Volunteers handle coffins during a mass funeral for victims of attacks blamed on Fulani herdsmen, Makurdi, Nigeria, Jan. 11, 2018 (AP Photo).

Nigeria’s population has quadrupled in the past 60 years, creating a host of pressures on the country’s rural population and pushing farmers and herders into an escalating state of conflict. In 2016 and 2017, four states in Nigeria enacted bans on the open grazing of cattle, aimed at restricting herders and the pastoral communities they support. But the bans haven’t helped reduce violence; over 100 people have already been killed in clashes between farmers and herders this year. In an email interview, Adam Higazi, a research fellow at the University of Amsterdam and an affiliated lecturer at the University of […]

Holding a banner with a Turkish and a Palestinian flag, protesters chant anti-U.S. slogans during a demonstration near the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, Dec. 6, 2017 (AP photo).

Jordan announced this week that it was suspending its free trade agreement with Turkey, in order to protect Jordanian companies from what it called “unequal competition” from industries supported by the Turkish government. It looks like a setback in ties between Amman and Ankara, yet the geopolitical picture is more complicated. Two weeks ago, over consecutive days in late February, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and its highest-ranking military officer, Gen. Hulusi Akar, visited Jordan for meetings meant to signal both countries’ desire to upgrade their bilateral relationship in light of regional developments. A major impetus is undoubtedly the Trump […]

Workers at a project site that forms part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” Haripur, Pakistan, Dec. 22, 2017 (AP photo by Aqeel Ahmed).

It is revealing of current American political obsessions that a recent book about the Marshall Plan’s relationship to the Cold War might be seen first and foremost as having lessons for today’s troubled ties between the United States and Russia. In that book, Benn Steil, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that with the Marshall Plan’s launch in 1947, the U.S. and the Soviet Union “became irrevocably committed to securing their respective spheres of influence.” Yet despite widespread concern about Russia, the most consequential great power struggle today is the one between the U.S. and China. […]

A U.S. Marine wears knee braces and a backpack that harvest energy from his movements during an exhibition of green energy technology, Twentynine Palms, California, Dec. 7, 2016 (AP photo by Gregory Bull).

From the homeland security folks who respond to national disasters to the armed forces planning for hostile encounters with state or nonstate adversaries, the U.S. security community understands that climate change affects what they do, often profoundly. Despite the skeptics in the highest ranks of government, there is quiet and steady progress being made to integrate greater knowledge about climate change and its impacts into threat assessments, planning and training for future security contingencies. For more than 20 years, the defense community has been studying the environment and climate change, and their implications for how the U.S. prepares for military […]

Supporters of Pakistan’s ousted prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, attend a rally in Karachi, Pakistan, Feb. 22, 2018 (AP photo by Fareed Khan).

On Feb. 21, Pakistan’s Supreme Court disqualified former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from leading the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PMLN, party. Sharif’s brother Shahbaz, another senior PMLN leader, is expected to replace him as party president. The move marked Sharif’s second disqualification in seven months. Last July, the same court disqualified him from office, obliging him to resign as prime minister. These developments represent just the latest blows for the PMLN, which has led the government after winning a landslide election in 2013—but has seemingly been on the defensive ever since then. In 2014, the political opposition, led by […]

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi greets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman upon his arrival in Cairo, Egypt, March 4, 2018 (MENA photo by Mohammed Samaha via AP).

The arrival of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Cairo this week brought with it a flurry of diplomatic and economic announcements, including a $10 billion joint fund for the development of a megacity stretching from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, and possibly even Jordan. While the dollar amount is eye-popping, skepticism is warranted given the number of announced megaprojects in the region that have come to naught. But that doesn’t mean that the crown prince’s decision to stop in Egypt, on a tour that includes London and Washington, is not without importance. For the past two years, Egypt’s relations […]

President Donald Trump holds up a proclamation on steel and aluminum imports during an event at the White House, Washington, March 8, 2018 (AP photo by Susan Walsh).

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The tariffs, which will go into effect in 15 days, exempt Canada and Mexico for now, with the possibility of other states to be exempted as well. Combined with the resignation earlier this week of Gary Cohn, the president’s chief economic adviser who had been seen as a check on Trump’s protectionist instincts during his tenure as director of the National Economic Council, they signal that Trump is ready to make good on campaign promises of getting tough on trade—and in particular with China. […]

Demonstrators protest pension reform proposed by Brazilian President Michel Temer’s government, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Feb. 19, 2018 (AP photo by Andre Penner).

On Feb. 19, Brazil’s government announced it was abandoning an effort to reform the pension system, which is a main driver of its ballooning deficit. Though the official reason was the military intervention launched last month in Rio de Janeiro state, which makes constitutional amendments impossible to act on, the reform effort was widely understood to have little chance of success. The failure of Michel Temer, Brazil’s exceedingly unpopular president, to deliver on a key promise prompted credit ratings agencies to downgrade Brazil further below investment grade. In an email interview, Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the […]

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Mohammed bin Salman one month before he was elevated to crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, May 20, 2017 (AP photo by Evan Vucci).

Amid all the focus on whether the Trump administration will recertify the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, has rekindled nuclear ambitions of its own. Later this month, Saudi Arabia will announce the winner of a multibillion-dollar contract to build the nation’s first two nuclear reactors, set to be constructed along the Persian Gulf. A U.S. consortium is competing with many others in what has become a geopolitical contest, but not without controversy. The United States has participated in over 100 nuclear deals like this before, so what makes one with Saudi Arabia so divisive? Riyadh wants […]

Cybercrime suspects from Taiwan and China cover their faces as they leave an immigration center before being deported, Jakarta, Indonesia, Dec. 16, 2015 (AP photo by Tatan Syuflana).

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 […]

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