WPR Blog Archive

Today’s selection was oddly enough almost last week’s selection, but I decided that it didn’t have enough to do with foreign affairs to really warrant using it. Then this week, I saw its most famous lyric referenced three times: by Cheryl Rofer in a post on North Korea, by Tom Ricks in a post on Pakistan, and by Matthew Yglesias in a post on, well, partisan domestic politics. But you get the picture. The fact that I just saw Kris Kristofferson — albeit overdubbed in French — in Sam Pekinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid a few days ago […]

Less than 24 hours after the U.S. Embassy in Egypt told the New York Times that nothing had been decided about where President Barack Obama would deliver his “Islam speech” in Cairo next Thursday, National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones surprised nobody by confirming to a group of E.U. diplomats in Washington that the venue would be Cairo University. Two diplomats who were present said that, according to Jones, the president’s much-anticipated address reaching out to the Islamic world would call on Islam and the West to form a new partnership to confront the world’s major problems — including global […]

Ready for a Friday flash quiz? Name the U.S. ambassador to: a) Israel. b) Afghanistan.c) Iran. (Answers below.) Can’t do it? Don’t worry, you are not alone. These hard-working diplomats are seldom in the news and hardly known outside State Department circles. In recent years around 70 percent of U.S. ambassadors have risen through the ranks of the State Department, many having begun their careers in the Peace Corps or issuing visas at U.S. Consulates abroad. There is, however, another group in the pack, namely the “political” appointments. These are high-profile business people or celebrities who come by their posts […]

I’m probably going to regret saying this, but this, from Nikolas Gvosdev’s brief post about China’s growing irritation with North Korea, brought another strategic relationship to mind: “How Beijing may reorder its strategic priorities based on how Pyongyang’s actions affect its key interests is fascinating.” Of course, I’m talking about the U.S. and Israel. (Let the wild rumpus and angry e-mails begin!) It might have had something to do with having just read Laura Rozen’s revealing piece on how deadly serious the Obama administration is about Israel freezing its West Bank settlements. There’s also this Le Monde interview with Justin […]

For anyone who’s not yet aware of it, John McCreary’s NightWatch is really an incredible resource. Not only does McCreary cut through some of the signal noise of news coverage, he also includes generous pointers in terms of crisis analysis and historical context for young analysts. As someone who spends a good deal of time wading through open source coverage, I’m quite grateful that someone like McCreary is both out there and willing to share his expertise. His narrative explanation of North Korea’s strategic objectives from today’s dispatch is essential reading. Most of the reporting I’ve seen emphasizes Pyongyang’s “bluster […]

Okay, there’s not much there. But with reference to Andrew Bast’s WPR column from two weeks ago, which discussed the ways in which the Supreme Court is increasingly an IR arena, there are two thought-provoking elements introduced by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s Nuyorican heritage. (And yes, as a New Yorker, you know I’m going to put NY before Borinquen.) First, the fact that she’s considered the child of an immigrant, even though Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. So this idea that using the Spanish pronounciation of her name is somehow un-American is the equivalent of saying that using the […]

Banning Garrett beat me to this topic, which had been rattling around in the cranium for the past few days, with his essay at the New Atlanticist: There is an all-too-common practice in Washington punditry ofattributing strategic intentions to other countries without anyapparent evidence. . . . Assessments of strategic intentions are critically important ininter-state relations and should be made carefully and withconsiderable evidence. The stakes in getting it right or wrong can bevery high. Garrett writes in response to a Dan Blumenthal and Robert Kagan op-ed in the Washington Post discussing China’s intentions vis à vis North Korea. But […]

I highly recommend this account by Bruce Tolentino at In Asia about the flag-lowering ceremony that is performed each day before packed ampitheatres on both sides of the only India-Pakistan border crossing: Then, simultaneously, the guards from each side launch repeatedfusillades of choreographed marching and gestures. Aggressively, theyrush the border, furiously stamping their feet, glaring and snorting attheir foes. They stop – inches from one another, never crossing theborder – raise their arms to shoulder height and display thumbs pointeddownward, dismissing the other. Excitement and tension among the crowdsrepeatedly builds and swells, erupting in applause for their respectivenational warriors. This […]

