Latest Archive

The main opposition party in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is facing serious financial problems and infighting in the lead-up to its party congress next month. In an email interview, Stephen Chan, professor of international relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies, discussed the state of Zimbabwe’s opposition. WPR: What accounts for the emerging splits in the MDC party, and how likely is Morgan Tsvangirai to maintain his party leadership? Stephen Chan: The current splits in the MDC reflect fissures that have been building for a long time. Tendai Biti, the finance minister in the earlier […]

This month, the heads of the world’s navies and coast guards converged on the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, for the International Seapower Symposium (ISS). ISS assembles distinguished international naval leaders to enhance common bonds of friendship and to discuss challenges and opportunities, this time under the theme of “Global Solutions to Common Maritime Challenges.” This was the 21st iteration of ISS, which was first held in 1969. It was the first with Chinese attendance. After years of invitations that Beijing did not accept, coupled with last year’s cancellation of the event due to sequestration, the head of […]

Two Chinese warships paid a port call to Iran over the weekend, in advance of a four-day joint naval exercise with the Iranian navy that was reportedly to begin Monday. The visit highlights China’s ties with Iran, at a time when the outcome of international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program remains uncertain. As those negotiations resume, China seems to be the least concerned of all the parties about their outcome. This apparent indifference is understandable: Iran is physically distant from China; has not threatened China directly or through supporting terrorism targeting China; and is not China’s only source of Middle […]

In July, just days before a New York court ruling put Argentina in default on a $539 million payment to creditors, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner signed an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping whereby China would loan Argentina $11 billion worth of yuan, which the latter could use to either bolster its currency reserves or pay for imported Chinese goods. The first installment of $1 billion is expected by year’s end, according to the Buenos Aires daily La Nacion. The currency swap deal, as well as a secretive deal for a Chinese satellite-tracking station in Argentina, have drawn […]

Earlier this month, Algeria and Russia signed a nuclear energy cooperation deal. In an email interview, Bruno Tertrais, senior research fellow at the Paris-based Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique (Foundation for Strategic Research), discussed Algeria’s nuclear program. WPR: What is the current status of Algeria’s civil nuclear program? Bruno Tertrais: Algeria has had a nuclear research program for almost three decades. Algeria has two main research facilities: Draria, which hosts a small 1-MW reactor near Algiers, and Ain-Oussera, a 15-MW reactor in the Sahara desert south of Algiers. The country has had plans for nuclear power reactors for a long […]

As headlines in the Middle East continue to be dominated by the civil war in Syria and the rise of the Islamic State group, the region’s shifting geopolitics are also making their impact felt in other parts of the world. The Horn of Africa is a case in point, as illustrated earlier this month when Sudan closed Iranian Shiite cultural centers operating in the country and expelled a diplomat responsible for them. Sudan’s famously complex politics have long been influenced by the bitter rivalries of outside powers: the Soviet Union versus America during the Cold War; the Egypt of Nasser […]

Ban Ki-moon revealed a new side to his character over the past week: Action Ban. Last Thursday, the secretary-general of the United Nations, often written off as the personification of process-driven diplomacy, announced that he was tired of just talking about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. “We don’t need all this time-consuming, so-called consultation, or consensus-building,” he told the Security Council. “There is a consensus already that this is very serious and urgent.” He outlined plans for an ambitious regional mission to fight the disease. Then he hit the streets of Manhattan on Sunday, joining 310,000 marchers calling for […]

Last week, European Commission President-designate Jean-Claude Juncker named the rest of his team of commissioners and their policy areas; Italian Foreign Minister Frederica Mogherini had already been given the post of European Union high representative for foreign policy, which also functions as a vice president of the commission. The latest announcements have generated a lot of discussion in EU circles about how the posts were distributed among candidates and countries. Appointments to the European Commission, the executive branch of the EU, are a complicated balancing act. Each of the 28 member states submits a candidate for the commission, and the […]

China pledged investments worth $20 billion to India and the two neighbors signed more than a dozen agreements and committed to settling their contentious border disputes during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s maiden official visit to India, which began Wednesday and ends today. Over the next five years, China promised to help India upgrade its rail system and put in place high-speed train corridors. It has also promised to invest in roads and two industrial parks in Gujarat and Maharashtra states, and to give more market access to products from India. The two nations called for better people-to-people ties and more […]

