Global Archive

Great-power war is back on the global agenda. What can international peacemakers do about it? The Pentagon’s recently released National Defense Strategy declares that the U.S. should concentrate more on strategic competition with China and Russia than on terrorism. The latest edition of The Economist, a bellwether of liberal internationalist thought, focuses on the risk of a major-power war. False nuclear alerts sparked panic in Hawaii and Japan earlier this month. Western military types fear that they are out of sync with these threats. U.S. commanders are telling their troops to get ready for a big war. Their European allies […]

It’s not often that we’re treated to the spectacle of two worlds colliding, but U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Davos for the annual World Economic Forum this week promises to be just that. As if to add to the drama, a string of obstacles has sprung up complicating Trump’s trip. The U.S. government shutdown briefly threatened to derail it. Now a winter storm has dumped six feet of snow on the Swiss mountain retreat, making access difficult and raising the risk of an avalanche. If Trump’s visit does come off as planned, it will set the stage for […]

Editor’s note: This is a special Friday edition of Diplomatic Fallout. Steven Metz will return with Strategic Horizons next week. If you want to understand United Nations diplomacy, it helps to think of the institution as a sort of high-level anger management class. The U.N. may be a place for states to work together on common problems, but it is also a venue for governments to get cross with one another without causing too much damage. There are few easier ways for diplomats to postpone serious discussions of a contentious issue than passing a U.N. General Assembly resolution about it. […]

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 the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency ahead of the anniversary of his inauguration. For the Report, Philip Kleinfeld talks with Andrew Green about how efforts by President Joseph Kabila to hold onto power in the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than a year after the end of his presidential term, is driving a resurgence of militia violence. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our […]

Last weekend, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres traveled to Colombia to try to invigorate the 2016 peace agreement ending a relentless guerrilla insurgency that had become a painful relic of the Cold War. The longest-running armed conflict in the Western hemisphere pitted the state against the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest of two Marxist guerrilla groups that battled Colombian forces for more than half a century. But in contrast to the international acclaim and optimism that greeted the peace deal, which culminated in Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos receiving the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, Guterres’ […]

Coming up on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. president, a number of weighty international issues loom on the near horizon. Asia is on edge over signs the United States might initiate a nuclear war with North Korea and a trade war with China. The Middle East risks going completely off the rails after Trump’s reversal of decades-long U.S. policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict and his threatened reversal of the nuclear deal with Iran. Alarms are sounding in Europe over a paradigmatic shift in relations with Washington that poses an existential threat to the idea of a […]

Much has been made of French President Emmanuel Macron’s flair for public diplomacy, from his handling of U.S. President Donald Trump to his efforts to take the lead in global diplomacy on climate change. The latest illustration is his visit this week to China, where he lived up to expectations: In a French version of China’s celebrated “panda diplomacy,” Macron offered Chinese President Xi Jinping a prized horse from France’s Republican Guard as a gift. In his speech in Xian upon his arrival, Macron offered China shared leadership on climate change diplomacy and requested Beijing’s help in efforts to stabilize […]

The festive season may be over, but if you still have any leftover champagne lying about, pop the cork. This column, Diplomatic Fallout, is five years old today. Or, to be more precise, five years and a day: The first edition appeared on Jan. 7, 2013. Since then, occasionally pausing for bouts of paternity leave and public holidays, I have churned out just over 200 pieces—very roughly 200,000 words—for World Politics Review. That’s about the same as Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” in terms of the quantity of words involved, if not necessarily the quality. The column has at times strayed […]

The protests that have sprung up in cities across Iran over the past week have taken many observers by surprise. It was no secret that the underwhelming and unevenly distributed economic gains from the lifting of international sanctions after the 2015 nuclear deal had led to widespread discontent. But there was no catalyzing event to explain the public demonstrations on display this week, which are rare in Iran. For now, the protests raise more questions than they answer, beginning with what the protesters want and who—if anyone—is organizing and leading them. The first spontaneous demonstrations focused on economic grievances. But […]

A quick survey of the security landscape for 2018 leaves little doubt that the North Korean crisis will continue to be a U.S. national security priority. Some are hoping to dial back the momentum toward a showdown, urging the Trump administration to take a deep breath before making more rhetorical pronouncements. But there are ample signs that the big machine of the U.S. government is preparing for all contingencies, including military action. What about other threats? President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy, released last month, takes the longer view, and is helpful mainly in determining what is on his […]