Diplomacy & Politics Archive

The British government withheld a $34 million aid payment to Rwanda at the end of November, citing charges in a U.N. report that Rwanda is backing rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. In an email interview, Pamela Abbott, the acting director of research at the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research in Rwanda, reviewed the state of development aid to Rwanda. WPR: Who are Rwanda’s main aid partners, and how steady has this been over the years? Pamela Abbott: Rwanda’s main aid partners are the World Bank, the U.S., the Global Fund, the European Union, the U.K., Belgium, […]

Amid concerns that North Korea might conduct a long-range ballistic missile test as early as this week, reports have surfaced indicating that Iran has permanently stationed staff in the East Asian country since October as part of a recent cooperation agreement with Pyongyang. According to the reports, the staff is comprised of four experts from Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL) as well as private firms. Some analysts speculate that the mission might be based near Sino-ri, a complex located near North Korea’s western coast and the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, commonly known as Tongchang-ri, where this […]

The recent Gaza conflict and the negotiations that eventually led to a cease-fire on Nov. 21 highlight some of the shifts currently taking place in the Middle East, particularly in Hamas’ relations with Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. These shifts represent a considerable challenge for the U.S. as it attempts to facilitate democratic transitions in the region while maintaining long-standing partnerships. In early November, Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani became the first head of state to visit Gaza since Hamas took over the territory in a short but violent 2007 civil war with its rival Fatah. But if al-Thani’s […]

The U.S. presidential election campaign, particularly as it entered its final months, sucked up much of the oxygen in the news universe, meaning that a number of small international developments that might have otherwise drawn greater attention escaped notice. Under normal circumstances, the issues that had been overlooked would have gotten a closer look once the election was decided. But because of the breathless coverage of the David Petraeus scandal last month, since replaced by the 24/7 focus on whether the United States is about to plunge over the fiscal cliff, that has not happened. But one development in particular […]

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, the country’s main opposition party, is likely to sweep Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan in the general election scheduled for Dec. 16, according to polls released yesterday. The projected LDP win would install Shinzo Abe as the country’s prime minister for the second time. Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and William Grimes, chairman of the Department of International Relations at Boston University, told Trend Lines these elections have major implications for Japan, particularly in foreign policy. “This election could be a turning point for […]

In 2006, the United Nations created the Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Commission on Human Rights. Among the numerous mechanisms the U.N. gave the council to promote and protect human rights is the ability to call ad-hoc special sessions when needed. These special sessions, when used against states, are an important tool for “naming and shaming” perpetrators of human rights violations and may, on occasion, precipitate movement at the Security Council. Through the first five years of its existence, the council held 18 special sessions, or almost four per year. That pace slowed down in 2012, however, during […]

A meeting of the Kimberley Process in New York last week concluded without agreement on redefining the term “conflict diamond.” But if the American chairwoman, Gillian Milovanovic, failed in this key endeavor, she can at least claim some measure of success in ensuring that the process was not completely derailed by its persistent and deep divisions. The World Diamond Council estimates the world’s diamond trade to be worth $13 billion annually, employing approximately 10 million people. The Kimberley Process was established in 2003 in response to diamond-funded conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, to […]

There is practically no space left on the Middle East’s geopolitical plate for another conflict. Like it or not, however, the long-simmering animosity between Iraq’s central government and the country’s Kurdish minority is reaching a boiling point. The conflict has recently heated up dangerously, and it shows no sign of cooling down. Like so many other crises in the region, the tensions between Iraq’s Arabs and its Kurdish population find echoes in the complicated political realities of neighboring countries. Syria, home to a large Kurdish minority, is engulfed by an all-out civil war. Meanwhile, Turkey is grappling with its own […]

Meeting with Enrique Peña Nieto in Ottawa shortly before the new Mexican president’s inauguration, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged to work to reverse a sensitive visa requirement for Mexicans visiting Canada. In an email interview, Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, discussed Canada-Mexico relations.* WPR: What was the trajectory of Mexico-Canada relations under Mexican President Felipe Calderon? Duncan Wood: At the beginning of 2006 relations were at a relative high point. Canada had identified Mexico as a strategic partner; the Canada-Mexico Partnership had just been founded; and the language, at […]

