Briefing Archive

Jordan is considered a Syrian refugee “success story.” But Syrians who reside there are increasingly concerned about changes in the government’s posture toward them. They fear that they may soon be pressured to leave.

The recent coup in Niger presents the United States with a familiar dilemma in how it conducts security assistance. There is no easy solution, but current dynamics in the Sahel, which indicate that without outside help al-Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated groups will rapidly gain strength in the region, call for U.S. policymakers to pursue a pragmatic course.

Four years after the Philippine government signed a peace accord with an Islamic militant group establishing an autonomous region in the country’s southern province, a tense encounter between the group and government forces has highlighted the fragility of the peace process leading up to the region’s first elections in 2025.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates has worked proactively to embrace Russian business while hoping to evade pressure from the U.S. and its allies. Despite narratives of the UAE and Saudi Arabia drifting from the U.S. orbit, the Gulf states continue to recognize their dependency on U.S. security ties.

Despite having little to show from his first full term in office, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa is the strong favorite to win the country’s election Wednesday. A disunited opposition, voter apathy and state coercion have paved the way to victory for the incumbent.

According to Sierra Leone’s electoral commission, incumbent President Julius Maada Bio was reelected to a second—and constitutionally final—term in the June 24 presidential ballot. But opposition in the country as well as international observers have raised serious concerns about the credibility of that result.

Many observers have attributed the victory of Javier Milei, a libertarian economist who rails against the “political caste” and promises to drastically reduce the size of the state, in Argentina’s presidential primaries to anger and anti-establishment sentiment. That is not only a mistake, but also an underestimation of Argentine voters.

Though Singapore’s political environment is considered only “partly free,” the long-dominant ruling People’s Action Party has also enjoyed genuine popular legitimacy. Now, though, a series of corruption scandals have shattered the party’s reputation for unbending integrity, even as the PAP faces credible challengers at the ballot box.

The end of the war in Tigray in November 2022 brought relative peace to the region and eased international pressure on Addis Ababa. Yet, it has precipitated the explosion of another devastating war, this time between Ethiopian government forces and their erstwhile partners in the Tigray war from the country’s Amhara region.

For two decades, Iran blamed much of Afghanistan’s miseries on the military intervention there by the U.S. and its allies. But two years after the U.S. withdrawal that Tehran had long demanded, and with the Taliban now firmly in power in Kabul, Iran finds itself facing a unique set of challenges emanating from Afghanistan.

Algeria’s recently intensified foreign policy engagement has three main goals: to counter the growing regional influence of neighboring Morocco, strengthen its position among the rising powers of a multipolar world and attract more investment to diversify its economy. Aligning with China fits into all of these goals.

In early August, Kenya volunteered to lead a multinational police force, to which it will deploy 1,000 police officers. to reestablish security in Haiti. But when Kenya’s assessment team arrives in the country in the coming weeks, it will discover that Haiti’s crisis is not just a policing challenge. It is an urban warfare nightmare.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Southeast Asia seemed to offer a model for democratization for other developing countries. But today the region is a long way from that promising period, with the state of democracy in dire shape. It seemed by 2020 that things couldn’t get worse. And yet, in the past few years, they have.

As a result of Spain’s inconclusive elections on July 23, regional nationalist parties hold the keys to determining the next prime minister. Though their options are limited, how they navigate the current landscape will have implications for Spain’s national politics as well as other regional nationalist movements in Europe.

Despite a story of overall progress when it comes to liberalizing abortion laws, including recent victories in several countries, women’s rights advocates around the world are sounding the alarm. Three overlapping trends are leading to a global backlash that is causing concern among reproductive rights champions.

U.S. President Joe Biden recently stirred controversy by stating that al-Qaida no longer has a presence in Afghanistan—thanks, he suggested, to the Taliban. The Taliban predictably applauded his statement, but others pointed out that it contradicted recent U.N. reports. How are we to make sense of these conflicting characterizations?

Upon taking office in 2020, Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye reversed some of his predecessor’s repressive measures, raising hopes that he might deliver on his promised reform agenda. But recent developments have renewed concerns that Ndayishimiye’s initial overtures would not materialize into substantive policy reforms.