Diplomacy & Politics Archive

The arrival of two U.S. Navy hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles last week provided dramatic images of the changing role of the U.S. military during the coronavirus pandemic. The USNS Comfort and the USNS Mercy usually call on ports in Africa or around the Indian Ocean to provide basic health services to underserved populations. During conflicts, they provide emergency medical care to American troops. This time, the symbolism is quite different, as their intended beneficiaries inhabit the two largest cities in the world’s wealthiest country. The U.S. military and other armed forces around the world are now […]

LONDON—The British Labour Party finally concluded its protracted leadership contest last weekend, four long months after suffering its worst election defeat since before World War II. The result came as no surprise, with the former shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, replacing Jeremy Corbyn as party leader after romping to a first-round victory with 56.2 percent of the vote—more than twice as much as the Corbynite runner-up, Rebecca Long-Bailey, and far ahead of third-place finisher Lisa Nandy. Starmer, who hails from Labour’s social democratic “soft left,” is expected to lead a more moderate party than Corbyn did, but Labour will […]

There are many ways to think about how the United States and China, the world’s two leading powers, stack up as the COVID-19 pandemic has taken tens of thousands of lives and turned the world upside down in just a few weeks. Beijing’s lack of transparency and timeliness in disclosing details of the virus after its initial outbreak in central China, and the extraordinary lapse in wasted time in the United States between early reports of a dangerous spread of the disease and the first government efforts to inform the public of the true risks and prepare to limit the […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Vietnam lodged an official protest with China after a Chinese coast guard ship collided with a Vietnamese fishing boat near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea on Thursday. Hanoi accused the Chinese ship of ramming and sinking the Vietnamese boat before capturing and detaining its crew of eight fishermen on a nearby island. Vietnamese state media reported that two other Vietnamese fishing boats attempted to rescue them, but were also detained. China, however, claimed that the […]

In times of hardship and uncertainty, many people tend to assume the worst-case scenario—or at least plan for it. Followers of the Survivalist movement have taken this idea to an extreme, creating a lifestyle from the perceived inevitability of disaster—be it nuclear war, natural disaster or global pandemic. Inherent in this worldview is the idea that in times of extreme duress, our treasured social bonds break down and we revert to a kind of Hobbesian state of nature, competing with other humans for scarce resources. Dan Gardner, a journalist, author and senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School […]

Editor’s Note: WPR has made this article, as well as a selection of others from our COVID-19 coverage that we consider to be in the public interest, freely available. You can find all of our coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here. If you would like to help support our work, please consider taking advantage of our subscription offer here. The Chinese government first reported “cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology” to the World Health Organization on Dec. 31, 2019. A week later, the new virus responsible for the disease outbreak was identified. Less than 100 days later, we no longer […]

Plenty of observers have rushed to predict that the COVID-19 pandemic will seriously harm the political fortunes of populists, or even make populism the outbreak’s first “ideological casualty.” Populists, they assert, vilify experts; now we are all learning that the price of not listening to experts may well be our own lives. Populists, it is also often said, are the great simplifiers; now we need experienced bureaucrats and leaders who can deal with a complex challenge. Yet this valiant attempt to see a silver lining in this political moment is itself highly simplistic. Populism is not primarily characterized by hostility […]

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, countries should be using every available tool to expand production of critical medical supplies and cooperating to avoid complete chaos. But instead, they are increasingly fighting over pieces of a too-small pie and going it alone. With dire, heartbreaking shortages of personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses and ventilators for the desperately ill, some governments have responded by restricting their exports. A few major grain exporters have begun restricting food exports. More inexplicably, some countries continue to collect duties on imports of essential medical supplies, though that is finally starting to change. […]

