Diplomacy & Politics Archive

On Dec. 4, a major gun battle broke out in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, leaving 14 police and 11 militants dead. It was the worst violence in several years for the semi-autonomous Russian republic, which suffered through two bloody, failed wars for independence from 1994-1996 and from 1999-2009. The Chechen government has responded by demolishing the homes of the families of suspected militants, prompting condemnations by multiple human rights groups this week. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, some analysts suggested that the militants might have been affiliated with the so-called Islamic State (IS). As many as 800 […]

Beginning in the early 20th century, America’s global strategy coherently linked U.S. actions in different places and on different issues. Today it does not, instead treating each security challenge in isolation, with little or nothing connecting them. The reason for this incoherence is clear: The United States has no unifying strategic vision. It didn’t used to be this way. President Woodrow Wilson designed America’s first strategic vision based on support for national self-determination, democracy and international law, with the great powers acting as guardians of the system. After World War II, when American power seemed to be the only thing […]

In March 2011, Peninsula Shield, the joint emergency military force of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), crossed the causeway from Saudi Arabia into Bahrain to help the ruling al-Khalifa family crush a popular revolt. Two GCC members, Oman and Kuwait, refused to participate in what was effectively a Saudi-led intervention to prop up a fellow monarch. But earlier this week, at the annual GCC summit in Doha, Qatar, the bloc agreed to expand security cooperation—and this time, there were no abstentions. The Doha summit capped a year of reconciliation among the oil and gas-rich Arab Gulf kingdoms, mainly involving Qatar […]

December has been a brutal month for the Russian economy. On Dec. 1, the value of the ruble, already at a historic low, experienced its steepest one-day drop since the 1998 financial crisis. The exchange rate with the dollar remains high, and there are no signs of improvement in a slide that has seen the Russian currency lose over 40 percent of its value since the beginning of the year. On the same day, the Ministry of Economic Development announced that Russia would be in recession through at least 2015; quickly chastised by the Kremlin, the ministry removed the offending […]

The annual gathering known as the Ibero-American Summit was designed to develop ties among countries with strong cultural and historical bonds and develop a bloc with political and economic power. But with every passing year and every successive summit, the event has instead contributed to the sense that Latin America is increasingly riven by profound ideological divides, made worse by persistent regional rivalries. The latest summit, held this week in Mexico, showed just how wide some of the chasms have become and how difficult it will prove to build a united Latin America, much less one that enjoys close links […]

Last month, Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party lost local elections, receiving only 40 percent of the vote. The defeat caused Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou to reshuffle his Cabinet and step down as KMT party chairman. In an email interview, Joel Atkinson, research fellow at the Institute for Poverty Alleviation and International Development at Yonsei University, South Korea, discussed Taiwan’s domestic politics. WPR: What factors led to the Kuomintang’s defeat in local elections, and what are the implications for the national-level political balance with the Democratic Progressive Party? Joel Atkinson: The results reflect widespread dissatisfaction with where Taiwan is going. The […]

LIMA, Peru—The thousands of national delegates and observers who have gathered here for the two-week United Nations Climate Change Conference known as COP20 have endured exceptionally hot weather. Air-conditioning units are barely able to cool the tent pavilions erected on the grounds of Peru’s Defense Ministry for the event, and delegates frequently remove their suit jackets when walking between pavilions or dining in the venue’s open-air restaurants. The heat wave roasting Lima several weeks before the start of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer serves as a reminder of the need for international cooperation to halt global warming, which has been an […]

Because no two countries in the world share completely overlapping interests, the responsible leader must assess under what conditions disagreement with another state warrants interfering with beneficial ties. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent summit with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara this past week illustrates the delicate dance of this kind of selective partnership. There are serious divisions between Ankara and Moscow over several fundamental foreign policy issues, ranging from Russia’s longstanding support for the maritime claims of Cyprus, the northern part of which is recognized by Turkey as an independent country, to Turkey’s opposition to the regime of […]

Last month, Guyana was plunged into political crisis after President Donald Romator suspended parliament to avoid a no-confidence vote. In an email interview, George Danns, professor of sociology at the University of North Georgia, discussed Guyana’s domestic politics. WPR: What is the background of the current political crisis in Guyana, and what impact is it having on the country’s economy and foreign relations? George Danns: The 2011 elections in Guyana gave the combined opposition parties the Alliance For Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) a one-seat majority in Parliament over the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP), which […]

The recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project in November by the United States Senate is only the latest chapter of an ongoing saga reflecting a dramatic shift in Canada’s foreign relations in recent years. The Canadian government has been engaging in an aggressive public relations campaign for its booming oil and gas industry. The strategy includes prominent marketing and behind-the-scenes lobbying in close partnership with oil industry executives. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, first elected in 2006, has long maintained his goal was to make Canada an energy superpower. But he has also changed the country’s role and policies […]

For centuries, the trade routes of the Silk Road have evoked spices, empires and deserts. However, if a new strategy planned by the Chinese government proves successful, it may well come to be associated with China’s ascent in world politics. On Nov. 8, during the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $40 billion for the creation of a Silk Road Investment Fund to “break the connectivity bottleneck” in Asia. Only five days after the APEC announcement, the China Securities Journal reported that “relevant departments” are trying to establish a private […]

I had the opportunity to spend the past week in China and South Korea discussing various issues related to U.S. policy toward Asia with government representatives, academics and think tank counterparts. In general, I found that some previously hot-topic issues had decreased in salience, even as there remains confusion over U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategic and tactical priorities in the region during his remaining two years in office. One takeaway in particular seemed strikingly clear: The next U.S. president, whether Democrat or Republican, will need to take early action to dispel the misperception that Washington is either unwilling to defend […]

This festive season, spare a thought for all the frustrated diplomats and politicians who have spent their time, if often in vain, trying to make the world a less bloody place in 2014. This week brings the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. This year’s prizewinners, the Pakistani champion of girls’ education Malala Yousafazi and Indian children’s rights defender Kailash Satyarthi, are both unimpeachably impressive honorees. Yet traditionalists grumble that the Nobel committee rarely recognizes the diplomats and mediators who engage in the grinding work of negotiating the end to civil wars: The last time an old-school peacemaker earned a […]

On Dec. 1, during Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha’s first visit to Kuala Lumpur, he and his Malaysian counterpart, Prime Minister Najib Razak, agreed on the conditions to restart peace efforts to resolve the deadly southern Thailand insurgency. While the resumption of Malaysia-hosted peace talks between the Thai state and Malay-Muslim rebels is an encouraging sign, the parties are likely to encounter formidable challenges as they attempt to structure a political solution that will lead to a durable peace and end Southeast Asia’s most lethal ongoing conflict. Since the latest outbreak of the insurgency in Thailand’s Malay-Muslim-majority southernmost provinces in […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Ankara last week for talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The biggest news coming out of the visit was Putin’s announcement that he is scrapping the South Stream pipeline project that was to bring Russian gas to Southern Europe. Putin cited the European Union’s opposition to the project as the reason for the cancellation. The EU has raised concerns that the Russian state-owned energy firm Gazprom would own both the pipeline infrastructure and the gas being transported, which would violate the EU’s competition laws in the energy sector. South Stream, originally agreed upon […]

The Iraqi government agreed Tuesday to a long-term oil wealth sharing deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). In an email interview, Kirk Sowell, a political risk analyst who is the publisher of the biweekly newsletter Inside Iraqi Politics, discussed regionalism in Iraq. WPR: What are the main non-Kurdish regional movements (i.e., potential autonomous regions) in Iraq, and what grievances are driving their regional aspirations? Kirk Sowell: There are three. The first, chronologically speaking, is what might be called the “southernist tendency,” which has existed in two variants. One focused on Basra province, and another on combining Basra with the […]

Fifty years from now, when historians look back at 2014, they will likely be struck by how many seemingly contradictory trends co-exist in today’s world. The crisis in Ukraine suggests a fraying of the liberal international order and its consensus against territorial conquest, even as relatively robust international crisis-management mechanisms manage to deter or contain conflict elsewhere. A global rise of anti-pluralist populism has led to the resurgence of nationalism at the same time that national sovereignty is increasingly embedded in a globally integrated and largely supranational economic order. In Asia, historical grievances at times slow down but cannot derail […]