Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Days after demonstrators stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a wave of anti-American protests has swept through the region. For now, the demonstrations targeting U.S. embassies remain limited in size and scope, and if previous episodes of similar reactions to perceived slights against Islam are any indication, they are likely to fade relatively quickly. Nevertheless, as expressions of the anti-American sentiment that pervades the region, the protests highlight the challenges facing Washington as it tries to navigate the changing political landscape of the Middle East. Before examining those challenges further, however, it […]

Three separate incidents this week have all highlighted how the growing distraction in Washington over the upcoming U.S. presidential election is undermining U.S. diplomacy. The first has to do with the territorial dispute between Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands, possession of which confers exploitation rights to the lucrative fishing grounds and vast offshore hydrocarbon fields in the exclusive economic zone that surrounds them. The Japanese government earlier this week announced that it would buy the islands from the family that holds the deed to the property, raising tensions with China, which also claims the islands as the Diaoyou. […]

Japan is on alert as six Chinese surveillance ships enter waters near islands claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing. Video News by NewsLook

Anti-American demonstrations turned violent Tuesday at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where attacks killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others. With similar protests now spreading throughout the region, the Defense Department, State Department and White House are working to step up security at embassies in the Middle East and around the world. While the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations holds the host country responsible for embassy security, the U.S. has established its own complex security bureaucracy to respond to ongoing threats. But in light of this week’s security breaches, diplomatic posts […]

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda yesterday in Tokyo, where the talks focused on Japan’s interest in joining the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. In an email interview, Yoichiro Sato, an expert in Japan’s foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific at the College of Asia Pacific Studies at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, discussed Japan-New Zealand relations. WPR: What is the extent of diplomatic and economic ties between Japan and New Zealand? Yoichiro Sato: Economic ties are asymmetrical, due to the difference in the two countries’ sizes. Japan is a major trade partner for […]

When Peruvian voters headed to the polls last year, the presidential election looked like a proxy contest for two radical views of the South American country’s future. Ollanta Humala, who emerged victorious, had left advocates of free-market economic policies feeling nervous due to his past support for the policies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Humala had previously run for president as an anti-business socialist in 2006, and before that, he had attempted a military coup in 2000. Many voters worried he would take the country in a radical, populist, anti-market direction. More than a year later, Humala’s presidency could not […]

The ongoing Shiite-Sunni cold war that is manifesting itself throughout the Middle East may be beginning to spill over into India. Home to a large Muslim minority consisting of both major sects of Islam, India has recently found itself forced to deal with increasing fallout from the intra-Islamic struggle. At one of the end of the spectrum was the attack against an Israeli diplomat possibly orchestrated by Iranian proxies; at the other were the recent violent protests by a Saudi-funded seminary in the heart of Mumbai. Given India’s dependence on energy exports from the wider Islamic world and the nation’s […]

This October, U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney will debate defense policy. That debate has the potential to be path-breaking: The national security strategy crafted immediately after Sept. 11, which led the United States into Iraq and Afghanistan, has now run its course, creating the opportunity to re-examine the very foundation of American strategy, including the reasons why the United States uses military power as well as the ways that it does so. More likely, though, the presidential debate will avoid big questions and gravitate toward immediate problems like Iran, Syria, North Korea and the size of […]

The 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran late last month brought the group back into the international spotlight, years after the end of the Cold War called its very existence into question. With the fall of the Soviet Union, nonaligned nations suddenly found themselves unable to leverage superpower rivalry to achieve their domestic and foreign policy objectives. Moreover, in the post-Cold War unipolar world, Washington’s preponderant influence meant that nonaligned nations needed to drastically alter their foreign policy to accommodate American interests. The rapid liberalization of national economies in countries such as India, Indonesia and Brazil is […]

New strikes are hitting South Africa’s mining Industry. Gold Fields — the world’s fourth largest gold miner — is the latest victim and there’s still no sign of an end to the crisis at Lonmin’s Marikana mine. Video News by NewsLook

In Kenya, clashes between rival tribal groups in the Tana River area continued this week, as tensions over access to land and water triggered revenge attacks between the seminomadic Orma pastoralist community and the Pokomo farming community.* On Monday and Tuesday, more houses were set on fire, forcing many to flee and driving the death toll higher. Meanwhile, with the government so far unable to restore order to the region, deadly riots also raged on in the port city of Mombasa, following the killing of a radical Muslim preacher. “What is going on between the Pokomo and the Orma is […]

For the United Nations Human Rights Council, which began its final regular session of the year on Sept. 10 in Geneva, Switzerland, 2012 has been an important year. The closing session, the council’s 21st, provides a unique opportunity for the HRC to build on its recent successes and repair much of the credibility lost in the first few years of its existence. However, the potential still exists for “spoiler” states, such as Russia, China and Cuba, to stall or reverse progress. The best possibility for success is for the United States, Europe and the rising democracies to continue to guide […]

India and Tajikistan elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership last week following discussions between Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. In an email interview, Meena Singh Roy, a research fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, discussed India-Tajikistan relations. WPR: What is the recent trajectory of the India-Tajikistan relationship, and how does Tajikistan fit into India’s broader engagement with Central Asia? Meena Singh Roy: Tajikistan figures very high in India’s foreign policy priorities and remains a significant partner for India in Central Asia. India has excellent political and strategic relations […]

At last week’s Moscow Nonproliferation Conference, organized by the Center for Energy and Security Studies, some 200 people, including a number of prominent Russian and Western experts, gathered to discuss a wide range of nonproliferation issues. Given the statements of the Russian speakers at the conference, Moscow is laying down some tough, albeit often understandable, conditions for making further progress in nuclear arms control. Sergey Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister who keynoted the conference, stressed the importance of strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Ryabkov insisted that what he called the treaty’s three core principles — nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament […]

In August 1944, representatives from China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States gathered at the Dumbarton Oaks mansion in Washington to lay the foundations of the postwar global governance architecture. Coinciding with the liberation of Paris by Allied forces, the meeting set the stage for many of the international and regional political, security and economic structures on which the global order has been based since 1945: the United Nations and subsequent multilateral organizations, as well as international agreements on trade, tariffs and currencies. Under the auspices of these arrangements, states were willing to cede some sovereignty […]

On Sept. 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, in an address before a joint session of Congress, outlined his vision of a “new world order,” arguing that the end of the Cold War and the imminent launching of a multilateral military operation to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces offered the nations of the world “a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation.” Events over the next several years seemed to validate his prediction: The ensuing First Gulf War offered a model for rules-based multilateral military interventions; the Madrid Peace conference raised the tantalizing hope that […]

The global economy is currently undergoing a quiet transformation. While most of the world’s attention remains justifiably focused on the European Union’s minute-by-minute struggle to formulate a permanent solution to its unending debt crisis, other far-reaching economic forces are shifting beneath the surface. Increasingly, it seems as if the golden era of globalization that defined the last quarter of the 20th century is in danger, with the years prior to the 2008 economic crisis perhaps marking its high-water mark. Ours has become the era of perpetual global financial crisis, of sagging economic growth, of stubborn unemployment. As the world economy […]