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Remember the age of globalization, if you can. The world was flat. High finance was king. Swelling economic prosperity had lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Capitalism, in a variety of configurations, stretched from one end of the earth to the other. Even individual states were fading in importance, and the threat of a great-power war had all but come to an end. How quickly that utopia has been shattered. In short, the world is very much round again. Investment banking has collapsed. The global financial crisis is elbowing the poor aside. Corruption and rampant irresponsibility have resulted in […]

An Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit meeting concluded in Thailand on March 1 with a renewed consensus (.pdf) against protectionism and in support of free trade. In a rare moment of unity for the alliance’s 10 members, the ASEAN foreign ministers signed a free-trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand, while finance ministers of ASEAN Plus Three — China, Japan, and South Korea — expanded their emergency foreign currency fund from $80 billion to $120 billion. ASEAN’s anti-protectionist stance appears to be driven by concerns over exports to the United States, in light of President Barack Obama’s campaign promises […]

What are the two most pressing issues on the U.S. foreign policy agenda? Ask that question of 10 foreign policy mavens and nine will say Afghanistan and Iran. The other one will say Iran and Afghanistan. If the Obama administration manages to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan and find a (lasting) solution to the vexing problem of Iran’s nuclear ambitions over the next four years, it’s hard to imagine his first term won’t be deemed a smashing foreign policy success. It is against this background that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s meeting today in Geneva with Russian Foreign Minister […]

Last of a three-part series. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. An accompanying photo feature is here.SANTIAGO, Cuba — While standing trial in the early 1950s for his initial, failed attempt to overthrow the Cuban government, Fidel Castro famously declared: “History will absolve me.” Ever since, he has manipulated, rewritten and exploited history to advance his political ends. Castro’s use of history as a propaganda tool was underscored this week after two prominent, relatively young Cuban politicians were abruptly demoted. In a surprising shake-up, Vice President Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque […]

ADVOCATES CHEER AL-BASHIR WARRANT — Human rights groups from around the world cheered the issue of an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir by the Intenational Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity. “The ICC represents the best hope for justice for the victims of Darfur,” Dismas Nkunda of the International Refugee Rights Initiative said in a statement released by the Justice for Darfur coalition. “The international community must ensure that Sudan complies with its obligation to cooperate with the ICC, including by handing over anyone subject to an arrest warrant.” Bashir has long been a […]

Many of the images we have of Cuba remain frozen in time. But with the periodo especial — or special period, triggered by the early 1990s collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of its generous subsidies — now behind it, the island has not stopped evolving. Marcelo Ballvé traveled to Cuba last December, just before the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, and documented the trip for World Politics Review. This Photo Feature accompanies his three-part series. Part I can be found here. Part II can be found here. Part III can be found here. […]

Something small but historic happened on the shores of the Red Sea on Monday. As delegates to the Palestinian donors’ conference in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh gathered for lunch, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem was standing near the door to the banquet room. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walked by, and instead of staring straight ahead or finding a reason to turn in the opposite direction as an American diplomat might have done during the Bush era, she walked straight towards Moualem, shook his hand, and held a brief conversation. That was the moment when Washington […]

For the IMF, the global economic downturn could not have come soon enough. Two years ago, the Fund’s lending portfolio was a scanty $13 billion, down from $100 billion in 2003. As Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Indonesia, and the Philippines each paid off their loans early, the institution’s revenue stream slowed to a trickle. Since the institution’s operating costs are financed by fees and interest charged on its loans, its shrinking portfolio resulted in annual losses between $200 and $300 million. Forced to find alternative sources of income and reduce costs, the fund initiated plans to sell off some of its […]

