Briefing Archive

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) recently confirmed that Pakistan’s lackluster economic performance in recent years is essentially a reflection of its ongoing energy crisis. A combination of factors, including an unbalanced power-generating portfolio, the insurgency in Balochistan and natural calamities such as the devastating floods in 2010, have complicated the task of Pakistan’s energy planners. Long dependent on natural gas to meet transport and urban domestic requirements, Pakistan is facing a spike in its oil import bill due to gas shortages. Meanwhile, the electricity sector is finding it difficult to deal with the inherently intermittent nature of hydropower as a […]

In the aftermath of François Hollande’s election as France’s president Sunday, much of the analysis has concentrated on the implications for Europe: in particular, how Hollande’s call for an emphasis on economic growth will impact the austerity cure imposed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the solution to the European Union’s sovereign debt crisis. This is understandable, as France’s — and Europe’s — economic solvency will of course condition much of its ability to act on the international stage. But a quick look at Hollande’s agenda in the coming weeks — G-8, NATO, G-20 and EU heads of state summits […]

GUATEMALA CITY — Goldcorp is one of the many mining companies winning big on the Central American Gold Belt. Amid soaring gold prices, its Marlin mine in Guatemala made $609 million in profit last year, up 125 percent from 2010. The second-biggest gold miner in the world, Goldcorp was also Guatemala’s largest single taxpayer last year, paying more than $80 million in royalties and taxes, while also funding community development and health projects. But the Marlin mine has a downside. Guatemalans living nearby claim to have lead poisoning, and environmentalists say Goldcorp is harming local water supplies irreversibly. Meanwhile, anti-mining […]

The Missile Defense Conference currently taking place in Moscow demonstrates the wide gap that continues to separate Russia and the West on the issue of ballistic missile defense (BMD). Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov warned attendees that the two sides “have not been able to find mutually acceptable solutions at this point, and the situation is practically at a dead end.” The BMD issue has divided Moscow and NATO since the 1980s, and nothing on the horizon seems likely to narrow these differences any time soon. If there is one thing these years of frustrating experience should have taught us, […]

Last week’s inaugural U.S.-Brazilian Defense Cooperation Dialogue was the latest example of the Obama administration’s efforts to enhance defense cooperation with Brazil. Though improving broader relations with Brazil has been a priority for the Obama administration, the U.S. emphasis on bilateral defense ties should also be seen as part of Washington’s ongoing effort to get Brazil to increase its global security profile as the U.S. focuses more of its strategic attention and shrinking defense resources on the Western Pacific. Even before announcing the U.S. pivot to Asia last fall, the Obama administration had actively pursued expanded security ties with Brazil. […]

When the United Nations sends peacekeepers to war zones, there are often excessive expectations about what they can achieve. By contrast, pessimism surrounds the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), which is supposed to oversee a ceasefire and create space for talks between the government of President Bashar al-Assad and its opponents. U.S. officials, having fought hard in the Security Council to maximize the mission’s autonomy and authority, have warned that it is too weak to succeed. While only a handful of the planned total of 300 hundred monitors are on the ground so far, the Norwegian general in charge […]

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama asserted that the most immediate and extreme threat to national security was that posed by a terrorist organization acquiring a nuclear weapon. As president, he pledged to mitigate that potentiality by securing all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. Simultaneously, Obama pursued a high-profile nonproliferation and arms control strategy that, despite an intensive investment of political capital, has enjoyed only halting progress. Nuclear reduction negotiations with Russia have stalled. Prospects for multilateral treaties governing nuclear tests and the production of nuclear bomb fuel are distant possibilities at best. Meanwhile, Iran and […]