Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Ian Bremmer, the founder and head of Eurasia Group (for which I work as an analyst), has argued that we are living in a “G-Zero” world, or one in which there is no genuine great-power leadership. From the perspective of political science, it is hard to disagree, as anyone reading a newspaper these days can attest. Still, the historian in me says this situation cannot last for too long. My reasoning here has nothing to do with the global correlation of military force, since thanks to globalization’s emerging middle class, “butter” will inevitably emerge as the winner over “guns.” Instead, […]

It is amusing to hear U.S. politicians of all ideological stripes sounding like classic libertarians as they proclaim that, in these times of fiscal austerity, the United States should no longer act as the “world’s policeman” and that other countries should be contributing “their fair share” to global security. Nevertheless, the many studies undertaken by the fellows of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, detailing how the United States can shift to becoming an “offshore balancer,” thereby reducing its footprint around the world, and how our European and East Asian allies can afford to do more in the service […]

At long last, Washington looks ready to pass free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Congressional ratification has been a long time in the making — the trade agreement with Colombia was signed in 2006, while the agreements with Panama and South Korea were inked in 2007. The trade deals with Colombia and Panama were, in some sense, part of a last-ditch effort by President George W. Bush to salvage the work put in by former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Hopes for that hemisphere-wide trade zone […]

On Aug. 1, local government officials in China’s Xinjiang province alleged that the ringleader of a deadly attack in Kashgar had been trained in Pakistan. The accusation has injected some sourness into a bilateral relationship often described as “sweeter than honey.” In fact, contrary to the sappy rhetoric, China-Pakistan ties have rarely been trouble-free — and the points of tension long predate what happened in Kashgar. One example is the plight of Pakistan-based Chinese nationals. According to estimates gathered from Pakistani and Chinese media sources, about 35 Chinese workers were kidnapped, killed or maimed in the country between 2004 and […]

Amid the anxiety and devastation of the London riots, there was one brief comic interlude, when the government of Iran urged British authorities to use restraint in dealing with protesters. The appeal was bitterly amusing, of course, because of the brutal tactics Tehran used to put down protests in 2009. Police in London managed to end the rioting using traditional crowd-control methods. But then, in the wake of a public outcry over the disturbances and the disappointing performance of the police, British Prime Minister David Cameron made a highly controversial proposal: Next time, he suggested, the government might choke off […]

In the course of a conversation with Michael Cohen yesterday evening, we agreed that the greatest existential threat the U.S. faces right now is the political paralysis in Washington that might keep the U.S. from enacting the course corrections needed to avoid financial and strategic insolvency. But if the U.S. is its own worst enemy, I noted, how is that so very different from the rest of the world today? Almost everywhere I look, I see countries that are through their own policy failures or strategic shortsightedness creating the greatest challenges they now face. So, which country is not its […]

Nigeria and Cameroon recently negotiated a draft border agreement that would, among other things, allow hydrocarbon exploration along the countries’ shared border. In an email interview, John Campbell, the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, discussed Nigeria-Cameroon relations. WPR: What is the current state of diplomatic relations between Nigeria and Cameroon? John Campbell: Diplomatic relations between Abuja and Yaoundé appear to be excellent, certainly at the presidential level. There is ongoing dialogue about regional issues, especially those involving the Gulf of Guinea. Former Nigerian President […]

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has had a rocky seven months in office. Having already shuffled her cabinet three times, twice due to corruption scandals, Rousseff is now facing a brewing controversy in the Tourism Ministry that has the potential to force a fourth cabinet change. One might expect the shaky start to undermine Rousseff’s credibility, but so far she has managed to weather the storm. Despite her lack of charisma, her inexperience as a politician and a cabinet tainted by corruption allegations, she remains popular. Her approval rating stands at 67 percent, according to a poll by Brazilian firm IBOPE […]

The biggest defense news from the past week concerned the beginning of sea trials for China’s first aircraft carrier, Varyag. A former Soviet/Ukrainian hulk and the sister ship of the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, Varyag finally set sail after a long process of refurbishment. The ship, which may now go by the name Shi Lang, will likely only serve as a training carrier, but her embarkation on trials has generated great consternation among observers of the Asian naval scene. Officials from both the United States and Japan have asked China to explain its need for an aircraft carrier, as […]

