Diplomacy & Politics Archive

As China attempts to assert maritime claims against neighboring Vietnam, Vietnam in turn has been expanding its navy and courting new allies, such as India. In an email interview, Abhijit Singh, a research fellow at India’s Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, discusses the capabilities of the Vietnamese navy, known as the Vietnam People’s Navy. WPR: What is Vietnam’s naval capacity, and how operationally prepared is its navy? Abhijit Singh: Vietnam’s navy has modernized from a small coastal patrol force with limited capacity in the 1980s into a seagoing, fairly competent, combat-worthy navy. Equipped with old Soviet-era hardware and an […]

Whenever a U.S. president’s party experiences major losses during a midterm congressional election, there is always pressure to fire members of his team. In this particular cycle, pundits have urged President Barack Obama to consider replacing his national security adviser, Susan Rice, and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, among others, as part of an effort to change course and find a new direction for his last two years in office. But staffing questions do not lie at the heart of the Obama administration’s problems. Rather, the administration has fallen short in its ability to define U.S. strategic priorities and to […]

When the European Space Agency (ESA) successfully landed the spacecraft Philae on a comet last week, it accomplished something once thought to be the sole purview of the superpowers. In truth, the ESA—a consortium of 20 formal members—highlights a well-established and accelerating trend: Whereas space was once beyond the reach of all but the United States and the Soviet Union, recent decades have witnessed the spread and maturing capabilities of new space powers around the world. While the United States has reasons to be concerned with that shift related to national security, it also has cause to celebrate, as promoting […]

This year, while the eurozone’s economy is grinding to a halt, the Greek economy may be able to grow by 0.6 percent, after six years in a row of recession. Greece follows the example of other countries of Europe’s periphery, such as Portugal and Spain, which after several years of recession are at last experiencing slim growth. Having almost defaulted on its sovereign debt in 2010, Greece has been bailed out through an economic adjustment program, the implementation of which is still closely monitored by the so-called troika of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission (EC) and the […]

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel recently announced a pair of important initiatives, one to restore the Defense Department’s troubled nuclear enterprise to health and another to spur innovation within the department. The two initiatives are necessary, if incomplete, but achieving both goals will difficult. Hagel’s proposed overhaul of the Defense Department’s management of its nuclear weapons enterprise is long overdue. The U.S. nuclear command’s core components, besides the actual warheads, include the Air Force’s nuclear-capable bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and the Navy’s ballistic missile submarines as well as the supporting infrastructure for the entire system. It also […]

Having returned political stability to Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe today called snap elections for next month to secure a verdict on his already implemented economic policies, dubbed “Abenomics,” as well as a mandate to continue applying his strategies to expand the economy. The general elections, scheduled for mid-December, will come roughly two years after Abe was elected in a sweeping victory in December 2012. His current tenure, Abe’s second as prime minister, has been defined mainly by his efforts to jumpstart Japan’s long-beleaguered economy, focusing on a “three-arrow approach” to restore growth and confidence through increased stimulus, quantitative easing […]

Is the United Nations heading for another diplomatic humiliation in Syria? Over the past week, analysts have been picking over a proposal by the organization’s envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to initiate a series of local cease-fires between the Syrian government and at least some rebel groups, beginning in the embattled city of Aleppo. In a best-case scenario, these “incremental freeze zones” could coagulate into a wider cessation of hostilities, allowing all parties to focus on the main fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS). The plan has received some slight encouragement from the Syrian regime and a great deal of […]

Despite a cease-fire in July and a United Nations mission in September that raised hopes of restoring order, the crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) flared up again last month. The conflict originated with the rise of the Seleka, a predominantly Muslim insurgency that launched in December 2012 and overthrew CAR’s President Francois Bozize in March 2013, a decade after Bozize took power in a military coup. After presiding over mass violence and internal displacement, Seleka leader Michel Djotodia was forced to resign from the presidency in January 2014 at a regional summit in Chad. But interim President Catherine […]

