A Russian SU-24 jet making a close-range, low altitude pass near the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea, April 12, 2016 (U.S. Navy photo via AP).

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles inviting authors to identify the biggest priority—whether a threat, risk, opportunity or challenge—facing the international order and U.S. foreign policy today. A war between Russia and the United States is more likely today than at any time since the worst years of the Cold War. This may sound implausible or exaggerated to policymakers, journalists and the wider public. Yet the fact remains that increasing deployments by both sides, coupled with severely constrained direct dialogue, mean that dangerous incidents will become far more likely and will be far harder to […]

Mogens Lykketoft, president of the U.N. General Assembly, hosting the first-ever televised live debate with Secretary-General candidates, New York, July 12, 2016 (U.N. photo by Evan Schneider).

Anyone who claims that they know who will be running the United Nations one year from now is a clairvoyant, a fantasist or a liar. The race to replace Ban Ki-moon as secretary-general jolted into life last Thursday, as the Security Council conducted a straw poll on current candidates. The results are open to multiple interpretations. It is possible to argue that the council will select a charismatic politician to replace the underwhelming Ban. But it is equally arguable that it is on track to choose a dull, male leader despite the presence of impressive female candidates. One likely, but […]

U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Neito at the North America Leaders' Summit, Ottawa, June 29, 2016 (AP photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais).

In late June, the Canadian government announced the lifting of visa requirements for Mexican visitors starting Dec. 1, one of several measures that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hopes will improve ties with Mexico. In an email interview, Laura Macdonald, a professor of political science at Carleton University, discussed Canada’s ties with Latin America. WPR: How extensive are Canada’s diplomatic and economic ties across Latin America, and who are its main partners in the region? Laura Macdonald: The United States is by far Canada’s most important economic, political and military partner in the world. However, the stagnation of the U.S. and […]

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, third left, visits the Hemeimeem air base, Syria, June 18, 2016 (Russian Defense Ministry photo by Vadim Savitsky via AP).

While the world focuses on the so-called Islamic State, the other main jihadi group in Syria—the one still affiliated with al-Qaida—has been biding its time. The Nusra Front has extended its footprint in northwestern Syria as the civil war has dragged on, embedding itself in the patchwork of rebel groups there and, more recently, dreaming of a statelet of its own. The Obama administration, apparently alarmed at those prospects, is now moving to work more closely with Russia to attack the Nusra Front. In a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama discussed […]

More than 100,000 Venezuelans cross the Simon Bolivar bridge to buy basic goods, San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela, July 17, 2016 (AP photo by Ariana Cubillos).

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the fallout from the attempted coup in Turkey and political turmoil in Zimbabwe. For the Report, David Smilde discusses Venezuela’s ongoing political and economic crisis and how it could affect Colombia’s peace process with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: With Friends Like Turkey, the U.S. Needs Russia in Syria Failed Coup Is a Victory for Erdogan, but Not for Turkey’s Democracy Erdogan’s Post-Coup Purge Puts a Chill on U.S.-Turkey Ties As Turmoil Sparks the […]

African Union headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Dec. 8, 2013 (Photo by Albert González Farran, UNAMID, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

The African Union held its 27th summit in Kigali, Rwanda, earlier this week, where it had planned to elect a new chairperson of the African Union Commission, the executive office of the AU. But in Kigali, all three candidates fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to secure the position. As a result, attendees agreed to extend the tenure of the current chairperson, South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, by six months. The postponement of the elections reveals the complexities of regional politics in Africa, but also indicates some continent-wide uncertainty about the role and direction of the AU. Three candidates […]

Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention, Cleveland, July 21, 2016 (AP photo by Carolyn Kaster).

Despite a historically unprecedented degree of national security, many Americans are worried about defeat at the hands of a motley group of violent extremists, particularly the so-called Islamic State. This climate of fear has been building steadily since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, which taught many political leaders as well as much of the military and intelligence community that it was safer to overinflate threats than to underestimate them. People are rarely ever held accountable for dire warnings that prove to be wrong, but they often are for failing to prevent an attack. The result, as Michael Cohen […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with U.S. President Barack Obama during a session of the G-20 Summit, Antalya, Turkey, Nov. 15, 2015 (AP photo via Anadolu Agency).

A military coup against a democratically elected government constitutes a blatant affront against democracy. And yet, as Ellen Laipson pointed out in her WPR column earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s defeat of an attempted coup on July 15 does not herald a strengthening of Turkey’s democracy. In fact, all signs point to an acceleration of his push toward autocratic rule. Given Erdogan’s countercoup moves—which so far appear to include demolishing limitations on his growing, if still not constitutionally sanctioned, executive power—one increasingly important question looms: What does the future hold for the pivotal relationship between the United […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a TV interview at his party headquarters, Tokyo, July 10, 2016 (AP photo by Shizuo Kambayashi).

