Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Africa’s longest-serving head of state, appears poised to formally extend his rule over oil-rich Equatorial Guinea later this year. The septuagenarian strongman has confirmed his intention to run in November’s presidential election, a contest no one expects him to lose, since the political opposition is marginalized and the state is firmly under the control of Obiang and his family. Though the election results already look certain, volatile energy revenues and Obiang’s ongoing efforts to position his son as the heir apparent threaten to jeopardize the regime’s future stability. The oil slump undermines Obiang’s long-established strategy of […]

Gui Minhai, by most accounts, appeared quite happy with his life as a writer and editor in Pattaya, a seedy seaside resort east of Bangkok. Born in China and holding a Swedish passport, he had been living in a condo and working on books for Mighty Current, a Hong Kong-based publishing house he founded that specialized in steamy—and possibly untrue—tell-alls about the private lives and political in-fighting of leaders of China’s Communist Party. He swam daily and apparently wrote at a desk overlooking the blue-green Gulf of Thailand. Then, last November, Gui suddenly vanished. Closed-circuit television recordings from his condo […]

When Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, presented a serious proposal to foreign bondholders last week, he took one more step along a path that leads away from the country’s dozen years of leftist populism at the hands of former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her predecessor and late husband, Nestor Kirchner. In fact, Macri’s offer to creditors, whatever its ultimate fate, represents a blow to the very structure of Kirchnerismo, whose economic and foreign policies he is dismantling with breathtaking speed. Macri’s election in 2015, as is now evident, follows a global trend of dissatisfaction that favors candidates from outside […]

It appears increasingly likely that U.S. military involvement against the self-declared Islamic State’s growing foothold in Libya is a matter not of “if,” but of “when.” Over the past several months, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has taken advantage of the ongoing civil war in Libya and the lack of a central government to expand its operations there. The group now controls the city of Sirte and, according to recent U.S intelligence estimates, has more than 5,000 fighters in the country, some of whom have been sent from Iraq and Syria to provide guidance but also to keep […]

Depending on whom you talk to and what month it is, the United States and the European Union are either on the brink of a digital trade war or reaching a historic e-commerce deal. EU-U.S. cooperation over the trans-Atlantic digital economy seemed to first fall apart in October 2015, when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struck down a critical data-sharing deal known as the Safe Harbor Agreement. In doing so, Europe’s highest court put major companies such as Facebook and IBM at risk of breaching EU privacy law by simply conducting their day-to-day business operations. National data-privacy authorities have […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the potential impact on members’ economies. To be included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was formally signed last week and now faces national ratification among member states, Vietnam accepted a side agreement outlining various compliance measures for the deal’s labor rights standards. In an email interview, Adam Fforde, professorial fellow at Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, in Melbourne, Australia, discusses the TPP’s likely impact on Vietnam’s political economy. WPR: What are the expected economic benefits for Vietnam from the TPP, and […]

British Prime Minister David Cameron has been on an offensive since the Paris attacks in November to counter any perception that the United Kingdom is shrinking in its international ambitions. Central to his position is an unambiguous commitment to maintain a U.K. defense budget of 2 percent of GDP and direct new spending to counter the threat of the self-proclaimed Islamic State. However, uncertainty over the U.K.’s relations with the European Union, with a British vote on whether or not to stay in the union expected this June, could derail his campaign. Cameron committed an additional 12 billion pounds (about […]

This week, world leaders are gathering in Dubai for the fourth World Government Summit. It’s a bit surreal to talk about world government these days, given the recent setback to the United Nations’ efforts to get Syria peace talks off the ground, and the undeniable failures of governments across the Arab world to provide stability and a modicum of freedom to their citizens. Clearly, too, the summit is part of the United Arab Emirates’ relentless pursuit of its global brand. But it is also about the UAE’s desire to set a more positive agenda for the Arab world. The gathering […]

Editor’s note: This article is one of three briefings on China’s rise and its implications for U.S. regional and global interests, coinciding with an upcoming panel, in collaboration with WPR, at the St. Petersburg Conference on World Affairs on Feb. 17-19 in St. Petersburg, Florida. The second, on China’s naval modernization, will appear Wednesday; the third, on China’s cyber strategy, will appear Friday. Over the course of the past decade, China has been steadily laying the foundation of an international financial and monetary system centered on the yuan. While progress was initially slow, it picked up considerable steam in the […]

