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Recent reports of Chinese security forces operating in Afghanistan have prompted speculation about whether China has crossed another important threshold in its policy and posture on overseas military activity. Claims of sightings of Chinese military vehicles in the Wakhan Corridor, the narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to the Chinese border, have been circulating since late last year. But it was only after a People’s Liberation Army press briefing in February that any activities were officially confirmed. The PLA spokesperson denied the involvement of the Chinese military proper, stating that it was “the law enforcement departments in […]

Only a few months ago it was the conventional view that regional dynamics in the Middle East were working in Iran’s favor. By this account, Tehran was accumulating growing influence through its direct or indirect involvement in the region’s crises and conflicts, buoyed by the confidence born of sanctions relief after the nuclear agreement with the international community. But the picture is not so clear today. In fact, other regional trends involving Russia, the new administration in Washington, and Israel might be converging to put Iran on its back foot. The geopolitics of the Middle East are moving too fast […]

Earlier this month, Mohamed Daadaoui wrote in WPR that Morocco’s political impasse suggested the monarchy was growing frustrated with the experiment—undertaken after the 2011 Arab uprisings—that allowed the country’s leading Islamist party to assume nominal governmental power. Last week, that signal became clearer with King Mohammed VI’s decision to oust the party’s leader, Abdelilah Benkirane, from his post as prime minister. On Friday, Mohammed VI tapped former Foreign Minister Saadeddine Othmani—another top figure in the party, known as the Justice and Development Party, or PJD—to form a new government. The PJD endorsed the appointment over the weekend. Mohammed VI’s removal […]

While much about U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policy remains uncertain, his official 2017 “trade policy agenda,” released on March 1, clearly stated the preference for bilateral over multilateral negotiations. Echoing what he said during the election campaign, the trade agenda also emphasized national sovereignty and the enforcement of U.S. trade laws. Trump’s focus on bilateralism, however, comes with real costs. Bilateral negotiations are time-consuming and entail significant negotiating resources. Even when “successful” in narrow market access terms, firms can incur significant transaction costs from having to navigate the resulting tangle of inconsistent or conflicting rules. Multilateral trade rules—such as […]

If you want to write about the United Nations these days, you need a thick skin. The Trump administration’s decision to cut funding to the U.N. in its first proposed federal budget, announced last week, has unleashed a vitriolic argument in the U.S. about the organization and its values. This is not new. The American left and right have long debated the U.N. in heated terms, often with little reference to what it really does. This debate last peaked a decade ago, after the Security Council refused to endorse the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The darker corners of American bookstores […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives today in Washington, where she will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump for the first time. The trip was initially scheduled for earlier in the week, but was delayed by a snowstorm that hit the East Coast. It was perhaps a fitting prelude to their first encounter. After all, when Trump was elected president of the United States, Merkel sent him a congratulatory message that seemed, in no uncertain terms, to be a rebuke to his behavior and rhetoric during the campaign. She suggested that Germany would only cooperate with the United States if it […]

As President Donald Trump contemplates a new trade order, one that puts “America first,” he may be surprised to find he is pushing on an open door. From both a top-down geo-economic level and a bottom-up corporate level, 21st-century trade is in urgent need of a new vision. If he is serious about offering one, Trump should consider a global growth model based on what could be termed the tripolar world, in which deepening ties within three main regions—the Americas, Asia and Europe—become the next catalyst for economic growth. Globalization as it has existed since the end of the Cold […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss what election results from the Netherlands could mean for populist movements across Europe. For the Report, Yiannis Baboulias talks with Peter Dörrie about Greece’s economic and political challenges, and why they are no closer to being resolved now than they were seven years ago. If you’d like to support our free podcast through patron pledges, Patreon is an online service that will allow you to do so. To find out about the benefits you can get through pledging as little as $1 per month, […]

