Diplomacy & Politics Archive

China’s four-week standoff with the Philippines in May over the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea has brought the issue of Asian naval rivalry back to center stage. The anxiety is not confined to China’s neighbors in Southeast Asia, however. Maritime experts in India now worry about the increasing frequency and size of Chinese maritime contingents deployed in anti-piracy patrols off Somalia and the increasingly assertive stance adopted by China’s maritime policy community, no longer coy about discussing naval bases in the Indian Ocean. But if New Delhi is most concerned about China’s forays into the Indian Ocean, […]

In June, Morocco requested $1 billion in U.S.-funded upgrades to 200 M1A1 Abrams tanks. In an email interview, Yahia H. Zoubir, a professor of international relations and international management and the director of research in geopolitics at Euromed Management in Marseilles, France, discussed U.S.-Morocco defense relations. WPR: What is the historical background of U.S.-Morocco defense relations, and how have they evolved? Yahia H. Zoubir: The United States considers Morocco a friend and ally, with formal relations dating from the 1787 Treaty of Marrakech, the oldest unbroken treaty in U.S. foreign relations. Foreign military assistance to Morocco began immediately after Morocco’s […]

On July 7, for the first time since 1969, Libyans voted to elect a General National Congress as part of efforts to create a new political system after the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi last year. The elections saw 2,639 individual candidates compete for 120 seats in 69 constituencies, with 559 women making up 44 percent of the candidates registered for seats reserved for political parties. Turnout was high, with 2.8 million people — of which 45 percent were women — registering to vote from among the roughly 3.5 million Libyans eligible to do so. The polls, which were the country’s […]

During his recent visit to New Delhi, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta highlighted the evolution of the annual Indo-U.S. naval war game Malabar from a passing exercise for the two navies’ ships into a full-scale engagement across all functional areas of naval warfare. Indeed, the steadily increasing complexity of Indo-U.S. naval force coordination has been a standout feature of an otherwise interest-driven relationship, suggesting Washington increasingly sees India as the western hinge of the U.S. pivot to Asia, with the U.S. Navy backstopping the shift from the Pacific. However, before the Indo-U.S. entente on the seas becomes a full-blown condominium, […]

A famine disaster in the village of Koulikoira in Niger’s south-west is beginning to improve thanks to the efforts of aid agencies. World News Videos by NewsLook

Fears of violence are rising in Libya on the eve of the country’s first free election in more than 50 years. Saturday’s National Assembly elections could determine whether Libya continues to suffer discord along ethnic and regional lines or consolidates its moves toward becoming a new, democratic state. “It is important to keep in mind that in a postconflict election like [this one], the main concern is usually about credibility,” Ayman Ayoub, regional director for Western Asia and North Africa at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, told Trend Lines. “What really matters is that the elections are […]

There are two simultaneous and contradictory trends occurring right now in the international system. The first is the diffusion of power, as reflected by the displacement of the old Group of Seven, which at its founding in the 1970s comprised the bulk of the world’s productive capacity, by the Group of 20, where there is no longer one dominant power capable of driving the global agenda. The second is the reality that the United States still far outstrips any other one state or group of states in terms of capabilities, ranging from the power of its currency to its ability […]

Continuing violence in Libya has raised fears about security in the first national elections after 42 years of dictatorship under Muammar Gaddafi. World News Videos by NewsLook

An activist in Korea who advocates unification was arrested by officials from the South in front of a chanting crowd of North Koreans at the border. World News Videos by NewsLook

NAIROBI, Kenya — In Kenya, a country with a history of institutionalized impunity for politicians, the attempt last week by parliament to pass legislation seemingly designed to safeguard incumbency might be considered par for the course. The proposed bill, which among other things mandated that members of parliament have university degrees, highlighted the challenges facing political reform efforts two years after the passage of what was hailed as arguably the most progressive constitution on the continent. Significantly, however, the move by parliament was greeted with popular outrage and criticized by media outlets and prominent officials alike. Sensing the political fallout, […]

Though largely overlooked amid the coverage of Mexico’s deteriorating security situation over the past six years, outgoing President Felipe Calderón made noteworthy gains in Mexican foreign policy during his tenure. With the victory in Sunday’s presidential election of Enrique Peña Nieto marking the return to power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) after 12 years, some might expect a shift in the country’s foreign policy agenda. In considering what Mexico and the world might expect from the incoming Peña Nieto administration, however, it helps to look first at the important developments under Calderón. Calderón’s first foreign policy challenge was repairing […]

In the past few decades, Latin America has emerged as the world’s unlikely laboratory for democracy. No other region has produced the sheer diversity of democratic configurations and permutations, including some that at times appear to undermine the very essence of democratic principles. The region that for so many years made news due to violence and authoritarianism is now an active workshop, tinkering with and sometimes transforming the shape of democracy. Latin America became the stage for the rise of iconic figures such as former Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to name just […]

Yasser Arafat’s body may be exhumed to allow for more testing of the causes of his death, the Palestinian president said Wednesday, after a lab said it found elevated levels of a radioactive isotope in belongings said to have used in his final days. World News Videos by NewsLook

Ichiro Ozawa, who helped bring the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to power three years ago, resigned from the party Monday over a proposed tax increase. In doing so, Ozawa and the 49 other members who followed him in the exodus weakened the parliamentary majority of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who was trying to push through a bill that would double the national sales tax to 10 percent by 2015. Ian Neary, a professor of Japanese politics and director of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies at Oxford University, told Trend Lines that the cost of this latest round […]

The Middle East Institute’s Center for Turkish Studies in collaboration with the Institute for Turkish Studies held their third annual conference on Turkey last Wednesday. Several themes emerged at the event that deserve to be highlighted. Turkey has clearly become a country of intense fascination for Washington players. Some 700 people registered to attend the conference, and it is easy to understand why: During the past decade, under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey has become a much more prominent global actor backstopped by a dynamic diplomacy and one of the world’s most powerful economies, in a region […]

More than 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with most of the world’s attention having shifted to the threat of international terrorism, the Philippines and Peru are still struggling to pacify their countries’ communist insurgencies. Rather than fading into history, the Philippines’ New People’s Army (NPA) and Peru’s Shining Path have updated their rhetoric to reflect contemporary concerns in an effort to make their ideologies relevant to the “masses” in the post-Cold War era. The NPA and Shining Path, which were founded in 1969 and 1982, respectively, have not abandoned their discourse on Marxism and land reform, […]

The presidential election win by Mexico’s former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, has given birth to a vibrant youth movement opposing the new government. World News Videos by NewsLook