Diplomacy & Politics Archive

As China’s trade war with the United States casts a pall over the global economy, a separate dispute between two of China’s neighbors—and two American allies—is adding to the gloomy outlook. Earlier this month, Japan curbed exports to South Korea of three materials that are necessary for the production of semiconductors and display screens, threatening to upend South Korea’s technology industry and throw a wrench into complex global supply chains for smartphones, televisions and other popular consumer devices. The move is only the latest escalation in an ongoing standoff, rooted in deep historical grievances, that has regional observers and officials […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Economic data published Monday revealed China’s economy is growing at its slowest pace since at least 1992, when modern record-keeping for quarterly growth began. Official figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed the economy grew 6.2 percent between April and June, compared with a year earlier. Though it still looks like a brisk pace, it represents a slowdown for China, where the previous quarter’s growth rate was 6.4 percent. A slump in trade was a main reason for […]

Ursula Von der Leyen, the former defense minister of Germany, was narrowly confirmed as the next president of the European Commission this week. She will take the helm in Brussels at a difficult time, with widening fissures among European Union member states and a rising challenge from far-right, euroskeptic political movements across the continent. Von der Leyen and other top EU leaders will need to tackle these internal challenges while navigating the tumultuous Brexit process, addressing the crisis in U.S.-Iran relations, and managing the EU’s difficult relationship with the Trump administration. In this week’s Trend Lines interview, WPR’s associate editor, […]

GULU and KAMPALA, Uganda—Deep scars cut into the flesh of Docobella Loremoi’s ankle. He was abducted by Joseph Kony’s brutal Lord’s Resistance Army in 1988, and later injured in a battle between LRA rebels and government forces. Some 30 years on, the wound still causes him pain. He is unsure if bomb fragments remain in his leg and cannot afford an X-ray. Loremoi is just one of many victims suffering mental and physical trauma resulting from the 20-year LRA insurgency, during which an estimated 2 million people were displaced in northern Uganda. Last month, Uganda’s Cabinet finally approved a new […]

Earlier this month, The New York Times created a mini furor on the internet with a job listing for someone to lead its coverage of East Africa. The announcement described it as an opportunity “to dive into news and enterprise across a wide range of countries, from the deserts of Sudan and the pirate seas of the Horn of Africa, down through the forests of Congo and shores of Tanzania.” It went on to speak of the region’s “many vital story lines, including terrorism, the scramble for resources, the global contest with China,” among others. Whether as afterthought or sop, […]

In the early years of this century, there were suggestions that the European Union could play the role of a “quiet superpower,” and even speculation that Brussels might become a hegemonic rival to the United States. Now, with the rise of China and talk of a new Cold War brewing between Washington and Beijing, the EU’s place in the world is looking dramatically less imposing. For some experts and observers, the EU continues to be a “civilian power,” given its nonmilitary capabilities, or a “normative power,” referring to its historical role in helping to shape global norms on human rights […]

French President Emmanuel Macron left a recent EU leaders’ summit in Brussels frustrated after his fellow heads of state failed to come to an agreement on who should be appointed to the top posts in the European Commission. Following the unsuccessful all-night negotiations, Macron took a swipe at his colleagues by voicing his opposition to further enlargement of the European Union. “I am more than skeptical toward those who say that the future of Europe lies in further enlargement, when we can’t find agreement between 28 nations,” Macron told reporters. “I will refuse all forms of enlargement before deep reform […]

During the Cold War, American policymakers frequently pushed nonaligned countries to take sides. The Central Intelligence Agency fomented coups against governments that flirted with communism and the Soviet Union, or that just drifted too far to the left for comfort. The State Department threatened to cut aid flows to countries that voted too often against U.S. priorities at the United Nations. Could sub-Saharan Africa find itself caught in the middle again if a cold war with China breaks out? In a speech at the Heritage Foundation last December, President Donald Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, launched a new […]

