded with a mixture of bewilderment and incoherence. Whether in Tunis or Cairo, Washington or Paris, heads of government seemed confused about how to react to the mass popular demands for democratic change. That, however, was not the case inside the palaces that house the reigning monarchs of the Middle East. There, the swelling political seas were met with a steady hand on the rudder. As they watched besieged presidents plead or do battle with their people, and as they observed Western leaders nudge and later withdraw their […]

As the American media breathlessly reported the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, several observers pointed out an error made by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, among others: Abbottabad is not a suburb of Islamabad, as he described it, but rather a garrison city located about 35 miles from the Pakistani capital. Blitzer’s mistake, though minor in the scheme of things, is emblematic of a broader failure by Americans to understand Pakistan. Much more is made of the outlandish conspiracy theories held by many Pakistanis about the U.S. than of Americans’ misconceptions about Pakistan. With the U.S.-Pakistan relationship in dire straits following […]

There are reports that the once-banned Tunisian Islamist party, Hizb Ennahda, has emerged as the country’s most powerful political force ahead of July elections for the transitional national assembly that will be tasked with reforming the Tunisian constitution. Close observers of Tunisia, however, say the country’s post-authoritarian political space is still in its early stages. So while an Ennahda victory may be likely, it would not necessarily signal a full-blown Islamic takeover of the government. “I think fears about Ennahda have been ramped up substantially more than they need to be,” says Christopher Alexander, a political scientist at Davidson College […]

China is calling for the international community to help fight what it calls a homegrown terrorist problem in mostly Muslim Xinjiang. The Chinese government accuses the region’s Uighur minority population of seeking independence through violence, while the Uighurs blame Beijing for suppressing their culture and religion.

The term of Nepal’s Constituent Assembly, which was already extended for an extra year in May 2010, will likely come to an end on May 28 without the assembly having fulfilled its mandate to write a new constitution. Though it is easy to blame the country’s bitterly divided political parties for the failure, there is actually some merit to the politicians’ claim that they faced significant obstacles. Nilamber Acharya, a leader of the opposition Nepali Congress party and chair of the Constitutional Committee, which was entrusted to finalize the first draft of the constitution, blames the delay on “so many […]

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasoul paid a state visit to China last week, highlighting the two countries’ growing ties. In an email interview, Nicklas Norling, a research fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and the Silk Road Studies Program, discussed China-Afghanistan relations. WPR: What is the history of relations between China and Afghanistan? Nicklas Norling: There have been few links between China and Afghanistan throughout the past century, with Beijing only very recently showing a real interest in engagement. Even though China and Afghanistan share a short border, China’s diplomatic, economic and other ties have hitherto been more significant with […]

When Ban Ki-moon was chosen as secretary-general of the United Nations, his predecessor Kofi Annan welcomed him as “a man with a truly global mind.” Nearly five years on, such a mindset is indeed an asset, as Ban must find his attention constantly roaming from one to another of the planet’s trouble spots. In the past six months, the U.N. has played a central role in major crises in both Côte d’Ivoire and Libya. The Ivorian standoff threatened to shame both the secretary-general and the Security Council, as Laurent Gbagbo ignored their efforts to make him leave office after losing […]

Last weekend I attended a seminar on “Liberty and Responsibility in the Major Works of Samuel P. Huntington.” The participants included former Huntington students, such as myself, as well as academics and independent scholars interested in his writings. Though it operated under Chatham House rules, meaning that participants’ contributions were off the record, the seminar served as a useful reminder of Huntington’s prolific genius and of the continued relevance of his work. Like many Harvard professors, Huntington was active in both real world politics and academia. He was an early New Deal supporter, advised several Democratic presidents and became a […]

BEIJING — Enhanced transnationalism in international systems is creating new sources of comparative advantage for nations, with the strategic value of connectedness being a particularly noteworthy example. But in an age where horizontal global network connections are proliferating, the world’s fastest-rising power, China, maintains a rigidly vertical, Communist Party-led hierarchy of information. This exceptionalism, increasingly apparent throughout China’s domestic and foreign policy, is emerging as one of the most fundamental obstacles to the country’s continued international rise. Chinese exceptionalism in formal foreign and economic policy is by no means a new phenomenon, but China, to a greater degree than any […]

Debates over space policy typically concern three themes: national security, civil space and commercial space. National security discussions have historically focused on threats to space systems and the proper steps to either preclude, or respond to, those threats. Over the past several years, however, those discussions have grown more sophisticated, moving on to the broader issue of U.S. dependence on and use of space to enhance its military, economic and political power. In civil space, policy discussions address questions of resources and priorities: how much to spend and what to spend it on. Roughly every decade, civil space programs experience […]

On Jan. 31, 2011, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, Robert O. Blake Jr., told the Indian press that the United States is hoping to become India’s “close partner” in space exploration. Blake’s comments reflected a major tenet of the Obama administration’s 2010 National Space Policy (NSP): partnerships in space exploration with more nations. Although the global future in space may well be characterized by countries both cooperating in some areas and competing in others –what some have called “coopetition” — U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon has been clear that Washington wants a […]