Briefing Archive

TOKYO — The residents of Obama, Japan, might have celebrated the election of their town’s namesake as the next president of the United States, but many Japanese remain apprehensive about what the change in leadership will mean for their country’s most important ally. Doubts over the state of relations with the United States were evident in a Kyodo News survey this month, which showed that a record 28 percent of Japanese view the relationship between the two countries as “not good.” “Primarily this is about Iraq, North Korea and the financial crisis,” says Masashi Nishihara, president of the Research Institute […]

By signing the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) at a ceremony in Oslo earlier this month, 94 countries took bold action to end the use of highly indiscriminate weapons that have maimed or killed tens of thousands of civilians. Meanwhile, a separate international effort that would set less restrictive limitations on cluster munitions may be near collapse. It is time for hold-out countries, especially the United States, to join the emerging international norm and commit to the CCM. Initially designed for use against tank divisions and other mass troop movements, cluster munitions are bombs, rockets, and artillery shells that disperse […]

As President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team prepares to take office in January, the Turkish government is readying to outflank the U.S.’s Iran policy on a vast scale, having signed a milestone agreement in November to invest $12 billion in Iran’s energy sector. The move presents an immediate conflict between Washington’s efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its desire to wean Europe from Russian energy dependence. As a result, the Obama administration will be forced to choose between overhauling American efforts to isolate Iran or inviting a sour demonstration of America’s waning influence among close allies. As part of […]

Earlier this month, the Pentagon issued a directive (.pdf) raising “irregular warfare” (IW) to the same level of importance as conventional battles. The December 2008 directive defines IW as operations to fight terrorists and insurgents, enhance the defense capacity of foreign governments, and promote stability in conflict-prone regions. It asserts that it is now Department of Defense policy “to recognize that IW is as strategically important as traditional warfare.” Although the U.S. armed forces have long performed these tasks, most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military has often done so only with great reluctance. The Pentagon developed considerable expertise […]

SOLEMN REMEMBRANCES, HOPE MARK DECLARATION ANNIVERSARY — The world community marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, with calls for stronger international institutions and remembrances of those around the world currently deprived of their rights. The U.N. General Assembly awarded the 2008 U.N. Prizes in the Field of Human Rights to several individuals, including slain Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto and former U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour, as well as to the group Human Rights Watch. Meanwhile, critics slammed the U.N. and the world community for their failures to address […]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Zimbabwe’s multifaceted crisis took a turn for the worse late last month when disgruntled members of the usually loyal Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) went on a six-day rampage, beating people, looting shops and clashing with anti-riot police in the capital city of Harare. More than 150 soldiers, some of them members of President Robert Mugabe’s Presidential Guard, sang revolutionary songs denouncing the octogenarian leader during the rampage, raising fears of an uprising. “The situation looked out of control,” said a Harare lawyer who came face to face with the disturbances. “The soldiers beat up riot police, […]

MEXICO CITY — Andrés Manuel López Obrador marked the second anniversary of his “legitimate government” — a symbolic opposition shadow government — with a rally in Mexico City, Nov. 23. But the mood was hardly festive, as the scorned 2006 presidential runner-up suffered a series of crushing setbacks in the preceding weeks. The energy reform package he branded as “privatization” and crusaded tirelessly against throughout 2008 was approved by Congress in late October, with backing from lawmakers in his own Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). The federal electoral tribunal dealt him a blow Nov. 12 when it overturned the annulled PRD […]

While many observers of U.S. foreign policy have in recent years lamented the state of U.S. public diplomacy, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is widely seen as a bright spot amid a dim post-Cold War record of communicating and promoting U.S. values and interests to the world outside the United States. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty serves as a “surrogate” free press in countries around the world where such doesn’t exist, charged with promoting “democratic values and institutions by disseminating factual information and ideas,” as its mission statement puts it. Through the Internet and over the radio, RFE/RL broadcasts in 28 languages […]

TORREÓN, Mexico — Felipe Calderón arrived to the Mexican presidency two years ago with a weak mandate and amid wild controversy. The presidential election’s runner-up, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, alleged electoral fraud and called the new government illegitimate; his supporters took over the streets of Mexico City for weeks, and congressional allies tried to physically prevent Calderón from taking the oath of office. Calderón raced through his swearing-in ceremony in front of a crowd of scuffling legislators, before stealing off to give his inaugural address elsewhere. The inauspicious opening belied what would become a remarkably bold first year in office. […]

