Diplomacy & Politics Archive

In mid-February, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he would pay government forces a bounty of nearly $500 for each communist rebel they killed, according to The Associated Press, suggesting this would be a cost-effective way to combat a decades-long insurgency. His remarks, which were widely denounced as inflammatory, came amid an uptick in violence between government forces and the rebels and increasingly bleak prospects for peace talks, which broke down last year. In an email interview, Renato DeCastro, a professor of international studies at De La Salle University in Manila, explains why the peace process has stalled, what progress has […]

Late last week, during his annual speech to the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled a raft of new and exotic military weapons systems that were in development, and in some cases ready to be deployed. Putin’s inventory included an enormous, new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile known as “Sarmat”; new maneuverable re-entry vehicles that will, in theory, be fitted onto Russian ballistic missiles to help them overwhelm American missile defenses; a nuclear-powered cruise missile apparently able to fly for thousands of miles just feet above the surface of the earth; and a nuclear-armed underwater drone potentially able to lay dormant […]

Italy’s elections on Sunday refocused global attention on the challenges facing the European Union, as populist, euroskeptic parties combined to win a majority of votes. But a less-noticed scandal over a bureaucratic appointment in Brussels might offer a better explanation of just what is driving the voter backlash against the union. So far the scandal has barely registered a blip on the radar for anyone besides close EU-watchers, but it is in many ways emblematic of everything Brussels’ critics say is wrong with the bloc. It revolves around Martin Selmayr, the former chief of staff to European Commission President Jean-Claude […]

UMUAHIA, Nigeria—Six months after the raid, the house still lies in shambles. Its walls are pocked with bullet holes; clothes are strewn about the grounds; and the windshields of the cars on the property are shattered. Located in the city of Umuahia, the capital of Abia state in southeast Nigeria, the house belongs to the family of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, or IPOB, a group that wants this corner of the country to form a breakaway nation dominated by members of the Igbo ethnic group. On the morning of Sept. 14, Kanu and other members […]

Security assistance is a longstanding American tool to build up cooperation with key countries, including regional heavyweights like Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan, where security deficits have consequences for the United States. But security cooperation often requires bureaucratic agility and a true convergence of interests between the sender and receiver. Both elements have been in short supply recently, and new efforts to reform the enterprise seem unlikely to transform these difficult partnerships. In the past few weeks, Trump administration officials have engaged in several public dialogues about efforts to improve the suite of government-funded programs called security sector assistance. As with […]

On March 11, Colombians vote in what could be the biggest test of the country’s democracy in decades. For the first time, the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, will compete at the polls as a newly formed political party. No matter how it performs, the FARC, now known as the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force—maintaining its old acronym in Spanish—is guaranteed 10 seats in Congress overall, with five in the Senate and five in the House of Representatives, as part of the landmark 2016 peace agreement. But the former guerrillas are aiming higher. Running on a message of […]

A report released on Feb. 20 by the parliamentary commissioner for Germany’s armed forces revealed serious deficiencies in the military’s readiness, with many weapons systems nonoperational and 21,000 officer positions vacant. The state of the German military raises concerns for NATO and its response force, the effectiveness of which has gained new urgency since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014. In an email interview, Patrick Keller, coordinator for foreign and security policy at Konrad-Adenaur-Stiftung in Berlin, explains how Germany’s military got to this state, and what it will take to get its house in order. WPR: How concerning for Germany […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about religious minorities in various countries around the world. Last month, an assailant with a sword attacked a church during services in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, injuring four worshippers, including a priest. The attack appears to be the latest sign of growing religious intolerance in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, which has seen a rise in religious conservatism and flashes of extremism in recent years. In an email interview, Kikue Hamayotsu, an associate professor of political science at Northern Illinois University and faculty associate at the Center for […]

