Latest Archive

Across Latin America, countries have come a long way in building democratic institutions. Most hold competitive and inclusive elections, for example. But the pervasive presence of organized crime and corruption has made progress in other areas, like the rule of law, difficult, leaving trust in the state almost nonexistent in many parts of Latin American. Kevin Casas-Zamora, secretary-general of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, joins Peter Dörrie to discuss these issues, as well as the region’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, given Moscow’s attempts over the past two decades to strengthen its ties to Latin […]

A national conference in Burkina Faso has approved a charter setting out a three-year transition period before the country schedules national elections, following the coup that overthrew former President Roch Kabore in January. Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the officer who led the coup and was already serving as Burkina Faso’s interim head of state, was immediately sworn in as president for the duration of the transition. He subsequently appointed a transitional prime minister to head the 25-member Cabinet, while pledging to make improvements to security and the restoration of “territorial integrity” his key priorities as head of state. The announcement of the charter came after […]

As the war in Ukraine enters its second week, the continent’s eyes are already turning toward neighboring Moldova. The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, made an emergency visit there yesterday, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made a last-minute visit next door to Romania. The main reason given for the pair of visits was to discuss the large wave of Ukrainian refugees pouring into Moldova, a tiny country with limited resources. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine in the past week, and almost 10 percent […]

Today, the Ukrainian people are fighting—quite literally—for their right to determine their own fate, independently and democratically. It was not so long ago that millions of people in multiple nations of the Middle East and North Africa rose up to fight for democracy at home in a wave of revolutions that, while markedly different from the events, circumstances and challenges in Ukraine, involved a quest to secure some of the rights that Ukrainians are today battling to preserve. At the time, these uprisings, known as the Arab Spring, inspired high expectations. Then, they derailed into tragedy. Back in 2011, observers […]

As the uncertainties surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continue to multiply, one thing seems clear: Europe is poised to experience a level of population upheaval not seen on the continent since the 1940s. Exactly a week has passed since the war began, and already more than 1 million Ukrainians have fled to neighboring Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova. European Union and United Nations officials are warning that the number seeking refuge in the EU could soon exceed 7 million. Such a figure, which would vault Ukrainians into being the world’s largest refugee group, may well prove an underestimate. Russia’s […]

On Feb. 22, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited Moscow at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin at what was a sensitive moment—just a day after Moscow officially recognized the independence of the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, and a day before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country. The main agenda of Aliyev’s visit was to sign a new declaration that upgraded the two countries’ relationship to one of “allied cooperation.” The declaration expresses both sides’ intention of strengthening cooperation across a wide range of fields, including regional security issues, military ties, energy and trade, while […]

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to draw outrage and reprisals from the international community, China is maintaining the cautious distance from Moscow it has taken since the onset of the crisis, with many observers suggesting that Beijing may have been caught unaware by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to authorize a full-scale invasion, after months of tensions between Kyiv and Moscow. Yet behind China’s heavily censored internet firewall, where media outlets disseminate Russian propaganda and blame the West for instigating the conflict, Chinese internet users see Putin as a hero and are cheering Russia’s incursion on. In a joint statement issued on the […]

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last Thursday, major developments that will reshape global politics both immediately and for years to come have rapidly unfolded one after the other. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany would boost its defense spending this year by $113 billion and meet NATO’s target of 2 percent of GDP in the future. The U.S. and European Union announced a new round of sanctions against Russia that has sent the ruble crashing. And the EU announced that its member states will grant Ukrainians fleeing the war the right to stay and work in the bloc for […]

The early results are in and could hardly be clearer: The much-dreaded Russian version of a shock-and-awe campaign to subdue Ukraine has failed. No one knows exactly what will happen next, but the Ukrainian people have just offered a robust rebuttal to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that they are not members of a real nation. As the entire world has now seen from the first days of the conflict, their patriotism and valor in standing up to a far larger and better-armed Russian adversary caused the invaders to bog down and lose momentum. Most observers, not least Putin himself, […]

The United States is currently faced with multiple international crises that are occupying much of Washington’s attention, but it should not lose sight of events in Sudan. Since last October’s military coup, millions of people across the country have taken to the streets week after week to show their determination to get Sudan back on the path toward democracy. The U.S. reacted swiftly after the military takeover with words of support for a return to civilian rule and blocks on bilateral aid to the coup regime. But these necessary steps have not changed the calculations of Sudan’s military leaders, and the country […]

“We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.” These words, from the preamble of the United Nations’ founding charter, capture the ambition, far-sightedness and optimism of the leaders who founded the organization in 1945. But today, they ring a little hollow. On Feb. 24, after years of tension and months of anxiety, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With social media users sharing an almost blow-by-blow account of the conflict online, the world has looked on in horror as […]

When United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the Security Council in October, he urged it to act against the “epidemic of coup d’etats” plaguing the international community. Guterres’ warning came in the aftermath of a successful coup in Sudan—the fifth in the world that year. Though it’s just started, 2022 has brought even more coup attempts, including a successful one in Burkina Faso on Jan. 23 and a failed one in Guinea-Bissau in early February. In total, there have been nine military coup attempts since January 2021, of which six—in Myanmar, Sudan, Chad, Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso—were successful. This recent spree has led some to suggest that, despite waning in the post-Cold War era, […]

Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last week, comparisons to the United States’ 2003 invasion of Iraq have inevitably and understandably emerged. After all, at transformative moments in world history like the one we’re currently witnessing, analysts naturally draw historical analogies to make sense of contemporary events, mining the past in search of patterns and causal connections that bear some resemblance to what is unfolding today. And while no two situations are ever exactly alike, the comparison to Iraq in 2003 is particularly important, since it has considerable bearing on whether and how the United […]

Almost 6,500 miles separate Caracas from Kyiv, but the protracted political crisis in Venezuela, with its attendant humanitarian emergency, is not immune to spillover from the war in Ukraine. As if Venezuela’s challenges were not already sufficiently hard to resolve, the progressive build-up of geopolitical tensions over recent years has produced a fresh layer of complexity, highlighted as never before by Moscow’s threat to expand its presence in the Americas in retaliation for NATO moves in Europe. But can foreign powers, despite their deepening adversarial stance elsewhere, somehow harness their efforts to facilitate a solution in Venezuela? In January, as […]