After the Vietnam War, the U.S. military was convinced that a renewed focus on warfighting was vital for its revival. The military’s leaders knew they might be ordered to do other things such as peacekeeping and counterinsurgency, but concluded that skilled warfighters could naturally handle these other jobs. There was little need for specialized organizations or technology for operations other than war. Large-scale warfighting became the coin of the realm, defining the U.S. military’s spending, training and promotion priorities. However appealing, this idea was always on shaky ground, since it assumed that ineffectiveness in military activities other than large-scale war […]

Writing in 1776, Adam Smith observed that in ancient times, rich nations had difficulty defending themselves from poorer ones, whereas by the late-18th century, the reverse had come to be true. If Smith were alive today, he might argue that the 21st century more closely resembles ancient times than his own era: Failed and failing states now generate far more worries for the international community than powerful ones. Consider the Failed States Index (FSI), an annual survey generated by Foreign Policy magazine and the nonprofit Fund for Peace, which reads like a who’s who of headaches for the international community. […]

Latin America prides itself on being a peaceful region — and with good reason. There has not been a military conflict between states for many years, and peace talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government may finally end the hemisphere’s only ongoing internal armed conflict. No other area of the developing world can boast such a record. It is surprising, then, that border disputes continually bedevil the region. Many of these tensions remain unresolved, and when they surface, as in the example of the Nov. 19 ruling by the International Court of Justice on […]

Israel is not backing down from a settlement expansion plan, announced following the United Nations vote providing Palestine with nonvoting observer-state status, despite a loud protest over the plan from five European Union countries. On Monday, the U.K., France, Sweden, Denmark and Spain all summoned Israel’s ambassadors to their countries in protest of Israel’s decision to construct 3,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and to begin planning for a long-frozen development project in a particularly sensitive area of the West Bank known as E1.* Sharon Pardo, Jean Monnet Chair in European Studies and a senior […]

In discussions of the so-called Asia pivot, the roles of the U.S. Navy and Air Force have been prominent, especially given the Pentagon’s development of the Air-Sea Battle concept. But the U.S. pivot to the Asia-Pacific cannot be reduced to Air-Sea Battle. The strategic rebalancing is a collective effort that spans all federal departments and all branches of the military. The Army, in particular, has a significant, if less understood, role to play. In determining the respective roles of the Army, Air Force and Navy in the Asia-Pacific, policymakers must keep in mind the larger picture of the pivot’s objectives: […]

Newly inaugurated Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto promised during his campaign to triple Mexico’s GDP growth rate to 5-6 percent annually. In order to even approach that lofty goal, Peña Nieto must confront the country’s bloated monopolies that discourage competition and raise the cost of goods and services for Mexicans. Complicating this already monumental task is Mexico’s entrenched culture of monopolies, which will be harder to defeat than the actual monopolies themselves. When it comes to Mexican monopolies, the big offenders are well-known: Telmex, the telecommunications conglomerate owned by the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim; Televisa, the largest multimedia company […]

Editor’s note: Richard Gowan will be writing the Continentalist column for the month of December. Is France the most influential nation at the United Nations today? To anybody who doesn’t follow events at the U.N. closely, this may sound silly. The United States still has more political and financial clout than any other member of the organization, even if it has to endure frequent criticism from poorer countries. Russia has used its status as a permanent member of the Security Council as a blunt instrument to protect Syria from U.N. sanctions for more than a year. China has become an […]

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit concluded in Cambodia two weeks ago with tensions among members over maritime disputes with China in the East and South China Seas taking center stage. ASEAN is entering a critical stage in its development as an influential player in charting the future geopolitical trajectory of Asia. In 2015, the bloc aspires to establish the ASEAN Economic Community, which would integrate all member economies into a single market. Despite this, ASEAN continues to struggle when it comes to matching its potential with concrete achievements, as demonstrated by the Cambodia summit. A large […]