Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Stratfor Vice President of Strategic Intelligence Reva Bhalla explains how the Egyptian political transition is affecting its relationship with Israel. World News Videos by NewsLook

Think tank analyst is one of those jobs that can be hard to explain to friends and relatives. Taken together, Washington’s many international affairs institutes could be described as the American foreign policy “industry.” This industry is sustained by a branch of American philanthropy that takes a keen interest in how the United States carries out its special global role. And the role of the analysts who work in this industry is to scrutinize the myriad official actions of the world’s governments, with an eye not only to explaining them, but to influencing them as well. As a matter of […]

Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. Despite the amplified role of celebrities in global affairs, the notion that celebrities have assumed the role of diplomats is much contested. The classic definition of diplomats as agents of the state and the national interest would appear to exclude celebrities, just as it does all nonstate actors. This restrictive view, however, does not reflect the degree to which at least some top-tier celebrities have gained recognition as actors with an elevated […]

The United States military is expanding its secret intelligence operations across the African continent, according to an article in the Washington Post. The article explains that close to a dozen air bases have been set up over the past five years. The aircraft that fly in and out of these air bases are equipped with surveillance equipment and disguised as private planes. These operations will only intensify as the U.S. continues to fight a “growing shadow war” against militants in the region. Describing how the United States Africa Command, or Africom, has grown in size and scope in recent years, […]

Mauritania, and its periodic bouts of political instability, has important implications for the trajectory of secret U.S. military operations in Africa, as a recent article by Craig Whitlock in the Washington Post shows. American spy planes have flown out of Mauritania on and off for several years, but politics has sometimes constrained America’s role there. In 2008, for instance, a coup in Mauritania “forced Washington to suspend relations and end the surveillance,” Whitlock writes. Today, Mauritania’s potential significance to the U.S. military is increasing. In neighboring Mali, torn apart by a civil war since January, the Islamist group Ansar al […]

Nobody can predict how the coming week will unfold in the aftermath of Greece’s parliamentary elections. Nervousness in politics and markets has been increasing, and a Greek exit from the euro can no longer be excluded as a last resort. One thing is certain, however: Germany — the biggest contributor to the European Union’s rescue umbrella (the European Stability Mechanism) and thus the Greek debt — is losing patience. Germany is increasingly turning a deaf ear to calls that it do more, more quickly, to save the euro. This is especially the case for calls coming from London and Washington, […]

France’s Socialist Party has won a majority in parliamentary run-off elections, while the far-right Front National secured its first seats since 1980s. World News Videos by NewsLook

Speaking at the Naval War College’s Current Strategy Forum this week, Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group and author of the recently published “Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World,” argued that we are living through a period of “creative destruction” of the post-World War II global architecture. The problem, however, is that no single state currently possess the necessary preponderance of resources to be able to construct a new global system, as the U.S. was able to do in the aftermath of World War II. This is not to argue that the United States […]

The European Union decided earlier this month to reduce the size of the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) by 25-30 percent, while extending its mandate. In an email interview, Vedran Dzihic, a fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, discussed the future of EULEX. WPR: What was the original size and scope of EULEX? Vedran Dzihic: According to the EU Council’s decision of Feb. 4, 2008, EULEX was originally designed to “monitor, mentor and advise” Kosovar institutions on all areas related to the wider rule of law. […]

China has taken an atypically strong stand in opposing efforts to force the Syrian government to end its brutal repression of anti-regime protesters. But China, unlike Russia, with which it has joined to block measures seeking to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from office, is motivated primarily by principles rather than concrete strategic and economic interests in Syria. And China, unlike Russia, seems more open to changing its position. For the past two decades, Chinese leaders have typically opposed foreign military interventions seeking regime change. The Chinese government has traditionally sought to keep United Nations resolutions precisely worded to tightly […]

For the revolutionaries who launched the Egyptian uprising, and for voters anxious about their country’s future, the final hours leading up to this weekend’s runoff presidential election in Egypt have become a contest of fears. The euphoria of revolution, that feeling that anything was possible, has been replaced by a searing pressure: the need to decide which is the worse of two bad options. The first round of voting left Egyptians with the choice of Mohammed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ahmed Shafiq, a former general who played an important role in the regime that revolutionaries sought […]

The president of Cyprus and the head of the country’s central bank acknowledged earlier this month that Cyprus may need to seek a bailout from the European Union’s European Stability Fund due to Cypriot banks’ exposure to the Greek crisis. In an email interview, Farid Mirbagheri, a professor of international relations at the University of Nicosia, discussed Cyprus’ position in the European debt crisis. WPR: What are the scope and causes of Cyprus’ current economic difficulties? Farid Mirbagheri: The main issue has been exposure to the Greek crisis. Cypriot banks hold around €5 billion ($6.2 billion) of Greek sovereign debt […]

Fighting between Muslim and Buddhist mobs broke out in Myanmar’s coastal state of Rakhine over the weekend, with the violence between minority Rohingya Muslims and majority Rakhine Buddhists set off by the rape and murder of an ethnic Rakhine woman and the revenge attacks that followed. The unrest, which included arson, rioting and the killing of about 25 people, reveals some of the deep-rooted ethnic and religious tensions in the country, which has only recently begun to open up after decades of isolation and military rule. Jason Abbott, Aung San Suu Kyi Endowed Chair at the University of Louisville’s Center […]

Egypt and Libya are working to establish a joint venture to allow fishing in Libyan waters following a bilateral meeting in Cairo last month. In an email interview, Izzat Feidi, a fisheries consultant, discussed regional cooperation on fishing issues in North Africa. WPR: How strong is intraregional cooperation within North Africa on fisheries issues, and what are the main points of conflict? Izzat Feidi: Before the Arab Spring, intraregional cooperation among the six countries of North Africa faced several political and economic problems, mostly on a bilateral basis. Fisheries did not comprise a major point of conflict, though, beyond mainly […]

A few weeks ago, when I started this series of columns on the perils of the special operationalization of U.S. national security policy, I briefly argued that U.S. special operations forces are often not as good as they or their commanders believe them to be. I worried about a young Special Forces officer with six months of Arabic convincing himself he was “Sir Richard Burton in a green beret.” Some of my friends in the U.S. Army Special Forces demanded to know why I was picking on them, while others suggested my own service in the 75th Ranger Regiment explained […]

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has enjoyed a smooth ride since her inauguration in January 2011. Despite a series of corruption scandals that led to the resignation of seven of her cabinet members, she has suffered no real political damage after 18 months in office. But a flagging economy and a related crisis roiling small and medium-sized Brazilian banks could pose the greatest threat yet to her leadership. Rousseff’s Worker’s Party isn’t accustomed to operating under the politically corrosive effects of protracted economic troubles. Brazil’s economy, Latin America’s largest, has thrived under the party’s stewardship, recovering quickly from the financial crisis […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed on Tuesday not to let Russia be weakened by social shocks as tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Moscow to protest his historic third term. World News Videos by NewsLook