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Recent reports have indicated that Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs the Gaza Strip, is in the grip of its worst budget crisis since it took over the territory in 2007. In an email interview, Omar Shaban, the founder and director of the Gaza-based think tank Palthink for Strategic Studies, explained the origins of the crisis. WPR: What are the origins of the budget crisis facing Hamas? Omar Shaban: Hamas’ budget crisis is attributed mainly to the closing of the tunnels between Gaza and Sinai in 2013. These tunnels were the main source of income for the government of Gaza […]

Relations between South Africa and Rwanda have suffered a sharp downturn in the first three months of 2014 with the murder in South Africa on New Year’s Eve of Patrick Karegeya, the former head of Rwandan external intelligence, and the attempted murder in Johannesburg in early March of the former head of the Rwandan army, Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa. Both men were once close confidants of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, but since fleeing Rwanda for South Africa, in 2007 and 2010 respectively, both have been viewed by Kigali as traitors, terrorists and legitimate targets for elimination. Indeed this was the third […]

The Crimea crisis has given realists a field day for attacking the belief structures of rules-based internationalists. Ukraine just paid the price of giving up its nuclear weapons 20 years ago, we hear, and the Budapest Memorandum guarantees of Ukraine’s borders did nothing to change Moscow’s behavior. Integrating Russia into international economic institutions proved equally meaningless. As for human rights and the rule of law, everyone knows they don’t matter when the vital national interests of great powers are at stake. The reality, however, is more complicated. The fabric of international norms actually functioned as intended on the nuclear issue. […]

Greeted with much fanfare in 2012, the Obama administration’s so-called pivot to the Asia-Pacific region has of late been beset by doubts and distractions. Developments in the Middle East and Europe have consumed a great deal of top-level attention, and declining U.S. defense spending has raised concerns that the military aspect of the rebalance may simply not be feasible. On top of this, the administration is working to convince two of its most important regional partners, Japan and South Korea, to move past an especially rough diplomatic patch and form a durable and consistent partnership on security and other matters. […]

The ongoing crisis in Crimea has put many world leaders in awkward positions, but perhaps none more than Alexander Lukashenko. The president of Belarus since 1994, Lukashenko has just witnessed two of his worst nightmares in neighboring Ukraine. First, he watched as a mass movement in the streets of Kiev overthrew Viktor Yanukovych, a fellow client of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then the Russian Duma voted to give Putin the power to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty in order to “protect Russia’s interests and those of Russian-speakers,” which Putin promptly did. Since at least 70 percent of Belarusians are Russian-speakers (though only […]

Right now, the U.S. foreign policy community should not be engaging in its favorite pastime of assigning blame for the situation in Crimea. Nor, given ongoing problems in other parts of the world—rising tensions in the Far East, the future of the Iran nuclear initiative, the fate of the protest movement in Venezuela—does Washington have the luxury of focusing on the Ukrainian crisis at the expense of other, equally pressing concerns. Instead, the focus right now needs to be on formulating a new policy toward Russia that is not subject to the vicissitudes of American domestic politics, and to situate […]

This month, Saadi Gadhafi, the son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, was extradited from Niger to Libya to face trial. In an email interview, Hanan Salah, a Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch, explained the progress and failures to date of Libya’s post-Gadhafi judiciary. WPR: What have been the areas of greatest progress and failure in the process of rebuilding Libya’s post-Gadhafi judiciary? Hanan Salah: More than two years after the end of the uprising, Libya’s justice system is facing numerous challenges, and the authorities are unable to impose law and order. Amid rampant violence mainly by unaccountable militias, […]

The crisis in Ukraine has presented NATO with both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to reassure its nervous members and partners about their security while deterring further Russian military aggression. The opportunity is that the crisis may rescue the alliance from perceived irrelevancy after the end of its major role in the Afghanistan War this year and against the backdrop of the ongoing U.S. military focus on East Asia and the Middle East. In a speech here in Washington yesterday at the Brookings Institution, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen termed Russia’s seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine […]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is about to find out whether his strategy for quelling an increasingly effective opposition will prove successful and help him secure his place of prominence in Turkey’s future. Erdogan has brandished an eye-popping catalog of conspiracy theories in response to, first, mass popular protests and, more recently, a growing corruption scandal that has ensnared close associates, family members and, allegedly, the prime minister himself. The defense by conspiracy theory will either destroy his critics’ charges or subject Erdogan to ridicule, bringing an end to his political career. On March 30, Turkish voters will go […]

