Global Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the recent violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, the U.N.’s cease-fire monitoring capabilities, and West Africa’s regional anti-Boko Haram force. For the Report, David Brown joins us to discuss leadership struggles, prospects for economic growth, and the fight against corruption in Vietnam. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles from WPR: Why Nagorno-Karabakh’s Conflict Turned Hot—and Could Again It’s Time for the U.N. to Refresh Its Neglected Cease-Fire Monitoring Skills West Africa’s Regional Force Against Boko Haram Is a Political Prop Can Vietnam’s New Leadership Deliver on […]

There has been no shortage of criticism of Europe’s response to the worsening refugee crisis that first escalated in 2015. In January, Denmark passed a law authorizing the government to seize assets from asylum-seekers. Poland and Slovakia announced they would only accept Christian refugees from Syria. And a recent deal between the European Union and Turkey has come under fire over questions about its legality. The deal allows Greece to return “all new irregular migrants” to Turkey; in exchange, for every migrant settled in Turkey, one Syrian already in Turkey will be resettled in the EU. Immediately after the deal’s […]

The words “cease-fire monitoring” are unlikely to create ripples of excitement in a group of military officers or civilian security specialists. Ambitious soldiers hanker after kinetic action, not observing static peace lines. Professional peacemakers associate tending to cease-fires with an outdated, Cold War-era approach to conflict management. This is unfortunate. Making simple cease-fires work is hard, and it seems that neither big powers nor international organizations are much good at it. Over the past week, the cessation of hostilities in Syria has lurched toward collapse, as violence escalated around Aleppo. It may be remarkable that the lull in fighting, which […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss Saudi Arabia’s Shiite minority; the U.K. referendum on European Union membership; and instability in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. For the Report, WPR columnist Michael Cohen joins us to talk about the role of foreign policy in the U.S. presidential election. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Saudi Arabia’s Shiites Caught in the Crossfire Between Riyadh and Tehran Cameron’s Brexit Referendum Ploy Could Lead to Broader EU Reforms Nigeria’s Amnesty, Handouts Stave Off Wider Unrest in Niger Delta—For Now What Would a Truly […]

Few analysts have lost money betting on a United Nations debate to be dull. There are exceptions. Fans of U.N. diplomacy cite the time in 1960 that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on the table during a heated General Assembly session. Harold Macmillan, the patrician then-British prime minister whose speech Khrushchev interrupted, paused to ask for a translation from the Russian. Such moments of multilateral hilarity are sadly rare, however. So I felt all too comfortable last week when I predicted that a series of General Assembly hearings with candidates for the post of U.N. secretary-general would fall […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss domestic politics in Bangladesh; Iran and Saudi Arabia’s battle for influence in Africa; and the challenges facing the global middle class. For the Report, Prashanth Parameswaran joins us to talk about corruption and reform in the Philippines under President Benigno Aquino III and what lies ahead for the next administration after May elections. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Opposition Leader Zia Latest Victim of Bangladesh’s Zero-Sum Politics Saudi Competition Gets in the Way of Iran’s Outreach in Africa Is the Global […]

This week, three of the United Nations’ thankless peace missions—in Libya, Yemen and Syria—will mark steps forward. To be sure, the definition of success is modest. For now, just reducing violence and beginning a political process is the best that one can hope for. But the U.N. deserves credit for persevering and nudging the parties along. Even as U.N. negotiators, sometimes with the ambiguous help of the great powers and regional leaders, begin cajoling the warring parties in the Middle East’s three terrible crises to compromise, the prospects for real peace are distant. The U.N. process not only aims to […]

The rise of a global middle class has been one of globalization’s great victories, but the surge in income and consumption in the developing world may be more of a temporary anomaly than a long-term trajectory. Some developing countries have ridden a commodities super-cycle to middle-class status, but most never made it or were far too late with the investments that might have converted the boon into more sustainable growth paths. Commodities are cyclical, and the global middle class may prove to be so as well. From 2001 to 2011, there was an unprecedented surge in the number of people […]

This column should start with a health warning: It contains some truly tedious writing about the future of the United Nations. In my own defense, I should add that the passages in question were not authored by me. This week, the current eight candidates to replace Ban Ki-moon as secretary-general when his term expires at the end of this year will have two-hour hearings at the U.N. General Assembly. As of this weekend, seven had published “vision statements” to pave the way for their appearances; the one exception was the last to declare, New Zealand’s Helen Clark. I have read […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the upcoming elections in Peru and Chad as well as the varying reactions to the Panama Papers around the globe. For the Report, Steven Metz joins us to talk about the concept of “limited war” and the differences in the U.S. and Russian approach to it. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: In Peru’s ‘Chaotic’ Presidential Elections, It’s a Race for Second Place Deby Set to Keep Power in Chad Election, but Discontent Is Growing Reaction to the ‘Panama Papers’ Reveals […]

AMSTERDAM—In the hours that followed the explosive revelations known as the Panama Papers, reverberations from the giant data drop were felt around the globe. After all, the 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, leaked anonymously to International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, implicate rich and powerful people from practically every country on Earth as holders of offshore shell companies that are often used for tax evasion purposes. But while the power from the leaks to discredit prominent individuals extended across practically every nation and every system of government, reaction to the revelations was far from uniform. The differences […]

Editor’s note: Guest columnist Jim Della-Giacoma is filling in for Richard Gowan, who is on leave until early April. Peace and the United Nations go together; at least that’s what its founders intended. But in the meeting rooms of the organization’s New York headquarters, diplomats often argue over the buzzword vocabulary of compound words and phrases for advancing the U.N.’s peace mandate. They parse whether an operation is a special political mission or a peacekeeping mission. They worry that calling something a “peace operation” is too imprecise. When they cannot agree whether something should be peace building or “sustaining the […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the changing definition of official development assistance, Burkina Faso’s security threats, and hawks and doves in the U.S. presidential campaign. For the Report, Bertil Lintner joins us to talk about the current situation in Laos in the run-up to U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the communist Asian country in September. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: New Aid Rules Are an Opportunity to Bridge Security-Development Divide After Attacks, Burkina Faso Walks Fine Line Between Security and Liberty In U.S. Presidential Campaign, […]