Diplomacy & Politics Archive

The community of national security experts is consumed with debate on the appropriate size and configuration of the American military. Seldom does a week pass without some new report, commission or conference offering solemn advice on this complex issue. Policy journals and op-ed pages are awash with articles on it. Such vigorous discussion is a good thing, but it may be focused on the wrong issue—ultimately the size of the armed forces matters less than what they are asked to do. There are analysts, though, who are grappling with the type of conflicts the U.S. military may be ordered to […]

On Monday, Afghanistan’s lower house of parliament voted no confidence in Interior Minister Ghulam Mujtaba Patang. The lawmakers advocated his ouster on the basis of, among other things, worsening security on several of the highways that link Kabul to the surrounding provinces. The vote was not terribly noteworthy for the predictable standoff it provoked between parliament and Karzai, who said he’d refer the matter to the Supreme Court for “advice.” As Gran Hewad and his coauthors point out at Afghanistan Analysts Network, Karzai and the legislature have had a testy relationship ever since Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban parliament was elected in […]

In July 2012, amid the euphoria of historic elections, Libya’s future seemed brighter than ever. The polls were Libya’s first democratic elections in more than 52 years, and the promise of Libya’s Arab Spring seemed closer at hand. Many obstacles had been surmounted to demonstrate to the world that the nation could prevail against strong odds. But those obstacles have not for the most part been overcome. One year after the elections and two years after the fall of Tripoli and the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi, Libya’s transition continues to confound and dismay most observers. This is due in part […]

In addition to their growing energy and renewed arms trade, another sign of the strengthening Russia-China relationship was their recently concluded bilateral naval exercise. The drills were larger and more sophisticated than those held last year. But they are still far from establishing a Russia-China capacity for joint maritime combat operations, which does not appear a goal of either government in any case. The active phase of the maneuvers took place July 8-10 in the waters off of Vladivostok. Twelve Russian vessels from the Pacific Fleet participated in this year’s drill, compared to seven warships and support craft in 2012. […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) swept this past weekend’s House of Councillors elections. Although it was unable to secure a two-thirds majority, the LDP won 65 seats of those contested, which, along with the 11 seats gained by its coalition partner the New Komeito, means the ruling party now holds 135 seats in the 242-seat upper house of parliament. This is good news for Abe. With a majority already in the lower house, the LDP win at the polls eliminates Japan’s “twisted Diet” and provides Abe an opportunity to advance his political agenda. Yet Abe should […]

Two and a half years after Tunisia launched the wave of uprisings that spread across the Arab world, the North African country still provides the best hope for the establishment of a sustainable democracy in the region. The development of Tunisia’s transition has been fraught and at times precarious, but at critical moments the country’s political evolution has displayed a self-correcting character. Every time Tunisia has confronted the risk of a breakdown of politics or the fracturing of society, it has managed to pull back from the brink. Tunisia remains dangerously polarized, but the country’s political and social groups have […]

With hopes ranging from better living standards and a more open and fair society, to improved public services and higher levels of security, Yemenis have justifiably high expectations of the country’s National Dialogue Conference, underway since March 18, 2013. The conference, part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plan for the Arab Spring’s only negotiated transition so far, is of great significance not only for Yemen, but also for the wider region and beyond. Making a success of the conference is vital for the continued existence of Yemen as a state—literally, by offering a credible alternative to Southern secessionists, and […]

Meeting in Bremerhaven, Germany, last week, the group of nations charged with regulating Antarctic fishing failed to reach agreement on the establishment of marine protected areas due to Russian objections to the legality of the group’s mandate. In an email interview, Julia Jabour, leader of the Ocean and Antarctic Governance Research Program at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, explained the process leading up to the talks and what the failure of talks means for Antarctic marine protection. WPR: What was the process that led to the talks last week in Bremerhaven? Julia Jabour: […]