It would be simple to lay the blame for last week’s riots in Jos, Nigeria, at the doorstep of ethno-religious rivalries. This line of analysis always makes sense to outside observers and conforms to the meta-narrative of the “clash of civilizations.” But in Nigeria, nothing is ever that simple. In a move designed to shift the blame for the riots, Hon. Jonah Jang, the governor of Plateau State (where Jos is located), has been issuing statements to the effect that subversive elements from neighboring Chad and Niger were the main perpetrators of last week’s violence, which killed almost 500 people […]

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances of returning to power in Israel received an unexpected and potentially devastating blow following Tuesday’s primary vote by members of his party. Likud voters watered down their party leader’s entire electoral strategy, thus reviving the chances that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her Kadima party will have another opportunity to form a government. The conventional wisdom — and what all opinion polls still predict — is that Netanyahu will become Israel’s new prime minister after next February’s election. And yet, conventional wisdom is often wrong, and this may well prove one of those times. […]

MOMBASA, Kenya — In the past, on many days the giant container ships lined up 10 deep just outside the entrance to Mombasa’s seaport, awaiting their turn to offload cargo. It was a sign of East Africa’s growing economy that there were more ships than spots at Mombasa’s cargo terminals. But lately there have been fewer ships. On Wednesday afternoon, just one vessel anchored in the distance, while a handful of outbound vessels emerged from the harbor and turned south. Across Mombasa, people associated with the region’s sea trade are feeling the pinch. Fewer ships mean less work for ship’s […]

Surrounded by unstable regimes and beset by national conflicts, the current Ethiopian government has long been preoccupied with containing any militant threat. In June, even as the country was gripped by its worst famine in 25 years, the government announced plans to increase its military budget by $50 million — to $400 million — just one week after appealing to the international community for assistance. As a result, in addition to deploying troops into Somalia for the past two years, and intermittently clashing with Eritrean troops along their northern border, Ethiopia’s military has also fought several internal conflicts in the […]

First of a three-part series. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — In the silent, low-res imagery of the closed-circuit video footage that rapidly spread across YouTube, the young Tamil woman appears unafraid, even poised. Wrapped in a crisp sari, hair in a tight bun, she waits across the desk from the political secretary of a Sri Lankan minister. But something, almost imperceptible in the footage, goes wrong. So as a dozen people go about their business behind her, the woman rises from her chair, tugs at her bra and explodes, her torso vaporized in a C4 blast that kills her and the […]

TORONTO — Canada arguably exists as a luxury parking garage for human souls. It offers the comforts of freedom and prosperity to many of its citizens without excessive complications. There is never war, only inconsistent political crises erupting out of a federal state spread across six time zones. The most prominent of the crises is Quebec’s desire to peacefully separate from the rest of the country. Nonetheless, seriousness and functionality are prized here. These qualities reinforce a global image of bland substance. It is no surprise that Canada’s constitutional mantra calls for “peace, order and good government.” Unfortunately, national politics […]

Unlike his week-long trip to South America in late November, peripatetic Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s recent two-day visit to India attracted little notice in Washington — and for good reason. The Russian and Indian governments did sign important agreements, but none that marked any fundamental transformation in their bilateral relations, or that directed it in ways that threaten American security interests. If anything, the trip highlighted the fact that countering terrorism in South Asia is a shared goal of Russian, American, and regional officials, thereby raising the possibility of enhanced Russian-American security cooperation in this important area. This was Medvedev’s […]

The commando-style terror attack in Mumbai, India, that claimed nearly 200 lives in late November highlights the ongoing danger Islamic extremists pose to even the most developed democracy in South Asia. The attack — and the diplomatic maneuvering in its wake — also casts light on the increasingly important network of relationships between India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. These four countries — three of them nuclear states — will likely decide the future of South Asia in an era of terrorism, coalition warfare and national rapprochement. The U.S.-led “war on terror,” which has seen scores of nations deploy […]