Diplomacy & Politics Archive

I just wanted to add a couple of final thoughts to my post last week on the Libya . . . war. I initially agreed with the Obama administration’s sense that the U.S. participation did not rise to the constitutional threshold of war powers. But just about every online writer whose opinion I respect considers that assessment to be not only unconvincing but ridiculous on its face. That, combined with the fact that we now know the administration arrived at it by cherrypicking its own internal legal advice, makes me realize that I, like the Obama administration, was taking an […]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has represented the face of Iran for the West for more than half a decade, is on his way out of power in Tehran. Whether or not the ayatollahs formally push him out of office is yet to be seen. But for practical purposes, the Ahmadinejad era of the Islamic Republic’s history is coming to an end. Two years ago, during the height of the pro-democracy protests that followed Iran’s presidential elections, most of the country’s most powerful clerics stood steadfastly behind Ahmadinejad. As millions of Iranians took to the streets accusing Ahmadinejad and his […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on rebel groups in Central Africa. Part I examines recent moves toward peace and stability in Chad and the Central African Republic. Part II will examine ongoing instability in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On June 12, the government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and the country’s last major rebel force, the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace, signed a peace agreement. The following day, mediators in Chad reached a peace deal with the Popular Front for Reconstruction, a rebel movement based in the CAR […]

The latest round of U.N.-sponsored talks to resolve the conflict over Western Sahara foundered recently. In an email interview, Yahia H. Zoubir, a professor of international relations and international management and the director of research in geopolitics at Euromed Management in Marseilles, France, discussed the Western Sahara talks. WPR: What are the major issues involved in the Western Sahara conflict? Yahia H. Zoubir: There are two major issues. First is the illegal occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco, which invaded the territory in 1975, despite an opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ had refuted Morocco’s […]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s announcement Monday that he desires a second term as president but won’t run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin should Putin declare his candidacy has inspired heightened speculation over Russia’s unusual power-sharing duo ahead of elections next March. When attempting to understand the Putin-Medvedev dynamic, Ben Judah, a London-based policy fellow and Russia specialist with the European Council on Foreign Relations, says one must take care not to view the two as being in competition with each other. “It shouldn’t be confused as a battle between two rivals,” Judah reminded Trend Lines earlier this week. “The tandem […]

Nationalists and unionists clash in a second night of violence in Northern Ireland.

Sen. John McCain is worried about the direction of U.S. foreign policy, especially within his own party. Some Republican presidential contenders have questioned the nation-building mission in Afghanistan. Others point out that the undeclared war in Libya is neither necessary nor constitutional. “This is isolationism,” an aghast McCain declared on the ABC News program “This Week.” Isolationism? The term “isolationist” is little more than a slur. It essentially means someone who thinks the U.S. should engage in fewer foreign wars than the speaker does. The term emerged in the late-19th century, when it was made popular by the ardent militarist […]

Two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired a parting broadside at the NATO alliance. Gates argued that many European countries have chronically underfunded defense, to the extent that they are now incapable of contributing to the multilateral expeditionary operations that have become part of the alliance’s portfolio. Gates’ exasperation focused mainly on operations in Libya, which have now considerably outlasted expectations and may soon outlast the will and capability of NATO’s European members. It is worth noting, however, that protection of Libyan civilians through airstrikes sits so far outside NATO’s founding purpose that the framers of the 1949 treaty […]

A month after the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden, defense analysts are pointing to a growing collaboration between conventional and irregular forces and are calling for a lighter global military footprint, one based on raiding and strike capability rather than ponderous presence. The newfound enthusiasm for “collaborative warfare” is reviving a concept once thought dead: network-centric warfare (NWC). Paradoxically, NWC has proved itself well-suited to low-intensity operations and the culture of special operations forces, where once it was commonly associated with high-intensity conflict against a peer competitor. But NWC’s low-intensity revival also suggests that it will continue to face […]

Earlier this month, the U.S. Navy forced the M/V Light, a Belize-flagged North Korean vessel en route to Myanmar, to return home, invoking the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), an effort to stop trafficking in nuclear materials. In an email interview, Mark J. Valencia, a senior associate at the Nautilus Institute, discussed the operations and effectiveness of the PSI. WPR: Briefly, how does the Proliferation Security Initiative operate? Mark J. Valencia: The PSI does not create a new legal framework; rather, it uses existing national authorities and international law to achieve its goals. Initially, 11 nations signed on to the “Statement […]

BEIJING — Some China-watchers have argued recently that the rule of law is weakening in the People’s Republic. However, a less-commented-on countertrend is the re-emergence of legal processes inspired by indigenous conventions and traditions such as trial by public opinion. The trend seems to be deepening, reflecting a profound ideological shift in China’s legal approach. Moreover, this shift may help explain China’s more assertive foreign policy over the past 18 months and also has significant implications for the country’s leadership aspirations in Asia and its continued integration in international institutions. Indigenous Chinese legal process adheres to what has been called […]

As tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have crossed into Turkey in recent days, and thousands more have set up camp along the border, questions are mounting over how Turkey and the greater international community should respond. Debate is particularly fervent within the Turkish media, where some reports indicate that Ankara has begun to entertain the possibility of deploying its own military to create a “buffer zone” for refugees within Syrian territory, on the southern side of the Syria-Turkey border. The report was met with skepticism from Henri Barkey, a visiting scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie […]

In his greeting sent to the 16th World Meteorological Congress, which wrapped up in Geneva on June 3, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed proposals on the congress’ agenda that he said (.pdf) would “assist the poorest and most vulnerable countries [to] adapt to inevitable impacts [of climate change].” Ban urged members to “continue [their] work to improve predictions and early warning on impending weather and climate hazards. This issue will only grow in importance.” Indeed, increases in climate variability have negatively affected the economic development and welfare of the least developed nations over the past several decades. For much […]

A corruption scandal rocking one of Argentina’s leading human rights organisation is now tainting the country’s president, Christina Kirchner.

Sudan and Ethiopia recently reached a initial agreement to explore and develop mineral resources along their shared border. In an email interview, David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and a current adjunct professor of international relations at George Washington University, discussed Ethiopia-Sudan relations. WPR: What is the recent history of relations between Ethiopia and Sudan? David Shinn: Ethiopia and Sudan have a long history of alternating periods of conflict and cooperation. Following the outbreak of war between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1998, Ethiopia’s relationship with Sudan shifted from hostile to cordial as Ethiopia sought to ensure peace on […]

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) celebrated its 10th anniversary last week, with the leaders of its six member states gathering in Astana, Kazakhstan, for the occasion. In addition to assessing the achievements of the organization’s first decade, SCO leaders also considered the applications of Pakistan, India, Mongolia and Iran for full membership. There are now increasing indications that India and Pakistan might be admitted, although not before next year. Nevertheless, admission of these two nations could alter the mission and global relevance of the SCO as a regional multilateral organization. The SCO was initially created as a security pact to […]

It is tempting to view the Obama administration’s new cyber strategy as the creation of yet another “conflict domain” to worry about in U.S. national security. Thus, in our enduring habit of piling new fears on top of old ones — nuclear proliferation, terror, rising powers and failed states, among others — we imagine yet another vulnerability/threat/enemy to address with buckets of money. In truth, the strategy document is just our government finally acknowledging that, as usual, any fruitful international dialogue on this subject awaits the first move by the system’s most advanced military power. The same stalemate exists in […]