Briefing Archive

Late last month, Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia’s agriculture minister, appealed to the international community for $175 million in emergency food aid to feed the 6.2 million people who are in the grip of severe drought there. Since famine killed 1 million Ethiopians 25 years ago, the country has remained in a cycle of drought-driven crises keeping it dependent on foreign aid. The U.S. is no stranger to assisting Ethiopia: It provides nearly 80 percent of food aid delivered to the country and began food shipments in anticipation of the government’s latest request. But while food aid addresses the immediate need, feeding […]

As we near the final year of the decade that brought us 9/11, it’s worth recalling one lesson our experience on that date has etched with painful clarity: Failed states can become breeding grounds for violent extremists — with devastating consequences far beyond their borders. Before 9/11, no one could have predicted that attacks concocted in remote, impoverished Afghanistan might have such a cataclysmic impact on history. Now we know that we ignore such states at our own risk. That’s why remote and impoverished Yemen, a country undergoing what by all appearances is a slow-motion collapse, is likely to draw […]

TOKYO — Those seeking political symbolism for Asia’s faultlines need look no further than the Dalai Lama’s press conference here on Saturday — complete with criticism of China, and delivered before he heads off for an extended stay in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Perched on India’s frontier with China, Arunachal Pradesh’s disputed border has been the focus of growing tensions between New Delhi and Beijing. On Friday, former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra became the latest in a series of respected Indian commentators warning of possible Chinese military action. The two countries fought over the state, which China […]

LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan — “Let’s go get blown up,” Staff Sgt. Ashley Hess quipped as he climbed into his armored vehicle on a hot, bright mid-October morning. Sgt. Hess and the rest of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Platoon, Able Troop — part of the 3rd Squadron of the 71st Cavalry regiment deployed to this fertile agricultural province south of Kabul — steered their vehicles down a dirt road code-named Route New York. The route is a favorite with insurgent bomb teams, who prefer burying their explosives directly under a vehicle’s path — something that’s nearly impossible on paved roads. Many […]

Brazil has had a lot to celebrate recently. Its economy has been growing at a slow but healthy clip, thanks to prudent fiscal policies that have helped it weather the financial crisis better than many. The nation has taken on an increasingly important role in matters of regional diplomacy and has emerged as the de facto political and economic leader of Latin America. Foreign leaders as varied and diverse as U.S. President Barack Obama, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and South African President Jacob Zuma have all recently met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in efforts to strengthen […]

Today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will become only the second German leader in history to give a speech to both houses of the U.S. Congress. One issue she may avoid raising is her new coalition government’s controversial commitment to remove all U.S. nuclear weapons from German soil within the next few years. By formally adopting the commitment as a core element of its platform, the German government has dramatically focused attention on what has until now been a low-key debate within NATO over whether to retain nuclear weapons as a core element of the alliance’s strategy. Although the precise number […]

Ten years ago last month, the U.S. Senate failed to approve the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. A decade later, the dangers posed by the potential spread of nuclear weapons and materials to additional states and terrorists have increased dramatically. Stopping proliferation will require a global effort — and an early, essential step in that effort must be U.S. ratification of the test ban. The test ban is clearly consistent with U.S. security interests. Because the United States does not conduct nuclear tests and has no plans or the need to do so, the United States should take advantage of the […]

Much ink has been spilt over the question of whether or not globalization leads to the “death” of the nation-state, or at least its eclipse by a rising tide of super-empowered non-state actors — especially multinational corporations. On this score, history has been fairly clear: States that score high on globalization connectivity typically feature governments with extensive regulatory reach and strong enforcement capacity — not exactly the demise of the public sector. And yet, it’s also true that globalization’s increasingly dense weave of networks poses significant challenges to government oversight. I can think of no credible expert who argues that […]