Economics & Business Archive

The release last week of a European Commission report highly critical of Bulgaria’s and Romania’s progress in their efforts against corruption serves as a useful reminder that both Brussels and Ankara should exercise patience while negotiating Turkey’s European Union bid. The Bulgarian and Romanian cases demonstrate that both Europe and its potential members are best served by an exhaustive, deliberate accession process. Negotiations between Turkey and the EU have slowed recently due to increasing doubts in both Turkey and Europe about the wisdom of further expansion. Already suffering from “enlargement fatigue,” Europe has seen the economic crisis highlight its internal […]

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her first official trip abroad to Asia in March 2009, insiders in both New Delhi and Washington were privately critical that she neglected to include India in her itinerary. With her now-completed inaugural visit to India, Clinton’s broad mission was to show that the administration of President Barack Obama is just as serious about a strategic partnership with New Delhi as the previous one under George W. Bush. But strengthening the U.S.-India bilateral relationship is just one part of the equation, even if, to be sure, there is much work to be done […]

A 30-ton Mi-26 helicopter, operated on a NATO contract by the Moldovan firm Pecotox Air, was hovering with a load of supplies near the town of Sangin in southern Afghanistan on July 14, when Taliban fighters fired on it with a rocket-propelled grenade. The crew of an accompanying helicopter saw the rocket sheer off the Mi-26’s tail boom, causing it to crash. All six Ukrainian crew members on board died, as did an Afghan boy on the ground. Less than a week later, on July 19, a civilian Mi-8 operated by a Russian company crashed at the NATO base in […]

SKOPJE, Macedonia — On July 1, in an unexpected move that shocked the entire nation, Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader announced his resignation. Sanader blamed his departure “at least in part” on the politics of the European Union, which could not overcome the Slovenian veto on Croatia’s accession. Croatia was set to enter the EU by next year, but was blocked by Slovenia — already an EU member state — over an unresolved territorial dispute. But while the accession crisis has put pressure on Croatia, it may be only part of the story behind Sanader’s resignation. The country is in […]

NEW DELHI — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s five-day trip to India marked the formal launch of a full-fledged bilateral exchange between Washington and New Delhi, one that will set the tone for the trajectory of India’s future engagement with the Obama administration. As expected, Clinton’s agenda covered the five pillars of the Indo-U.S. relationship: defense cooperation, science and technology, energy and climate change, education and trade. But the visit left the impression that it was crafted to be more symbolic than substantial, leading many to believe that Clinton was working according to a script, rather than as a much-vaunted […]

Has Washington forgotten about India? After increased engagement and improved bilateral ties under two successive American presidents, several commentators have wondered if President Barack Obama is undervaluing relations with New Delhi. With the new administration’s attention centered on developing a partnership with China, stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan, re-engaging Russia, and containing Iran and North Korea, it’s unclear whether India will be a strategic priority for the United States. That Washington has been primarily focused on the U.S.-China relationship is understandable. Leadership from today’s superpower and tomorrow’s great power are seen as essential for addressing transnational threats. U.S. Secretary of State […]

Last week’s major policy address by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was as noteworthy for the strategic concepts she dismissed as for the ones she embraced. Clinton provided Americans with a strong sense of how she plans to conduct U.S. foreign policy: not merely as “the indispensable nation” that assumes international leadership, but rather as the global rule-set convener that aggressively builds partnerships across a strategic landscape pulsating with rising players — both state-based and transnational. In doing so, Secretary Clinton explicitly rejected the emerging — and yet painfully antiquated — conventional wisdom that portrays a world inevitably divided into […]

The Nabucco project gained some momentum in mid-July with the signing of an inter-governmental agreement between countries involved in the natural gas pipeline proposal. If completed, the pipeline would unlock reserves from the Caspian region and potentially the Middle East, thus providing the European gas market with sources of supply outside of Russia. The purpose of the agreement, signed by representatives of the European Commission, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, was to outline a legal framework for transiting gas through the system, and to address other issues such as tariff levels and access to the pipeline network. The signing was […]

