Column Archive

If recent history is any guide, the United States is less than a year away from a paralyzing national security crisis. Whether President Donald Trump or his Democratic challenger wins in November, revelations that Russia is once again interfering in the 2020 presidential election all but guarantee that the legitimacy of the electoral results will be called into question, potentially undermining the country’s very political stability. One way to guard against that looming threat is for media outlets, which frame how most Americans understand foreign meddling, to make a major course correction in how they cover and respond to Russia’s […]

Iran has suddenly emerged as the principal focus of global infection for coronavirus outside of China. Just in the past few days, it has reported more deaths, 26, than any country after China, where 2,744 people have died from the highly infectious disease. More worryingly, Iran has only reported 245 cases of coronavirus as of Feb. 27—far fewer than Japan or South Korea, and even Italy—but those official numbers defy belief. They would put the mortality rate in Iran at more than 10 percent, significantly higher than the rest of the world. In the central Chinese province of Hubei, for […]

When Xi Jinping convened a teleconference meeting Sunday of 170,000 government and Communist Party officials around China to discuss the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, his message was both grim and resolute. China, he said, was facing “a crisis and a big test” with “the fastest spread” and “the widest scope” of any epidemic that has struck his country since the Communist Party took over in 1949. There had been, the Chinese leader admitted, “obvious shortcomings in the response.” But after saying that officials had to “learn lessons” from their mistakes, Xi nonetheless went on to boast that the emergency response had […]

After the United States and China signed their “phase one” trade deal in mid-January, it seemed that the European Union might be the next target in President Donald Trump’s trade wars. At the time, the White House was threatening to increase tariffs amid the ongoing dispute over EU subsidies to Airbus and impose new tariffs over France’s proposed tax on digital service providers, while still holding out the possibility of tariffs on more than $40 billion in automobile imports from Europe. Since then, the Trump administration has held its fire in those disputes, and the prospects for a bilateral trade […]

The Wuhan coronavirus, now officially named COVID-19, reveals how vulnerable humanity remains to virulent pathogens. A century after the devastating Spanish flu pandemic, public health officials are scrambling to prevent this latest plague—which as of Feb. 24 had infected more than 79,000 people in at least 29 countries, most of them in China—from becoming another pandemic. As they do, it’s worth taking a step back to consider the stubborn staying power of infectious disease. Far from an anomaly, this outbreak is the shape of things to come. Humanity is currently experiencing its fourth great wave of infectious disease. The first […]

If there is one good foreign policy decision Congress has made over any other in the past 20 years, it is arguably its investment in building up the U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM. All but shutting down AFRICOM, which the Trump administration is considering, would be one of the worst decisions it could make this year, although it’s a crowded field. Which is why it was heartening when reports surfaced this week that those mooted Pentagon plans are meeting with strong headwinds in Congress. As always with the Trump White House, it’s anyone’s guess whether logic will ultimately prevail or […]

When Sudan’s military brass removed the country’s longtime strongman, President Omar al-Bashir, 10 months ago, skepticism about their intentions was the order of the day. The demonstrators on the streets of Khartoum were the most skeptical, and their massive pro-democracy protests that had forced the military’s hand did not stop. Four months later, and against all odds, the protesters achieved another impressive victory: a power-sharing agreement with the military, establishing a transitional ruling council. Yet even then, not everyone was convinced that a country accused of committing serial genocide under Bashir was on its way to fully rejoining the community […]

Is Washington ready to embrace restraint as the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy? Several recent developments suggest that at least when it comes to some prominent debates over national security, the answer is a guarded yes. Last week, the Senate passed a bipartisan war powers resolution prohibiting the White House from going to war with Iran without congressional approval. The White House also reportedly signed off on a tentative deal with the Taliban last week to begin ending U.S. military involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Advocates of restraint should still hold off on any victory laps just yet. […]

