Latest Archive

When Panama cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of recognizing China in June, it was an acknowledgment of the significant commercial interests China already has in one of the most important transport and financial hubs in the Western Hemisphere. It also opened the door for deeper Chinese involvement in Panama. In an email interview, R. Evan Ellis, a research professor of Latin American studies at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and the author of “The Strategic Dimension of Chinese Engagement with Latin America,” explains what’s behind Panama’s diplomatic shift, the opportunities the move unlocks and what […]

Last week’s independence referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan drew the ire of all its neighbors, including the central government in Baghdad. Yet a bit farther afield, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was offering vocal support for the vote, a position that reflected decades of quiet relations between Israel and Irbil. In an email interview, Bilal Wahab, a Soref fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, discusses the history and diplomatic impact of Israeli-Kurdish ties and what Israel’s support for Iraqi Kurds means for other Kurds in the region. WPR: How far back does official Israeli support […]

Amid all the questions and uncertainty raised by Catalonia’s independence referendum on Sunday, one point of consensus has emerged: The government of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy handled it lamentably, turning what almost certainly would have been a disappointment for Catalonian separatists into a catastrophe for Madrid. The repressive run-up to the voting and heavy-handed police response on the day of the outlawed ballot have generated outrage in Catalonia and beyond, providing a major boost to what opinion polling indicated was a minority movement. Brinksmanship on both sides in the months leading up to the vote proved impossible to walk […]

PRAGUE—Wearied by political scandals and cynical about traditional parties, Czechs are set to elect their own version of Donald Trump as they head to the polls later this month for legislative elections. Billionaire Andrej Babis pledges to run the Czech Republic like his business and wipe out the corruption that has derailed so many governments since the fall of communism. Voters are buying his simplistic solutions despite a bevy of scandals that stalk Babis, who leads his own populist ANO party, which he founded in 2011. Pending criminal charges against Babis could provoke constitutional chaos after the elections on Oct. […]

In mid-September, British defense company BAE Systems announced it had signed a letter of intent to supply Qatar with 24 Typhoon jets, in the latest proposed sale of military hardware to the Persian Gulf. As U.S. power in the region has steadily receded over the past decade, the U.K. has tried to seize influence in a part of the world it once dominated by expanding security and economic ties. In an email interview, Jane Kinninmont, a senior research fellow and deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, explains the basis for enhanced defense cooperation, […]

As Myanmar’s long-simmering Rohingya crisis boils over into ethnic cleansing, refugee exodus and possible civil war, there are inevitable calls for economic sanctions to be reimposed on Myanmar’s military-dominated government. The outgoing Obama administration lifted U.S. economic sanctions on Myanmar, also known as Burma, in late 2016 in recognition of its partial transition to democracy under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Now the Nobel Peace Prize laureate finds herself the subject of international condemnation for her failure to act toward, or even to speak in favor of, a peaceful resolution to the crisis. There is no hint of […]

The Kenyan Supreme Court’s ruling that nullified the results of August’s presidential election was a watershed moment for the African continent. Kenya became the first African country to have its election results invalidated and a fresh election ordered by its highest court. Citing widespread “irregularities” in ballot counting, the unreliability of electronic voting machines and the absence of transparency at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, or IEBC, which oversaw the vote, the court declared that “[if] candidates do not respect the rule of law; if the average citizen, political parties and even candidates themselves do not perceive them as […]

The North Korean crisis is turning into a laboratory experiment about how to avoid war: with words, or with more demonstrations of force? While many in Washington would like to believe that diplomacy works hand in hand with deterrence and other instruments of American power, President Donald Trump seems to see diplomacy as working at cross purposes with his strategy. U.S. diplomacy has been on the defensive lately, unable to move some new crises—such as the ongoing dispute between Qatar and other Gulf Arab states, or the contentious referendum on independence in Iraqi Kurdistan—toward a peaceful resolution. It seemed like […]

September was Asia month at the United Nations. It began with the Security Council negotiating a set of severe sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s late-August nuclear test. It ended with the permanent members of the council trading barbs over the humanitarian crisis exploding in Myanmar. On Thursday, the council held its first public meeting on Myanmar in eight years to address the military’s campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority in the northwest of the country. The discussion was the diplomatic definition of doing too little, too late. The military operation, reportedly involving the systematic destruction […]

Last month, Snap—the parent company for the popular social media app Snapchat—announced it would remove Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite network, from its platform inside Saudi Arabia in “an effort to comply with local laws,” as a Snap spokeswoman told The Wall Street Journal. Snap’s decision came on the heels of a June ultimatum by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to their rival Qatar, which owns Al-Jazeera, to close down the network completely—one of 13 conditions for ending their ongoing economic blockade of the tiny Gulf country. The move to “silence freedom of expression,” as an Al-Jazeera spokesperson put it, […]

When Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak met U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House last month, they tried to forge more common ground on key issues and manage some of their differences. Although Najib and Trump made some progress as they commemorated the 60th anniversary of bilateral ties between Malaysia and the U.S., bigger tests will come in their bid to surmount deeper obstacles that stand in the way of really broadening the relationship. Throughout the past 60 years, the United States and Malaysia have had to find ways to cooperate despite often stark disagreements on matters such as […]