Earlier this month, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) marched to an unsurprising, if not significant, election victory in the upper house of Japan’s parliament, the Diet. The LDP and its coalition partner, the Komeito Party, scored 70 of the House of Councilors’ 121 contested seats and now control a combined 146 of its 242 seats overall. Their victory, coupled with the LDP-Komeito coalition’s significant majority in the Diet’s lower house, ensures that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have firm legislative control at least until the fall of 2018, when his term as president of the LDP is set […]

Protesters hold banners during a demonstration against domestic violence, London, U.K., March 5, 2013 (AP photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth).

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the status of women’s rights and gender equality in various countries around the globe. Theresa May became the second-ever female prime minister of the U.K. earlier this month, but a speech she gave in 2013 calling for the Human Rights Act to be scrapped has many wondering how women’s rights might change under her leadership. In an email interview, Andrea den Boer, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent, discusses the state of women’s rights in the U.K. WPR: What is the current status of women’s rights […]

A Syrian woman fries eggs in front of her tent at Ritsona refugee camp, Greece, July 14, 2016 (AP photo by Petros Giannakouris).

Hungarian President Viktor Orban announced in early July that Hungary would hold a referendum in October on the European Union’s plan to redistribute 120,000 refugees from Greece and Italy throughout the union through a quota system. Orban, who has clashed with EU leaders in Brussels since he came to power in 2010, has been a vocal critic of the EU’s response to the migrant and refugee crisis since its onset. Hungary was the first country to close its borders to migrants and refugees at the height of the influx, and the planned referendum is his latest rebuke of EU policy. […]

The SAC-D Aquarius satellite developed by the Argentine space agency, CONAE, Rio Negro, Argentina, April 12, 2010 (Argentine Foregin Ministry photo).

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on a range of countries’ space priorities and programs. According to reports last month, Argentina is planning to increase its annual space program budget to $180 million through 2027 in order to develop and launch low-orbit satellites used for earth observation. In an email interview, Pablo de León, an associate professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota, discusses Argentina’s space program. WPR: What are Argentina’s space capabilities, in terms of its domestic public and private space-industrial complex, and who are its major international […]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, at a ceremony marking the national day of nuclear technology, Tehran, April 7, 2016 (Iranian Presidency Office via AP).

July 14 was the first anniversary of the historic nuclear accord between Iran and the group of world powers known as the P5+1—the U.S., China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and Germany. For the first time, the deal put in place significant curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from crippling international sanctions. The deal, and its subsequent implementation so far, have been hailed by a wide number of national security luminaries, nuclear nonproliferation analysts and the vast majority of the global community. But opposition to it, particularly among foreign policy hawks in the United States, Israel and […]

Family members, colleagues and friends of the victims of the terrorist attack gather for a memorial ceremony at the Ataturk Airport, Istanbul, June 30, 2016 (AP photo by Emrah Gurel).

Over the past several weeks a new theme about America and the world has emerged: Everything, everywhere, is coming apart. Multiple terrorist attacks in France compete for headlines against a daily drumbeat of bombings claimed by the so-called Islamic State in Turkey, Iraq and Bangladesh. A failed military coup has raised questions about Turkey’s democratic credentials and stability. And in the United States, a race-baiting populist has just become the Republican presidential nominee, at a time when it seems to be open season on black men and police officers in the streets of America’s cities. For someone like me, who […]

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC commander Timoleon Jimenez at the signing ceremony of a cease-fire and rebel disarmament deal, Havana, Cuba, June 23, 2016 (AP photo by Desmond Boylan).

On June 23, the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States discussed OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro’s report invoking the group’s Democratic Charter against Venezuela. Almagro’s report underlined not only Venezuela’s democratic deficits—including the lack of separation of powers, the jailing of political opponents, and the crackdown on protest—but also scarcities of food and medicine, inflation, and dramatic rates of crime and violence. At the very same time, 1,800 miles to the south, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Leon Echeveri, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), signed a historic cease-fire agreement calling for an […]

People gather at a new memorial in a seaside park on the Promenade des Anglais, Nice, France, July 18, 2016 (AP photo by Claude Paris).

The July 14 massacre in Nice, in which a Tunisian-born man living in France, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, drove a truck through densely packed crowds celebrating Bastille Day along the waterfront, came just one week after a parliamentary committee called for an overhaul of the French intelligence services. That call followed an investigation by a nonpartisan parliamentary commission into the response to the two attacks France suffered in 2015: first at the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket that killed 17 in January; and subsequently at a number of sites in and around Paris, including the Bataclan […]

Peacekeepers of the U.N. Mission in Liberia’s Ghanaian battalion participate in a medal parade, Buchanan, Liberia, Nov. 16, 2012 (U.N. photo by Staton Winter).

Earlier this month, the United Nations Mission in Liberia, or UNMIL, ended its security mandate and handed over security responsibilities to the Liberian government. In an email interview, Brooks Marmon, a program officer with Accountability Lab in Monrovia, Liberia, discusses the security situation in Liberia. WPR: How stable is the security situation in Liberia, and what are the current threats to stability? Brooks Marmon: The security situation is characterized by volatility, but the government generally appears to have the ability to keep any threats from escalating to the highest levels. The greatest threat appears to emanate from sporadic cases of […]

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