In response to a question about suspected Iraqi weapons of mass destruction seven years ago, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously said,”There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.” As tortuous as his formulation was, the notions he raised may be of some use putting recent developments regarding Iran’s uranium enrichment program in proper perspective. The activities that we know of, such as Iran’s uranium enrichment progress, are certainly of serious concern. But what will pose […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A failure by donors to pay up on financial pledges has pushed the Khmer Rouge tribunal perilously close to the brink of bankruptcy and overshadowed a sensational start to the historic trial of Pol Pot’s surviving lieutenants. Court spokeswoman Helen Jarvis initially told World Politics Review that the tribunal could not make March payroll. This was followed by a hastily arranged press conference where international judges warned earlier this week that corruption remained a key obstacle. “The problems mentioned concerning funding can be resolved once the international community is confident of a corruption-free environment in which […]

In late January, Ethiopia withdrew its last soldiers from Somalia after more than two years of bloody occupation and insurgency. Their departure immediately catalyzed a dramatic chain of events. The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that had been backed by Ethiopia, the U.S. and the U.N. fled to Djibouti and, in apparent desperation, signed a peace deal with an alliance of moderate Islamists. As part of the deal, the TFG welcomed hundreds of alliance representatives into a newly-expanded parliament. The African Union declared the peace deal a “paradigm shift that gives Somalis a chance for lasting peace and reconciliation.” The enlarged […]

When the Chinese first learned that two Russian coast guard ships had sunk a Chinese-owned freighter on Feb. 15 in the Pacific Ocean, the incident must have aroused conflicting feelings regarding their sometimes overbearing neighbor. The freighter, the New Star, was registered with Sierra Leone and was using that country’s flag of convenience. The Hong Kong-based J-Rui Lucky Shipping Company owned the vessel. Ten of the 16 crew members were Chinese citizens, while six were from Indonesia, including the captain. Of the eight who died when the ship sank 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the port of Nakhodka, seven were […]

The Washington foreign policy community has a hot new buzzword: “Af-Pak,” an amalgamation of Afghanistan and Pakistan meant to denote the ongoing “two-front war” that Islamist militants are currently waging in both countries. Perhaps it is fitting that one of the most impenetrable foreign policy challenges of our time is symbolized by yet another impenetrable acronym. Not content to leave the field to the Bush administration’s clunky and ill-defined “GWOT” — that is, the “Global War on Terror” — the Obama administration has apparently adopted “Af-Pak” (or its variants, “Afpak” and “AFPAK”) as the acronym that will define a significant […]

The Pakistani Supreme Court ruling on Feb. 25, 2009, that effectively upheld a ban on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from contesting elections could signal yet another sabotage of democracy in Pakistan. Sharif’s electoral ban quells any possibility that his PML (N) might mount a political challenge to President Asif Ali Zardari in the 2013 elections. The ruling also disqualifed Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, from holding political office, and dissolved his government in Punjab. Zardari quickly imposed Governor’s Rule in Punjab for two months, despite the fact that Sharif’s PML (N) enjoys a majority in the provincial legislature. Zardari then […]

The African Union wants to be taken seriously. Its leaders seek the same respect accorded to its Western counterparts, particularly the European Union. And how better to earn that respect than to show that Africa can take care of its own? Hence the ASFAP doctrine — African Solutions for African Problems. As expressions of political egos go, the doctrine is a macho response to the bullies of the West. More broadly, it is meant to show the world that Africa is mature enough to unite and rally together. The Government of National Unity cobbled together in Kenya after the deadly […]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Zimbabwe’s national unity government got off to a bad start last month, raising doubts about its ability to usher in political stability and economic revival in the country. Most worrying is the infighting within President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, where hardliners led by the country’s joint chiefs of staff appear to be opposed to the deal brokered by the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) last year. The military and security chiefs had previously declared that they would not salute Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the mainstream formation of the splintered opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). […]

The war looks eerily familiar: beheadings, assassinations of police and public officials, terrorized businesspeople, extorted schoolteachers, and in five years more than 230 American civilians dead in the crossfire. All this could easily describe the battle in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but the reality is closer to home, where an increasingly gruesome and threatening war is threatening to boil over the United States’ southern border with Mexico. Summing up decades of policy, three former Latin American heads of state last week declared, “The war on drugs has failed.” Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of […]