Diplomacy & Politics Archive

What happens when a superpower is not so super anymore? If you accept the premise that in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating economic impact, most Americans on both the left and the right will come to view U.S. global leadership as “a luxury rather than a necessity,” as Steven Metz put it last week, then what would the post-Pax Americana world order look like? Most observers think America will step back after COVID-19, and that sounds about right—although it is far from clear whether that would be a few years on the bench, until the U.S. […]

A recent survey by Reuters found that across Africa, there is less than one intensive care bed per 100,000 people. The continent’s three most populous countries—Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt—only have 1,920 intensive care beds to service more than 400 million people between them. Just two countries, South Africa and Ghana, accounted for 46 percent of all tests carried out in Africa as of May 7. As recently as April 17, 10 countries in Africa did not possess any ventilators at all, according to the World Health Organization, and just 2,000 ventilators were spread across 41 countries home to hundreds of […]

Is it too late for the United Nations Security Council to make even a modest contribution to international stability during the coronavirus pandemic? After negotiating for the better part of two months, the council’s member states have yet to agree on a resolution addressing the security consequences of COVID-19. Last Friday, the United States refused to endorse a text that the body’s 14 other members were ready to back. It is not clear that a compromise is possible. This is a pity, because the draft resolution the U.S. nixed—worked out by France and Tunisia, the former a permanent member of […]

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has overseen one of the quickest and most aggressive strategies to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the Western Hemisphere. He ordered a national quarantine on March 12, four days before President Donald Trump announced federal social distancing guidelines in the United States and a week ahead of California’s statewide stay-at-home order. And he has ordered the police and the military to enforce a tough lockdown, which allows Salvadorans who work for nonessential businesses to leave their homes only twice a week to shop for food and medicine. Thousands of people have been detained […]

When economies around the world started grinding to a halt in an effort to stop the carnage inflicted by the coronavirus, Sweden stood out with an approach that appeared to defy the prescription of most experts. Instead of shutting down, the Swedish government opted for much milder measures. The idea looked appealing. It suggested the possibility of containing the pandemic at a much lower economic cost. The final judgment on Sweden’s unorthodox approach cannot be rendered until the crisis moves into the history books. So far, however, the statistics suggest that the Swedish model is more disaster than panacea. If […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Reports that hundreds of Chinese and Indian soldiers recently clashed along the countries’ disputed border are a troubling development for Beijing and New Delhi, which have tried to project stability in their rocky relationship. Scores of troops were reportedly involved in a scuffle last weekend at the remote but strategic Naku La pass in the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim, an area that adjoins the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border that separates Chinese and Indian-controlled territories. […]

“Perhaps the biggest threat to Brazil’s COVID-19 response is its president, Jair Bolsonaro,” says The Lancet, a British medical journal. Bolsonaro famously referred to COVID-19 as a “measly cold” and continues to openly flout and actively discourage the life-saving restrictions on movement and physical distancing that have become commonplace around the world. But Bolsonaro’s callous disregard for the suffering of his own citizens is not the only scandal dogging him. On April 24, one the star members of his right-wing government, Justice Minister Sergio Moro, resigned in protest over Bolsonaro’s firing of the national police chief. The Lancet’s editorial also […]

MEXICO CITY—In mid-March, as governments around the world were imposing lockdowns and other restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was upbeat. He waved off “this idea that you can’t hug” as a result of the virus. “You have to hug each other,” he insisted. “Nothing will happen.” At a press conference on March 18, he pulled out his wallet to show off the religious images, four-leaf clover and $2 bill he carries for good luck—and as protection, he claimed, from COVID-19. A few days later, he encouraged people to keep going out […]

On the several occasions that I’ve stayed in the town of Boulouris, on the Mediterranean coast between Marseille and Nice, I would take my morning run along a road that overlooks the beaches where Allied forces landed in August 1944 to liberate southern France. At the garage that marked the midpoint of my run, where I would turn and head back home, the road’s name changes from the Route de la Corniche to the Boulevard de la 36eme Division du Texas, a tribute to the U.S. Army division that took part in the landings. Every time I saw the street […]

