Column Archive

Populist politicians, who have been sweeping to power in countries across the globe, build their appeal partly on claims that they will base their policies on the needs and interests of the people. But once in power, their decisions, often ill-conceived, can create grave problems for the very voters they purport to champion. For proof, look no further than what has befallen the people of Sri Lanka. In recent months, life in the island nation has turned into a grinding, ever-worsening ordeal. What started as a government debt crisis has devolved into broader economic turmoil, marked by critical shortages of […]

Editor’s note: This will be Howard French’s final weekly column for World Politics Review. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Howard for the keen insights—born of his rich experience, creative intelligence and interdisciplinary thinking—that he has shared with WPR’s readers for the past three years. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. When I began writing a weekly global affairs column for World Politics Review nearly three years ago, things settled into an almost organic rhythm surprisingly quickly. Some of what goes into writing columns, in fact, I didn’t need to change at all. […]

This weekend, “Dune,” the highly acclaimed film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science-fiction classic of the same name, capped off a successful box-office run by bagging an impressive six Oscars at the Academy Awards. The movie, directed by French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, has received particular praise for its stunning cinematography and soundtrack, and for breaking from prior adaptation attempts by “sensibly” tackling only the first part of the 412-page novel. This is why, critics have argued, this version of Dune has been so well-received compared to previous versions. But an alternative—or perhaps complementary—explanation could be that today, there is simply more demand for stories […]

Western outrage over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war of aggression in Ukraine has prompted calls to eject Russia from apex institutions of global cooperation, most notably the Group of 20 and the United Nations Security Council. While this impulse is tempting, efforts to exclude Russia from both institutions would be imprudent and likely futile, given the diverse membership of the former and U.N. Charter provisions regarding the latter. Rather than tilt at windmills, the United States and its allies should use both forums to shame Moscow for its criminal actions, while sharpening the already punishing sanctions they have deployed […]

AMSTERDAM—Back in February, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, a meme went viral on Facebook: “Just booked a Kiev AirBnB for 1 week, simply as a means of getting cash into the hands of Kiev residents. It’s really cheap and can make a small difference right now.” The phenomenon, known as “ghost-bookings,” became a simple, personalized, grassroots method to provide resources to and demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine’s civilian population, while assisting Airbnb hosts in Kyiv who were housing internally displaced persons, or IDPs, fleeing from the invasion further east. This sort of grassroots effort has become not only common […]

A civilian population comes under brutal attack by a heavily armed military force. What is the world to do? Amid Russia’s ongoing onslaught against Ukraine, this question has dominated the agendas of policymakers, monopolized headlines and taken over discussions on social media. But when Myanmar’s military, a perennial human rights violator, unleashed a scorched-earth campaign against the country’s Rohingya minority in 2016, the crisis was a secondary matter for most of the world. Now, six years later—and one year after Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, overthrew the country’s incipient democracy—the United States has finally formally designated that 2016-2017 campaign […]

Not long after the commencement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I wrote that for China, binding itself tightly to Moscow would do harm to Beijing’s long-term interests. That is because, I wrote, an alliance between a superpower like China and a far less dynamic country like Russia, whose economy is a small fraction of the former’s size, is not much of an alliance. This would especially hold true if Beijing’s support for Russian President Vladimir Putin deepened European wariness of China and caused Europe and the United States to grow even closer, both of which now seem almost certain. Some object that […]

It has now been nearly a month since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Though the shockwaves of this invasion will continue to be felt for years to come, the world has slowly started to process the crisis and to examine the rapid developments in Ukraine more analytically. One clear pattern in particular has emerged from close observation of Russia’s military tactics, Ukraine’s defensive strategies and the international system’s response: The main battlegrounds in this conflict are Ukraine’s cities.  As of March 16, Russian forces were attempting to surround Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, from multiple angles, while simultaneously targeting its second-largest […]

News headlines this week warned that Russia is recruiting mercenaries to scale up its operations in Ukraine. Some 16,000 fighters from Syria and other Arab states have already volunteered, joining the hundreds of Russian mercenaries that were already reportedly operating in Ukraine. The whiff of guns-for-hire was seen as a sign that an even more ruthless phase of the conflict may be ahead. But considering how states have used privatized force in the past, it seems unlikely that mercenaries will introduce any risk factors that could make the conflict much worse than it already is. That says something both about the current state […]

