Economics & Business Archive

President Barack Obama does not seem to care very much about Europe. A series of notable slights by the White House have led to a sense of neglect on the continent. The president skipped the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Adding insult to injury, while Europe was busy celebrating its remarkable unification in the wake of communism’s collapse, the White House was talking up the notion of America as a “Pacific power” and of the rise of a new G-2 grouping between the U.S. and China. Last month, the White House leaked word […]

China has designated 2010 “The Year of China-Indonesia Friendship” to mark the 60th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with the world’s fourth-largest country. But while both countries are poised to reap major benefits from their improved bilateral ties, Beijing and Jakarta must manage their asymmetric relationship skillfully to mitigate potential tensions in the future. Relations between China and Indonesia have certainly come a long way since the height of the Cold War. Beijing, then reviled by Jakarta as a fomenter of communist insurrection, is now welcomed as a key investor in Indonesia’s economic future. Bilateral trade has mushroomed by an […]

Proposals in Brussels to throw a financial lifeline to debt-strapped Greece have met with resistance from some EU governments, in part because of the poor precedent a bailout would set for other member states in similar predicaments. But there is also mounting public opposition to such a move, particularly in Germany. As a result, despite the threat a Greek meltdown would pose to the eurozone as a whole, the German government has adopted a hard-line position in negotiations over how the EU should respond, causing relations between the two countries to become increasingly strained. The German government has historically extended […]

The success of Operation Moshtarak, NATO’s military offensive to seize the Taliban-controlled town of Marjah in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, will be determined by how well coalition forces establish a functioning government now that the bulk of the actual fighting is over. Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently described the plan by saying, “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in.” The concept of “government in a box,” or a functioning government ready for immediate deployment the moment combat operations end, is a novel one. Most of the attention lavished upon ISAF’s plans, however, has focused on the man chosen […]

The upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections loom large in the political fortunes of so many players, both internal and external, that it constitutes a historical referendum of sorts — not just for Iraq, but beyond as well. Across the region, globalization, in all its complex currents, appears poised at a number of inflection points. The outcome of Iraq’s elections will leave winners on some fronts, losers on others, and will trigger plenty of bandwagoning by those worried about being left out or left behind. Here’s a list of some potential outcomes, none of which are mutually exclusive, in rough order of […]