U.S. Foreign Policy Archive

The United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have one of the most formidable and durable military alliances in the world. This alliance has preserved peace and stability in Northeast Asia and ensured nuclear restraint among Asian powers. It has weathered extreme domestic unpopularity in South Korea and pressures in Washington to reduce U.S. overseas defense obligations. During the lifetime of this military alliance, the junior partner has transformed from a war-battered, backward military dictatorship into a prosperous democracy with the world’s most-wired population and one of the world’s largest economies. Most American and Korean strategists agree that the […]

KAPISA PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Standing on the HESCO barriers that ring Forward Operating Base Morales-Frazier in Kapisa Province, just north of Kabul, one can see three enormous, beautiful valleys. To the north lies the Nijrab, whose “fingers” are home to a mainly Tajik population, with some Pashtun areas. To the east sits Afghanya Valley, which hosts Pashtuns in its lower half and Pashai in its upper half. And to the south is Tagab Valley, an almost entirely Pashtun area that has become famous for its entrenched insurgency. FOB Morales-Frazier, the soldiers it hosts, and the area it stands watch over […]

LA MACARENA, Colombia — Seen from the air, the sweeping mountains of the Macarena jungle in Colombia’s southern province of Meta stretch interminably towards the hazy horizon. The muddy Guayabero River snakes through this green land of deep canyons and forested valleys. It is here that Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), clings to its last stronghold. Colombia’s southern provinces are the front line in the U.S.-backed counterinsurgency campaign against the guerrillas, the site of daily clashes between government troops and the FARC. Looking down from above on the rugged mountainous terrain, it is clear […]

Internecine ideological battles have bedeviled the foreign policy of every U.S. administration in recent memory. Human rights liberals fought unsuccessfully with Cold Warriors for control of the Carter administration. New-right hardliners initially won the war for Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy soul but then lost it to George Schultz’s old-guard Republican realists. The Clinton administration became an altar on which liberal interventionists exorcised the Democratic Party’s Vietnam Syndrome demons. Most bitterly and most tragically, the first term of George W. Bush’s presidency demonstrated what happens when neoconservatives and their allies win more ideological contests than they lose. Barack Obama’s young presidency […]

After seven years in Afghanistan, it’s back to basics. On Friday, President Barack Obama unveiled the results of his comprehensive and long-awaited policy review of the U.S. war strategy in South and Central Asia. Reining in what has become a discombobulated mission, he asked outright, “What is our purpose in Afghanistan?” He then went on to answer his own question: Our purpose is the pursuit of al-Qaida and its leadership, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. There is little surprise in that decision. Likewise, the new way forward offered few unexpected headlines. The strategy will focus on an approach to […]

MILAN, Italy — ZAPATERO’S DEJA VU: The Italian general commanding part of a multinational NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo learned from a newspaper story last week that he was losing 620 of his troops. They were the Spanish forces under his command, which Spain’s defense minister announced would be pulling out by the summer. The Italian press reported Madrid’s handling of the withdrawal decision as a breach of good manners, but the general was in good company. Turns out Defense Minsiter Carme Chacon and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero even failed to notify members of the Spanish government. The […]

WASHINGTON — The new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that the Obama administration unveiled today reflects a policy consensus that has been more than a year in the making. It is only recently, however, that the U.S. government has begun to take the lead in developing and implementing this new strategy. In the waning days of the Bush administration, U.S. allies — most notably the British government — as well as foreign policy wonks at think tanks in Washington and elsewhere began formulating an alternative policy for an Afghanistan war effort that had begun going downhill in the latter half […]

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — With opposition rallies across Kyrgyzstan planned for today, the government of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has taken calculated measures to avoid a repetition of the Tulip Revolution that swept his predecessor, Askar Akayev, from power almost four years ago to the day, on March 25, 2005. Disillusionment with the current administration is widespread among political observers and the public at large, and is arguably as strong now as opposition to Akayev was four years ago. But experts predict that the demonstrations will achieve relatively little, even as many worry they may be the last chance for the opposition […]

On her recent Asian tour, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made Jakarta a key stop. The move signaled a new direction for American foreign policy in the region following that of the Bush administration — which was accused by critics of having neglected Southeast Asia, and of having alienated Indonesians with its military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. While insiders and policy wonks might point out that the U.S. and Indonesia worked well together on counterterrorism issues during the Bush era — successfully undermining Jemaah Islamiyah, for instance — the perception lingers that Washington did not regard Indonesia, and […]

