Diplomacy & Politics Archive

As the world was fixated on the Beijing Olympics and Russia’s incursion into Georgia, a fledgling peace process between the Philippine government and Muslim rebels fighting for autonomy in the country’s restive south was beginning to unravel. The Philippine Supreme Court’s suspension of a key peace agreement fanned the flames of violence in the region, sending insurgent factions storming into villages. One hundred fifty thousand people fled their looted and torched homes, while the Philippine military pounded rebel hideouts with heavy artillery fire. The United Nations expressed alarm, while the International Red Cross said more than 80,000 people were displaced. […]

As Venezuela prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of its Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chávez has little cause for celebration. His stewardship of the state economy has largely resulted in failure: Income inequality is on the rise while inflation has skyrocketed to nearly 30 percent. Basic food staples — such as milk, eggs, and meat — are scarce, raising fears of a looming food crisis. Violence is rife. Venezuela’s murder rate has grown so ruinous — with more than12,000 homicides in 2007 — that the country no longer releases official data. On the political front, matters are equally troubling. In the […]

The War in Georgia has seriously exacerbated relations between Russia and Ukraine’s pro-Western government. On Aug. 12, Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko joined the leaders of four other former Soviet states in Tbilisi to show solidarity with Georgia and its embattled president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Yushchenko told the crowd that had assembled in Tbilisi’s central square: “You will never be left alone! . . . We have come to reaffirm your sovereignty, your independence, your territorial integrity. These are our values. Independent Georgia is and independent Georgia will always be!” The following day, President Yushchenko boldly imposed severe restrictions on the movement […]

AUGUST BLUES — “August is the month when wars start,” wrote the late Al Aronowitz, the rock writer. Both World War I and II started in August, and now the Georgia-Russia conflagration has followed suit. In planning their attempt to retake South Ossetia, did the Georgians think the Russians would all be on vacation and not notice? Their second miscalculation was to forget the lesson of the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and somehow believe that their patron, the United States, would step in. That’s what the Hungarians believed when they launched their revolution against the Soviet presence, based mainly on […]

Lost in the news cycles of presidential politics, the Olympic Games and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is a brewing crisis in South Asia. The United States’ strategic posture toward South Asia has largely focused on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan and on nuclear proliferation. This approach has largely ignored the historical conflict over Jammu and Kashmir, which has sparked two major hot wars in the last 60 years. Growing unrest in Kashmir is threatening to cause open conflict between India and Pakistan once again, and American policy makers can’t afford to sit this one out. For almost seven years, […]

When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates unveiled his first (and presumably last) National Defense Strategy (NDS) on July 31, he argued that the best single word to describe it would be “balance.” Although the document is comprehensive and eclectic in its listing of possible security threats to the United States, its real function is to counterbalance what the secretary sees as the U.S. Defense Department’s natural tendency to focus excessively on winning conventional conflicts rather than “irregular wars” such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The NDS also aims to promote a more balanced U.S. national security policy by bolstering […]

Editor’s note: Rights & Wrongs covers the world’s major human rights-related news and appears every week in World Politics Review. To browse past editions of Rights & Wrongs, click here.MELANCHOLY BURMA COMMEMORATES 8-8-88 — Pro-democracy supporters both inside and outside Burma last week marked the 20th anniversary of that country’s Aug. 8, 1988, uprising against military rule with demonstrations around the globe, but few held out much hope of impending change. The military presence inside Burma was high for the anniversary though no major demonstrations were reported. Millions of Burmese took to the country’s streets in the summer of 1988 […]

ABOARD THE U.S.S. KEARSARGE — There was something strange about the U.S.S. Kearsarge amphibious assault ship as she left Norfolk, Virginia, last week for a four-month South American cruise. Instead of the usual solid ranks of white-clad sailors lining her huge flight deck, the size of two football fields, there were hundreds of military medical personnel in the green, blue, gray or tan uniforms of the Canadian Army, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and the Brazilian and Dutch militaries — not to mention scores of civilian aid workers in blue jeans and t-shirts. For decades, the U.S. Navy’s […]

