Briefing Archive

Nearly two years ago, the leaders of Lebanon’s March 14 coalition assembled at a rally on the Beirut waterfront to commemorate the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and give their beleaguered political movement the shot in the arm it desperately needed. With its festival atmosphere, the rally was the moment many March 14 supporters had been waiting for. The coalition had formed in the wake of Hariri’s assassination as the first major unified movement against Syria, which had long kept troops in Lebanon and controlled its political life. An unprecedented groundswell of public support after Hariri’s killing thrust […]

For months the most debated issue in Central Asia has been the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the many destabilizing forces it might unleash on the region—among them trafficking in drugs, arms and humans, but also Islamic radicalism. Local leaders and many analysts predict that a severe deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan after the U.S. departs would encourage Central Asian jihadists who had fled their home countries to return and destabilize local regimes. But assessing the current role of Islam and Islamism in Central Asia, and the evolution of Central Asian jihadist groups themselves, reveals that the threat has […]

Last weekend, three weeks of anxious waiting came to an end in Germany when the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in an unprecedented internal referendum, approved a coalition agreement with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). With the new German government sworn in on Tuesday, it is now possible to size up its key personnel and review its foreign and domestic policy agenda. After the federal election on Sept. 22, the victorious Merkel lost her preferred coalition partner when the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) failed to make the 5 percent threshold for representation in the Bundestag. As a result, […]

Never again. That was the sentiment I remember hearing over and over from developing country officials following the tumultuous completion of the Uruguay Round negotiations in 1993 that led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) two years later. Once again, most of them believed, the United States and the European Union had dictated the final terms of a global trade agreement and forced it down the throats of the rest of the world. These countries were determined to have far more say in the shape of any future deals. For the past two decades, until this month’s […]

The Dec. 9 demonstrations that saw more than 100,000 protesters flood the streets of Bangkok represent the latest episode in a long-running saga. Thailand’s current political turmoil is, sadly, nothing new. Since becoming a democracy in 1932, it has seen 18 attempted or successful coups d’etat, the most recent of which removed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the brother of current Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, from power in 2006. The latest protests were propelled by anger over Yingluck’s push to fast-track an amnesty bill that would have allowed Thaksin to return from self-exile. It was an ill-conceived move that drew […]

Crisis management and long-term strategy: French president Francois Hollande must juggle both priorities right now as he seeks to develop a sustainable approach to engagement south of the Sahara even as 1,600 French troops are deployed on an emergency intervention in the Central African Republic. The French public and political world are mostly supportive of the mission in the CAR, which seeks to halt a spiral of conflict between Christians and Muslims. Yet Hollande still has to overcome the skepticism of critics who see this latest military intervention as redolent of the post-colonial era, when Paris would send in its […]

The interim nuclear agreement signed by the U.S.-led international coalition known as the P5+1 and Iran appears to be causing a geopolitical earthquake among the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). On one side are GCC states that see the potential for resolving decades-long disputes involving maritime issues, boundaries and trade. On the other are those that do not trust Iran and eye Tehran’s new stature as a result of the interim agreement with alarm. The possibilities for diplomatic breakthroughs are now greater than ever, however, as Tehran clearly wants to “cool” its testy relationships with the GCC states. […]

Heading into Sunday’s second-round presidential vote in Chile, there is one word that best sums up the energy policy debate in the Andean nation: diversification. That is, much like an individual pursuing a personal investment strategy, Chile is seeking an energy policy that brings increased diversity to its matrix. More specifically, security, efficiency and sustainability are the clear-cut issues facing policymakers and energy sector participants alike; Chile currently imports 97 percent of its fossil fuels and depends on hydropower for 42 percent of its electricity generation. In a twist to Sunday’s voting, President Sebastian Pinera’s successor is likely to be […]

Often overlooked by some Western policymakers engaged with the Mideast peace process, water-sharing arrangements have served as a significant driver of regional tensions dating back to Israel’s founding in 1948. Control of water resources—vital to all manner of economic development, food production and basic human security—has loomed just beneath the surface of many of the region’s headline-earning events of the past 50 years. For example, one of the myriad outcomes of Israel’s triumph in the 1967 Six-Day War—Israeli control of the Golan Heights—brought control of key sections of the Jordan River watershed, one of the few reliable freshwater sources in […]