In an op-ed last week, Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, called for the abolition of the World Trade Organization and the restoration of “America’s economic sovereignty.” A few days later, the Department of Labor reported that the unemployment rate had surged to almost 15 percent since the coronavirus pandemic hit—the highest level since the Great Depression. The timing of Hawley’s article could not help but bring to mind the Tariff Act of 1930, also known as the Hawley-Smoot tariff after its sponsors Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon (no relation to the senator) and Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah. […]

Editor’s Note: You can find all of our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. If you would like to help support our work, please consider taking advantage of our subscription offer here. Late last month, as the coronavirus continued to spread across the globe, the World Food Program warned of a “hunger pandemic.” With lockdowns constraining the incomes of the poor and supply chain disruptions preventing food from reaching consumers, pandemic-related hunger and malnutrition could eventually take more lives than the disease itself. Understanding the geography of the pandemic and the vulnerability of different food systems is critical for a […]

Myanmar’s official public messaging about the coronavirus pandemic began with a video. To airy elevator music and a placid voiceover, Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader, stood in a nondescript bathroom and demonstrated the proper way to wash hands. It all seemed very calming and benevolent, with Suu Kyi acting out the maternal role she is accorded by her supporters. Before the video was posted online on March 21, the government also established a coronavirus task force. But all the while, it sought to downplay the likelihood that COVID-19 would wreak havoc in Myanmar to the same […]

When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un mysteriously disappeared from public view for three weeks last month, triggering widespread rumors about his health, many international observers speculated about what could come next. His possible demise might lead to a contested succession that sparked domestic instability and the proliferation of North Korea’s stockpiles of nuclear weapons and fissile material. Kim’s reemergence on May 2, at the opening of a fertilizer plant in the city of Sunchon, has taken succession concerns off the table for now. But it is time to worry once again about North Korea’s development of its nuclear and […]

Since reports of a novel coronavirus outbreak in China emerged around the new year, the lion’s share of attention has focused on immediate efforts to contain and respond to the pathogen that has now infected millions around the world and killed nearly 300,000 people, according to official counts. As the initial wave crests in many countries, observers are debating how the pandemic might reshape the world order, including prospects for international cooperation. Some anticipate accelerated U.S. decline and the advent of a more multipolar world. Others predict a deepening authoritarian turn worldwide, with an emboldened China atop the global standings. […]

The announcement in late April that Guinea-Bissau’s prime minister, Nuno Gomes Nabiam, and four other senior government officials had tested positive for the coronavirus was just the latest crisis for the fragile West African state. Guinea-Bissau has experienced four coups—the most recent one in 2012—and 16 attempted coups since it gained independence from Portugal in 1974. More recently, the country has been mired in instability since a disputed second-round presidential election last December. The National Electoral Commission has declared that Umaro Sissoco Embalo, a retired military officer and former prime minister, won that poll with 53.6 percent of the vote. […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The mysterious crash this week of a cargo plane registered in Kenya that was delivering COVID-19 relief supplies in neighboring Somalia is threatening to exacerbate existing political tensions between the two countries. After leaving Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, the private aircraft made one medical supply drop before heading to Bardale, a town in Somalia’s southern Bay region. A local Somali official told the Associated Press that a projectile hit the plane as it approached the Bardale runway. The six-person crew, made up of […]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced this week that Japan’s state of emergency will continue until the end of May, as the country struggles with a fresh wave of coronavirus cases. Japanese authorities initially appeared to have gotten their outbreak under control shortly after reporting the first case in mid-January. But after new infections spiked last month, overwhelming health care facilities, Abe declared a national emergency. Roughly 16,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed so far, with over 560 deaths, but many experts say the lack of widespread testing for the virus makes the true scale of the outbreak in Japan […]