U.S. Army soldiers at an opening ceremony for the new headquarters of U.S. Forces Korea at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, June 29, 2018 (AP photo by Ahn Young-joon).

Traditionally, the U.S. military considered strategy something its officers should learn only when they had reached what the military considered to be an appropriate stage of their careers. While a tiny handful of officers taught themselves strategy earlier than that through rigorous personal reading, most were introduced to it only as they advanced in rank. Recently, though, the idea that officers should only learn strategy once the services decide they are ready for it has been challenged—not so much because the military itself has changed its position, but because a group of young officers have begun mastering strategy outside the […]

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, West Palm Beach, Fla., March 24, 2019 (AP photo by Carolyn Kaster).

The vaudeville and at times burlesque spectacle that has dominated U.S. politics for over two years now reached a pivotal climax last week, when special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report on alleged collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia to the Justice Department. The culmination of an investigation that dates back to the early months of Trump’s presidency, Mueller’s report—according to the summary of it released by Trump’s hand-picked attorney general, William Barr—failed to establish evidence of coordination on Russia’s efforts to influence the election.* Mueller also refrained from reaching a conclusion on whether or not evidence […]

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, Feb. 28, 2019 (AP photo by Evan Vucci).

North Korea sanctions were back in the news last week. On Thursday, the United States Treasury Department announced economic penalties on two Chinese shipping companies for breaching United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang. That announcement was seemingly reversed Friday by President Donald Trump, who said on Twitter that he would be rescinding newly announced Treasury Department sanctions against North Korea. After some confusion, the White House explained that Trump was referring to as-yet unannounced U.S. unilateral sanctions, highlighting the administration’s lack of coordination on key messaging with regard to North Korea. Observers could be forgiven for seeing the mix-up as an […]

A cryptocurrency mining center in the Leningrad region of Russia, Aug. 20, 2018 (Photo by Alexei Danichev for Sputnik via AP).

New financial technology—so-called fintech—has rapidly become an important part of the financial industry, from mobile payment systems to cryptocurrencies. But it also represents a new area of national security vulnerability for the United States. The U.S. is a leader in fintech investment and development for now, but other countries are quickly catching up in key areas. U.S. policymakers should act to improve fintech regulations and coordinate a strategy in order to ensure that this kind of technology remains a strength, rather than a vulnerability, for the U.S. There has been a huge investment boom in fintech in recent years, with […]

A soldier stands guard outside a hotel after an attack in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Jan. 18, 2016 (AP photo by Sunday Alamba).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The gunmen often arrive on market day, surrounding civilians who gather in northern Burkina Faso to buy and sell goods. After detaining groups of men—up to 14 at a time—they drive off. Within minutes, they execute the men, often on the side of the road, close enough for those back at the market to hear the gunshots. It’s a scenario that has played out at least nine times in Burkina Faso in recent months, according to a report released […]

Muslims pray at Hagley Park in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 22, 2019 (AP photo by Mark Baker).

In this week’s editors episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman discuss the Christchurch shootings, the emergence of white nationalist terrorism and its implications for national security in Europe and the U.S. They also examine Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy and France, and what it reveals about the European Union’s internal divisions over whether to engage with China as an economic partner or confront it as a strategic competitor. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can […]

Activists protesting the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi hold a candlelight vigil outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Oct. 25, 2018 (AP photo by Lefteris Pitarakis).

Saudi Arabia has lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons. It has been widely condemned for a disastrous war in Yemen that has forced over 3 million civilians to flee and left over 15 million people on the brink of famine. The killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul—allegedly on orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—is a story that refuses to go away. More recently, the Saudi government finds itself responding to alarming allegations regarding the detention, torture and impending trial of many prominent female activists in the kingdom. On March […]

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, meets with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 14, 2019 (Pool photo by Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds via AP Images).

For many decades, shared fears of common enemies—from the Soviets to the Iranians, Saddam Hussein and extremist movements like al-Qaida and the Islamic State—pushed America and Saudi Arabia into an uneasy embrace. But today that calculus is no longer enough to sustain their alliance. For the United States, the strategic costs of the Saudi relationship have come to outweigh the benefits, as the tensions and unnaturalness of the partnership make it increasingly intolerable. The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia can be traced back to the 1930s, when the kingdom first began producing petroleum. By the 1970s, Saudi Arabia was an […]

Peruvian police officers stand guard in a recovered area deforested by illegal gold mining in the Madre de Dios province of Peru, Feb. 19, 2019 (pool photo by Cris Bouroncle via AP Images).

Peruvian authorities are touting an aggressive new military-led effort aimed at eliminating widespread illegal gold mining activities, which have caused massive deforestation and pollution in the fragile Amazon rainforest. But this kind of militarized environmental management could further complicate an already messy situation in Peru. On March 5, senior Peruvian defense officials inaugurated the first of four new military bases near the remote Tambopata National Reserve—part of their new campaign, codenamed Operation Mercurio, or Mercury, focused on restoring order and eliminating illegal mining in the southeastern region of Madre de Dios, the epicenter of illegal gold mining in Peru. President […]

A student places her handprints on a wall at the Raul Brasil State School one day after a mass shooting, Suzano, Brazil, March 14, 2019 (AP photo by Andre Penner).

