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It is an article of faith among American conservatives that Russian President Vladimir Putin is rooting for U.S. President Barack Obama to win the U.S. presidential election next month, and that if Republican nominee Mitt Romney were to take up residence in the White House in January 2013, it would be a major setback for the Kremlin. This is based, in part, on the assessment that Obama has been too willing to compromise with Moscow, but it also fits into a larger narrative of “weakness” supposedly displayed by the current administration, beginning with the whole notion that U.S.-Russia relations could […]

CARACAS — Venezuelans go to the polls Sunday in what some commentators have baptized the “mother of all elections.” Incumbent socialist President Hugo Chávez seeks a third consecutive term and a continuation of his “Bolivarian Revolution,” but faces a strong challenge from the social-democratic Henrique Capriles Radonski, the first opposition candidate since 1998 with a real chance of toppling Chávez. As the campaign comes to an end, tensions are running high. Last week, three opposition campaign workers were shot to death in Chávez’s home state of Barinas, allegedly by supporters of the president. Recent weeks had already seen sporadic clashes […]

A day after a deadly mortar attack from Syria killed five civilians in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, the Turkish Parliament on Thursday authorized further military action against Syria, with a measure allowing for crossborder raids. Media coverage of the motion, which authorizes strikes on Syrian targets, has warned that Turkish military involvement could turn this civil war into a regional conflict that would inevitably draw in the international community. But while today marks the second day of Turkish shelling within Syria, Turkish government officials have insisted that the new legislation is not a mandate for war, but rather […]

With global attention fixated on Iran’s nuclear program, an equally significant development for Iran’s strategic outlook is being overlooked. The Shiite Crescent that began to take shape in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has effectively receded. Regardless of the outcome of the nuclear issue, Iran poses a much smaller threat to the region than it did just a few short years ago. A number of events have converged to put Iran back in the box it now finds itself in. The most obvious and consequential of these are the onset of the Arab Spring and the […]

The global landscape has been scarred for decades by conflicts that defy both the passage of time and the efforts of armies and diplomats — conflicts that at times seem so intractable as to appear impossible to solve. That is why it’s worth pausing to take note of a momentous, in fact, astonishing, development that has taken place in recent months: Three of the world’s most durable, deadly and stubborn conflicts appear to be coming to an end. The progress in resolving the decades-old conflicts in Somalia, Sudan and Myanmar will undoubtedly give rise to countless claims of credit. These […]

Last week, the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan signed an economic and security deal in which they agreed to resume oil exports from the newly independent South and create a demilitarized zone along their still-disputed border. Jon Temin, director of the Sudan and South Sudan Program at the United States Institute of Peace, told Trend Lines that in the weeks ahead he will be keeping an eye on the implementation of the agreements, which has been the downfall of so many deals between the two sides in the past. “Are the various committees and other bodies called for in […]

No bilateral relationship is likely to have a more significant impact on U.S. security than America’s relationship with China. How relations between Washington and Beijing will evolve as China becomes increasingly powerful and assertive remains uncertain. Some U.S. political leaders and policy experts believe that if the United States actively attempts to contain or limit China’s rise, it will stoke antagonism that could be avoided with a more adept strategy and conciliatory approach. The goal, this group believes, should be to allow China to assume a leading role in the existing political and security system to discourage Beijing from challenging […]

When crowds of protesters from Tunis to Cairo ignited what would become the Arab Spring in January 2011, it caught the government of then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy off guard. François Hollande, already campaigning to replace Sarkozy as president, saw an opening in Sarkozy’s initial hesitation and quickly promised to distinguish himself from his opponent’s “silence,” “incoherence” and “contradictory” diplomacy to restore French influence in the region. The demonstrations and uprisings in the Arab world allowed Hollande to draw attention away from the global financial crisis, where Sarkozy had staked his electoral argument for continuity, and toward North Africa, where France […]

The recent capture of several high-profile drug cartel capos has yet again propelled Mexico’s security situation into the spotlight. With last week’s arrest of important Zeta leader Ivan Velazquez Caballero, known as “Z-50” or “El Taliban,” the administration of President Felipe Calderón can now claim to have put 24 of the 37 most wanted drug cartel capos behind bars. While the reality of Mexico’s cartel-related violence is often shocking, much of the press coverage is more fiction than fact. In particular, three recurrent misconceptions surrounding Mexico’s security situation and drug cartels plague press coverage outside of Mexico and skew policymaking […]

Earlier this morning, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili conceded that his ruling United National Movement (UNM) party had lost the popular vote to the opposition Georgian Dream coalition in yesterday’s parliamentary elections. Having pledged to allow the opposition to the form the next government, Saakashvili will further secure his legacy by overseeing the first peaceful and legal transfer of power between opposing political forces in Georgia’s history. This ballot therefore marks an important point in the country’s history, consolidating its democratic transition. Specifically, Georgia has passed what many observers had considered to be its democratic “litmus test” by holding elections in […]

Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta paid the first visit by a U.S. defense secretary to New Zealand in 30 years. Panetta’s trip is just the latest in a string of bilateral moves between Wellington and Washington over the past few years to ease old restrictions and find new ways to work together in the Asia-Pacific region, all in an effort to translate their elevated “strategic partnership” into enhanced cooperation. Formal defense ties between New Zealand and the United States began in 1951, when along with Australia they formed the ANZUS military alliance. But the relationship fractured in 1987, […]

Throughout the European Union’s sovereign debt crisis, the conventional wisdom has portrayed Germany as leading the EU, in particular by imposing its economic policy preferences on the eurozone. A quick glance at Greece, Italy and Spain, suffering ever more acutely from austerity measures imposed at Germany’s insistence, would seem to confirm that perception. Germans are convinced that these countries need still more of the austerity cure, while Athens, Rome and Madrid are trying to convince Berlin that the medicine is just as fatal as the disease. The outcome of this argument will determine who leads the EU moving forward, and […]

African Islamist terrorist organizations have made headlines in recent weeks, with media outlets paying closer attention to terrorist networks operating on the continent after the Libyan government blamed the local Salafist jihadi group Ansar al-Sharia for the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Meanwhile, in response to plans for external military intervention in Mali, where Islamist guerrillas have seized control of the north of the country, one of the main Islamist commanders said that no matter the affiliation, all of the continent’s militant groups “have the same ambition, the application of Shariah.” “Whenever there’s an attack on […]