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After the end of the Cold War, there was a palpable sense of optimism that the Euro-Atlantic community could be expanded at little risk and without significant cost. It was assumed that Russia would either itself seek to join the West or be too weak to oppose the process if it soured on the project. U.S. and European policymakers, however, had not considered the possibility of a Russia both hostile to Western expansion and with sufficient strength to stymie such plans. Now the unfolding end game in Ukraine is challenging the core assumptions of European security that have guided policymakers […]

The opening session of last month’s African Union (AU) summit in Equatorial Guinea featured a debut speech from a newly elected African leader: Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, president of Egypt. Less than a year ago, the African bloc had suspended Egypt’s membership in response to the ouster of former President Mohammed Morsi by el-Sisi, then head of the armed forces and minister of defense. The African Union was the only major international actor to formally sanction Egypt after Morsi’s overthrow. Its decision was hailed by observers as a sign that the organization was capable of taking a principled stance and applying sanctions […]

Last month, in Brussels, Ukraine’s newly elected President Petro Poroshenko signed an association agreement with the European Union. This was the same agreement his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, declined last November, triggering mass demonstrations in Kiev, Yanukovych’s flight from the country and the ongoing conflict with Russia over Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions. Poroshenko pointedly signed the agreement using Yanukovych’s pen. While integration with the EU has long been unpopular in Ukraine’s contested east and in the Russian-annexed Crimea, the mood in the country’s west is far more enthusiastic. Western Ukraine, a loosely defined area centered on the major city of […]

Almost all European Union member states have seen some of their young citizens, often Muslims between the ages of 18-29, leave their countries to join the jihad against the Assad regime in Syria. The issue of foreign fighters is not new: The conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan had already seen young European Muslims join the fight. However, the threat appears more public and pronounced with Syria, partly because many foreign fighters document their journey on social media outlets. At least 12,000 foreigners have fought in Syria over the first three years of its civil war, including 300-700 French nationals, […]

It is no secret that the survival of Iraq within its current official borders is very much in doubt. The lightning-fast battlefield victories of the extremist Sunni group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—which recently renamed itself the Islamic State and anointed itself as the new caliphate—have revived the old debate about a potential partition of the country. Iraq, a product of European colonial mapmaking, could split into three states: one Sunni, one Shiite and one Kurdish. But as Iraqis fret and international observers debate the country’s future, Israelis across the political spectrum have come forth to declare […]

The collapse of the Iraqi army as it faced an extremist onslaught shocked many Americans, particularly those who had worked hard to help create it. The $25 billion of American money and seven years of intense effort seemed wasted as four of Iraq’s 14 divisions simply crumbled. In Washington, flustered policymakers and military leaders scrambled, searching for an effective response and trying to understand how the disaster happened. In the flurry of finger-pointing, pundits and politicians missed the bigger issue: The slow reaction to Iraq’s failure is one more manifestation of a deep flaw in the way Americans think about […]

With political unrest ongoing in Venezuela, calls for making President Nicolas Maduro’s government pay a price for its harsh handling of the crisis are gaining ground in Washington. Congress is considering legislation to impose targeted or smart sanctions against officials in the Maduro government responsible for human rights violations against demonstrators during the protests that shook the country in February and March. But the Obama administration is reluctant, hoping to avoid being drawn into the hornet’s nest between the government and the opposition. Two things shape the administration’s logic. First, the Venezuelan opposition, despite its divisions and limited options for […]

Australia’s new senate is working to repeal the country’s unpopular carbon tax. In an email interview, Shi-Ling Hsu, the Larson Professor of Law at the Florida State University College of Law and author of “The Case for a Carbon Tax: Getting Past our Hang-ups to Effective Climate Policy,” discussed the role of carbon taxes in national climate change policies. WPR: What successful steps have governments taken around the world to limit carbon emissions, either through a carbon tax or other regulations? Shi-Ling Hsu: Governments have taken a wide variety of steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but most have been […]

