Diplomacy & Politics Archive

As massive protests shook Iran in June 2009 following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s widely contested re-election, Arab leaders around the region watched the unfolding events with a mix of wariness and satisfaction. Unnerved by the Obama administration’s overtures of rapprochement with the Islamic Republic, many had a keen sense that Iran would emerge from the crisis weakened and more isolated internationally. They were largely correct. Some two years later, it is the Iranians who are closely following the slew of uprisings — and violent crackdowns — that have rocked the Arab world. While initially reticent to weigh in, Tehran could not […]

While Washington lawmakers congratulate themselves for avoiding a default on U.S. government obligations by raising the debt ceiling at the proverbial 11th hour, and the halls of the Capitol ring with praise that the “system worked as intended,” the view from outside the Beltway is not so sanguine. Certainly, the U.S. has not fallen into the morass that bedeviled 18th-century Poland, where with a single negative vote, any member of the assembly could force its dissolution — and the nullification of all legislation passed during that session. But the inability of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the president […]

The new Middle East is very much a work in progress, but there is little question that the latest developments in that pivotal part of the world are making the stirring picture of freedom, democracy and secularism that so many had envisioned in the early days of the Arab Spring look more like a glassy mirage masking anti-liberal, anti-Western sentiment. As spring has given way to a boiling summer, most of the region’s revolutions have either stalled or moved in a direction that bears little resemblance to what progressive forces had initially hoped for. Not only have Arab liberals experienced […]

BEIJING — China’s social contract revolves around the Communist Party delivering the benefits of modernization to the country’s citizenry, and not, as Western observers might hope, around the transition to multi-party democracy. Consequently, technocratic failure presents the greatest risk to the party’s domestic credibility, something emphatically highlighted by the ongoing wave of public anger over the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash. Moreover, unlike recent high-profile political cases, the Wenzhou crash might very well turn out to be the moment China’s emerging public sphere came of age. Beyond loss of life, perhaps the most profound source of public anger regarding the crash […]

While the horrific famine in the Horn of Africa has captured international attention, a similar emergency on the other side of the world, in North Korea, has quietly moved past the point of crisis. The World Food Program in April called for $224 million in emergency aid for North Korea. But the international community — particularly the United States and South Korea, traditionally the largest donors to North Korea — have so far refused to fund the request. Their resistance, according to Roberta Cohen, a nonresident senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, can best be explained […]

Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, has appeared in a Cairo court to face trial on charges of conspiring to kill anti-government protesters and corruption.

Weeks after the Malaysian government cracked down on pro-reform protesters gathered under the banner of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, or Bersih, uncertainty is still thick in Kuala Lumpur. Bersih, which literally means “clean” in Malay, estimates that 50,000 people showed up at the July 9 rally to protest in favor of electoral reforms, clean politics and anti-corruption measures as stated in an 8-point manifesto. The police, who fired tear gas and water cannons at the demonstrators, claim that only a few thousand were present. In the end, some 1,700 people were arrested, while several were injured, and […]

The new debt ceiling deal between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans included one major Republican concession: deep cuts in defense. The first set of defense budget cuts will amount to $350 billion over 10 years, but the deal includes a triggering mechanism that may tack on another $500 billion or so in the same time period. After a decade of war and more than a decade of sustained defense budget growth, this would represent a major shift in how the United States spends money on its military. In one sense, the decision to cut the defense budget makes a […]

Recent violence in the China’s western Xinjiang province has resulted in more than a dozen deaths and prompted an aggressive security response by Chinese authorities, who assert the unrest is being driven by Muslim separatists trained in Pakistan. The accusation, leaked to China’s state media Monday, came as the head of Pakistani intelligence was making a visit to Beijing and exposed a potential sticking-point in the oft-celebrated alliance between the two countries. According to Kerry Brown, who heads the Asia program at Chatham House in London, it also shed light on the delicate balance that characterizes the three-way relationship between […]

Global Insider is an ongoing World Politics Review interview series that examines developing trends in geopolitics. From energy issues and policy close-ups to bilateral and regional relations, Global Insider explores the foundations and implications of new developments in international affairs through the voices of pre-eminent experts hailing from government, academia and research institutions. Global Insider is published 3-5 times per week on the Trend Lines page. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Not a subscriber? Purchase this document for Kindle or as a PDF from Scribd. Or subscribe now. Energy […]

Allegations of Russian involvement in a bombing targeting the U.S. embassy compound in Tbilisi, Georgia, have sent diplomatic shockwaves through international policy circles and threaten the Obama administration’s carefully calibrated “reset” program with Moscow. While the details of the incident underscore the Caucasus’ still-smoldering volatility, they are consistent with Russia’s longtime activities in the region. The reactions were quick and vigorous following Eli Lake’s July 22 report in the Washington Times, in which official Georgian sources accused Russian agents of complicity in a September 2010 explosion near the American Embassy in Tbilisi. According to the Georgian Interior Ministry, an Abkhazia-based […]

Shelling by Syrian tanks in the city of Hama has seen scores of anti-government protesters killed.

Friday’s mass resignation by Turkey’s top general, Isik Kosaner, and the commanders of the country’s army, navy and air force was a clear sign that the long-running battle between the military and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been decisively won by the government and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But the neutralization of the Turkish military as a political force will also bring with it greater pressure on the increasingly powerful AKP, which must now demonstrate that it can continue Turkey’s democratization process — particularly the drafting of a new, civilian-minded constitution — in an inclusive manner. […]

Despite the rush right now to declare important milestones or turning points in the fight against terrorism, the best handle we can get on the situation seems to be that al-Qaida is near dead, but its franchises have quite a bit of life in them. The implied situational uncertainty is to be expected following Osama Bin Laden’s assassination, as he was our familiar “handle” on the issue for more than a decade. But although it is normal that we now seek a new, widely accepted paradigm, it is also misguided: In global terms we are, for lack of a better […]

The Western news media has made much over the recent decision by Egypt’s transitional government to ban foreign election monitors from the country’s upcoming parliamentary polls. The more important story, however, has been buried: The transitional regime, which includes no women, has scrapped quotas for women in the national legislature, while retaining them for farmers and workers. In the previous legislature, Egypt’s mandatory quota system allowed women to hold approximately 13 percent of the seats — 64 out of 445. Now, the only protection for women will apply to the half of the new parliament’s seats that will be elected […]