WPR Blog Archive

A couple quick thoughts on the “unknowns” named yesterday to the new Lisbon-created EU positions. To begin with, despite all the talk the last few months about the “EU president,” it’s clear that the EU heads of state decided to stick with the language of the treaty and name a president of the European Council. The same holds true for the post referred to as the EU foreign minister, but whose official title is EU high representative for common foreign and security policy. Both of the appointees, Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as EU president and Britain’s EU Trade […]

– China plays both sides of the DMZ, hosting the speaker of the ROK Parliament and a high-level DPRK military envoy at the same time. – New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key has refused to meet with the Dalai Lama, explaining, “The reason simply is I’ve decided that I wouldn’t get a lot out ofthat particular meeting.I’ve seen him in the past, I may see him in thefuture.” If there’s a foreign policy equivalent of Maslow’s pyramid of needs, defending human rights would figure on the high end. That’s why the Dalai Lama will have an easier time getting meetings […]

The knives are coming out in the EU president sweepstakes, which will be decided this evening at an EU heads of state meeting. Already today I’ve seen a piece describing a whisper campaign against Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who as the current occupant of the pre-Lisbon rotating EU presidency is in charge of organizing the selection process. Reinfeldt has been demanding a shortlist of two names enjoying the potential for unanimous consensus. Given how hard it is to meet that qualification, and how opaque the deliberations are, there’s a lot of room for arbitrary interference. (I’ve lost the link […]

In his inauguration speech yesterday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai set a five-year timeline for Afghan security forces to take the lead in securing the country. The Times (UK) misleadingly headlined that, “Karzai: Foreign troops out of Afghanistan in five years.” But more interesting, because more realistic, he also set a two-year deadline for national and international security contractors to end their operations in the country. And by calling on national Afghan security forces to take over their roles, he leaves it a bit unclear whether when he refers to Afghan security contractors, he means “arm the tribes”-type militias. Here’s the […]

Thanks to stubborn and persisent negotiations, the longest-running trade dispute in the history of the WTO is close to being resolved. This lends support to the flagging notion of negotiated settlements, and banishes the possibility of a banana-centric counterinsurgency doctrine from seeing the light of day.

One of the consequences of the U.S. dependence on Pakistan to achieve its goals in Afghanistan is the way in which it drives India and Iran closer. That’s because their interests in Afghanistan largely converge, in opposition to those of Pakistan. It’s also obvious that U.S. interests in Afghanistan more closely align with those of India and Iran than with those of Pakistan. But to actually operationalize that would essentially turn the Afghanistan war into the Pakistan war. Clearly, the ideal solution would be for India and Pakistan to resolve their differences, and for the U.S. and Iran to do […]

More creepy allegations about former CIA black sites, this time in Lithuania. This is something to keep in mind regarding Eastern European concerns over U.S. commitment to the region, which is most often linked to the Obama administration’s missile defense policy shift. But I suspect it also has to do with the very different apporach the Obama administration has taken toward counterterrorism compared to the Bush administration. You really get the sense of the shoe getting ready to drop here: Hammarberg visited Vilnius last month and said he personally urgedLithuanian officials to take the issue more seriously. “I told them […]

Five years after the Orange Revolution, neither conditions on the ground nor the popular view of those in power has changed in Western Ukraine. Outrage, it seems, has been replaced by apathy, and now the country risks tilting back eastward. This, too, seems like a predictable but nonetheless saddening outcome: “One thing I can say with certainty: There will be no repetition ofthat revolution,” Mr. Antypovych said. “People will no longer go outinto the streets for a politician. They simply will not go out. Basedon our surveys, most voters expect there to be mass falsification. Theyare already accustomed to the […]

Two alternate takes on the Israel-Syria mediator sweepstakes, by Jeb Koogler here, and Yigal Schleifer here. I think Koogler overstates the degree to which a French role would undermine an American involvement, or represents an attempt to rival America. That’s usually the rap France gets. But in this case, like many others, everyone knows that no deal is possible without American involvement. Still, the question of when America steps into the negotiations is significant. Getting France and Turkey to do some of the initial lifting can help avoid outcomes like the Obama administration’s initial setbacks on the Israeli-Palestinian track. (I’m […]

