Column Archive

Another round of protests is scheduled for Russia on Saturday, raising the question of whether a “color revolution,” this one characterized by the demonstrators’ white ribbons, capable of toppling the government is in the cards. Media attention invariably focuses on mass demonstrations, banner-waving crowds and Twitter-savvy organizers, yet what happens behind the scenes is usually much more important to the outcome of such movements. Protests are not enough, and for all the color revolutions that succeeded over the past decade — in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine — there were also some glaring failures, as in Azerbaijan and Belarus. While Russian […]

It’s too soon to know how the events of this fast-fading year will ultimately reshape our world, but the upheaval we witnessed in 2011 will most assuredly keep future historians ponderously occupied. Indeed, it was a year of uprooting, breaking up and tilling the geopolitical soil — a year that will have mattered in many ways, many of which we don’t yet fully understand, but that clearly represent a turning point. Ten events in particular reshaped the global landscape in 2011. The Arab Uprisings. The spark lit by Tunisian food vendor Mohammed Bouazizi at the end of 2010 set much […]

Kim Jong Il is dead, and the world is wondering what to do about it. The task of leading North Korea has fallen to an inexperienced 27-year-old without a major constituency, even as the threat of regime collapse worries both friends and enemies of the largely isolated nation. What should Washington, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo do in order to avoid a crisis? Some observers are arguing that this represents an opportunity for the United States to push hard against the DPRK, hopefully causing it to topple. This would be a mistake; the DPRK is likely not only to survive such […]

Two great uncertainties define the current succession process in North Korea. First, will the new leadership pursue aggressive or moderate foreign policies? Second, how should foreign countries respond to the new situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)? Given how little we know about North Korea’s internal politics, the first question is difficult to address. Although some indicators of future behavior should emerge in coming weeks, the succession process could take years to evolve. The North Korean regime may continue to muddle through, remaining a military threat to South Korea — and other states — and representing a […]

Much of what drives America’s current phobias regarding China stems from the dual — and fantastically linear — assumptions of America’s terminal decline and China’s perpetual ascension. We are thus led to believe that China no longer needs the United States and that America, in turn, can do nothing — short of increasing military pressure — to constrain the Middle Kingdom’s rise to global hegemony. On all scores, nothing could be further from the truth. China and the United States suffer a level of strategic interdependency that is vast and shows no signs of reduction. Simply put, America cannot stay […]

The Obama administration entered office three years ago with high hopes that it could repair America’s relationships with other key powers in the world. While some successes were achieved in 2009 and 2010, Washington closes out 2011 facing the sobering reality of simultaneously deteriorating relationships with China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Russia. At the same time, Washington can expect only limited support from its major Western allies in managing a host of global hotspots, as the ongoing eurozone crisis has, in a matter of months, turned European attention away from a more activist and interventionist approach to the world toward […]

The most striking image from last weekend’s demonstrations in Moscow against the regime of former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is that of protesters holding up iPads and iPhones over their heads, broadcasting the momentous events live over the Internet. The sight of young Russians, bundled up against the Moscow cold, speaking out for democracy via social media brings to mind the wave of political protests that have defined 2011 — from the Arab uprisings in the Middle East, to the Occupy movement in developed economies, and now in Russia. And it raises the question of just how […]

The National Transitional Council of Libya has much on its plate, including most notably rebuilding the country in the wake of civil war while also preparing it for constitutional democracy. However, military challenges still beckon. In addition to residual fighting and managing the demands of competing militias, the Transitional Council is faced with the task of centralizing authority over violence and building a new, modern and professional Libyan military. The rump Libyan military is unlikely to be of much help. Although Moammar Gadhafi cultivated conflict with neighbors and distant foes alike, he relied more on Libya’s vast, inhospitable geography than […]

Last week’s Duma elections have identified several weaknesses in Russia’s political system that cannot easily be solved. The current political order will probably survive the protests over the blatant electoral fraud, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is likely to return to the presidency next year. But the Putin system that has defined Russian politics for the past decade is unlikely to last beyond the next decade, since its vulnerabilities cannot be addressed by the modest reforms that the leading members of the regime are willing to tolerate. To truly modernize, Russia must overcome Putinism, develop stronger political parties, achieve greater […]

