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The governments of the United States and its NATO allies routinely characterize Afghan President Hamid Karzai as corrupt and incompetent. These unjust accusations come after the West grossly mishandled Karzai for years, often placing damaging and contradictory pressures on him since he assumed the presidency in 2004. Karzai’s recent decision to expel two ministers tarnished by graft allegations is a positive sign of his efforts to improve the effectiveness and transparency of his administration, one that warrants recognition from the often-critical international community as a concrete example of good governance. The silence from the West following these firings speaks volumes […]

Immediately after President Barack Obama announced on Dec. 1 that he would deploy 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared that the alliance would also step up with a miniature surge of its own. While Rasmussen’s announcement may have been a deft political move, many of the 7,000 troops he cited were pledged well in advance of Obama’s West Point speech, with some of those forces already on the ground. Also, the figure does not take into account planned near-term withdrawals by frontline contributors like the Netherlands and Canada. Finally, although the specific country-by-country breakdown […]

Over the New Year’s holiday, the Chinese government launched yet another trial balloon to test international reaction to its expanding military reach. The move came in the form of an interview reproduced by the Defense Ministry’s Web site, in which a retired admiral called for China to acquire its first permanent overseas naval base. Although the ministry quickly distanced itself from the proposal, we can expect to see further expressions of Chinese interest in acquiring naval bases in coming years. On Dec. 30, the Defense Ministry’s Web site posted the interview with Adm. Yin Zhuo, who often comments on China’s […]

Introduction In recent years, Ghana has made impressive progress with regards to socio-economic and political development. This has lead to contemporary Western media and international donors portraying the country not merely as a success story, but as a model for Africa. While some elections in Africa have been followed by violent conflicts and other political struggles, Ghana has held five relatively peaceful and successful national elections between 1992 and 2008, including two that resulted in an alternation of power between parties. In particular, to the extent that the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) lost the December 2008 presidential election by […]

In 1980, the controversial U.S. diplomat for Africa, Chester Crocker, memorably described South Africa as a “magnet for one-dimensional minds.” The accuracy of that assertion has been confirmed over the course of the post-1994 democratic era, during which mood swings among both the commentariat and the wider populace have caused South Africa to be viewed from several, radically contrasting, but ultimately one-dimensional perspectives. Between 1994 and 1999, under the presidency of Nelson Mandela, South Africa was routinely described as a “miracle,” a country that had somehow managed to navigate the treacherous waters of the transition from apartheid, while putting in […]

In “The United States of Africa,” the Djibouti-born novelist Abdourahman Waberi imagines a topsy-turvy world where a sorry stream of refugees flows from the squalor of Europe and America to escape poverty in the prosperous United States of Africa. Like an African Voltaire, Waberi uses the weapon of satire to raze a Western myth that has come to imprison Africans: that of the eternal African victim. Ironically, this myth of African victimhood emerged in Western political thought at the same moment that Africa achieved political liberation. As the French writer Pascal Bruckner trenchantly described in “The Tears of the White […]

Among the questions raised by Germany’s elections in September 2009 was the impact Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new coalition partners would have on Berlin’s foreign policy orientation. A number of developments since then have provided hints of areas of continuity, as well as others of potential change and even internal conflict. Among the areas of continuity is Germany’s approach to the internal politics of the European Union. In the recent race to secure the EU’s top post-Lisbon Treaty jobs, Berlin remained circumspect, preferring to leave the more powerful portfolios to other countries. The main struggle ended up being between London and […]

Political pundits across America seem committed to the notion that our just-concluded decade deserves the moniker “worst ever,” with the formulations ranging from Time’s demonic “decade from hell” to Paul Krugman’s self-flagellating “Big Zero.” But if Krugman could call it “a decade in which nothing good happened,” much of the planet might find our myopic bitterness a bit much — as if the entire world should stop spinning just because the Dow Jones Industrial Average forgot to exit the decade higher than when it entered. Why are we so convinced that the last 10 years, the decade of the Naughts, […]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Two days after Cambodia repatriated 20 Uighur asylum-seekers fleeing China, the two countries signed trade agreements worth more than $1 billion, bringing significant investment, loans and grants to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. Both countries deny a deal was struck, but China’s growing ability to leverage its economic power in the region combined with Cambodia’s weak rule of law have observers believing otherwise. China insisted the Uighurs were outlaws, saying they participated in deadly protests earlier this year, while Cambodia contended it was merely following its immigration laws by deporting them. Rights advocates, however, said the […]

During the holiday season, pundits traditionally pen their “end of year” assessments of a presidential administration. Some even assign a grade, as if foreign policy can be reduced to a kind of schoolwork assignment. But instead of grading the performance of the president and his team over the past year, I’d rather take a look at the environment in which his administration must operate after the New Year. And for President Barack Obama, 2010 is going to be a challenging year indeed. First, Obama can no longer offer himself the breathing room represented by “policy reviews” used to assess what […]