In early March, Thai government negotiators convened in Kuala Lumpur for a second round of direct talks with the Barisan Revolusi Nasional, or BRN, a secretive separatist group that is thought to control the vast majority of rebels operating in Thailand’s restive “deep south.” Until an earlier round of talks in January, the BRN had been excluded from dialogue with the government in Bangkok, which was controlled from 2014 until last summer by a military junta. Now, a nominally democratic government led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the former army chief, is cautiously reviving a long-stalled peace process. The Thai […]

Somalia's semiautonomous Jubbaland region has become a proxy battleground in a Kenya-Somalia maritime dispute that is rooted in a disagreement over which direction the border between the two countries extends into the Indian Ocean. A 62,000-square-mile triangle of the Indian Ocean is driving a wedge in the Horn of Africa. For years, Kenya and Somalia have been at odds over the pie-shaped slice of the sea, to which each lays a claim and which is believed to contain sizable oil and gas deposits. But tensions between the two have been rising in recent months and are magnifying a standoff between […]

As the world grapples with COVID-19, it cannot afford to ignore an even more serious global emergency that will persist long after the pandemic has passed: climate change. Last month, the United Nations issued a dire multiagency report warning that the world is “way off track” on its commitments to cut emissions under the Paris Agreement. Without dramatic and sustained emissions reductions, higher atmospheric and marine temperatures will bring more deadly heat waves, catastrophic storms, rising seas, food insecurity, health crises and mass displacement. Although emissions have dropped sharply since January with the coronavirus pandemic virtually shutting down entire economies […]

Shortly after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December, the Chinese Communist Party faced a PR problem. Its attempt to cover-up the public health crisis had sparked fervent criticism from journalists, foreign governments, international organizations and, more worryingly, from Chinese citizens themselves. Once the authorities in Beijing responded to the outbreak by shutting down Wuhan and its surrounding province, the party had to rebrand. A chief part of that effort was to declare that, in the battle against the coronavirus, its authoritarian government had proved that it could manage a […]

Hungary’s parliament this week handed populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban expanded emergency powers aimed at tackling the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country. But critics warn that the new law gives Orban dictatorial authority, turning a public health emergency into a crisis of democracy. On Monday, the ruling right-wing Fidesz party used its large legislative majority to pass the “Protecting Against the Coronavirus” law. It allows the government to extend the state of emergency it declared on March 11 indefinitely, paving the way for Orban to continue bypassing parliament and ruling by decree until he deems the crisis […]

The surprising decision this week by Russian oil giant Rosneft to pull out of Venezuela provides a textbook study of the intricacies of Russia’s global energy wars. It was only six months ago that Russia’s majority state-owned oil company was poised to take over its nationalized counterpart in Venezuela, PDVSA, in a bid to insulate President Nicolas Maduro’s regime from increasingly harsh U.S. sanctions. Now, it looks like Rosneft may be buckling under the pressures of a coronavirus-induced slump in oil demand, a price war with Saudi Arabia and continued American sanctions. Or, at least, that’s how it looks on […]

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein and Freddy Deknatel talk about the prominent role played by data in coverage of and reactions to the coronavirus pandemic. They also discuss the implications of inaccuracies—both intentional and unintentional—and disinformation in the crisis, as well as governments’ use of public diplomacy for strategic advantage. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Governments across Africa are taking drastic steps to try and slow the spread of the coronavirus, from implementing strict curfews to releasing prisoners from overcrowded jails. This week, Ethiopia became the first African country to postpone an election over concerns that holding the vote would worsen the pandemic. Its highly anticipated general election is now delayed indefinitely. The vote, which was scheduled for August, is seen as a critical referendum on the reformist agenda that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed introduced when he […]

Like every other American institution, the United States military is struggling to deal with the spread of the novel coronavirus. Its immediate focus is on supporting civil authorities during this crisis while staying prepared for other missions. It is a complex and difficult balance to strike, and the virus is likely to take a serious long-term toll on readiness. Even after the crisis passes, things will never be the same for the military. For now, a good portion of the military is supporting civilian efforts to counter the coronavirus pandemic, much of it undertaken by the reserve components. Last week, […]