A series of allegations this month against both China and Chinese-based factories that supply Nike and Disney lend weight to previous warnings from the international rights community that the global economic crisis would result directly in human rights abuses — particularly in terms of child labor. Advocates caution that the Chinese examples are merely a snapshot of a much larger problem unfolding across the globe. Ethical Corporation claimed that China’s adherence to the worker-friendly provisions of its’ own labor laws extends little further than public-relations concerns necessitate. It also accused local and provincial governments of telling business and factory owners […]

Yes, well, this is no surprise, really. I’d be pretty keen on directing a major potential competitor far away from the market I’m trying to corner, too. And if I could make some money on the deal, all the better. Unfortunately, the last “I” — for India — is no longer a sure thing on the IPI “Peace” Pipeline. The stabilizing effect that would have had would have made the deal at least a palatable trade-off for losing Iranian gas for Nabucco. Now I’ve seen some reports that the Iranian gas might end up in China after transiting Pakistan. If […]

Aside from being confused with its much larger neighbor, Nigeria, to the west, Niger rarely commands the attention of the global spotlight. That’s probably why yesterday’s report that its president, Mamadou Tandja, has suspended Parliament in retaliation for its refusal to grant him permission to run for a constitutionally prohibited third term has barely caused a media ripple. In recent years Niger has been known for two things. It’s the place where Saddam Hussein was alleged to have bought “yellowcake” uranium, a claim later debunked by Joseph Wilson. It’s also the site of one of Africa’s longest-running, low-level civil wars. […]

You might have seen that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in Abu Dhabi to inaugurate a French military and naval base there. (Le Figaro here, Le Monde here.) Then again, you might not have. The base, which has been in the works for the past year, is the first permanent overseas French installation not located in one of its former colonies. Also significant (to the French probably more so than to the British) is that the UAE is a former British colony, making the arrangement something of an “encroachment” on the Anglo-Saxon sphere of influence. Although the announcement last year […]

Chinese involvement to help Pakistan in its counterinsurgency efforts makes perfect sense. The relationship between the two countries was the reason we included China in last fall’s WPR feature issue, The Asian Triangle. At the time, with the “regional solution” still focusing on India-Pakistan, the idea didn’t yet have so much public traction. Indeed, the issue appeared days after the Mumbai attacks, which drilled the focus down even further on the two South Asian neighbors. But China’s partnership with Pakistan and rivalry with India is a major aspect of the South Asian equation. And for reasons that Arif Rafiq made […]

Ria Novosti reports that India has ruled out the Russian-manufactured Il-78 for its upcoming purchase of aerial tankers, due to concerns over spare parts and after-sales service for a fleet purchased six years ago. That made me think of this Richard Weitz column from the WPR archives, back in February, describing the challenges facing the Russian defense industry. The related decline of the Indo-Russian defense relationship at the very moment that India will begin to play a more prominent regional security role is one of the more important defense industry trends going relatively unnoticed in the mainstream press these days, […]

Not quite sure what to make of this one, whereby the EU is subsidizing this effort to create a “common news market” by translating the top news around the Union into all the member states’ languages. On the one hand, the language divergence is an inherent handicap to the emergence of a common identity, and its manifestation in the realm of news and information is an obstacle to the formulation of a common political agenda. India, for instance, experiences the same phenomenon. (The inherent market limitations of its multi-language territory, by the way, is another reason why the printed press […]

This really is a brilliant article, and although a few anecdotes don’t make a trend, it does jibe with the puzzling statistics on Polish laborers leaving Britain that I flagged last week. I’d expected the global economic downturn to trigger waves of job-seeking immigrants both regionally and inter-continentally, with all the social tensions that historically result. Instead, this seems to be a new kind of downturn, where the urge is to return to a simpler life that, in its own way, provides a dependable social safety net. I imagine, too, this has to do with the significantly lower costs of […]

The Bremer model seems like an odd choice for a country fending off social unrest and economic crisis. For Russia, the professionalization of the military came five years too late, or else the global downturn came five years too early. Either way, instead of transitioning officers into a boom economy, they’re left with unkept promises and Soviet-style phantom waiting lists. Not the kind of guys I’d want idle and angry these days.