Do articles about the United Nations really have to be relentlessly depressing? Over the past six months, this column has dwelt on such bleak topics as the Security Council’s failure to halt the Syrian crisis and the mounting dangers of peacekeeping in trouble-spots like Mali and Lebanon. Yet despite all the bad news, it is arguable that the U.N. has had rather a good year on many other fronts, and focusing solely on its problems is unfair. So this column sets out to celebrate some of the organization’s successes in 2013 so far, and asks whether they might ultimately outweigh […]

After nine months in Havana, Cuba, negotiators are making slow but steady progress toward ending the conflict between Colombia’s government and its largest leftist guerrilla group, the 49-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The talks are now at the second of five agenda points, and a growing segment of public opinion believes that this peace process—the fourth in the past 30 years—may end in an accord. But the FARC are not Colombia’s only leftist guerrilla group with a national presence. The National Liberation Army (ELN), like the FARC, was founded in 1964. The ELN differs from the FARC in […]

With its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, ousted from power in Egypt, Hamas is once again facing a new reality in the Middle East. “Hamas considers itself to be an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood, so any attack or weakening of the Muslim Brotherhood is bound to impact Hamas itself,” said Hisham Ahmed, a professor of politics at St. Mary’s College of California. Hamas, the Palestinian organization that governs the Gaza Strip, saw the election of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi to Egypt’s presidency as a signal of political and ideological support from the largest Arab country in the region. […]

Given the recent prominence in international affairs of seemingly intractable disputes over maritime rights—from the South China Sea to the Arctic to the Eastern Mediterranean—it appears to be an opportune time for a 21st-century version of Otto von Bismarck, the “honest broker,” to convene the next great set of international conferences to settle some of today’s stand-offs. Moreover, since some of the most dangerous flashpoints that could bring major powers to the brink of war, particularly in the Western Pacific, are quite literally little more than rocks, someone with a Bismarckian sense of perspective is sorely needed. After all, as […]

Last month, the European Union renewed the mandate of the European Network and Information Security Agency, its principal cybersecurity agency, giving it expanded responsibilities. In an email interview, Alexander Klimburg, a fellow at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs specializing in cybersecurity as well as EU foreign and security policy, explained the state of EU cyberdefense and its role in EU-U.S. relations. WPR: How is responsibility for cybersecurity divided among EU member states and the institutions of the EU? Alexander Klimburg: In the EU Cyber Security Strategy, published earlier this year, the EU committed itself to all five of the […]

At the heart of the turmoil that continues to afflict Egypt lies the sharp ideological divide that separates liberals and Islamists. But ideology alone—differences of opinion over the role of religion, separation of powers and women’s rights, among other issues—does not explain the extent to which the renewed conflict has engulfed the country. Ideology fires up the most die-hard activists on both sides, but something much more mundane mobilizes the masses: The economy is the thing for all but the most committed. Personal privation—a decrease in living standards that has cut across much of Egyptian society—is what has produced the […]

In May 2010, while the rest of the Western world was busy picking up the pieces from the combined banking and real estate crises, a fiscal crisis hit Greece. The Greek government discovered it was unable to service the country’s soaring public debt, which stood at 129 percent of GDP in 2009. That year, Greece’s budget deficit was 15.6 percent of GDP, while its current account deficit was 15 percent of GDP. Soon the state coffers would be depleted, leaving the 20 percent of the country’s labor force that works in the public sector without compensation and numerous state-owned enterprises, […]

An increasing number of Southern Europeans are leaving their recession-ridden countries in search of work and opportunities in the North, especially in Germany, raising fears that these countries’ problems will be compounded by a brain drain should their economies not improve. Between 2009 and 2011, outflows of people from countries most affected by the crisis, in particular in Southern Europe, rose by 45 percent, according to a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And Germany, with its low rates of overall and youth unemployment—5.3 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively—is a prime destination for this new migration […]

In Mali, a West African country once seen as a model of democracy but now in the midst of an internal conflict, presidential hopefuls are campaigning for July 28 elections that some fear are coming too soon. John Campbell, Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the elections should be postponed, “both because of the inadequacy of the technical preparations for the elections but also the concern that the occasion of the elections raises the possibility of terrorist attacks and very low turnout,” he said. Low turnout might detract from the legitimacy […]