If peacemakers want to have any chance of ending today’s wars, they must learn to think like cold-blooded killers. From Syria to Myanmar, armed forces are pursuing unrelenting military campaigns and indiscriminately punishing civilians in their search for victory. Over the past week, Syrian troops and their allies have kept up intense pressure on the rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta despite a chorus of international condemnation. Although the government forces have allowed a small amount of aid into Ghouta, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has promised to keep up the offensive. Having pressed previous sieges, like that of Aleppo in late […]

Voters in Sierra Leone head to the polls Wednesday in a presidential election that will likely go to a second round, with none of the leading contenders looking strong enough to top the 55 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Six frontrunners—among the 16 candidates that will be on the ballot—appeared in a televised debate on Feb. 15 that for the first time ever included all major candidates. Broadcast on national television and across radio networks, the debate captured how competitive the race is, as term-limited President Ernest Bai Koroma’s decade in office comes to an end. Koroma’s All People’s […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Government critics in the Democratic Republic of Congo who insist that “Kabila must go” gained a new ally this week: the government of Botswana. In a statement Monday, Gabarone delivered the harshest criticism Congolese President Joseph Kabila has yet received from another African nation over his country’s recent turmoil, pinning Congo’s multifaceted security and humanitarian crisis on Kabila’s refusal to respect democratic norms. “We continue to witness a worsening humanitarian situation in that country mainly because its leader has […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss what Chinese President Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power could mean for U.S.-China ties. For the Report, Tim Ferry talks with Peter Dörrie about a little-covered angle of the increasingly bitter diplomatic sparring between Taiwan and China: Taiwanese telecom scammers who have fanned out across the world to avoid detection, but often find themselves extradited back to mainland China, and more severe punishment, when they are arrested. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read […]

Eduardo Enrique Urbina Ayala was shocked to see his face and name making the rounds on social media, in posts that framed him as the person responsible for setting fire to a military truck during a protest at the height of Honduras’ post-election crisis in December. The 22-year-old activist had left the country five days before the vehicle went up in flames. “I was already in Costa Rica,” Urbina told me over Skype from an undisclosed Costa Rican city. “I have everything documented in my passport … It’s proof from the state itself.” Nineteen days after Honduras’ contested Nov. 26. […]

In a recent article in Foreign Affairs, Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner—both former senior officials in the Obama administration—noted that over the past 45 years, “neither carrots nor sticks have swayed China as predicted.” From Richard Nixon on, American presidents believed that U.S. diplomacy and military power could “persuade Beijing that it was neither possible nor necessary to challenge the U.S.-led security order in Asia.” But that didn’t prove true. Today, as Campbell and Ratner note, “China is on the path to becoming a military peer the likes of which the United States has not seen since the Soviet Union” […]

With nationalist sentiment simmering across the continent, Europe has become the site of an ideological divide the likes of which has not been seen since the Cold War. The enlargement of the European Union was a driving force behind the spread of democracy into the former communist-bloc countries in the two decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the emergence of illiberalism in the east combined with a surging far right in the west has threatened to reverse that momentum. WPR has compiled 10 articles to outline the current state of democracy in Europe. Purchase this special report […]

On Feb. 16, South Africa’s new president and head of the ruling African National Congress party, Cyril Ramaphosa, delivered his first state of the nation address, which was sharply criticized by the country’s political opposition parties. After finding it easy to capitalize on the scandal-plagued presidency of former President Jacob Zuma, the opposition had its first opportunity to challenge Ramaphosa on his own policies, which were previously not well known. In an email interview, James Hamill, a lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester and expert on South Africa, discusses the current state […]

Sometime later this year, Malaysia will hold a general election that will be one of the most closely watched polls in the nation’s history. The elections, which must be carried out by August but are expected to be held much sooner, will pit the ruling coalition led by scandal-ridden Prime Minister Najib Razak against a fractured opposition held together by the country’s longest-serving premier, Mahathir Mohamad. Both sides will be appealing to an electorate that has become increasingly frustrated by the country’s recent direction and future prospects. Historically speaking, elections have been relatively uncontested affairs in Malaysia. The ruling Barisan […]