In a Sept. 13 speech, President Barack Obama unveiled his strategy for dealing with the Islamic State group. “We will degrade and ultimately destroy” it, Obama said, “through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy.” The strategy he outlined in the speech includes three components: U.S. airstrikes; increased support for militias and national militaries directly fighting the Islamic State group; and efforts to prevent the group from undertaking terrorist attacks against the U.S. or other nations. As always, Obama was careful, cautious and restrained, seeking an indirect and supporting role rather than the leading one. He ruled out large-scale American involvement […]

Thanks to its comprehensive democratization and its “Miracle on the Han,” which transformed the Republic of Korea into a developed country, South Korea has realized its aspirations to become a major international player. Nonetheless, the persistent threat from a perennially belligerent North Korea, along with the challenge of having three of the world’s most powerful countries as neighbors, continues to constrain South Korea’s global opportunities. Foreign Policy Although South Korean foreign policy cannot ignore its northern neighbor, the absence of any real movement in bilateral ties has meant that Seoul’s relations with Washington, Beijing and Tokyo have seen the most […]

Members of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central movement marched Sunday to demand universal suffrage for the election of the city’s chief executive. In an email interview, Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center, discussed the movement and its quest for greater democracy in Hong Kong. WPR: What are the Occupy Central movement’s objectives, and who are its main supporters? Robert Daly: Occupy Central’s goal is to ensure that the 2017 election of Hong Kong’s chief executive, which is supposed to feature “universal suffrage,” offers voters a meaningful choice. The founders’ original […]

When President Barack Obama announced plans for calibrated U.S. air strikes in Iraq last week, he set off heated debates about the wisdom and chances for success of his strategy to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State group operating there and in neighboring Syria. This week, the White House announced another military deployment that, despite involving not air strikes but some 3,000 American boots on the ground, evinced barely a second glance: the medical humanitarian mission to West Africa to contain the ongoing outbreak of the Ebola virus there. The reason for the contrast in reactions is of course […]

AMSTERDAM—The annual event known as Prince’s Day in the Netherlands brings an uncommon dose of pomp to the decidedly informal Dutch landscape. Tens of thousands of people gathered on Tuesday to watch King Willem-Alexander and his superstar wife Queen Maxima travel in their golden carriage to the Hall of Knights for the opening of Parliament. The crowds come for the pageantry, but the day contains a large dose of serious substance. The main event is the king’s speech, which offers important clues to emerging priorities for the Netherlands, and usually for much of Europe. This year marked the 200th occasion […]

Last week, on Sept. 9, the entire leadership of one of Syria’s strongest rebel groups, Ahrar al-Sham, was killed in a blast during a secret meeting in Idlib, in northern Syria. A dozen of the deeply conservative Salafi movement’s leaders died in the attack, which some sources claim was a suicide bombing and others an airstrike by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. As the United States mobilizes an international coalition against the militants of the Islamic State group, with plans to train 5,000 moderate Syrian rebels, the attack could have domino effects across the conflict, especially among often-shifting rebel alliances. The killing […]

As Boko Haram increasingly devastates northeastern Nigeria and crosses into Nigeria’s neighbors, Cameroon has attracted more international attention, both positive and negative. The International Crisis Group recently wrote that “Cameroon’s apparent stability and recent government reforms can no longer hide its vulnerabilities.” The report assesses the political risks of President Paul Biya’s apparent desire to remain in power indefinitely, despite his advanced age and lack of a clear succession plan. Alongside these medium-term risks are two short-term problems that deserve special scrutiny: the potential for destructive escalation in Cameroon’s fight with Boko Haram and the ambiguous effects of an aggressive […]

Much of the discussion around the strategy unveiled this past week by President Barack Obama to combat the Islamic State has focused on whether or not the administration will be able to successfully forge a “core coalition” of states to participate in the fight, and whether that grouping will be substantive or a largely ceremonial equivalent of the “coalition of the willing” assembled by George W. Bush prior to the invasion of Iraq. But the main proposition is largely accepted as a given: The United States can supply air power, intelligence assets and even training and equipment, but other coalition […]