Romanians vote Sunday for a new president after a tumultuous 10 years under incumbent Traian Basescu, who oversaw both European Union accession and an economic boom followed by a crisis, and has survived two attempts at impeachment. Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who heads the ex-Communist Social Democratic Party (PSD), is widely expected to win the vote, but he has faced a closer race than anticipated against liberal rival Klaus Iohannis. Ponta has been a controversial premier, criticized by both the EU and the U.S. for measures seen as undermining independent institutions after he came to power via a parliamentary coup […]

In recent years, Chad has begun to emerge as a regional leader in Africa, playing a role in the 2012-2013 Mali conflict, contributing to the overthrow of President Francois Bozize in the Central African Republic and forming a significant military partnership with France in 2014. However, these signs of power mask an ongoing political stagnation in Chad and the failure of the government to make any serious improvements in living conditions for the vast majority of the population. Frustrations with how oil money has failed to deliver economic development, along with power struggles at the heart of the Chadian government, […]

Yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Myanmar, where he will attend the East Asia Summit and the U.S.-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit as well as meet with national leaders. The visit comes less than two years after Obama’s first to the Southeast Asian nation, which was also the first ever by a sitting U.S. president. Obama’s 2012 Myanmar trip was “a symbolic visit to reinforce the message that reform needs to be consolidated. It is a mark of appreciation, a reward if you like, and at the same time it is a measure to press for further […]

Last week, Morocco announced that it would increase intelligence and military support to the United Arab Emirates, ramping up its involvement in the coalition against the so-called Islamic State (IS). This should come as no surprise, as Morocco has been the target of threats by IS, and is also keen to maintain its position as a reliable Arab partner and funding recipient for the United States and Gulf powers against terrorism. Morocco is technically part of the 60-nation U.S.-led coalition against IS, but is listed with the likes of Tunisia, Portugal, Mexico and others as having an unspecified commitment. Beyond […]

One look at a map of the Middle East shows why Yemen, a small country bereft of wealth or natural resources, has the potential to create serious problems not just for its neighbors but also for the global economy. Tiny, impoverished and turbulent, Yemen has escaped the spotlight mostly because the troubles in other parts of the region look more acute and more urgent. That, however, is likely to change. Over the past couple of months, the ground in that arid strip on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula has shifted. In domestic terms, what has unfolded is a sudden […]

Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos has announced that he will visit Turkey later this month. That comes after Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades suspended peace talks with northern Cyprus last month when Turkey declared plans to search for oil and gas off the southern coast of the island. The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 between the predominantly Greek Cypriot south and mainly Turkish north. Only Turkey recognizes the latter as an independent country. The United Nations has maintained a peacekeeping force in Cyprus since 1964, the longest-running U.N. peacekeeping operation in existence. There was optimism for a long-sought […]

It was the poll that sent shockwaves through the nation. On Nov. 2, El Pais, Spain’s newspaper of record, unveiled what it called a “political earthquake.” Polling data suggested that Podemos, a left-wing party organized only in January of this year, was poised to win the 2015 national elections, besting the ruling, conservative Popular Party (PP), which enjoys a clear majority of seats in the Spanish parliament, and the leading opposition party, the venerable Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), which last governed from 2004 to 2011. The poll showed that support for Podemos grew from 13.8 percent in October to 27.7 […]

Inside the United States, supporters of President Barack Obama have all sorts of explanations for the defeat handed the Democratic Party in last week’s midterm elections, which not only increased the Republican majority in the House of Representatives but also gave the GOP control of the Senate. Democrats’ failure to mobilize their traditional voters to turn out at the polls; accusations of voter-suppression techniques, which disproportionally impact those more likely to cast ballots for the Democratic Party; and the Republicans’ successful efforts at playing up anxieties about the economy, Ebola and the so-called Islamic State (IS) have all been put […]

Last week, Lt. Gen. Rizwan Akhtar took over as head of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In an email interview, Frederic Grare, senior associate and director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s South Asia program, discussed the evolution of ISI. WPR: How have ISI’s strategic priorities changed over the past decade as a result of the changing security and political realities in Afghanistan and India? Frederic Grare: This kind of question is difficult to answer for two reasons: The internal functions of intelligence systems around the world are opaque by necessity, and the ISI is no exception; and […]