Briefing Archive

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s “window of opportunity to deliver reform is rapidly closing,” former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned, putting the country at risk for a recurrence of the political violence that brought the East African powerhouse to its knees after disputed elections in 2007. Though delivered in his characteristic velvet tones, Annan’s message was firm: Accelerate the reform agenda and take decisive action, or risk the potential of an irretrievable decline into crisis that will have economic as well as political consequences. “Kenya is already at — or past — the halfway mark between the formation of the […]

As if absurdity weren’t already the norm in U.S.-Cuba relations, three years ago the U.S. Interest Section, housed in a rectangular seven-story building in the Vedado district of Havana, began broadcasting a news ticker across its sixth-floor windows. The five-foot, red-orange lettering crept from one end of the building to the other, like anachronistic soldiers leftover from an ideological war settled long ago. Unfortunately, however, nobody seems to have told either the Americans or the Cubans. In kind, Fidel Castro ordered a million people to march on the building in protest. The Cuban government proceeded to block the ticker’s view […]

The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009, generally known as the Kerry-Lugar bill, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign off on soon, has deeply upset the top military leadership in Pakistan, including Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani. In a most atypical fashion, the top brass publicly aired its anger after a meeting of the country’s 12 corps commanders on Wednesday, issuing a public statement denouncing the bill, and urging the Pakistani government to build a national response to it in parliament. Given the stringent conditions attached to the bill, Washington policymakers should perhaps not be […]

RAMALLAH, West Bank — On most days, Ramallah bustles with the sounds of commerce typical of Middle Eastern towns. The city, seat of power for the Palestinian Authority, is experiencing an economic boom that looks deceptively like normalcy. Pedestrians move along crowded sidewalks while traffic crawls along in the city center. In newer parts of town, bright new buildings give the city an air of prosperity reminiscent of the wealthiest areas of Jerusalem or Amman, the Jordanian capital. Underneath the visible progress, however, signs are growing that the months ahead could bring heightened tension and even violence in the Palestinian […]

After Indonesian authorities gunned down Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terrorist, Noordin Mohammad Top, last month, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono remained cautiously optimistic, stating at the time that Jakarta had “just won a battle” in its broader war against terrorism. Yudhoyono was probably right to strike such a balanced tone in his remarks. While Top’s death is a major blow to Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia, it is hardly the final nail in its coffin. And even as Jakarta’s “law and order approach” to eradicating terrorism continues to net key terrorist operatives, it has come under increasing scrutiny for eroding the […]

ABOARD USS DONALD COOK — It was a rare moment of excitement on a long, tedious counter-piracy patrol. On the evening of Sept. 24, lookouts on the USS Donald Cook, a Virginia-based destroyer assigned to a NATO flotilla in the Gulf of Aden, spotted a mysterious shape on the horizon. The distant vessel did not respond to Donald Cook’s hails as it loomed closer. With the cry, “Ship of interest,” crew members summoned Donald Cook’s captain, Derek Granger. Interrupted during a rare bit of down-time, Granger climbed to the bridge wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Lighting his customary cigar, he […]

The doors to the European Union have reopened for Croatia after its new Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor reached a historic deal with her Slovenian counterpart, Borut Pahor, over the two countries’ border dispute, in Ljubljana on Sept. 11. Croatia’s process of accession with the EU ground to a halt last December, when Slovenia put a veto to the negotiations, citing its territorial dispute with Zagreb over the Piran Bay and several small strips of land along the border. Before the Slovenian veto, Zagreb hoped to complete negotiations by the end of this year and join the EU in 2010 or […]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently responded to criticisms of its policies toward the world’s least developed countries (LDCs), by reforming its approach (.pdf) to “development” lending. The fund has long been a favorite target of civil society groups, who claim that the institution has no expertise in formulating development policy, that its stringent conditions often worsen already dire economic situations, and that its governance structure is highly undemocratic. The fund, they often seem to argue, should either be overhauled, or removed from LDC lending altogether. So, is the new, gentler version of the fund an improvement for poor […]