Across Africa and beyond it, there is widespread agreement among governments and policymakers that economic integration would give a critical boost to growth and development on the continent. Yet when he visited Washington earlier this month, Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, pledged alongside President Donald Trump to launch negotiations toward a bilateral trade deal. The two leaders’ motivations are likely quite different, and the odds of a successful negotiation are uncertain at best. But, like the European Union’s own ad hoc trade deals throughout Africa, a U.S.-Kenya free trade pact would create new barriers to intra-African trade, rather than reducing them, […]

By all accounts, the U.S. and the Taliban are poised to sign the initial stage of a peace deal in Afghanistan, and it may only be a matter of weeks before President Donald Trump takes the first serious step toward ending America’s longest war. But can a White House this mercurial really usher in a sustainable political settlement in Afghanistan? The short answer is no. Under the right circumstances, however, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his administration may be able to get the job done. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that Trump has signaled his approval for […]

Last Sunday, as the red carpet arrivals began at the Oscars, a scene out of a Hollywood thriller unfolded far away in the capital of El Salvador. Dozens of police officers and soldiers in full battlefield regalia, armed with assault weapons, burst into the country’s Legislative Assembly. Stunned legislators watched as President Nayib Bukele marched in and sat in the chair of the president of the assembly. “Now,” he declared, “I think it’s very clear who has control of the situation.” Outside the legislature, Bukele’s followers, summoned by their young, charismatic leader, were smashing pinatas meant to look like his […]

Within weeks of taking power in late 2012, Xi Jinping reportedly began giving versions of a closed-door speech in which he urged members of the Chinese Communist Party to reflect on the causes of the Soviet Union’s collapse, 21 years earlier. The purpose was unmistakably cautionary, and Xi, whom many observers then still believed might lead China as a liberalizing reformer, brought his own theory to the case: “Why did the Soviet Communist Party lose its power?” Xi asked, according to Francois Bougon in his book, “Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping.” “One of the main reasons is that the […]

The United Kingdom may have officially left the European Union, but the terms of its exit are still being worked out, including what British trade policy will look like post-Brexit. During the current transition, which lasts until at least the end of the year, the U.K. will continue trading under EU rules while negotiating new arrangements with Brussels. Once that is done, the British government will be free to negotiate new trade terms with the rest of the world. While a potential free trade deal with the U.S. gets all the attention, development advocates are watching to see how the […]

A robust economy, the turmoil of the Iowa caucuses and President Donald Trump’s strong poll numbers in the wake of his acquittal in his impeachment trial have lengthened the odds than any Democratic rival will beat him at the ballot box in November. Yet should one of them pull off this audacious feat, the new president will face another colossal challenge: reviving the liberal international order that Trump has done so much to disparage and dismantle. How will he or she do that? Start by reconsolidating the West, giving globalization a human face and bolstering support for democracy and human […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Richard Gowan is filling in for Candace Rondeaux this week. When former United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar turned 100 last month, his current successor, Antonio Guterres, sent a congratulatory message stating that “I have often reflected on your example and experience for inspiration and guidance.” This sounds like a standard diplomatic pleasantry, but there may have been a more to it than that. As U.N. chief from 1982 to 1991, Perez de Cuellar, a former Peruvian diplomat, was intimately involved in ending Cold War conflicts from Afghanistan to Central America. Guterres, since his appointment […]

The fast-spreading new coronavirus that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan is, at its most immediate level, a public health crisis. But it is also much more than that. As governments struggle to contain the epidemic, the virus is already having economic ramifications in China and around the world. That’s the second level of its impact. And as the epidemic threatens to become a pandemic, and the speed of the contagion exceeds the number of cases of the 2003 SARS outbreak, there is a third level of consequences that has received far less attention: This coronavirus could leave a […]

These are heady days for U.S. President Donald Trump. Secure in the knowledge he will survive impeachment, Trump is also coming off a string of what he can and does depict as foreign policy successes. Closer inspection reveals these “successes” to be mixed bags at best and little more than hot air at worst. His trade war with China produced a “phase one” deal that leaves most of the underlying tensions unresolved, with any potential gains remaining hypothetical. And so far, his so-called maximum pressure campaigns against North Korea, Iran and Venezuela are 0-for-3 when it comes to concrete strategic […]