Measuring American influence from week to week seems enough of a challenge, as a glance at recent global developments illustrates. The electoral upheaval in Iran, for instance, will almost certainly give the U.S. the upper hand in any upcoming nuclear negotiations. Unless, of course, it doesn’t. Likewise, China’s distancing itself from North Korea will strengthen the U.S.’s position at the U.N. Security Council. Or it might not. The difficulty in knowing for sure arises from the fact that gauging even the nearest term outcomes means making sense of many moving parts. What about the long term? Two recent studies from […]

Critics of the Group of Eight (G-8) tend to focus on economic issues in challenging the format’s continued relevance. Citing the decreasing share of the economic resources and clout at the group’s disposal, commentators often advocate replacing it with a G-14, a G-20, or some other, more inclusive body. Such a focus, however, neglects another important aspect of the work conducted by the G-8: Since the 1980s, the group’s annual meetings have given rise to important international security initiatives, which have been sustained and further developed over time. The G-8 structure has also proven sufficiently flexible to incorporate additional partners […]

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won another five-year term in office, signaling voters’ rejection of opposition campaigns that promised tough government and promoted nationalism and big business interests. A craving for stability and success in holding regional terrorist threats at bay, coupled with a comparatively sound economy, was behind the victory. The election, widely viewed as free and fair, was also considered a major step forward for the democratic process in the world’s largest Muslim country. “My first step will be recovering the economy,” the 59-year-old president told reporters. Pre-electoral polls had forecast that Yudhoyono, or SBY as he […]

The ethnic rioting that has rocked China’s northwestern province of Xinjiang over the past few days has badly poisoned the already tense relations between the region’s Uighurs — Muslims who make up a plurality of Xinjiang’s residents — and the Han Chinese. It could also complicate China’s increasingly important ties with its neighbors in ex-Soviet Central Asia. The Chinese presence in Central Asia has grown in recent years, especially in neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Trade between China and Kyrgyzstan — much of it exports of cheap Chinese manufactured goods — tripled between 2004 and 2006 (the last year for which […]

NEW DELHI — While India’s immediate military aim is to build a potent strike force against Pakistan, it also harbors long-term plans to field a credible deterrent against China. This reflects the fact that although military efforts to counter Pakistan, such as the strengthened deployment along India’s western frontiers, are usually given precedence, the perceived threat from China remains very much on the radar. A case in point is India’s recent decision to buttress its military presence in the Northeast frontiers by basing its latest “air dominance” Russian Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters there. The move is meant to check China’s buildup […]

SOFIA, Bulgaria — On July 5, Bulgarians voted in legislative elections that seated 240 members of Parliament for the next four years. Although the campaign generated little excitement in this country of 7.2 million inhabitants, the election’s outcome could have a significant impact on an energy tug of war between Europe and Russia. As was widely expected, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), led by Sofia’s Mayor Boiko Borisov, defeated Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev’s Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). GERB took 40 percent of the vote, while the BSP-led Coalition for Bulgaria came in second with 18 percent, followed […]

After a protracted election campaign, the 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) finally selected Yukiya Amano of Japan as its next director general earlier this month. Amano’s tenure will begin following the retirement of current IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei at the end of November. Ambassador Amano will certainly face no shortage of challenges when he begins his four-year term. As detailed in a 2008 report (.pdf) by a panel of senior experts, the IAEA must surmount major weaknesses if it is to manage the surge in dangerous nuclear material that will result from the growing […]

In 1946, George Kennan keyed the famous “Long Telegram,” which identified the Soviet Union as an enemy of the United States. In 1947, the original telegram was reworked and published in Foreign Policy magazine as “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Together, these documents formed the codex for the U.S. Cold War strategy of containment, and thereby the basis of the eventual U.S. victory in that conflict. Here’s what a “Kennan” might have written for the 21st century. The Nature of the Threat Posed by Globalization We are now engaged in a conflict that will dictate whether we succeed or fail […]

In a Time of Crisis In the past year, we have witnessed a global emergency, with the world experiencing the worst economic meltdownsince the 1930s. This crisis will not be a one-off. Over the next 20 years, we will be confronted with a series of systemic and interlocking risks that will cross national borders with alacrity. As a result, the divide between domestic and international policy will largely be erased. To carve out a strategic response to these risks requires huge effort. Our assumptions about the world were formed in another age and are ill-suited to contemporary challenges. The international […]