There are two interesting U.S. angles to the recent spate of high-level defense contacts between Israel and China. The first has to do with the respective roles each country plays in the domestic U.S. discourse, with Israel universally portrayed as the United States’ most stalwart ally and China increasingly portrayed as our most likely future peer competitor. This Manichean view is especially pronounced among the Tea Party and Christian Zionist wings of the GOP, but is also present in moderate Republican and Democratic circles. So it will be interesting to see how a closer defense relationship between the two plays […]

In thinking about how to support the twin goals of deterrence and assurance, the Obama administration has been struggling with how best to integrate U.S. nuclear weapons, conventional forces and missile defenses into a coherent strategic posture. Now budgetary pressures are making the trade-offs involved in striking the necessary balance for such an initiative even sharper. These three military tools interact in complex ways. Nuclear forces are very powerful but for the most part unusable due to their destructiveness and the taboo associated with their use. Their main value is therefore to deter adversaries and reassure allies, thereby helping to […]

Despite the jubilation that followed South Sudan’s largely peaceful vote for independence in January, relations with northern Sudan have since deteriorated. In May, just weeks ahead of South Sudan’s July 9 independence day, the Sudanese army occupied the contested Abyei border region. In response, the United Nations Security Council authorized a peacekeeping mission, UNIFSA, to monitor the border and protect civilians there. On Aug. 4, four Ethiopian peacekeepers deployed with UNIFSA were killed after their vehicle struck a landmine in Abyei. Three of the soldiers reportedly died from their injuries after a United Nations medical evacuation helicopter was delayed three […]

The U.K. recently announced plans to cooperate with Bolivia against drug trafficking, following a diplomatic overture to Brazil in June. In an email interview, Juliana Bertazzo, an associate at the London School of Economics and an associate fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London, discussed U.K.-South America relations. WPR: What is the recent history of the U.K.’s relations with South America? Juliana Bertazzo: The most significant recent event is a new rapprochement between the U.K. and individual South American countries after Argentina’s latest attempt to gather multilateral support for its claim on […]

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, I was completing my doctoral dissertation on Warsaw Pact-Third World relations. I immediately understood that my time in Soviet studies was done. Why? Because I knew that Russia was full of brilliant political scientists who, once free to pursue their craft free of ideological constraints, would do a better job explaining things there than outsiders could. The generation of Russian scholars that emerged in the post-Soviet era proved me right, and none has consistently impressed more than Dmitri Trenin, who heads up the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Trenin, […]

As the Republican-controlled House advances its legislative agenda, U.S. civilian assistance to Pakistan looks likely to be one of the early casualties. In addition to new conditions on assistance to Pakistan, approved by two House panels, White House officials expect that the overall aid package is likely to shrink as well. But before lawmakers cut aid to Islamabad, they should consider the role it plays in realizing long-term U.S. interests. The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, more commonly known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act, tripled financial assistance to Pakistan’s civilian institutions by pledging $1.5 billion annually for five years. […]

Thailand’s new Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra made headlines this week by forming a cabinet void of any members tied to the nation’s pro-democracy “Red Shirt” movement. Yingluck is the sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted from the prime minister seat in 2006 by a military coup, and it is widely accepted that her election as the first female to hold the office depended heavily on support from the Red Shirts. But she’s taking care now not to identify herself too closely with the movement whose massive demonstrations brought Bangkok to its knees last year. According to Paul Chambers, head […]

The riots this past week in the United Kingdom, coming on the heels of the terrorist attack in Norway last month, the protests in Greece and the tsunami and subsequent nuclear accident in Japan earlier this spring, should be a wake-up call to Europe and the rest of the developed world that it cannot ignore the domestic side of the national security equation. It is time to dispense with the hubris of thinking that natural disasters, civil unrest or terrorism produces instability only in countries like Haiti or Iraq. And as Reuters correspondent Peter Apps notes, while a massive police […]