Ecuador’s highest court ruled last month that the country’s prohibition on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The 5-4 verdict was a victory for LGBT activists in the heavily Catholic country, but it is not immediately clear that the decision will be accepted among all segments of Ecuadorian society, according to Amy Lind, the Mary Ellen Heintz Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Cincinnati. In an email interview with WPR, she explains how Ecuador’s Constitutional Court reached its decision and why the benefits of this ruling may only immediately be felt by the most “privileged” same-sex couples […]

When the nominally center-right New Democracy party emerged victorious in snap elections last week, it potentially marked the end of a long and tumultuous chapter in Greece’s history. The now former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had announced the vote following deep losses by his radical, left-wing party, Syriza, in the European Parliament elections in May. With 39.5 percent of the vote, New Democracy and its leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, have a strong mandate to push forward with a program he describes as reforming the state, by reducing taxation and turbo-charging investment in the country. Mitsotakis appears very optimistic. When challenged on […]

Four years ago, to great fanfare, U.N. member states endorsed a sweeping blueprint for human progress known as the Sustainable Development Goals. Intended to guide global development efforts through 2030, the 17 SDGs, as they are known, are ambitious in the extreme. They range from eliminating extreme poverty—everywhere—to ensuring human health at all ages. Collectively, the goals are backed by a whopping 169 targets, each with various indicators. In September, world leaders will gather in New York for a quadrennial SDG summit to answer the question former mayor Ed Koch used to ask his constituents: “So, how am I doing?” […]

BOLOGNA—Italy’s populist government has been in power for all of 13 months and already speculation is rife about its imminent demise. The stability of this rowdy coalition was in doubt from the moment it was formed. How could the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, or M5S, avoid falling out with its aggressive junior partner, the far-right Lega or League, and its leader, Matteo Salvini? These doubts only grew when Salvini used his first year in office as interior minister and deputy prime minister to boost his own popularity, campaigning rather than governing. In the European Parliament elections at the end of […]

Editor’s Note: This will be Steven Metz’s final weekly column for World Politics Review. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Steve for more than six years of keen insights into U.S. strategy, national security and defense policy, all delivered with pristine logic in a uniquely direct style. Last week, I argued that President Donald Trump’s foreign and national security policy has produced few tangible gains but has caused a dangerous decay in America’s alliances and partnerships and an erosion of U.S. global influence. Under Trump’s direction, the approach to the world that served the United States well for […]

Britain’s ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, resigned this week after a leak of confidential memos he wrote that described the Trump administration as “dysfunctional” and “clumsy and inept.” In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, talk about Darroch’s resignation and what it says about the state of the “special relationship” between the U.S. and the United Kingdom, as well as the changing face of diplomacy in the Trump era. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up […]

It had long been an open secret in Gambia that former President Yahya Jammeh hand-picked young women to work in his office as so-called protocol girls whom he harassed and abused. That changed last month when Fatou Jallow, a former beauty queen known in Gambia as Toufah, became the first person to publicly accuse the exiled dictator of rape. Her testimony, told to investigators from Human Rights Watch and Trial International, has sparked an overdue reckoning in Gambia, where women have begun sharing stories of sexual assault on social media with the hashtag #IAmToufah. Last week, more than 200 young […]

Twice in the past two weeks, Iran has breached the limits on its nuclear program mandated by the 2015 international agreement aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon. First, it exceeded the maximum stockpiles of enriched uranium; then it began enriching to a higher level of purity, a potentially crucial step on the path to a bomb. Tehran didn’t act secretly or even quietly. It announced its plans and made sure the entire world knew it was steadily, if gradually, breaking out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the deal that President Donald Trump unilaterally […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. The central Chinese city of Wuhan put a garbage-burning power plant on hold this week after days of protests against the project. Following a police crackdown, local officials, apparently caught off guard by the protests, have pledged to consult with residents before moving forward. The demonstrations highlight the recurring failure of local authorities in China to provide transparency and address safety and environmental concerns over government projects. Waste-to-energy incineration plants like the one proposed in Wuhan are especially controversial. […]