Karim Sadjadpour is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a leading researcher on Iran. The following interview originally appeared on CEIP’s Web site. Why did President Barack Obama choose this occasion [the New Year holiday of Nowruz] for his video message to Iran? Karim Sadjadpour: It’s very thoughtful timing. In acknowledging Nowruz, President Obama showed the Iranian people that he has an appreciation for their culture and history. In Dubai, the reaction among the huge Iranian expat community has been overwhelmingly and universally positive. Was there anything about the tone and language of Obama’s remarks that […]

KHOST PROVINCE, Afghanistan — The Army contractor reached into a green lacquered box and pulled out a clump of wires. He was holding part of the IED that had disabled his Mine Resistant Ambush Protection vehicle, or MRAP, just a few months before. “Here’s the thing I don’t get,” he said. “These guys use really nice German wires, but then they plug them into crappy, old, rundown Chinese batteries.” The explosion hadn’t done much, apart from frightening everyone inside. All it had left behind was a big hole in the dirt and a flat tire on the MRAP. But it […]

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The first leftist president-elect in El Salvador since the end of the 1980-1992 civil war says he will not nationalize major industries, as leftist leaders have done in Venezuela and Bolivia, but instead will guarantee property rights and seek support of business leaders. Mauricio Funes, a former CNN en Español correspondent, beat former police chief Rodrigo Avila by 2.6 percent in the March 15 election. He immediately sent signals that he’ll seek to maintain tight relations with Washington and Brazil. Critics fear Funes’ FMLN party, which was founded by Marxist guerrillas on the heels of […]

The U.S.-China naval confrontation in the South China Sea two weeks ago was only the latest in a series of military showdowns between the two countries in the past decade. And like the others before it, the skirmish — which according to initial reports had Chinese sailors stripping down to their skivvies before U.S. seamen — seemed harmless enough. But the quarrel came, if you will, amid tumultuous seas. Not long afterwards, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, troubled perhaps by Washington’s response to the financial crisis and its consequences on the broader U.S. economy, voiced concern about China’s massive economic investments […]

On March 8, five Chinese trawlers surrounded and harassed the USNS Impeccable, a civilian-crewed naval survey ship sailing in international waters on the South China Sea, resulting in a week-long diplomatic tiff. The Chinese government accused the ship of spying on its naval forces. Washington eventually admitted that was true, but insisted it had every right to do so. (See James Kraska’s WPR Briefing.) In the wake of the incident, both sides moved in reinforcements. The U.S. Navy sent a destroyer to escort Impeccable on future missions; Beijing deployed a patrol vessel to the area. Some pundits declared the confrontation […]

This essay was originally published as part of the Middle East Institute‘s Viewpoints Special Edition: “The Iranian Revolution at 30,” part of asix-part series focusing on the turning-point events of 1979 in theMiddle East. “The Iranian Revolution at 30” can be read in full here.Understanding Iran’s foreign policy is the key to crafting sensible and effective policies toward Iran and requires, above all, a close analysis of the profound cultural and psychological contexts of Iranian foreign policy behavior. For Iran, the past is always present. A paradoxical combination of pride in Iranian culture and a sense of victimization have created […]

Will the worldwide recession actually benefit Chinese arms exports? That’s what WPR managing editor Judah Grunstein speculated last week, citing Chinese defense companies’ ability to reproduce foreign weapons systems and then sell them on third-party markets at lower prices than the original. It is too early to identify a clear trend, but not premature to consider potential unwelcome scenarios. The tremendous diplomatic exertions that the United States and Israel are making to keep Russia from selling its S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran or Syria, for instance, will matter little if China chooses to sell them its HQ-9 surface-to-air […]

Oxymorons rarely work. Sure, people can’t get enough of jumbo shrimp. And there is a good reason why Shakespeare’s, “Parting is such sweet sorrow. . .” still resonates four centuries after it was penned. But on the whole, oxymorons tend to signal an inconsistency that is impossible to resolve. More and more, trends in American foreign policy reflect exactly this kind of incongruity. Take some of the concepts that have evolved over the past few years: warriors as diplomats, for instance, or soldiers as state-builders. Now, Afghanistan’s future, which will likely involve a “surge” of troops, places another seemingly discrepant […]