An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter provides security from above while CH-47 Chinooks drop off supplies to U.S. soldiers at Bost Airfield, Afghanistan, June 10, 2017 (Photo by Sgt. Justin Updegraff for U.S. Marine Corps via AP Images).

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Frederick Deknatel and Laura Weiss talk about the tentative deal for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan announced this week. They also discuss the latest setback for Colombia’s peace process with the FARC insurgency and Boris Johnson’s bruising Brexit humiliation in the U.K. 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 week, plus three […]

Smoke rises as angry residents set fire to part of the Green Village compound in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 3, 2019 (AP photo by Rahmat Gul).

After 18 years, it is hard for most Americans to picture the forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan actually coming to an end. Yet over the past week, there were growing signs that what seemed unimaginable could really happen soon. First, on Sunday, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, revealed in an Afghan television news interview the partial details of a deal for a U.S. withdrawal of 5,400 troops in exchange for a pledge from the Taliban to cut ties with terrorist groups like al-Qaida and reduce violence. Then, on Tuesday, members of Congress once again […]

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie during a meeting on the sidelines of an international counterterrorism conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 19, 2019 (AP photo by Natacha Pisarenko).

The Trump administration has boosted security cooperation with right-wing governments in South America in recent months to address the perceived threat of Hezbollah in the region. In late July, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended a counterterrorism conference in Buenos Aires, where the Lebanese militia and political party, which is backed by Iran, was a major focus of his meetings. Under pressure from the United States, Argentina and Paraguay have already designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization, and Brazil is considering doing the same. But according to Fernando Brancoli, a professor of international security at the Federal University of Rio de […]

President Donald Trump walks off after a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 26, 2019 (AP photo by Andrew Harnik).

Is restraint the answer to America’s foreign policy problems? The idea that the U.S. should avoid military interventions and rein in its global security commitments, instead emphasizing diplomacy and persuasion to advance its interests, has been steadily gaining ground over the past decade, helped along in that time by the failed U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Now restraint seems like a grand strategy whose time has come. In his column last week, Stewart Patrick discussed a recent book by three leading proponents making the case for restraint as the guiding logic of America’s engagement with the world. Barry […]

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S President Donald Trump at a news conference at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, Aug. 25, 2019 (AP photo by Andrew Harnik).

Amid the gyrations of his trade war with China, President Donald Trump was eager to trumpet his administration’s progress in negotiating a trade agreement with Japan during the recent G-7 summit in France. Unfortunately for him, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump’s own chief negotiator, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, sounded a far more cautious note, with Abe even pushing back gently on some of Trump’s claims. While Trump predicted the agreement would be signed in September during the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, it is still not clear when, or even if, the outstanding […]

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