At their Oct. 1 meeting in Geneva, representatives from Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany) appeared to make considerable progress. The Iranian government representative agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its recently revealed second, secret uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qum. Iran also expressed interest “in principle” in sending its stockpiles of low enriched uranium to Russia and France for further enrichment and conversion into fuel rods for an experimental reactor used for medical purposes. Russia’s role in helping secure these developments remains unclear. Russian leaders […]

On the heels of signing a major arms agreement with Russia on Sept. 10, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced his country’s recognition of Georgian breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, becoming only the third country after Nicaragua and Russia to do so. A little over a year since Russia unilaterally recognized the two statelets following its brief war with Georgian forces, the international community — including Russia’s close allies Belarus and Kazakhstan — has continued to keep its distance. Predictably, the response to Chavez’s announcement from Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, was dismissive. A statement released by the Ministry […]

The outcome of talks to discuss the Iranian nuclear crisis on Oct. 1 between representative of the P5+1 and Iran appears to be more positive than had been anticipated. However, the reality is that the basic positions of all sides remain unchanged. In its previous attempts to solve this slow-burning crisis, the West has repeatedly failed to understand the intentions and strategies of the Iranian government. This has allowed Tehran to buy time for its uranium enrichment program and for the ongoing construction of a heavy-water reactor at Arak. The West’s focus on the enrichment issue has obscured the ways […]

As someone who thinks systematically about the future for a living, I frequently read science fiction with an eye for what it reveals about how today’s real fears are being projected upon tomorrow’s imagined landscapes. The books behind the 1973 movie “Soylent Green” (too many people!) and the 2006 movie “Children of Men” (no more babies!) make for a good example. Compare their central premises and you’ve basically captured the 180-degree turn the popular imagination has experienced on population growth over my lifetime. So what does today’s science fiction tell me? We have a lot of fears about biological technology […]

NEW DELHI — The recent U.S.-sponsored United Nations Security Council resolution calling on all nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not been well-received in India. The resolution, adopted last week at a Security Council session led by U.S. President Barack Obama, will ratchet up the pressure on India to sign a document that it considers grossly unfair. In fact India’s Special Envoy on Climate Change Shyam Saran conveyed as much to Obama, stating that because the NPT’s norms are “discriminatory” and “conflict with India’s sovereignty,” the treaty is unacceptable […]

Not long after the so-called “civilian surge” was announced as part of the troop buildup in Afghanistan, a veteran State Department foreign service officer I spoke with posed a simple question: “Where are they going to come from?” He had recently returned from a year serving on a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan and was grappling with the lack of civilian expertise that he said was so desperately needed for the state-building tasks there. “Is the new Secretary of Agriculture going to volunteer staff? The Secretary of the Treasury?” He suspected not. The diplomat’s insights get at a central challenge […]

Despite the encouraging outcome of yesterday’s talks in Geneva, the nuclear standoff with Iran is far from over. It will not end for the U.S. until there is full, ongoing compliance with all protocols of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspection regime. And so long as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Iran’s president, it very likely will not end for Iran until breakout capability has been achieved. It should not be surprising that yesterday in Geneva, Ahmadinejad’s recalcitrant regime appeared to make major concessions to the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany […]

On the morning of June 9, 2008, U.S. drug enforcement agents alongside NATO military personnel and Afghan commandos raided a suspected drug weigh-station in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province near the border with Pakistan. Code-named Operation Albatross, the counternarcotics mission was the result of a tip from a government official in Kandahar and led to a seizure of mind-blowing proportions: 262 metric tons of dried hashish, equivalent in size to 30 London-style double-decker buses. The raid was the world’s largest drug seizure ever conducted by law enforcement authorities. But there is little reason to celebrate. Afghanistan’s narcotics industry has become a […]

JERUSALEM — The latest developments surrounding Iran and its nuclear program would seem, on the surface, to provide Israel with reasons for even deeper worries about the threat from the Islamic Republic. After all, the revelation that Iran secretly built a second uranium enrichment plant in the mountains near the holy city of Qom offers more evidence supporting the Israelis’ belief that Tehran aims to build nuclear weapons. The subsequent launches of Iranian missiles capable of striking Israel also highlighted the Jewish state’s potential vulnerability to an Iranian attack. And yet, the feverish pace of events and the international reaction […]