Column Archive

Voters in Egypt gave themselves a jolt during the first round of voting in the country’s presidential election. As soon as the smoke began to clear and a picture of the electoral tally emerged, a sense of bafflement was quickly followed by frustration and anger as the dominant emotions. Almost everyone had reason to dislike the outcome. A disappointment for liberals was expected, but Islamist politicians also saw reason to worry in the voters’ verdict. Like a smoldering battlefield, the electoral landscape was littered with the injured and the wounded. If the results of the vote held on May 25-26 […]

Over the past several months, we have learned more about plans by the U.S. Special Operations Command to take on a greater role globally. As reported by Kim Dozier and others, U.S. special operations forces are working to build a global network of special operations forces in partner countries to meet a wide array of threats. U.S. special operations forces are also marketing themselves to policymakers as the “weapon of choice” after the drawdown in Afghanistan. This push for greater prominence arrives at a time when special operations forces, long the bastard children of the U.S. military, are enjoying unprecedented […]

At its recent Chicago summit, NATO declared that its new ballistic missile defense (BMD) architecture had achieved “Interim Capability.” Nonetheless, questions persist regarding potential contradictions between missile defense and other NATO goals such as nuclear deterrence, Russian unease regarding the entire BMD project and the alliance’s ability to sustain the necessary expenditures to construct a comprehensive BMD architecture. In 2010 at Lisbon, NATO committed to making missile defense a core mission within an alliance context. In particular, member governments agreed in principle to integrate their European missile defense programs with those of the United States, with the goal of providing […]

The Baghdad talks between Iran and the P5+1 bloc, made up of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany, seeking to resolve the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program ended with no solution reached but a commitment to meet again in June in Moscow. The foreign policy chief for the European Union, Catherine Ashton, expressed cautious optimism, observing, “It is clear that we both want to make progress, and that there is some common ground.” Most of the commentary on the negotiations has focused on the technical aspects of the diplomacy involved. In this first stage of talks, the […]

Last weekend, emissaries from the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah met in Cairo and signed an agreement to put an end to Palestinian divisions. Again. Even people who try to keep track of how many times the two organizations have agreed to reconcile have lost count. It’s easy, on the other hand, to remember how many times the deals have achieved their stated goal of forging Palestinian unity: never. Perhaps this is the one that will work. But experience has shown — and then shown again — that Hamas and Fatah have more reasons to remain apart than to […]

This week, the news broke that Ryan Crocker, arguably the finest U.S. diplomat of his generation, was resigning from his post as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. Crocker, who came out of retirement to serve as ambassador in Kabul, will be stepping down this summer, a year earlier than scheduled. The news is a blow to U.S. efforts to surround the military strategy in Afghanistan with a diplomatic framework to stabilize the country. As such, it is the latest setback in a war that has been a humbling experience for both the United States and its Western allies. The most […]

This week’s NATO Summit in Chicago, attended by the heads of state and government of alliance member states as well as senior representatives of various NATO partner countries and organizations, was less ambitious than some recent summits. With regard to the alliance itself, the summit announced no new members, or even a timetable for the four aspirant countries, and raised no funds for collective missions, as in Afghanistan. That said, the summit did perform the important function of reaffirming that despite their economic problems, member countries have been fulfilling all the vague commitments they made at the November 2010 Lisbon […]

With NATO leaders meeting in Chicago for the alliance’s biannual summit of heads of state and government, attention will be focused on the gathering’s high-profile agenda items. In some ways, it’s a lineup of the usual suspects, with the summit’s declaration likely to resemble a collection of increasingly implausible platitudes worthy of a Mad Libs satire: Whether regarding Afghanistan, the alliance’s European-based missile defense system or the move toward “Smart Defense” to maintain military capabilities in the face of budgetary constraints, few observers will be convinced by the declarations of progress, confidence and resolve, respectively. As is customary for a […]