Last week I wrote about the challenges that the future U.S. military might face if ordered to intervene in the type of sprawling, coastal megacities that are emerging around the world. This sparked some intense debates among national security experts, many aghast at that prospect. “So what if there are megacities,” one strategic thinker wrote in a private communication, “why in heaven’s name do we want to go into them, simply because they are there and somebody is telling us that they are important?” The complexity and human costs of such an operation, the critics noted, would be great, and […]

Turkey’s domestic strife—starting with last summer’s Gezi Park protests and continuing with government corruption scandals and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s public falling out with the powerful Gulen Islamic movement—has forcefully reordered previous assumptions about the trajectory of the country’s politics. While Erdogan had been expected to push for a new constitution that creates a more powerful presidency—a position Erdogan himself was clearly planning on assuming—that path is now blocked. This has raised questions about Erdogan’s next moves, and whether his failure to fulfill his presidential aspirations augurs further setbacks for the previously invincible leader. Things certainly looked different three […]

Like all states, the Federal Republic of Germany’s strategic posture is determined by its politico-strategic culture, which, in turn, is shaped by the country’s history, geographic position and economic status. In the German case, however, the outcome is particularly peculiar—because all factors involved are rather unique. Take, for instance, Germany’s history of Nazism and the incomparable civilizational crime of the Holocaust, the aftereffects of which can be observed in German society and public discourse even today, and very likely will be forever. Consider also Germany’s central position on the European continent and its tradition of wealth, mostly based on plenty […]

A recent internal party resolution by legislators from Uganda’s ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) all but secured yet another opening for longtime President Yoweri Museveni to represent the party without any internal challenge in the next elections in 2016. By then Museveni will have ruled the East African country for 30 years, the longest stretch by any leader in the region dating back to independence half a century ago. A similar move in 2010 was challenged successfully in the courts, on the grounds that the party’s constitution does not provide for reserving any particular leadership position for any given person. […]

Over the past few years, Turkey’s “zero problem with neighbors” policy has become something of a joke. After some initial successes at resolving problems with surrounding states, Turkey is now the only major country without ambassadors in Egypt, Syria and Israel simultaneously. One major exception was arguably Turkey’s relations with Russia, which have remained solid despite differences over Syria, Iran and other issues. Now the Crimea crisis has confronted Turkey with the most serious challenge to its Russian policy since the Cold War. Until losing the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, the Ottoman Empire held sovereignty over Crimea, which was then […]

Last week, Saudi Arabia and China signed four agreements to expand bilateral cooperation and investment. In an email interview, Naser al-Tamimi, a Middle East analyst with a focus on Middle East-Asia relations, explained the recent trajectory of Saudi Arabia’s relationship with China and with East Asia more broadly. WPR: What has been the recent trajectory of Saudi-China relations, and what are the key areas of cooperation? Naser al-Tamimi: Energy and trade are at the heart of the growing links between Saudi Arabia and China. The bilateral relationship centers mostly on crude oil, petrochemical industries, refining, China’s cheap consumer goods and […]

Last week, the Israeli parliament passed a law raising the threshold for parliamentary representation from 2 percent to 3.25 percent of votes in parliamentary elections. In an email interview, Dov Waxman, an associate professor of political science at Baruch College and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York as well as the co-director of the Middle East Center for Peace, Culture and Development at Northeastern University, explained what the change means for Arab political parties in Israel. WPR: What are the main Arab Israeli political parties and their general platforms? Dov Waxman: There are currently two […]

Editor’s note: WPR Editor-in-Chief Judah Grunstein is filling in this week for Richard Gowan, who will be taking a leave of absence until June. As has become increasingly evident to observers of global politics over the past several years, we live in a Gramscian moment of systemic crisis, where in the interregnum between an old order on its deathbed and a new one not yet born, “a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The latest of these symptoms is on display in Ukraine, where Russia’s armed annexation of Crimea highlights the waning power of the post-Cold War liberal order, even […]