In the aftermath of U.S. President Joe Biden’s announcement last week that he was banning Russian oil imports in the U.S., global markets delivered a stark message to Russia’s leading energy giants: No one wants to buy what they’re selling. No one, that is, other than India, which is the only country that has so far offered to buy Russian crude despite the new round of U.S. sanctions and the European Union’s commitment to decrease its reliance on Russian energy imports. India’s move to buy a one-off shipment of 15 million barrels of oil from Russia is sure to rankle some in Washington, but before the […]

Over the past decade or so, the Kremlin has endeavored to exploit Latin America’s internal divisions and its differences with the United States with the purpose of building a beachhead of diplomatic and strategic support in a region geographically close to the U.S. The success of that project is now being put to the test in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Three weeks into the ensuing war, there is little evidence that Moscow’s efforts to woo Latin America have yielded any significant benefits. In fact, if anything, they look like a failure. The Kremlin has spent billions of dollars […]

For reasons that readers of this column will certainly be aware of, the world seems consumed with Ukraine right now. In the face of what one Chinese scholar recently called the most important conflict since World War II, other important issues have been falling off the radar, starting with what has the ominous appearance of a mounting crisis of COVID-19 infections in China itself, after two years of success in containing the virus. The rest of the world is not standing still because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, of course, whatever appearance the headlines may give. Just beneath the surface, […]

Last month, Kirstie Allsopp—who hosts the popular British reality TV show, “Location, Location, Location”—sparked debate when she claimed that many more young people would be able to afford to buy a house if they made financial sacrifices, like foregoing Netflix, store-bought coffees or even a university degree. Allsopp insisted that “we’ve fallen into a trap of saying it’s impossible” to own property at a young age, “but there are loads of people who can do it and don’t.” Some people agreed, arguing that they, like Allsopp, had indeed been able to buy a house, in part by making “enormous sacrifices” to do […]

Almost exactly 75 years ago, on March 12, 1947, then-President Harry S. Truman, alarmed by Soviet aggression in the Eastern Mediterranean and its efforts to undermine war-ravaged democracies in Western Europe, announced a dramatic reorientation of the United States’ national security policy. Addressing a joint session of Congress, he committed the U.S. to a new global mission to contain the Soviet Union by “support[ing] free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.” The speech set off a 15-week frenzy of diplomatic activity that culminated on June 5 with the proposal of the Marshall Plan. This new grand strategy—now known as […]

As the war in Ukraine enters its third week and the refugee crisis in neighboring countries intensifies, among the many heartbreaking stories in the international spotlight is the separation at the border of Ukrainian families fleeing the fighting. As The New York Times’ Daily podcast reported, fathers, brothers, boyfriends and husbands as well as single men between the ages of 18 and 60 are being forced to stay and enlist in Ukraine’s military, while women of all ages are not only being allowed over borders but actively encouraged to flee. This denial of the right to flee on the basis of age and […]

If the global scramble to replace Russia’s oil in the wake of its Ukraine invasion had occurred a few years from now, instead of today, diplomats would be turning not only to Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela for potential new sources of oil, but also to another, perhaps unexpected country: Guyana, a minuscule South American nation that is now in the process of becoming a petroleum powerhouse. In the history of the world, few moments­ like this—in which an impoverished country suddenly discovers that it possesses untold wealth—have ever occurred. And yet, that’s what happened in Guyana in 2017, when ExxonMobil […]

Scarcely more than a week ago, Chinese social media and the country’s internet were ablaze with quick takes from both prominent commentators and ordinary folks praising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armed bid to subdue Ukraine, as well as with fervent celebrations of what many in China saw as a toothless reaction from the West. The responses from Chinese voices like these, more emotional and nationalistic than lucid and analytical, saw in Putin’s defiance of the United States and Europe more evidence of the unstoppable rise of authoritarian states like their own, and of the longed-for decline of the West. Although […]