The narrative that U.S.-Russian relations are set on a downward path with the return of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Kremlin has received a major shot in the arm with this week’s “summit-gate” saga. Aware that the inability to reach any accord between Russia and the United States over the contentious issue of missile defense would overshadow the NATO summit in Chicago, the Obama administration deliberately changed the location and timing of the G-8 summit, originally scheduled in Chicago immediately after the gathering of the Atlantic alliance, to the presidential retreat at Camp David the weekend before. This change […]

It seems like Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez increasingly has the world lined up against her, but there’s no reason to feel sorry for her. Fernandez is the librettist of her own drama, and she is carrying out an international populist performance worthy of her famed predecessor, Evita Perón, updated for the anti-globalization, Occupy generation. In the process, the Argentinean leader is taking her country on a sharply different path from the one chosen by other booming South American economies, moving Argentina down a perilous road. She is also driving foreign investors, as well as many domestic ones, away from Argentina. […]

Over the past week, we have seen the first real case of sectarian violence spilling over from Syria into neighboring Lebanon. In clashes in and around the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, at least five people have been killed in fighting that is, as I write this, winding down following the deployment of the Lebanese army. This may seem like an odd time, then, to pour cold water on the risks of Syria’s sectarian conflict reigniting dormant civil conflicts in Lebanon and also Iraq. To be sure, there is a real danger the violence in Syria will spill over into […]

On May 2, the United States and Afghanistan signed a new Strategic Partnership Agreement after months of negotiations. In the accord, the United States pledged to support social and economic development, provide security assistance and promote regional cooperation for 10 years beyond the planned 2014 withdrawal date for all U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan. Under the terms of the agreement, the United States will not seek permanent military bases in the country, but can receive access to Afghan facilities. In return, the Afghanistan government committed to strengthen accountability, transparency, the rule of law and human rights for all Afghans, male […]

There has been a flurry of decidedly unpublicized diplomatic activity ahead of the next round of Iran nuclear talks in Baghdad on May 23, much of it taking place in the shadows. The European Union’s Helga Schmid and Iran’s Ali Bagheri — the no. 2 nuclear negotiators for the P5+1 and Iran, respectively — met quietly this past week to begin preparing the agenda for the Baghdad meeting. In keeping with the conviction that progress can be more easily achieved outside the glare of the spotlights, European diplomatic sources who confirmed the meeting would only say that it did not […]

A fascinating display of diplomatic balancing occurred this past week in New Delhi. At the same time that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in India to urge the Indian government to tighten sanctions on Iran, an Iranian trade delegation was there exploring ways to circumvent those very sanctions. Over the past year, India has found creative ways to “split the middle” in attempting to maintain good relations with both Washington and Tehran. State-owned refineries have reduced the amount of oil they purchase from Iran, in an effort to bring India into compliance with U.S. legislation that calls for […]

Announcements made at 2:30 a.m. usually come as a surprise, and the one made Tuesday night by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no exception. Israelis rubbed their eyes, trying to make sure they had heard correctly: Netanyahu upended the country’s political chessboard by making a deal with the largest opposition party. Early elections, which had been expected in September, were canceled. Suddenly, Israel no longer has a rightist government. Most importantly, the deal with Shaul Mofaz, the newly elected head of the centrist Kadima party, has pulled the rug out from under the extreme-right parties. This is one for […]

Between 1948 and 1973, Egypt and Israel fought four major wars and a collection of smaller skirmishes. Some of these conflicts — the Suez Canal crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967 and the October or Yom Kippur War of 1973 — had geostrategic implications for the United States. Any of them conceivably could have escalated into a confrontation between the two Cold War-era superpowers. And throughout that period, a strong, aggressive Egypt represented the gravest threat to the security of the state of Israel, which had become a vital U.S. interest in the Middle East. For all these reasons, and […]

One issue that warrants greater attention from Washington policymakers moving forward is how relations between Russia and China will affect those two countries’ policies relating to nuclear arms control. In particular, the next administration needs to consider how the U.S. government and other actors can help shape this evolving relationship so that it moves in benign directions, while hedging against possible adverse outcomes. Russia and China have the world’s two most powerful militaries after that of the United States. China is currently undertaking perhaps the most comprehensive military modernization program in the world, while Russia still has approximately as much […]