Is it time for Ban Ki-moon to quit? This is not an obvious moment for United Nations secretary-general to do so. His second term is set to finish at the end of this year anyway. The race to replace him is heating up, with a posse of politicians from Eastern Europe jostling for the lead. Ban is not very secretly planning to run for the presidency of South Korea next year, and there has been speculation that he could leave New York early to campaign. But for now, U.N. officials and diplomats seem to think he’ll last the course. Having […]

U.S. President Barack Obama’s commitment to preventing and rolling back the spread of nuclear weapons was clear from the first days of his administration, when he pledged in Prague in April 2009 “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” The historic vow shattered precedent, seized international attention and helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize later that year. Yet as he prepares to leave office seven years later, it appears that with the exception of a fledgling nuclear deal with Iran, Obama will leave an arms control legacy that is arguably little better than that […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR Editor-in-Chief Judah Grunstein and host Peter Dörrie discuss the impact of El Niño on South America, Iran’s economy after the end of sanctions, recent elections in Taiwan and upcoming elections in Uganda. For the report, we are joined by Miles Kahler, senior fellow for global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations, who explains the increasing influence of emerging economies on the international stage. Listen: Download: MP3 Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: El Niño Tests Latin America’s Ability to Adapt to Climate Risks After Sanctions, Rouhani’s Economic Agenda Faces Challenges […]

PHNOM PENH—Conservative forces have strengthened their grip in Vietnam after the ruling Communist Party, late last month, elected its incumbent general-secretary to a second five-year term in the country’s top political office. Analysts say the reappointment of Nguyen Phu Trong, 71, will put a brake on political and economic reforms, but it is unlikely to significantly alter the balance of the country’s crucial relationships with China and the United States. The decision also spelled an end to the ambitions of the reformist Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who mounted a short-lived challenge for the Community Party’s top post before its […]

The 2016 presidential campaign has not yet reached peak intensity, but one thing is already clear: The American public is angry and dissatisfied. As Marc Thiessen wrote in the Washington Post, the big loser in this week’s Iowa caucuses was the political establishment. But although signs of unease in the electorate are stark, it is not yet clear how far this will go. While most of the anger and dissatisfaction focuses on domestic issues, it is also spilling over to national security policy. Support is weakening for the foundational ideas of American strategy that emerged after the 9/11 attacks. As […]

On the morning of Jan. 14, a series of explosions and gunfire rocked the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, killing eight people and injuring dozens. The attacks, which were claimed by affiliates of the self-described Islamic State, have led the government of President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, to ramp up counterterrorism efforts across Indonesia. While the Jakarta attacks made headlines all over the world, Indonesian authorities and experts have long noted the rising terrorism threat in the world’s most populous Muslim nation. Several groups have been operating in the country, including one based in central Java with ties to […]

Although its previously explosive economic growth has slowed, China’s growing geopolitical clout continues to reshape the balance of power, regionally and beyond. From its relations with the U.S. and its aggressive actions in the South China Sea, to its regional foreign policy and economic prospects, China remains a mixed bag of promise, risk and uncertainty. The following articles are free for non-subscribers until Feb. 18. Testing Time for U.S.-China Ties Xi’s Visit Exposes Mismatch in U.S. and Chinese Expectations Following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington last September, Timothy R. Heath wrote that incremental progress in relations has “been […]

The Zanzibar Electoral Commission recently announced that the Tanzanian island’s local presidential election will be rerun on March 20, after having annulled the results of an October ballot that many believed was won by the opposition Civic United Front (CUF). In an email interview, Michael Jennings, senior lecturer in the department of development studies at SOAS, University of London, discusses Zanzibar’s election crisis. WPR: Why were the results of October’s regional presidential election in Zanzibar canceled, and what is at stake in the standoff over the recently announced new elections? Michael Jennings: Officially the results of the elections on Zanzibar […]