Last month, a Thai army delegation visited China for talks on their security ties, which include joint military training. In an email interview, Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, discussed Thailand’s relations with China. WPR: What was the status of ties between Thailand and China before the May military coup? Josh Kurlantzick: The status of relations was quite good, probably better than between China and any other large country in Southeast Asia. Thailand has always, through its history, done an excellent job of balancing between major powers and still promoting Thai interests. WPR: […]

Late last month, the White House unveiled a request for $65 billion in additional spending for the war in Afghanistan and other defense programs, on top of the approximately $500 billion in the Pentagon’s base budget. Over $58 billion of that request would fund the Pentagon’s Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), which cover military activities that would have previously fallen under the Bush-era rubric of the war on terror. The rest would go to the State Department. The OCO request, which is more than $20 billion less than the placeholder amount in the fiscal year 2015 budget request announced last March, […]

Last week’s China-South Korea summit confirmed the good relations between Beijing and Seoul under Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Park Geun-hye. When they met in Seoul on July 3 for their fifth personal meeting since Park assumed office in March 2013, the two leaders announced ambitious economic goals and reconfirmed their opposition to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Nonetheless, despite Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang’s pre-summit forecast that Xi’s trip would “take the strategic cooperative partnership between China and South Korea to a new level,” no breakthrough occurred, and their bilateral relationship remains essentially the same. […]

Like it did with the crisis in Ukraine, China is trying to keep out of the chaos in Iraq. But as the central government in Baghdad confronts the Sunni militants spearheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an al-Qaida splinter group that aims to create an Islamic caliphate from eastern Syria to northwestern Iraq, it will be hard for China to preserve a policy of noninterference. This time around, unlike what happened in Ukraine, China cannot keep out of another sovereign nation’s internal affairs—until now a cornerstone of its diplomacy—given Beijing’s huge economic and commercial interests in […]

Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets of Hong Kong last week on the anniversary of its handover to China, and more than 500 were arrested. In an email interview, Simon Young, a law professor at Hong Kong University, placed the protests in the context of Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland. WPR: How has Hong Kong’s status within China developed since the end of British rule in 1997? Simon Young: Hong Kong’s status within China, known as “one country, two systems,” grew out of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration framework and is formally defined in the […]

The Syrian war, currently overshadowed by its offshoot in Iraq, remains a ruinous blight on international diplomacy. Nearly half a year after the furiously hyped but fundamentally hopeless peace talks between the government and moderate rebels in Geneva, no end to the fighting is in sight. President Barack Obama has requested $500 million from Congress to train and equip rebel forces, suggesting that he is resigned to an extended proxy war with Russia and Iran, which continue to assist Damascus. Yet while the Geneva talks petered out in February, remnants of international cooperation over Syria have survived. Moscow and Washington […]

Zhang Zhijun, director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, recently concluded a four-day visit to Taiwan. He is the highest-ranking official from the People’s Republic of China ever to have visited Taiwan, making the trip something of a milestone in relations across the Taiwan Strait. First up on Zhang’s itinerary was a meeting with his Taiwanese counterpart, Wang Yu-chi, the director of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council. The two had held the first such government-to-government talks in February in Nanjing, where they agreed in principle to establish mechanisms for official communication, including representative offices. This time they moved one step closer to […]

In retrospect, Venezuela’s shortage of toilet paper, which began in September 2013 and continues today, was an ominous sign. Venezuelans, even the most ardent admirers of the late President Hugo Chavez, now admit that it was a troubling metaphor for all that ailed the nation. President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s anointed heir, has struggled from the moment his mentor named him as his successor. He faced countless crises: an economy circling the drain, crime rates skyrocketing and huge protests from the opposition. And that was just the beginning. Now his popular approval ratings have taken a sharp nosedive amid a worsening […]

On June 22, India announced that it had ratified an additional protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), marking the country’s latest measure to implement a controversial nuclear cooperation agreement reached with the United States in 2008. However, this marginal step forward should not obscure the fact that the pact has yet to produce the promised economic benefits for the two countries. Meanwhile, its strategic benefits have been decidedly mixed, including striking a significant blow to the nonproliferation regime. Between 2005 and 2008, the Bush administration and the Indian government reached agreement and won support in their legislatures and […]