Diplomacy & Politics Archive

On Wednesday, Syrian rebels seized 21 Filipino members of a United Nations peacekeeping mission from a disputed demilitarized buffer zone between Israel and Syria that has been monitored by U.N. forces since 1974. The border zone in the Golan Heights had been largely unaffected by Syria’s uprising until now, and the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has not experienced a similar incident in the decades since it was formed. The group claiming responsibility for the kidnapping said the peacekeepers would not be released until the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad withdrew from a nearby village where clashes occurred over […]

Most of the U.S. foreign policy community assumes that relations between the United States and Venezuela can only improve in the aftermath of Hugo Chavez’s death. Exemplifying this optimism, the Obama administration’s initial reaction was to note that as a “new chapter” begins in Venezuela, Washington reaffirms “its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government.” The U.S. response was based on the hope that any successor to Chavez will be interested in repairing the breach that opened up between the two nations during the almost 13 years of Chavez’s tenure. But nothing should be taken for granted. […]

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on the outlook for Mali after the initial phase of the military intervention. Part I looked at the military challenges ahead. Part II examines the political and economic challenges ahead. Much of the domestic and international attention on Mali is focused on the fierce fighting going on in the north between French and Chadian troops and elements of the Islamist militant groups the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. But both the Malian government and the international community would do well to […]

As one of the founders of the original Non-Aligned Movement, India has often found itself standing between opposing camps, trying to keep from becoming entangled in the disputes that divide them. In the current environment, however, with a globalized economy and a shrinking, interconnected world, the feat of staying out of international conflicts poses especially complicated and potentially costly challenges. That is most evident as India tries to navigate its important trade relationship with Iran, while continuing to expand its valuable commercial, diplomatic and strategic links with the U.S. and Israel. The difficulty of maintaining relations simultaneously with bitter geopolitical […]

Egypt’s National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition, recently announced its intention to boycott parliamentary elections planned for this April, citing the Islamist-led government’s failure to consult the coalition about the election law. Emily Beaulieu, a political science professor at University of Kentucky and an expert on election boycotts, explained in an email interview the conditions under which election boycotts succeed and reviewed the present boycott’s prospects. WPR: What have been some of the most significant successful and failed election boycotts in recent history? Emily Beaulieu: Recent election boycotts that produced subsequent democratic reforms include the Philippines (1981), Equatorial Guinea (1993), […]

Last week French President Francois Hollande announced that Operation Serval in Mali has entered its final phase and hinted that the withdrawal of French troops from the country would begin within a matter of weeks. The French government has always maintained that it does not intend to keep its forces in the region for the long haul, and wants to hand over operations to an African-led force as soon as the situation in Mali is stable. Emphasis will now gradually move to diplomatic discussions at the U.N. for a resolution mandating a peacekeeping force, and the level of media attention […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on the outlook for Mali after the initial phase of the military intervention. Part I looks at the military challenges ahead. Part II will examine the political and economic challenges ahead. The initial phase of the French-led military intervention in Mali is over. The various fundamentalist groups that recently menaced the capital have been chased out of all major cities, and operations are now in full swing in the more-remote regions in the north where the militants have fled. But recent events have made clear that the conflict in Mali […]

The death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez after a long battle with cancer was announced yesterday by Vice President Nicolás Maduro, who has assumed the presidency as interim leader. Chávez had served as Venezuela’s president for 14 years. The news has led to widespread speculation over the future of Venezuela and the region. An expert who spoke with Trend Lines addressed what Chávez’s long absence from Venezuela’s political scene and his death might mean for Venezuelan democracy. “What happened over the past three months, which is to say that a democratically elected president literally disappeared from his country and was […]

Since World War II, Americans have obsessively mined their armed conflicts for “lessons.” Every war spawns books, workshops and conferences. The U.S. military has even institutionalized the “lessons learned” process, creating organizations like the Army’s Center for Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kanas, which can turn information from the field into officially sanctioned lessons in short order. Within the policy community, where there are no generals and admirals to decide which lessons are worth learning and which are not, it normally takes a few years to reach agreement on the lessons of a given conflict — time allows perspective and […]