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a new series on gun policy and the debate over gun control around the world. Last week, two gunmen opened fire at a high school near Sao Paulo, killing eight people, including five schoolchildren. The mass shooting has cast a spotlight on the issue of gun control in Brazil, as President Jair Bolsonaro makes a concerted push to relax restrictions on firearms. In an interview with WPR, Robert Muggah, co-founder and research director at the Igarape Institute in Brazil, discusses Brazil’s polarizing debate over guns and how Bolsonaro’s policy initiatives might be […]

Syrian authorities distribute bread, vegetables and pasta to residents of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria, April 16, 2018 (AP photo by Hassan Ammar).

Ten years ago, the Sri Lankan military carried out a violent final offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a rebel group with a long history of atrocities. The offensive, which ultimately resulted in the end of the war, involved the brutal killings of thousands of civilians—acts that were documented in real time by journalists and United Nations officials. Back in New York, however, the U.N.’s leaders failed to muster a meaningful response to mitigate the bloodshed, and Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general at the time, soon came under heavy criticism. As Richard Gowan writes in this week’s in-depth report, […]

Cybersecurity experts take part in a test at a conference in Lille, France, Jan. 22, 2019 (AP photo by Michel Spingler).

Elizabeth Warren, one of the 13 candidates in an already crowded field of Democrats running for U.S. president in 2020, wants to break up tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Twitter by legally designating them as “platform utilities,” she said recently, in order to “keep that marketplace competitive and not let a giant who has an incredible competitive advantage snuff that out.” Amy Klobuchar, another senator seeking the Democratic nomination, says flatly that she doesn’t trust tech companies. She doesn’t want to break them up, but instead has proposed new regulations in the form of antitrust laws, new […]

Candles are placed to commemorate victims of last week’s shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 18, 2019 (AP photo by Vincent Thian).

The mass shooting last Friday at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a self-avowed white supremacist, and the violence in Paris on Saturday by the last vestiges of the Yellow Vest movement, have nothing substantively in common. But despite being discrete phenomena, they illustrate two of the greatest emerging threats to the internal cohesiveness of Western liberal democracies: the normalization of ethno-sectarian violence, and the legitimization of political violence. Both threats have been hiding in plain sight for many years now. The Department of Homeland Security signaled the growing danger of far-right and white nationalist terrorist groups in the […]

Sri Lankan protesters wave flags and burn an effigy of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon outside the U.N. office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 6, 2010 (AP photo by Eranga Jayawardena).

Ten years ago this month, senior United Nations officials were hard at work equivocating over a crisis. A cynic might say that the U.N. exists in a constant state of equivocation. But in March 2009, its leaders were mired in an especially grim political mess—and handling it badly. The cause of their troubles lay in northern Sri Lanka. After decades of civil war, the Sri Lankan military was carrying out a final offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a rebel group with a long history of atrocities. As the decisive battle wore on, U.N. officials and journalists in […]

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk to their motorcade after attending service at Saint John’s Church in Washington, March 17, 2019 (AP photo by Carolyn Kaster).

Tuesday marks the centenary of one of the most extraordinary foreign policy debates in American history, which has renewed resonance today. On March 19, 1919, 3,000 lucky spectators crammed into Boston Symphony Hall to hear Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, square off against A. Lawrence Lowell, the president of Harvard University. Both men were Republicans and Boston Brahmins. But they disagreed on a big political question. Should the United States, having helped win the Great War, join a League of Nations to defend the peace? The Lodge-Lowell debate was the opening salvo in […]

Anti-Brexit campaigners’ placards outside Parliament, London, Jan. 28, 2019 (Photo by Kirsty O’Connor for EMPPL PA Wire via AP Images).

In this week’s editors’ discussion episode of Trend Lines, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman look at British Prime Minister Theresa May’s latest Brexit setback, the Trump administration’s latest policy shift on Israel, and the United Nations Security Council’s latest report on North Korea sanctions noncompliance. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the week, plus three […]

Indonesian President Joko Widodo listens as his running mate, Ma'ruf Amin, delivers a speech during a televised debate in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jan. 17, 2019 (AP photo by Tatan Syuflana).

In recent years, the issue of Chinese investment has become divisive enough to help shape the outcomes of elections in Malaysia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, mostly through money tied to Beijing’s huge Belt and Road Initiative. Indonesia, which is preparing for general elections next month, has welcomed billions in Chinese money to fund critical infrastructure needs, and there are signs that Asia’s largest economy will play a major role in the vote there too. Opposition candidate Prabowo Subianto has already called for reassessing Indonesia’s trade with China, declaring that President Joko Widodo, whose administration has prioritized infrastructure development, is […]

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