Diplomacy & Politics Archive

CHISINAU, Moldova—Most headlines about Moldova would have you believe this former Soviet republic of 3.5 million people is torn between East and West, the impoverished victim of a battle for influence on the European Union’s doorstep that pits Brussels against Moscow. To be sure, geopolitics is a major part of the picture. The two candidates in the ongoing presidential election here prove it: Igor Dodon, a pro-Russian socialist, says he wants to see Moldova’s hard-fought Association Agreement with the EU torn up, while Harvard-trained economist Maia Sandu pledges to support the country’s pro-European course. Since neither secured a majority in […]

As the U.S. presidential campaign finally wraps up, the Middle East is taking away some very negative messages about American culture that will diminish America’s ability to be a model for good governance and to influence outcomes in the region. Iran’s media has even used a broadcast of the U.S. presidential debates to validate the regime narrative of America’s corruption and weak moral values, and Iran’s own preference for strict religious codes of conduct. But Arab states working to avoid extremism and authoritarianism still seek virtue in the American experience, even if they are not yet ready to embrace democracy […]

Jacob Berry is searching for any sign he can return to the home in Darfur he fled 13 years ago. In 2003, near the outset of the ongoing conflict in Darfur, a Khartoum-backed militia attacked Berry’s village. In their efforts to root out a rebel movement, government troops and state-supported fighters have committed countless targeted atrocities against civilians, and Berry’s village was not spared. Houses were set alight, residents scattered, and an unknown number of people killed, including his father and brother. Berry, then 15, fled all the way to Libya’s Mediterranean coast, before boarding a boat for Alexandria, Egypt. […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on a range of countries’ space priorities and programs. The Canadian Space Agency and the University of Calgary recently announced plans to study how long-duration space missions affect astronauts’ brains, starting in 2018. In an email interview, Charity Weeden, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, discusses Canada’s space program. WPR: What are Canada’s space capabilities, in terms of its domestic public and private space-industrial complex, and who are its major international partners, in terms of space diplomacy and commercial ties? Charity Weeden: Canada has a 54-year history […]

When French authorities dismantled the migrant camp in Calais known as the Jungle in late October, many asked what would happen to the encampment’s 9,000 residents. The answer was not long in coming: Rather than relocating to government-run shelters, many simply swelled the ranks of France’s other migrant encampments that had until now escaped the glare of international press coverage. Calais is far from being the only site of France’s migrant crisis. Since June 2015, French police have demolished some 30 makeshift encampments—home to thousands of migrants, primarily from Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Sudan—in Paris. But the crisis worsened following the […]

Voting has finally begun for the upper and lower houses of Somalia’s Federal Parliament after several delays. While both houses are due to elect a new president on Nov. 30, security and logistical challenges mean the presidential election is also likely to be postponed. In an email interview, Kenneth Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College, discusses Somalia’s elections. WPR: How are Somalia’s elections structured, in terms of eligible voters, candidates, political parties and affiliation, and what are the major blocs or factions contesting the election? Kenneth Menkhaus: Somalia’s current elections are most accurately described as a form of indirect consociational […]

Russia is planning to confront the next U.S. president with the dilemma of how to manage a bloody defeat in Syria on his or her first day in office: As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hurtle around America looking for last-minute votes, Moscow has been positioning its forces for a final assault on Aleppo. Despite pushes by rebel forces to gain ground, there is a very high chance that the Russians and their Syrians allies will secure total control of the city before the next president’s inauguration. Moscow is likely to dismiss residual efforts by the Obama administration, and other […]

In Istanbul last month, Turkey and Russia signed a strategic agreement for a stalled gas pipeline known as Turkish Stream. Running under the Black Sea to Turkey and then on to Greece, the pipeline would offer Russia a way to sell gas to Europe that bypasses existing pipelines in Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine. The Turkish Stream agreement seems like the culmination of a Turkish-Russian rapprochement that has been underway since the spring, as both countries tried to repair relations after Turkey downed a Russian fighter along the Syrian border nearly a year ago. First proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin […]

