Diplomacy & Politics Archive

LIMA, Peru—In a country long plagued by political malfeasance, jaded Peruvians like to say that they usually cast their ballot for the “least bad” candidate. Now, as Peru staggers toward an April 11 general election, voters—battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic collapse and five years of political turmoil—seem unable to decide which of the 18 largely unconvincing presidential candidates that might be. Yonhy Lescano, the center-left frontrunner, barely breaks into double digits in opinion polls, while the leading five candidates’ combined support does not hit 50 percent. These are unprecedentedly low numbers, even for a society that has long viewed […]

Before a recent spike in COVID-19 cases, Chile was being lauded in the international press for its remarkable progress in vaccinating its population against the coronavirus. Soaring caseloads in recent weeks have dampened that narrative of success, but the fact remains that this small, relatively well-off Latin American nation is moving faster to inoculate its citizens than almost any other country in the world. Meanwhile, nearby Paraguay, where scarce shots generated public outrage against the government’s handling of the pandemic, has emerged in the media as a poster child of Latin America’s poor performers. Both countries share common features with […]

For the better part of six years since Russia and Ukraine signed the Minsk II cease-fire accord for the disputed eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass, one question has loomed: How will the U.S. and NATO respond if Russian troops again cross back over the so-called Line of Contact, dividing Ukrainian forces from Russian-backed separatists? With reports now trickling in of a buildup of Russian military forces along the border and in Crimea, Washington and Brussels may need quick answers soon. In response to those reports, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke this week with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, […]

Nigeria is once again facing a challenge that has grown all too familiar: children in peril. Kidnappings first gained international prominence in 2014, when the jihadist group Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from their boarding school in the northeastern town of Chibok. Despite a global media campaign to urge their safe return, #BringBackOurGirls, more than 100 of them are still missing today. Many more children have been abducted since then—and the trend could get even worse. Over the past four months, armed groups have raided boarding schools and kidnapped more than 650 students. In perhaps the most prominent of these […]

Before Benjamin Netanyahu’s long tenure as prime minister, the longest in Israel’s history, Israelis delineated their parties’ political contours on the basis of ideology. That started changing as Netanyahu’s hold on power stretched over the years, despite him acting in ways that some found offensive, counterproductive and possibly criminal. He has now fully reframed Israel’s political divisions, which became starkly apparent in the most recent election, the country’s fourth in just two years. Traditionally, Israelis differentiated their political views by roughly categorizing themselves and their parties between right and left. As in many other countries, the distinction is based on […]

The top U.S. military commander for the Asia-Pacific region, Adm. Philip Davidson, raised eyebrows at a recent Senate hearing when he suggested China could invade Taiwan within the next six years. The nominee to replace Davidson at the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. John Aquilino, then went a step further, telling the same committee last week that in his view, “This problem is much closer to us than most think and we have to take this on.” At first glance, such concerns might seem justified. The Chinese Communist Party has always viewed the annexation of Taiwan as a key […]

LA PAZ, Bolivia—“The biggest change is a mental one,” Guido Montano, one half of Bolivia’s first-ever same-sex civil union, told me when I asked him recently how his life had changed since he and his longtime partner, David Aruquipa, won a two-year legal battle to register their union last December. “It may seem a vague idea in day-to-day life,” he said, “but I just immediately sensed that we have more rights.” That vague idea suddenly became much more real in January, when both men contracted COVID-19, forcing them to contemplate a worst-case scenario. “With David really ill, the fact that […]