On July 8, a bipartisan National War Powers Commission called upon the next administration to replace the controversial 1973 War Powers Resolution. Co-chaired by former Secretaries of State James A. Baker and Warren Christopher and composed of high-ranking former officials such as former Congressman Lee Hamilton, Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Judge Abner Mikva, the privately-sponsored commission recommended the change to create more effective cooperation between the legislative and executive branches on when and how to deploy U.S. forces overseas. The U.S. Constitution gives both branches a role in approving the use of military force, but over the […]

August is when official Washington shuts down and heads off for vacation. Congressmen and senators travel to their districts to politick, especially in these even-numbered years, and presidents travel to their ranches or beach houses or, this year, to the Olympics. But that wasn’t the case during the administration of George H.W. Bush. In fact, it was during these dog days of summer that the elder Bush was busiest. The next president could learn a thing or two from the 41st — about what to do and what not to do. It’s regrettable that Bush’s presidency is usually mentioned in […]

A cool, comforting indigo blue sea laps gently against several kilometers of lonely shoreline. Fig trees and olive groves dot the landscape above a stark white sandy beach where no one treads. In the distance can be heard the faint murmur of a lone car rolling down a craggy, mountainous road. There are still pieces of Turkey’s shoreline that remain undiscovered, but droves of foreigners are fast gobbling it up. The Turkish coastline has witnessed a construction bonanza fueled by moneyed Europeans seeking a relatively affordable place in the sun. Much of Turkey’s once pristine coastline has metamorphosed into a […]

The outbreak of hostilities between Georgia and Russia demonstrates the speed with which Eurasia’s frozen conflicts can rapidly transform into destabilizing shooting wars. Indeed, the fighting in South Ossetia highlights the danger of allowing these conflicts to simmer under the veil of international management. Over the last decade, the United States and international partners failed to directly challenge the logic of Russia’s dual status as both mediator and spoiler in the Georgian peace process. In the current environment, this failure has allowed Moscow to claim the role of peacekeeper as it pursues its own agenda in the Caucasus. For almost […]

The political and historic intricacies of the war raging between Russian and Georgian forces in South Ossetia are rather complicated, but the message fired off by the relentless Russian onslaught is as clearly discernible as the blast of a cannon: The territories of the former Soviet Union will answer to Moscow — whether they want to or not. That smoldering salvo has its intended audience, more than anywhere else, in those former Soviet territories: in lands that include Georgia, of course, but also other former Soviet republics than have worked to moved away from Moscow’s influence. The message is meant […]

Although the precise catalyst for the war between Russia and Georgia is unclear, the escalation was almost inevitable given the years of tension and the diplomatic stalemate over the status of the pro-Russian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as other fundamental issues such as Georgian aspirations to join NATO. The question was always whether Moscow would exploit its local military superiority to compel Georgia’s formal dismemberment or would instead hold the threat of armed interventions in reserve in an attempt to influence Georgian foreign policy without incurring the damage to Russian-Western relations that might ensue from […]

BEIJING — The games of the 29th Olympiad are shaping up as a coming out party for China, a country that seeks to show the world it has arrived as a 21st century power. But China remains a country of contradictions — an ancient culture amid restless ambition to create a modern society, poverty alongside ostentatious wealth, and political repression in parallel with economic openness. On the eve of the opening of the games in Beijing, journalist and photographer Iason Athanasiadis visited Beijing and the northern city of Shenyang. A man walks past Shenyang’s central train station in northern China […]

When the Olympic Games begin in Beijing on Friday, it will be just about impossible to avoid getting caught up in the excitement. The world’s collective eyes will become fixed on Beijing, or rather on television screens beaming images from China’s meticulously organized games. Behind the human drama and dazzling athleticism, however, will continue to loom troubling truths about the Olympics: truths not just about these games, but about the entire exercise, the organization that runs it, and the way the spectacular event has been manipulated over decades for political purposes. The Olympics long ago became the ideal platform for […]

SEOUL, South Korea — Following talks here this week with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, U.S. President George W. Bush said North Korea must do more if it wants to retire its membership in the “axis of evil.” And for the first time during the six-party talks, U.S. diplomacy appears focused on North Korea’s human rights record.Seoul was the first stop of Bush’s last tour of Asia while in the White House. At a press conference following his third meeting with Lee since the conservative South Korean president took office in February, a reporter asked Bush if North Korea still […]