Diplomacy & Politics Archive

For much of the past 15 years, Turkey had been one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. The “Turkish miracle” earned plaudits from the global financial elite, drew billions of dollars of investment into the country, and helped the political fortunes of its powerful Islamist leader, the prime minister-turned-president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is now eyeing even more authority in snap elections next month. But those halcyon days of the Turkish miracle are gone. Over the past year alone, the Turkish lira has lost over 10 percent of its value against the dollar, and this week Turkey’s credit rating was lowered […]

In late April, the European Union and Mexico announced the successful conclusion of negotiations to update their current trade agreement. The new framework, which still must be formally ratified and signed, will expand the range of products exempted from tariffs. It represents the latest effort by both sides to diversify their free trade arrangements against the backdrop of rising American protectionism under President Donald Trump. In an email interview, Sean Goforth, a contributing analyst at the geostrategic consulting firm Wikistrat, discusses how the new deal will affect EU-Mexico trade, opportunities and obstacles for expanding commercial ties, and the implications of […]

It has become conventional wisdom that the Middle East’s popular uprisings of 2011 failed, and that the prospects for true democracy in the region are dim for the foreseeable future. The return of authoritarian leadership in Egypt is the most dramatic reversal of the Arab Spring, but one can also look to Yemen, where a shaky political transition later plunged the country back into civil war, or of course Syria, where the early days of peaceful protest, brutally repressed by the Assad regime, seem like a distant memory in the ongoing civil war. There is occasional turbulence in Morocco, too, […]

ANANTNAG, Jammu and Kashmir, India—The Facebook status updates of people living in the Kashmir Valley are a lot like those posted anywhere else in the world. There are birthday wishes and engagement announcements, and photos of weddings and newborn children, all followed by seemingly endless strings of comments from well-wishers. The content can also skew toward the political, but the stakes are much higher than they tend to be for typical political debates on a Facebook feed. This is because of the decades-old military campaign waged by those seeking independence from Indian rule. Listen to Hilal Mir discuss this article […]

Forty years after China embarked on the economic reforms that have helped transform it from an isolated and impoverished communist outpost into an increasingly confident and capable global power, a growing number of observers in the United States have, understandably, concluded that Washington adopted the wrong strategy toward Beijing. Their judgment is largely rooted in two propositions. First, the United States was mistaken to assume, or hope, that China would become more democratic as its economy grew. Second, by persisting with efforts to integrate China into the postwar international order, the United States ultimately enabled the rise of a country […]

On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators marched in Paris to express their disapproval of French President Emmanuel Macron on the one-year anniversary of his election. Macron has wasted little time following through on his campaign promises of economic and fiscal reforms. But his efforts to overhaul France’s labor regulations as well as his willingness to use extraordinary executive powers to push through his agenda have led critics to call him authoritarian and the “president of the rich.” In an email interview, George Ross, distinguished Jean Monnet Chair and visiting professor of political science at the University of Montreal-McGill Center for Excellence […]

Despite a steady stream of denials from Kigali and Kampala, ties between Rwanda and Uganda appear to be deteriorating rapidly. The latest ebb in this historically volatile relationship stems from the Ugandan government’s pushback on what it perceives as Rwandan meddling in its domestic affairs. Though Ugandan officials have not gone public with any formal allegations, their dissatisfaction can be read in a recent string of increasingly high-profile incidents. Last year, the Ugandan government mounted a crackdown on suspected Rwandan spies operating in Uganda, including the arrest of a handful of Ugandan police officers accused of being part of a […]

Can the United Nations Security Council survive the coming crisis over Iran as a semi-functional diplomatic body? The council is already in rough shape. Debates over the Syrian war have deteriorated into a political farce. Trapped in a cycle of worsening distrust, the permanent members of the council are picking fights over what should be routine issues. Recent negotiations over the small U.N. missions in Haiti and Western Sahara became unexpectedly heated, as China and Russia accused the U.S. and its allies of trying to “railroad” resolutions through the council. There is always a lot of bickering in New York. […]

