War & Conflict Archive

Leaders from Iraq and Jordan held a summit meeting earlier this month, where they signed a slew of agreements liberalizing trade and commercial ties. The meeting, which follows a visit to Iraq by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, is part of a recent intensification in Baghdad’s diplomatic outreach as it seeks to rebuild after its brutal, years-long war with the Islamic State. In an interview with WPR, Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, discusses Iraq’s post-ISIS foreign policy priorities. World Politics Review: What is Iraq’s interest in cultivating increasingly close economic and diplomatic ties with Jordan? Randa […]

Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war was never meant to be long-term. Now that Russia has been successful in saving the regime of Bashar al-Assad, what’s next for Russia’s Middle East strategy? Find out more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR). Russia’s decision to intervene in the Syrian civil war in September 2015 was consistent with its belief that the Syrian state represents the only viable and legitimate actor in the country, and its forces are the only ones worth supporting. Moscow has always been willing to pay a political and military price to prevent a Syrian […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The president of Chad, Idriss Deby, has understood for a while now that Western powers are willing to overlook domestic human rights abuses and repression so long as his military continues to combat extremist groups in the Sahel. This week, France demonstrated that its loyalty to Deby, who has been in office since 1990, runs even deeper, and that it is willing to lend military support of its own to keep him in power. On Sunday, French Mirage jets […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the implications of the upcoming second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and the potential consequences of a content-free diplomatic process. For the Report, Mariana Palau talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about Colombia’s post-conflict land restitution program, which is not only struggling in its mission to help landowners reclaim property that was stolen during the country’s civil war, but is also in some cases driving a new cycle of displacement. If you like what you […]

China and Taiwan marked the Lunar New Year holiday this week with dueling propaganda videos showcasing their respective military might, released on social media. It was the latest sign that North Korea may no longer be the world’s most volatile hotspot, the nation most likely to unleash a major crisis that could spiral out of control. Now that dubious distinction may be shifting to Taiwan. The root of the problem is, of course, that China considers Taiwan an inextricable part of its territory ripped away in 1949 when the government of the Republic of China, facing military defeat against communist […]

APARTADO, Colombia—The sun was sitting low in the sky when Luis Izquierdo noticed the group of armed men walking onto his family’s farm in this town in Uraba, a region of northwestern Colombia that abuts the Caribbean Sea. In the fading daylight, he couldn’t see them clearly at first; he and his parents and siblings thought they might be soldiers looking for something to eat or drink. Their guts started to clench, however, when the men came closer with their rifles shouldered. They realized it was more likely that the men belonged to a paramilitary group that had recently started […]

He is often tagged as an aloof, slow-moving executive with a narrow and insular coterie of advisers, and he has fallen short of the promises that won him the presidency four years ago. Yet Muhammadu Buhari remains the front-runner in Nigeria’s presidential elections scheduled for Feb. 16, which will pit the incumbent against several challengers—the most prominent, by far, being former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who served in office from 1999 to 2007 and placed third in the 2007 election. Buhari is still the favorite because of his party’s continued strength in its strongholds in northern and southwestern Nigeria, along […]

Intense fighting has returned to western Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state, this time between the military and the Arakan Army, a well-armed ethnic group that advocates self-governance for the region. At least 26 people have died since fighting erupted in December, and thousands of civilians have been displaced, according to the United Nations. The renewed conflict is likely to further complicate the already difficult process of repatriating hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in refugee camps across the border, in Bangladesh. In an interview with WPR, David Scott Mathieson, an independent analyst based in Yangon, Myanmar, discusses the Arakan Army’s […]

What is the point of the United Nations General Assembly? The assembly—where all member states, from the United States to Kiribati, wield one vote each—has a reputation for generating more hot air than real action. It produces over 300 resolutions a year, but these lack the binding legal force of Security Council resolutions. Assembly members discuss certain sensitive issues, such as the situations in Palestine and North Korea, annually. They scored a major success in negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. They also chew over questions such as whether to designate 2024 the Year of Camelids. This is exciting […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Last November, during the swearing-in ceremony that marked the beginning of his seventh term as Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya addressed frustrated voters in the restive Anglophone regions and around the country, calling for unity and insisting he had heard their pleas for change. “I have also understood your desire for greater participation in taking decisions that concern the destiny of our country,” he said. His critics had good reason to be skeptical, given Biya’s long record of ignoring criticism […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss a framework deal announced by U.S. and Taliban negotiators and the broader implications of an eventual American withdrawal from Afghanistan. For the Report, Anna Pujol-Mazzini talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about Mali’s halting efforts toward transitional justice and reconciliation for a war that began in 2012, amid ongoing fighting in the north and new outbreaks of violence in the country’s central region. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for […]

Last year’s protests in Nicaragua and the government’s violent crackdown in response raised fears of a new Nicaraguan civil war. Though the fierce street battles that threw the country into turmoil have ended, the crisis has not. Find out more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR). At a time when the international order is being challenged and decades-old conflicts appear to be in flux, perhaps it isn’t a surprise that anti-government protests in an impoverished Central American country initially fell under the radar last year. But the unrest in Nicaragua, less than 1,000 miles from U.S. shores, quickly […]