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Something remarkable occurred in Russia last month: Large numbers of people protested openly against the government at a commemoration march for a prominent opposition leader murdered last year. A political demonstration in most countries that claim to be democracies would not be noteworthy, but Russia, under the firm grip of President Vladimir Putin, long ago ceased behaving as one. The march last month recalled the enormous crowds that took to the streets in 2011 and 2012 to demand “free elections” following the ruling party’s victory in parliamentary polls conducted on a sharply uneven playing field. In response to those protests, […]

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif visited Saudi Arabia last week for the closing ceremonies of a multinational military exercise, following recent tensions in relations. In an email interview, Shehzad H. Qazi, managing director at CBB International and a geopolitical analyst specializing in emerging and frontier markets, discussed Pakistan’s relations with Middle East nations. WPR: Who are Pakistan’s main partners in the Middle East, and what are their main areas of cooperation? Shehzad Qazi: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey are three of Pakistan’s main partners in the Middle East. Pakistan and […]

“The future Australian Defence Force will be more capable of operations to deter and defeat threats to Australia,” declares the 2016 Defense White Paper, released in late February. The ambitious strategic document backs up this assertion with extravagant promises to raise defense spending to 2 percent of GDP in just a few years; to double the size of Australia’s submarine fleet from 6 to 12; and to develop a maritime force with formidable anti-submarine warfare capabilities. The paper boasts that it “sets out the most ambitious plan to regenerate the Royal Australian Navy since the Second World War.” And yet, […]

For as long as Barack Obama has been president, his Republican critics have regularly accused him of being some sort of political radical. After reading the mammoth foreign policy profile of Obama by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, I’m prepared to admit they are correct. Obama is a foreign policy radical, just not just for the reasons they think. What is perhaps most striking about Goldberg’s article and the interviews with Obama included in it is how distinctly Obama stands outside the foreign policy mainstream, and how willing he is to question the most prized of foreign policy sacred cows. […]

At China’s annual military parade last September, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to make large troop cuts and significant structural changes to China’s armed forces, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Indeed, over the past year, the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) has launched major reforms to the PLA’s size, structure and missions. Though many details remain undecided or unknown, reform measures have included the creation of a new PLA headquarters, as well as realignments of its operational theaters and support functions. The reforms in some respects resemble those adopted by other major military powers, such as Russia and […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. In late January, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced that the government would cut budgetary spending by 11 percent, due to a drop in mining revenues caused by the collapse of global commodities prices. In an email interview, Gonne Beekman, a postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen UR, discusses the impact of the commodities bust on Liberia. WPR: How important are commodities for Liberia’s economy, and what effect have falling commodities prices had on public spending and, by consequence, […]

In recent years, the issue of lone-actor or so-called lone-wolf terrorism has risen as a national security priority across Europe following the attacks carried out in Oslo in July 2011 and Toulouse and Montauban in March 2012. In the aftermath of the Paris attacks last November, fears of lone-wolf terrorism have only grown, as officials worry that the self-proclaimed Islamic State and its extensive propaganda may inspire more individuals to carry out acts of violence on the continent. In September 2014, the Countering Lone Actor Terrorism (CLAT) project, funded by the European Commission and led by the Royal United Services […]

The American foreign policy community is abuzz over the remarkable essay by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on President Barack Obama’s legacy. The article provides ample evidence that Obama is a fine conceptual thinker with great insight into the evolution of international politics away from America’s “unipolar moment.” His successors may try to reverse or slow down the trends Obama identifies, but in the long run, they will find themselves following his path. As the remaining months of his presidency reach the single digits, Obama has offered us the first draft of his foreign policy legacy. In a wonderfully rich article […]

Frustration over U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish militants seems to have prompted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to pose a thought experiment over what, exactly, is a terrorist. The United States has developed a close working relationship with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which have emerged as the most effective fighting force against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Turkey has watched this with increasing alarm. It alleges the YPG and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), together form the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Marxist-Kurdish nationalist organization that waged a decades-long war against the […]