When most people think of revolutions, they imagine the overthrow of political orders. By contrast, most of what we see today in globalization’s continued expansion is not violent political revolution, but rather unsettling socio-economic revolution. Yes, when existing political orders cannot process that change — and the angry populism that typically accompanies it — they can most definitely fall. This is what we have seen in the Arab Spring to date. But more often this populism leads to political paralysis in countries both democratic and authoritarian. A case in point is the recent controversy in India over Prime Minister Manmohan […]

The recent elections in Egypt and Russia have important lessons for both Washington and Beijing about the contour of politics in the 21st century — and the limits of both authoritarianism and Western-style liberalism. For the past 12 years, as part of its campaign to modernize Russia, the Kremlin has encouraged the spread of new communications technology. However, over the course of his time first as president and then as prime minister, Vladimir Putin’s concern with mass communications focused primarily on shaping television coverage. Meanwhile, the growth in Russians’ mobile phone usage, in particular, has been quite dramatic. If less […]

It is impossible to predict with certainty what the future, even in the short or medium term, holds for the countries of the Middle East. But there is no question that the future of Lebanon is closely linked to that of its neighbor, Syria. With the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad under growing pressure from the domestic opposition, the fragile status quo in Lebanon is also in play. If and when the Assad regime is toppled in Damascus, his fall will unleash fierce political winds in Beirut. Assad has played a key role in the emergence of Hezbollah as […]

In the first decade of the 20th century, Brazil attempted to stake out a space for itself as a major Western Hemisphere naval power, ordering a pair of dreadnought battleships from British yards in 1906. Dubbed Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, these ships were as capable as any then in operation among the world’s navies, and indeed outgunned early British, German and American contemporaries. The acquisition of the two ships — as well as the planned purchase of a third — set off a naval race in the Southern Cone, with Chile and Argentina soon following suit. Unfortunately, the battleships […]

On Nov. 28, the Turkish government reluctantly imposed comprehensive sanctions against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, Turkish leaders are now calling for Assad to step down, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan comparing him to Hitler. Thus far, the Turkish government has relied on diplomatic, political and economic instruments to achieve its goals of regime change in Syria. But the possibility of active military intervention, though previously excluded and still unlikely, is becoming more plausible. Historically, relations between Turkey and Syria have been troubled, but they experienced a noticeable improvement since Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party […]

The United States is on the verge of an industrial renaissance, according to energy experts enthusiastic about technological advances surrounding the “fracking” of shale gas and the processing of “tight oil.” America is sitting on a century-worth of natural gas, and the Western hemisphere boasts five times the reserves in unconventional oil as the Middle East claims in the conventional category. Suddenly, all our fears of resource wars with China and never-ending quagmires in Southwest Asia seem to melt away, heralding with great certainty another American century based on the promise of energy independence. As “deus ex machina” moments go, […]

If national security flows from economic strength, then the ongoing global economic crisis is poised to strike at one of the more underappreciated tools in the security kit — the checkbook. We’re all familiar with the term “checkbook diplomacy.” But “checkbook security” has played a largely unsung role in America’s approach to national security over the past decade — from “buying off” Sunni insurgents in Iraq as part of the Surge to funding development projects in Afghanistan as part of the war effort to helping countries in Latin America and Africa improve their capabilities to fight drug traffickers and organized […]

One of the most striking aspects of Turkey’s transformation in recent years came in its innovative approach to foreign relations. Ankara’s policy of “zero problems” with its neighbors not only had a catchy name and a low cost of implementation, it also seemed to work — but only for a brief time. Despite its initial promise, the idea of getting along with everyone in a complicated part of the world proved unworkable. Now, with that formula discredited and discarded, Ankara is busy looking for a new policy framework — a new overarching strategy to maximize influence in a time of […]