Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about workers’ rights in various countries around the world. Dockworkers in Spain announced a series of strikes yesterday to protest a government plan to allow ports to hire nonunion workers. The strikes are set to begin March 6, although talks continue between the government and the unions. In an email interview, Alexandre de le Court, a visiting professor at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona and member of the UPF Research Group in Labor Law and Social Security Law (greDTiSS), discusses labor rights in Spain. WPR: How robust are […]

In November, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus warned that a growing gap between the super rich and the rest of the world’s population is a “ticking time bomb” that will lead to exploitation of the poor, immigrants and minorities. There is good evidence that time is running out to keep that bomb from going off. Economic fragility in the eurozone has fueled the rise of populist and nationalist parties in European elections since 2008. The refugee crisis confronting Europe compounded the swing. A wave of populist wins in 2016, from Brexit and Italy’s rejection of constitutional reform to the election of […]

As the Chinese government has worked to raise its profile in the Middle East, it has sometimes struggled to promote Chinese culture in the region. Despite its emphasis on cultural engagement since then-President Hu Jintao called for China to increase its global soft power in 2007, Beijing has found it difficult even to eclipse its Asian rivals. A young Arab man or woman might buy Chinese-made goods or even study abroad at a Chinese university, but he or she would be more likely to watch a Japanese film or listen to a Korean pop song than to consume China’s cultural […]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit last week to Kuwait and Oman was the latest sign of an improvement in the tone of Tehran’s relations with the Persian Gulf states, and in particular Saudi Arabia, this year. Perhaps the uncertainties around U.S. President Donald Trump’s intentions, as well as the recent thaw between Turkey and Russia, are factors. In any event, it underscores the strategic trend of greater regional ownership of local problems. Rouhani’s stopovers in Kuwait and Oman followed a number of developments in the Persian Gulf region since January that suggest that regional powers are seeking to step back […]

On May 19, Iranians will go to the polls to choose their president for the 12th time since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979. The incumbent, President Hassan Rouhani, will almost certainly be one of the contenders, once Iran’s powerful Guardian Council confirms his candidacy. The upcoming elections will inevitably be a referendum, in part, on Rouhani’s track record, especially his promise to open up Iran’s economy after the nuclear agreement that lifted international sanctions. Unlike the American system, with its excruciatingly long election seasons, the official Iranian election calendar is deliberately short. The week-long official registration of candidates […]

The conflict in Afghanistan played a surprisingly small role in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, possibly because none of the candidates had any new ideas on what to do about this long-festering problem. But there is an old aphorism sometimes attributed to Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary and communist theorist, that goes, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” While Trotsky probably never uttered the phrase, there is something to it. It certainly applies to the conflict in Afghanistan: While the war was not a major topic in Donald Trump’s successful presidential bid, he […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the battle between President Donald Trump’s White House and the U.S. intelligence community. For the Report, Laura Weiss talks with Peter Dörrie about how shifting patterns of Central American migration are putting Mexico’s asylum system under pressure. If you’d like to support our free podcast through patron pledges, Patreon is an online service that will allow you to do so. To find out about the benefits you can get through pledging as little as $1 per month, click through to WPR’s Trend Lines Patreon […]

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took their budding “bromance” to the next level in a chummy press conference Wednesday, reaffirming not just U.S.-Israel ties but their own personal friendship as well. For those concerned that U.S. policy toward Israel under the Trump administration will shift rightward, the meeting offered a lot of confirmation. But one moment in particular stood out: Trump’s perceived abandonment of the two-state solution, a cornerstone of Washington’s stance on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process since the Clinton administration. “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties […]

A recent United Nations report found that civilian casualties in Afghanistan resulting from Afghan-initiated airstrikes doubled between 2015 and 2016, to 252. The American military says those figures are inflated, but has begun training a new cadre of Afghan air controllers who can warn Afghan pilots of the risks of collateral damage. In an email interview, Marc Schanz, the director of publications for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, discusses Afghanistan’s air force. His opinions are not in any way reflective of the policies of the Mitchell Institute. WPR: What is the make-up of Afghanistan’s air force, in terms of […]