Since Ukraine regained independence in 1991, analysts have often described the country as divided between a pro-European west and a pro-Russian east. Over the past two decades, elections and opinion polls have reflected that divide, though with some gradual blurring of the line. An interesting feature of the current political crisis, however, is that while pro-European sentiment grips the western and central parts of Ukraine, no alternate pro-Russian narrative has appeared with any force or passion. Like many things, the east-west divide in Ukraine oversimplifies. It is not strictly a divide between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. The latter make […]

Last week, OPEC decided to leave its production ceiling unchanged at 30 million barrels per day (bpd), the target it set two years ago. On the face of it, this decision seems to reflect the self-proclaimed oil cartel’s satisfaction with current high oil prices. Over the past three years, OPEC has thrived with Brent crude averaging above $100 a barrel, boosting members’ revenues to record highs. High prices have even allowed the Vienna-based organization to become sloppy: OPEC stopped publishing individual country quotas five years ago, and most cartel members are producing all the oil they can; meanwhile, Saudi Arabia […]

It is understandable that Japan views China’s “rise” with concern. On the list of Japan’s concerns are China’s rapidly growing military expenditure, its increased economic competitiveness, its geographic proximity to Japan and its historical track record of aggressive territorial assertiveness. The most recent manifestation of the tension between the two great powers was the Chinese declaration of an air defense identification zone in the East China Sea, above the Senkaku Islands claimed by Japan as well as China, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands. From the Japanese perspective, China’s behavior is illegal. But this is not the only area of […]

The differing reactions in Israel and India to the recent six-power agreement with Iran highlight the only point of strategic divergence between the two long-time partners: the nature of engagement with a potentially nuclearizing Iran. While Israel has condemned the preliminary agreement and the potentially broader international rapprochement with Iran it signals, India has welcomed it with cautious optimism. More generally, while Israel perceives Iran’s nuclear posture as an existential threat, India sees it more as a geopolitical hindrance to increasing New Delhi’s strategic profile in Tehran. In recent years India and Israel seemingly agreed to compartmentalize these divergences, as […]

The violence that erupted during a coca eradication campaign in Apolo, Bolivia, in October was sadly reminiscent of the violence and conflict that characterized the “zero coca” policies of previous Bolivian administrations. By the time the confrontation ended, three members of the security forces and a doctor were dead, and nearly 30 people were wounded. Fortunately, the Apolo deaths are an anomaly, both because such violence is now extremely rare in Bolivia and because forced eradication is only taking place in very limited areas of the country deemed to have excess coca cultivation. Nonetheless, the incident illustrates the complex political […]

This year has been one of fluctuating fortunes for South Africa as it seeks to shape Africa’s emerging security architecture and to cement its position as the leading player in continental peace operations. In March, South African troops were withdrawn from the Central African Republic (CAR) after rebel forces overran the capital and ousted the regime of Francois Bozize, which South Africa was defending. The spectacle of South Africa’s humiliating withdrawal, and the deaths of 13 South African troops, jarred with the rather self-congratulatory notions of South African leadership and of South African exceptionalism that had previously informed debates on […]

The Chinese Communist Party’s Third Plenum culminated last month with the release of a reform-minded document outlining significant changes in 60 key areas of the Chinese economy. In targeting government monopolies in industry, as well as controls on the flow of capital, goods and people, while calling for upgrading the quality of governance, the document successfully identifies many of the major bottlenecks to continued rapid socio-economic development. Coupled with recent events in the political sphere, the agenda represents the emergence of President Xi Jinping as a leader and the benchmarks by which he will be judged between now and the […]

China’s responses to the turmoil in Syria over the past two years have been relatively consistent. From the very beginning, Beijing has maintained a firm position that the only solution to the crisis is a political one and that Syria’s sovereignty must be respected. And along with Russia, China has vetoed three United Nations Security Council draft resolutions on Syria. The reason is simple: Beijing objects to external interventions in sovereign states’ internal affairs. There are obvious reasons for this uncompromising adherence to the principles enshrined in the Westphalian system. While the international community’s call for action to stop the […]