In March 2011, after Hosni Mubarak’s fall, when Egyptian protesters stormed and ransacked the offices of State Security Investigations (SSI) throughout the country, it appeared that efforts to reform Egypt’s chastened police force had achieved broad social and political consensus. Yet, two years later, accountability for past crimes, including those committed during the uprising, remains lacking, and the Ministry of Interior remains wholly unreformed and often brutal. Scenes of police violence have once again become commonplace, reaching a peak in Port Said in late-January, when more than 30 people, including two police officers, were killed. This weekend’s bloody clashes in […]

A bomb blast in a Shiite district of Karachi, Pakistan, killed at least 45 people Sunday in the latest example of escalating sectarian and ethnic violence in the country. Hassan Abbas, a former Pakistani government official who is now an academic and a senior adviser to the Asia Society, told Trend Lines that relations between South Asia’s Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities have historically been cordial, but that the recent uptick in sectarian attacks is linked to growing tension and violence in the region more generally. “Religious bigotry, ignorance, ethnic tensions and regional tensions are driving this trend,” Abbas said […]

President Hugo Chávez’s return to Venezuela has not resolved the political uncertainty that the country has faced since he was unable to take the oath of office on Jan. 10. The day before, the Supreme Court ruled that he could be sworn in when he overcame his health problems and gave no deadline, effectively allowing an unelected vice president to remain in charge indefinitely. Opposition politicians and analysts, questioning the legitimacy of the current arrangement, have called for the court to declare Chávez in a “temporary absence” from the presidency — which the constitution allows for a maximum of six […]

CARACAS, Venezuela — Despite an increase in violence and kidnappings in recent weeks, the latest round of peace talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government kicked off on Feb. 18 with a rare display of common ground when both sides wished an ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez a speedy recovery. Their sympathies provide a subtle reminder of the integral role the 58-year-old firebrand has played in the peace process, even if he is now confined to a hospital bed. While Venezuelan governments have been involved in seeking a solution to the Colombian conflict in […]

At last month’s NATO defense ministerial meeting, one of the main topics of discussion concerned how many coalition forces will remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014, as well as what their mission will be and how rapidly to withdraw forces that will be departing. After almost 12 years of U.S. and coalition combat operations, the durability of recent gains remains under question as NATO withdraws its forces and reduces its other military support to the Afghan government, making it essential that the alliance plan carefully for drawing down its operations in the country. The numbers under consideration at February’s meeting assumed […]

At the beginning of the 1980s, governments controlled the energy sector in all the major Latin American countries. Over the next two decades, however, the combination of low energy prices and a lack of state capital to support exploration and production by national oil companies’ (NOCs) forced energy policy reforms in every country. These took the form of market-oriented policies emphasizing privatization, liberalization and fiscal discipline, known as the Washington Consensus. While the consensus prevailed, hydrocarbon rents went overwhelmingly to private firms, and the promised benefits of economic reforms turned out to be short-lived, if they materialized at all; the […]

As South America’s middle class continues to grow, two important political priorities will increasingly clash: the need to meet growing energy demand, and an increasing sensitivity to the environment. Until these legitimate interests can be reconciled, however, the massive investment required to meet burgeoning energy demand across the region will be less likely to materialize. Brazil, whose Belo Monte Dam project is one of the most ambitious public works projects in the region, offers an excellent case in point. The project has been controversial since its inception in the 1970s, during the Brazilian dictatorship. Opponents successfully stalled the project due […]

The past two decades have brought dramatic swings in the pace and extent of Latin American natural gas and electricity integration. Enthusiasm among the region’s investors and governments has waxed and waned as the economic and political drivers of cross-border investment and cooperation have evolved. Recent technological developments that have unlocked shale gas resources in the United States will be extended to Latin America. At the same time, renewed political momentum for regional economic cooperation and trade also extends to the energy sector. As a result, a new phase of regional energy integration is gathering pace, but it will be […]