The recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on the Chilean-Peruvian maritime boundary dispute closed one chapter of a trilateral territorial dispute that has festered among Chile, Peru and Bolivia for more than a century. But while Chile and Peru mend fences, similar progress between Chile and Bolivia has not materialized. Less than a decade ago, geopolitical tensions surrounding the dispute played a part in blocking Bolivia from participating in a clear market solution to Chile’s natural gas crisis. Today, that dynamic has deteriorated for Bolivia: The region’s shifting energy market realities have removed what leverage Bolivia had in its [...]
Sometime after 2009 the U.S. government, concerned about the number of suspicious flights that were landing in Honduras, expanded its intelligence-sharing with the government of the Central American country to include aerial interdiction efforts. On two occasions in July 2012, however, the Honduran air force shot down planes suspected of drug trafficking. In neither case did the suspect planes’ occupants threaten Honduran air force aircraft, but all aboard died in both incidents. As a result, in mid-August 2012, the U.S. Southern Command suspended its intelligence-sharing with the Hondurans on aerial interdiction until the following November, when strict procedures had been [...]
In the last sections of his 2014 State of the Union address, after devoting a good deal of attention to strategies for restoring America’s domestic prosperity, President Barack Obama turned to U.S. foreign policy. The bulk of his comments about America’s place in the world dealt with Middle East issues—four paragraphs about Syria and chemical weapons, the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the continuing struggle against extremist organizations that threaten U.S. interests. Earlier in the speech, the president, focusing exclusively on the perceived benefits to American workers, called on Congress [...]