This week, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was the first leader from sub-Saharan Africa to visit the White House, 15 months after President Donald Trump took office. Trump, by contrast, hosted leaders from every other major region of the world within the first few months of his presidency. The only other African leader he has welcomed to the White House is Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, more than a year ago. In his Rose Garden press conference with Buhari, Trump pointedly did not deny calling African nations “shithole countries” earlier this year, in widely reported comments made during a meeting in the […]

It is a bedrock for both countries, so why does the 65-year-old security alliance between South Korea and the United States look shakier today than it has been at any time since its inception? Codified in a 1953 treaty after the armistice that froze the Korean War, the alliance helped South Korea preserve its independence and transform itself from one of the world’s most underdeveloped nations to an economic powerhouse and robust democracy, while signaling America’s determination to contain communism. But today, amid an unexpected diplomatic thaw between North and South Korea and with an American president dismissive of alliances, […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss rising tensions between Israel and Iran over Syria and the Iran nuclear deal. For the Report, Annabelle Chapman talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about Poland’s controversial Holocaust memory law, and the role historical memory plays in contemporary Polish politics. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Tensions are rising in Burundi, where the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza plans to hold a constitutional referendum later this month that would potentially permit him to stay in office for 17 more years. Formal campaigning began this week. In 2015, Nkurunziza’s controversial decision to seek a third presidential term, which was widely seen as unconstitutional, triggered widespread violence and prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country. Though the constitution limited him to two terms, Nkurunziza […]

Last month, United States Africa Command organized the annual Flintlock military exercises in Niger, convening nearly 2,000 special forces troops from 20 countries, eight of them African. The exercises date back to 2005 and are intended to bolster African militaries’ ability to “counter violent extremist organizations, protect their borders and provide security for their people.” By serving as this year’s host, Niger reinforced its image as a crucial U.S. counterterrorism partner—an image the country has been cultivating for years as it has responded to security threats emanating from neighboring Mali, Nigeria and Libya. Niger’s military partnerships with the West have […]

The nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers has been polarizing since the day it was signed in 2015, both in Iran and the United States. Even so, Tehran has complied with the deal’s terms while continuing to support it, even as President Donald Trump, a loud critic, has pledged to withdraw the U.S. from the agreement. Ahead of a May 12 deadline for Trump to decide whether to stay in the deal, we’ve compiled 10 articles assessing its impact on Iran and the broader implications of Trump’s mission to terminate it. The following 10 articles are free for […]

At first glance, the U.S. Treasury Department’s April 6 sanctions against 38 Russian individuals and business entities, including oligarchs and senior government officials, would be easy enough to dismiss as the latest reprisal in an escalating geopolitical spat between the United States and Russia. Just a week before, the two countries traded diplomatic expulsions over the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom. Sixty diplomats from each nation were declared persona non grata. The U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg and the Russian consulate in Seattle were both shuttered. The tit-for-tat expulsions followed a February indictment by the […]

It wasn’t very long ago that Latin American voters, in country after country, started electing leftist presidents. The new crop of leaders that rose to power over the past few decades occupied a wide range of positions along the ideological spectrum, advocating leftist policies that varied mightily—from mild income redistribution projects to aggressive nationalization programs. But what was unmistakable was the trend moving the continent decidedly leftward. Some dubbed it the “pink tide.” That tide is now receding with as much force as it came ashore. Last month’s surprise protests against the well-entrenched Nicaraguan government pushed the tide farther out. […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. In early February, a month before Italy’s inconclusive elections, the leader of the far-right party the League, Matteo Salvini, called for the closure of all “illegal” Islamic centers, declaring that “Islam is incompatible” with Italian values. The rise of Islamophobia in Italy has coincided with an anti-immigrant backlash to the migrant crisis that saw just under 120,000 immigrants arrive in the country in 2017 alone, many of them Muslims from Africa and the Middle East. But the question of unregistered Islamic […]