Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Minister of Energy Alexander Novak during the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, Dec. 6, 2018 (Photo by Maksim Blinov for Sputnik via AP Images).

Five years after the U.S. first imposed sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea, Moscow continues to defy Western efforts to rein in its behavior. As the Russia sanctions risk becoming a permanent fixture in U.S.-Russia relations, three principal long-term trends are worth further examination. In March 2014, then-President Barack Obama signed the first tranche of executive orders imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation for its illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea. Five years later, the confrontation between the United States and Russia has come to dominate the national security conversation, driving unprecedented tensions in the trans-Atlantic relationship. […]

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, Feb. 28, 2019 (AP photo by Evan Vucci).

North Korea sanctions were back in the news last week. On Thursday, the United States Treasury Department announced economic penalties on two Chinese shipping companies for breaching United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang. That announcement was seemingly reversed Friday by President Donald Trump, who said on Twitter that he would be rescinding newly announced Treasury Department sanctions against North Korea. After some confusion, the White House explained that Trump was referring to as-yet unannounced U.S. unilateral sanctions, highlighting the administration’s lack of coordination on key messaging with regard to North Korea. Observers could be forgiven for seeing the mix-up as an […]

A cryptocurrency mining center in the Leningrad region of Russia, Aug. 20, 2018 (Photo by Alexei Danichev for Sputnik via AP).

New financial technology—so-called fintech—has rapidly become an important part of the financial industry, from mobile payment systems to cryptocurrencies. But it also represents a new area of national security vulnerability for the United States. The U.S. is a leader in fintech investment and development for now, but other countries are quickly catching up in key areas. U.S. policymakers should act to improve fintech regulations and coordinate a strategy in order to ensure that this kind of technology remains a strength, rather than a vulnerability, for the U.S. There has been a huge investment boom in fintech in recent years, with […]

President Donald Trump at a meeting with Caribbean leaders at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Fla., March 22, 2019 (AP photo by Carolyn Kaster).

The World Trade Organization's influence and capacity are diminishing. But the biggest threat it faces comes from its erstwhile champion, the United States under President Donald Trump, who is less interested in WTO reforms and more interested in bending the organization to his will. The World Trade Organization is in crisis. Member states doubt its capacity to spur economic liberalization, counter China’s market-distorting policies or resolve deepening trade disputes. But the biggest threat it faces comes from its erstwhile champion, the United States. President Donald Trump is determined to weaken, even destroy, the organization. The White House speaks the language […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses supporters at a rally in Istanbul, March 19, 2019 (AP photo by Emrah Gurel).

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, are engaged in a no-holds-barred campaign of threats and intimidation against opposition parties ahead of local elections planned for Sunday. Opinion polls have found AKP candidates trailing in key cities like Istanbul and Ankara amid an economic recession that has damaged Erdogan’s political brand. Fearing a resounding defeat at the polls that could undermine his presidency, Erdogan has even said he could intervene to change the results. In an interview with WPR, Sinan Ciddi, executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington, explains what’s […]

Men carry a body bag during rescue operations at a flooded mine in Kadoma, Zimbabwe, Feb. 16, 2019 (AP photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi).

Zimbabwe’s informal mining sector is in the spotlight after an accident at a gold mine killed at least 24 people last month. As many as 70 informal miners were believed to be working inside two abandoned mineshafts near the town of Battlefields, southwest of Harare, when the underground tunnels were flooded by water from a burst dam. Eight miners were rescued but others are unaccounted for and feared dead, as authorities struggled to drain water from the shafts. President Emmerson Mnangagwa officially declared a state of disaster and pledged all available government resources for rescue efforts. According to many mining […]

A soldier stands guard outside a hotel after an attack in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Jan. 18, 2016 (AP photo by Sunday Alamba).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The gunmen often arrive on market day, surrounding civilians who gather in northern Burkina Faso to buy and sell goods. After detaining groups of men—up to 14 at a time—they drive off. Within minutes, they execute the men, often on the side of the road, close enough for those back at the market to hear the gunshots. It’s a scenario that has played out at least nine times in Burkina Faso in recent months, according to a report released […]

Muslims pray at Hagley Park in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 22, 2019 (AP photo by Mark Baker).

In this week’s editors episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman discuss the Christchurch shootings, the emergence of white nationalist terrorism and its implications for national security in Europe and the U.S. They also examine Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy and France, and what it reveals about the European Union’s internal divisions over whether to engage with China as an economic partner or confront it as a strategic competitor. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can […]

Activists protesting the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi hold a candlelight vigil outside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Oct. 25, 2018 (AP photo by Lefteris Pitarakis).

Saudi Arabia has lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons. It has been widely condemned for a disastrous war in Yemen that has forced over 3 million civilians to flee and left over 15 million people on the brink of famine. The killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul—allegedly on orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—is a story that refuses to go away. More recently, the Saudi government finds itself responding to alarming allegations regarding the detention, torture and impending trial of many prominent female activists in the kingdom. On March […]

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, right, meets with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 14, 2019 (Pool photo by Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds via AP Images).