Earlier this month, Somalia’s parliament selected Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, a former prime minister, to be the country’s new president. Mohamed, known by his nickname, “Farmajo,” is popular among the army and is well-liked by the general public for his efforts to tackle corruption during his time as prime minister. In an email interview, Ken Menkhaus, a professor at Davidson College, discusses politics in Somalia. WPR: How much support does President Mohamed have in parliament, as well as among local Somalian powerbrokers and the general population? Ken Menkhaus: We know Farmajo has support in parliament because it was the members of […]

The emergence of a brash and little-known 31-year-old as the public face of a dynamic new style of leadership in Saudi Arabia has caught international attention over the past two years. Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, whose rise began in 2015, has promoted his so-called Saudi Vision 2030 initiative as an instrument of economic transformation in an era of plummeting oil prices. Against the backdrop of emergency spending cuts in 2015 that stove off financial ruin, the project aims to balance the Saudi budget by 2020, wean the country off of energy subsidies, and reduce the role […]

When then-President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in a White House ceremony in December 1993, he called it “a defining moment” for the United States and praised Mexico and Canada as “our partners in the future that we are trying to make together.” All three countries had made what then seemed like an irreversible decision to marry their economic futures. Yet today, less than a quarter-century later, those bonds are badly fraying. The new U.S. president, Donald Trump, wants to renegotiate NAFTA, which he has called “the worst trade deal in history.” Mexican President Enrique Pena […]

When Donald Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency of the United States, just a few months after British voters opted to leave the European Union, the rise of rightist, anti-establishment populists started to look like an inexorable trend across the West and elsewhere. To be sure, the twin successes of right-wing, anti-immigrant insurgencies did energize like-minded movements in other countries. And yet, they also triggered another reaction—a paradoxical, if not altogether unpredictable response. Trump’s win, and to a lesser extent Brexit, made tangible the threat of what had until recently been dismissed as a curious fringe phenomenon. By […]

Is the United States a rogue state? Is it a failed or failing state? The answer, of course, is no, or at least not yet. But the hyperbole is intentional, meant to underscore how each day of Donald Trump’s presidency brings us deeper into the realm of the unimaginable. As I filed this column, the latest scandal to engulf the administration is the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month after inauguration day. According to the White House’s own account, Flynn’s misdeed was not to have discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Moscow’s ambassador to the […]

For the past three weeks, much of Chile was burning. The country is prone to seasonal wildfires, but this year, the worst fires in Chilean history raged out of control. By the time they receded, 11 people were dead, nearly 1.5 million acres of land were burnt, and 1,644 homes were destroyed. Smog choked the air in the capital, Santiago, and major cities narrowly escaped devastation. One village in central Chile, Santa Olga, was burnt completely to the ground. For many observers, these devastating fires are a reminder of the advancing perils of climate change. But in Chile, they also […]

After sending signals of his plans to retire from politics for nearly a year, Angola’s president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos—the second-longest-ruling leader in Africa—announced earlier this month that he will step down at the end of his current mandate and not run in August elections. That will bring an end to a presidency that began in 1979, when Jimmy Carter was in the White House. The transition from dos Santos’ rule is the most significant political event in Angola since its independence from Portugal in 1974, and comes at a time of deep economic and social crisis in the oil-rich […]

The U.S. war in Laos began in early 1961, when President Dwight Eisenhower, on one of his last days in office, approved a paramilitary CIA mission known as Operation Momentum to arm the ethnic Hmong population against communist forces. Under Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, the proxy war grew to become the largest CIA paramilitary operation in U.S. history. In his new book, “A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA,” drawing on declassified CIA files and interviews with key players, Joshua Kurlantzick reframes the Laos war […]