On Feb. 19, Saudi Arabia announced it was canceling $4 billion in aid earmarked for Lebanon since 2013 and imposed a travel ban for Saudi citizens to the Mediterranean country. The moves represented an unequivocal shift in Saudi foreign policy toward Lebanon, where for years the kingdom has competed with Iran for influence by backing the Sunni-led March 14 coalition, headed by the Future Movement of Saad Hariri, against Hezbollah and the rival March 8 coalition that it leads. Saudi allies swiftly followed suit: Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates called on their citizens to leave Lebanon. Less […]

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Jim Della-Giacoma is filling in for Richard Gowan, who is on leave until early April. Prevention has long been a dirty word at the United Nations: Some member states equate it with interference, and the need for early warning that accompanies it with spying. But in a time of crisis, some think the time has come to reconsider what role the world body should play in stopping conflict before it happens. It is hard to argue against the idea that preventing conflicts from breaking out is better than dealing with their tragic consequences. Take those currently […]

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s ongoing political battle between its three branches of government, which has paralyzed efforts to stop the country’s slide into the economic abyss, is slated to get worse this weekend when the opposition takes to the streets to press President Nicolas Maduro to resign. The Democratic Unity Roundtable—the opposition coalition known by its Spanish acronym, MUD, that won a parliamentary majority in last year’s elections—has called for demonstrations in Caracas and other cities Saturday as part of a full-court press to end Venezuela’s crisis peacefully by forcing Maduro out and holding fresh presidential elections. In a press […]

In last week’s column, I discussed two of the four enduring challenges that American strategists face: unrealistic expectations and a ponderous system for strategy formulation. This week’s column will take a look at the other two: the American public’s deep belief in “silver bullets,” and impatience. The American public’s trust in the idea of “silver bullets,” or the existence of a single solution to a complex problem, reflects the ingrained optimism of the American national culture. As children Americans are told that they “can be anything they want” if they try hard enough. While this kind of optimism is demonstrably […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the elections in Iran, South Korea’s missile defense program and the Colombian government’s peace talks with the FARC. For the report, Robert Crews, the director of the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, joins us to explain how Russia’s Muslim population fits into President Vladimir Putin’s domestic and foreign policy agenda. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: Iran’s Election Results Show Pendulum Swinging Away From Hard-Liners North Korea’s Provocations Revive U.S. Missile Shield in South Korea Santos […]

Clashes erupted in the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdane on Monday when Islamist fighters attacked military and police posts. Scores were killed, including seven civilians, 13 security officers and 46 militants. Many observers have characterized the assault, which occurred just 20 miles from the Libyan border, as the latest example of the Libyan conflict’s dangerous spillover across a porous border. But the attack also reveals that, even as the self-proclaimed Islamic State gains ground in Libya, the most significant threat to Tunisia’s security resides within its borders. That’s because the militants, who claimed to be taking over the town as […]

Last month’s elections for Iran’s parliament and Assembly of Experts were complicated by the elaborate and extensive vetting procedure that filters out candidates considered too radical for the system. The overwhelming majority of those disqualified candidates belonged to the progressive end of the spectrum, usually referred to as reformists. Yet despite the authorities’ efforts to manage the outcome, Iran’s hard-liners still lost their majority in Iran’s 290-member parliament, or Majlis, while moderates won a majority in the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body tasked with choosing the next supreme leader. Key hard-liners, including two prominent clerics from the Assembly of […]

Colombian peace negotiators and their counterparts from the country’s largest guerrilla group are working against the clock, with less than two weeks remaining before the March 23 deadline for a peace deal set by President Juan Manuel Santos and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). But while the calendar says peace is only days away, the reality on the ground suggests that reaching a permanent agreement could be more difficult now than it appeared only a few months ago. Colombians, who will ultimately vote on whether or not to accept the final deal, are growing increasingly skeptical […]