For many decades, shared fears of common enemies—from the Soviets to the Iranians, Saddam Hussein and extremist movements like al-Qaida and the Islamic State—pushed America and Saudi Arabia into an uneasy embrace. But today that calculus is no longer enough to sustain their alliance. For the United States, the strategic costs of the Saudi relationship have come to outweigh the benefits, as the tensions and unnaturalness of the partnership make it increasingly intolerable. The U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia can be traced back to the 1930s, when the kingdom first began producing petroleum. By the 1970s, Saudi Arabia was an […]

A student places her handprints on a wall at the Raul Brasil State School one day after a mass shooting, Suzano, Brazil, March 14, 2019 (AP photo by Andre Penner).

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a new series on gun policy and the debate over gun control around the world. Last week, two gunmen opened fire at a high school near Sao Paulo, killing eight people, including five schoolchildren. The mass shooting has cast a spotlight on the issue of gun control in Brazil, as President Jair Bolsonaro makes a concerted push to relax restrictions on firearms. In an interview with WPR, Robert Muggah, co-founder and research director at the Igarape Institute in Brazil, discusses Brazil’s polarizing debate over guns and how Bolsonaro’s policy initiatives might be […]

Peruvian police officers stand guard in a recovered area deforested by illegal gold mining in the Madre de Dios province of Peru, Feb. 19, 2019 (pool photo by Cris Bouroncle via AP Images).

Peruvian authorities are touting an aggressive new military-led effort aimed at eliminating widespread illegal gold mining activities, which have caused massive deforestation and pollution in the fragile Amazon rainforest. But this kind of militarized environmental management could further complicate an already messy situation in Peru. On March 5, senior Peruvian defense officials inaugurated the first of four new military bases near the remote Tambopata National Reserve—part of their new campaign, codenamed Operation Mercurio, or Mercury, focused on restoring order and eliminating illegal mining in the southeastern region of Madre de Dios, the epicenter of illegal gold mining in Peru. President […]

A woman holds a flag decorated with a picture of Argentina’s former president, Cristina Fernandez, during a rally to show support for her, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 7, 2017 (AP photo by Natacha Pisarenko).

As the deadline to register for this year’s presidential election in Argentina approaches, the outlook for the vote in October looks increasingly muddled. The legal troubles for former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner continue to mount, with yet another indictment just last week. But she remains the favorite to take on President Mauricio Macri, who defeated her party’s candidate in 2015. Incredibly, polls show the two are neck and neck. That’s because Macri’s popularity has collapsed under the weight of severe economic problems. Once again, the dominant theme in Argentine politics is tumult and uncertainty. When Macri took office four […]

Syrian authorities distribute bread, vegetables and pasta to residents of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria, April 16, 2018 (AP photo by Hassan Ammar).

Ten years ago, the Sri Lankan military carried out a violent final offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a rebel group with a long history of atrocities. The offensive, which ultimately resulted in the end of the war, involved the brutal killings of thousands of civilians—acts that were documented in real time by journalists and United Nations officials. Back in New York, however, the U.N.’s leaders failed to muster a meaningful response to mitigate the bloodshed, and Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general at the time, soon came under heavy criticism. As Richard Gowan writes in this week’s in-depth report, […]

Candles are placed to commemorate victims of last week’s shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 18, 2019 (AP photo by Vincent Thian).

The mass shooting last Friday at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a self-avowed white supremacist, and the violence in Paris on Saturday by the last vestiges of the Yellow Vest movement, have nothing substantively in common. But despite being discrete phenomena, they illustrate two of the greatest emerging threats to the internal cohesiveness of Western liberal democracies: the normalization of ethno-sectarian violence, and the legitimization of political violence. Both threats have been hiding in plain sight for many years now. The Department of Homeland Security signaled the growing danger of far-right and white nationalist terrorist groups in the […]

Cybersecurity experts take part in a test at a conference in Lille, France, Jan. 22, 2019 (AP photo by Michel Spingler).

Elizabeth Warren, one of the 13 candidates in an already crowded field of Democrats running for U.S. president in 2020, wants to break up tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Twitter by legally designating them as “platform utilities,” she said recently, in order to “keep that marketplace competitive and not let a giant who has an incredible competitive advantage snuff that out.” Amy Klobuchar, another senator seeking the Democratic nomination, says flatly that she doesn’t trust tech companies. She doesn’t want to break them up, but instead has proposed new regulations in the form of antitrust laws, new […]

A woman prays at a beach in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, March 11, 2019 (Kyodo photo via AP Images).

Last week, Japan marked the eighth anniversary of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in 2011, leaving more than 18,000 people dead or unaccounted for and triggering the Fukushima nuclear disaster, one of the worst nuclear accidents in modern history. A moment of silence was observed across the country at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, the time the earthquake struck. Sports teams interrupted their practice to pray for the souls of those who perished. “We must never let the valuable lessons that we have learned from the enormous damage caused by the disaster to fade away,” Prime […]

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