The Americas Archive

Ecuador’s June 28 extradition to Colombia of Fabio Ramirez Artunduaga, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (FARC) 48th Bloc, marks a significant step in the restoration and normalization of ties between the two South American neighbors. Acting on months of intelligence work by Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, Ecuadorean police arrested Ramirez during a sting in Quito, a world away from the jungles where his bloc operates. Citing his status as an undocumented foreign national, Ecuadorean courts promptly announced Ramirez’s extradition to Colombia. Within 48 hours of the arrest, Ramirez was in custody in Colombia. One year ago, […]

Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has set a timer in motion for resolving the outstanding differences between the North Atlantic alliance and Russia over a proposed ballistic missile defense system in Europe. Since the architecture for this shield is expected to be finalized at the May 2012 NATO summit in Chicago, Rogozin said that time is running out to determine what role, if any, Russia will play in the system. “Our current dialogue on missile defense is very difficult,” Rogozin said, “but we must finally either agree or disagree by the end of this year.” If not, Rogozin warns […]

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is known for a ubiquitous and theatrical presence in his nation’s media. So his sudden extended absence for the past month initially created something of a vacuum. As the news broke that he was in a Cuban hospital under treatment for cancer, however, that vacuum was quickly filled by speculation over who might take charge of the nation’s decade-old socialist revolution should Chávez turn out to be gravely ill. According to Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, the sudden lack of leadership that became evident in the […]

The Republican Party’s increasing divisions on foreign policy have now moved beyond Tea Party-inspired financial grumbling to find their way into the race for the GOP presidential nomination. Could the party’s 2012 nomination turn on foreign policy? If so, it would echo the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, in which foreign policy played an unusually strong role: Barack Obama is president of the United States today in large part because he opposed the Iraq War in 2003, compared to Hillary Clinton, who had been in favor of the war. However, supporters of a noninterventionist turn in the GOP are likely to […]

In June, U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg traveled to Brazil to promote economic ties between the two countries. In an email interview, Marieke Riethof, a lecturer in Latin American politics at the University of Liverpool, discussed U.K.-Brazil relations. WPR: What is the current state of U.K.-Brazil political and economic relations? Marieke Riethof: Although the U.K. is a relatively small trading partner for Brazil, bilateral trade and investment between the two countries have increased over the past 10 years. During the first half of 2011, total trade between the U.K. and Brazil increased by 8 percent compared to the same […]

President Hugo Chavez has told the Venezuelan people he will keep going in his fight against cancer.

A stalemate has set in between President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress over the president’s authority to initiate and continue combat operations against Libya. This should surprise no one. The limits on the president’s constitutional authority to wage war are as uncertain today as they were when the Constitution was ratified. Complicating this uncertainty is that pesky law passed by Congress in 1973 over President Richard Nixon’s veto: the War Powers Resolution (WPR). Enacted in response to the widespread belief that it had become far too easy for a president to commit the nation to war, the WPR sought […]

Robert Gates could boast a remarkable public service career when he retired from the Pentagon on July 1. In addition to his other contributions, Gates was the only defense secretary to have overseen two different wars serving under two presidents of two different parties. His solid if low-key Republican credentials and reputation as a prudent hawk helped depoliticize national security issues during and well beyond the presidential transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. These qualities also helped Obama avoid the kinds of problems experienced by President Bill Clinton, the previous Democratic president whose clashes with senior military officers […]

In the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima disaster, many in the West have begun to question the wisdom of extending the lives of existing nuclear power plants as well as building new ones. But rising powers in Asia and developing countries in the Middle East have shown little desire to turn away from plans to develop nuclear energy. In this Special Report, World Politics Review examines the shifting nuclear landscape through articles published over the past 16 months. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Subscribers can also download a .pdf version […]

“Other states indicate themselves in their deputies . . . . but the genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors . . . but always most in the common people. Their manners speech dress friendships — the freshness and candor of their physiognomy — the picturesque looseness of their carriage . . . their deathless attachment to freedom — their aversion to anything indecorous or soft or mean — the practical acknowledgment of […]