– After meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao calls the G-2 appelation premature, saying everyone should remain “sober-minded” about it. – After going online in August 2009, the Chinese Defense Ministry’s Web site was cyberattacked 2.3 million times in the first month. Payback? (Much more of interest in a People’s Daily interview with the site’s editor.) – China and Vietnam signed an agreement definitively demarcating their 800-mile land border, a process that took 10 years. They agreed to continue negotiations regarding their maritime boundary disputes. It’s important to remember when considering China’s rise that in addition […]

Rights advocates are expressing concern about Iranian plans to create a cybercrimes division to investigate illegal activity on the Internet, over fears that authorities will use the unit to target the opposition and political activists. Iranian authorities say they are aware of over 100,000 incidents of cybercrimes in 2008 — including theft, fraud, forgery and libel — and that the number is on the rise. But rights advocates worry that the unit’s real purpose is to quell political discourse and enhance an ongoing crackdown on the opposition, which relies heavily on Internet-based tools for communication. After Iran’s controversial June presidential […]

“This is not a detachable relationship,” Zachary Karabell said, referring to the U.S.-China relationship, at the EastWest Institute yesterday. The visit by the author of “Superfusion: How China and America Became One Economy and Why the World’s Prosperity Depends On It” could not have been better timed, coinciding with President Barack Obama’s trip to the world’s third-largest economy and the largest owner of U.S. debt. “There is an interdependence that has begun to erode the sovereignty of both nations,” Karabell said, outlining the premise of his new book. According to Karabell, after the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in […]

– China and Brazil reach a five-point consensus to strengthen military personnel exchanges, and technology cooperaiton. (Despite the emerging South-emerging East angle, France still makes a better fit for defense partnerships with Brazil.) – Free press vs. free pass: A high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official goes on a state visit to Sudan, and the People’s Daily doesn’t mention the problematic nature of that bilateral relationship once. – Taiwan and China finally signed that MoU on financial regulation. Financial observers exepect a major inflow of Chinese capital to Taiwan when it takes effect two months from now. – In addition to […]

Yesterday, I half-jokingly noted the long trail of mediations necessary to get the Israeli-Syrian peace track back in gear. What I forgot to mention regarding a French role in that process is that before France can mediate between Israel and Turkey, someone’s got to mediate between France and Turkey. That’s because of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s vocal opposition to Turkey’s EU accession. There’s been some recent chatter that France and Turkey have arrived at a modus vivendi on that issue. But I would be very surprised if Sarkozy doesn’t reverse positions on Turkey completely should he win a second term […]

With all the geographical and political calculations going into the selection of the EU president and foreign minister, there’s one consideration that’s been getting less attention: gender. As Jean Quatremer pointed out last week, women have been largely absent from the list of names circulating as potential candidates for the posts. But that’s changing, with a late push for the appointment of a woman to one of the top spots. Today, Quatremer advocates for former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga as a viable candidate. But even if a woman does end up being named to one or both positions, the fact […]

Take it with the usual grain of salt, but the Pakistani daily, the Nation, is reporting that militants in North Waziristan used Israeli, Czech and U.S. weapons against Pakistani security forces during the recent campaign there. Apparently, the weapons, which include Uzis as well as M-4s fitted with grenade launchers and laser sights, are also widely available on the Punjab weapons market. According to the article, the presence of the Israeli weapons is what’s really raising eyebrows in Islamabad. I suppose the American weapons are more easily explained. Things have a habit of falling off of trucks, after all. Especially […]

– China announces yet another military cooperation upgrade, this time with Thailand. – This article about the followup to the Obama-Hatoyama meeting includes a good rundown of what the U.S.-Japan dispute over the Futenma air base closure is all about. – I mentioned the various competing plans for Asian regional integration earlier today. Here are the broad outlines of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s version. – In the runup to the one-year anniversary of the Mumbai attack, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi issues a call for renewing the Composite Dialogue with India. – Turkey moves forward with its Kurdish […]