After more than 18 months of following a heated campaign, Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to elect the next president of the United States. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton faces Republican nominee Donald Trump in a race that polls show is closer than many expected. This compilation of WPR’s analysis looks at what’s at stake in the election and what a Trump or Clinton presidency would mean for U.S. foreign policy. The following seven articles are free to nonsubscribers until Nov. 18. The Foreign Policy Debate That Wasn’t The Populist Revolt That Propelled Trump Won’t Fade Away If He […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the African exodus from the International Criminal Court, Japan’s relationship with the Philippines, and the U.S. presidential election. For the Report, Sarah Kendzior joins Peter Dörrie to talk about Uzbekistan after the death of President Islam Karimov. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: An African Exodus From the ICC Shows How the Court Sealed Its Own Fate Can Japan Play the Mediator Amid Strained U.S.-Philippine Ties? The Populist Revolt That Propelled Trump Won’t Fade Away If He Loses The Death of […]

When Tunisians overthrew dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, they kicked off a wave of popular uprisings throughout the Middle East and spurred a jubilant sense of unity at home. But for champions of women’s rights in the country, that jubilation was soon replaced by a sense of dread over what might happen to those rights as Islamist conservatism began to take hold. While Ben Ali’s two decades in power were marked by corruption, human rights abuses and tight restrictions on free speech and political opposition, his regime did preserve the secular foundations of Tunisia’s strong women’s rights legislation, […]

When Dwight Eisenhower took office as president in January 1953, he was deeply concerned about the trajectory of America’s security strategy. Much had changed in the years leading up to his election the previous November, as hopes that the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France and China—would collaboratively manage global security were dashed by the emergence of the Cold War. By the time Eisenhower moved into the White House, no one doubted that containing the Soviet Union was America’s most pressing strategic task. What worried him was how to […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on a range of countries’ space priorities and programs. Last week, two bills were introduced in the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives that would establish a space development program and a Philippine Space Agency. The legislation has been well received, but it is unknown when lawmakers will vote on the bills. In an email interview, Rogel Mari Sese, a program leader at the National SPACE Development Program, the government agency working to establish a space agency, discusses the Philippines’ space program. WPR: What are the Philippines’ space capabilities, […]

In a few days, voters will cast their ballots in a presidential election that has been marked by such unimaginable developments that if it were a work of fiction, publishers would reject it as far too implausible. No, we’re not talking about the United States. This election will take place in Nicaragua on Nov. 6. And we can already predict with absolute certainty that Daniel Ortega will be elected president. Again. Ortega’s name became known around the world in the 1980s as a leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a Marxist guerrilla group that toppled Nicaragua’s four-decade-long Somoza family […]

Last month’s summit between India and Russia in Goa was held against the backdrop of New Delhi signing a logistics pact with the United States and Moscow conducting its first-ever joint military exercise with Pakistan. Perhaps to dispel the notion that the push-and-pull of geopolitics was straining the otherwise deeply rooted India-Russia relationship—this was the 17th annual summit—both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin chose to reiterate the “special and privileged” nature of ties. They matched their rhetoric by sealing a range of energy and defense deals that reflect their long-term strategic commitments, at a time when Russia’s […]

With the world’s three highest homicide rates since 2010, the Northern Triangle of Central America—the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras—have become the fulcrum of regional insecurity. In addition to levels of violence surpassing those of countries at war, the region is a base for transnational drug cartels, the virulent youth gangs known as “maras,” and criminality ranging from mass deforestation to money laundering. The reverberations of this multifaced security crisis, particularly the waves of underage migrants fleeing north to the United States, has finally focused attention enough to forge a concerted response. In February 2015, the Obama administration […]

Has Venezuela reached its boiling point? The country’s economic, political and humanitarian crises have deepened since the opposition took control of the legislature last December. Venezuelans have taken to the streets with increasing fervor, demanding the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro, who has in turn taken unilateral measures to consolidate his power. Hostility has intensified between the president and the opposition, and the embattled government’s actions have only exacerbated tensions and done little to address popular frustration. World Politics Review has compiled 10 articles that chronicle Venezuela’s slide toward the abyss. The following 10 articles are free to nonsubscribers until […]