The threat from North Korea to the United States, the Asia-Pacific region, and the global economy is growing rapidly. For decades the dynasty of Kim family dictators has used military provocation to fend off external pressure. Over the past decade, this took a particularly ominous turn as Pyongyang added a nuclear capability to its massive conventional military force. Today the erratic aggression of Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s current dictator, is pushing the danger to ever greater heights, backed by a growing nuclear arsenal and ballistic missile capability. When North Korea first tested an atomic device in 2006, the United […]

After more than three decades away, Morocco successfully accomplished its mission of rejoining the African Union during the body’s summit meeting in January. “I’m finally returning home… I’ve missed you all,” King Mohammed VI said to applause after his country’s readmission was confirmed. Instead of savoring the moment, however, the North African nation quickly moved on to its next diplomatic initiative: an application, confirmed last week, to join the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS. The bid is reportedly due to be considered in July. The move has been widely, and correctly, viewed as a continuation of the […]

As the Greek economic crisis enters its seventh year, the difficulties standing in the way of its resolution continue to mount. At first glance, this is surprising. After all, Greece is a small country, representing just 2 percent of the European Union’s economy, and is home to just over 10 million of the bloc’s more than 500 million citizens. But it has played an outsize role in driving the political and economic uncertainty facing Europe today, and has in many ways taken the brunt of the fallout. For Greece and Europe, nothing has been the same since 2008, when news […]

It’s no secret why the global media converged on the Netherlands to cover Wednesday’s parliamentary elections. All eyes were on the small European country not because the world has great interest in Dutch politics, but because the elections looked like the third test for an emerging populist movement that had already scored victories in the United Kingdom with the Brexit vote and in the United States with the presidential election of Donald Trump. It fell to the Dutch, then, to erect a barrier to stop nationalist, anti-immigrant populists from winning three contests in a row. But advocates of moderate, inclusive […]

On Feb. 7, officials in Egypt’s Ministry of Housing abruptly announced that a Chinese company had backed out of a $3 billion agreement to construct the first phase of a new Egyptian capital in the desert 30 miles east of Cairo. The China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), a government-backed general contractor that has taken on megaprojects around the world, had secured a loan to cover the costs of building the wildly ambitious new capital, which has been criticized as a boondoggle. But it was unable to agree with the Egyptian government on an exact price per square meter to […]

Editor’s note: This article is the first in an ongoing WPR series about education policy in various countries around the world. Last year, schools across Finland began implementing the country’s new National Curriculum Framework, which was first approved in 2014. Though the country, long praised for its school system, has seen test scores decline in recent years, the reforms show the Finnish government is more focused on other problems. In an email interview, Finnish educator, author and policy adviser Pasi Sahlberg explains what the changes are intended to achieve. WPR: What are the biggest changes resulting from the adoption last […]

The row between Turkey and the Netherlands over a banned political rally by Turkish immigrants in Rotterdam has now escalated into a diplomatic crisis that threatens Turkey’s relations with the European Union. Like Germany had done days before, the Netherlands cited a threat to public order as the reason for banning the rally last week. The demonstration had been called to show support for Turkish constitutional reforms that would create an executive presidency, strengthening President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian grip on power. In addition to banning the gathering, Dutch authorities turned back the airplane carrying Turkey’s foreign minister to […]

Last week, The New York Times reported that the United States had secretly stepped up cyber attacks against North Korea’s missile program during President Barack Obama’s second term. The attacks were initially a success, according to the Times. “Soon a large number of the North’s military rockets began to explode, veer off course, disintegrate in midair and plunge into the sea.” Whether or not a series of test failures in recent years were the direct result of U.S. cyber interference, as the Times suggested, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is a prominent target for U.S. cyber warfare—and President Donald Trump […]

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated what he really thinks about democracy in his address to a joint session of Congress late last month, and he did so without ever uttering the actual word. As his administration leaked details about his budget, including plans to raise defense spending by 10 percent and slash funding for the State Department and foreign aid, Trump pronounced that “Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people—and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path. My job is not to represent the world. My job is to […]