The Americas Archive

Over the past few decades, violence in Mexico has reached horrific levels, claiming the lives of 70,000 as criminal organizations fight each other for control of the drug trade and wage war on the Mexican police, military, government officials and anyone else unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire. The chaos has spread southward, engulfing Guatemala, Honduras and Belize. Americans must face the possibility that the conflict may also expand northward, with intergang warfare, assassinations of government officials and outright terrorism in the United States. If so, this will force Americans to undertake a fundamental reassessment of the threat, […]

That Russia and NATO are developing plans to conduct a rare joint maritime show of force to reaffirm their commitment to the Syrian chemical weapons elimination process is a good development. According to Reuters, Russian and U.S. warships will jointly escort a U.S. vessel, the USS Cape Ray, which has been re-equipped to destroy Syria’s most dangerous chemical weapons. Russian and NATO experts are currently developing a unified command structure, possible rules of engagement and other details within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council, the most important alliance structure linking the parties. The escort mission would be largely symbolic since […]

In the past few months, as the prospects have emerged for an agreement between Iran and U.S.-led world powers on Iran’s nuclear program, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan have made high-profile moves to strengthen their links in what is most likely not a mere coincidence of timing. Recent developments bring to mind repeated warnings over the years from top Saudi officials, like that of King Abdullah who in 2009 told a U.S. envoy, “If Iran gets nuclear weapons, we will get nuclear weapons.” Saudi Arabia is content to let the world know it is exploring its options. The important question […]

Last month, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told a crowd in Virginia that “we have the most advanced platforms in the world, but quantity has a quality of its own.” Mabus and other Navy leaders are currently grappling with severe budget constraints, and as he said those words the Navy was reportedly considering decommissioning one of its 10 active Nimitz-class aircraft carriers as a cost-saving measure. The $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford, the first of the next-generation Ford-class carriers, was christened in November and is currently expected to join the fleet as the 11th carrier in 2016.* Although […]

For more than a decade, the United States has poured blood and money into Afghanistan, hoping to turn it into some sort of functioning democracy that could at least keep the Taliban at bay. This project always had a deep tinge of unreality. Few places on earth are less hospitable to accountable governance, robust rule of law, protection of human rights and security provided by the state. The United States and its allies never had a plan to make Afghanistan economically self-sufficient or able to pay for its own security forces. Everyone knew the state would remain a ward of […]

Editor’s note: This is the sixth of a seven-part series examining conditions in Afghanistan in the last year of U.S. military operations there. The series runs every Wednesday and will examine each of the country’s regional commands to get a sense of the country, and the war, America is leaving behind. You can find the Series Introduction here, Part I here, Part II here, Part III here and Part IV here. In 2009, President Barack Obama vowed to narrow the U.S. mission in Afghanistan while expanding the resources for it, announcing a goal to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida and […]

French President Francois Hollande arrived in Washington yesterday to further strengthen the U.S.-France relationship, which has greatly improved from its Iraq War-era nadir. Hollande is facing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency and a faltering economic recovery with sustained high unemployment. But even so, French officials have signaled a desire to maintain an active foreign policy with close U.S. cooperation. The visit is “a nice way for the United States to pay France back for its leadership on Syria, Iran and Mali,” says Nicholas Dungan of the Atlantic Council. The French, for their part, “will be looking to see […]

The recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on the Chilean-Peruvian maritime boundary dispute closed one chapter of a trilateral territorial dispute that has festered among Chile, Peru and Bolivia for more than a century. But while Chile and Peru mend fences, similar progress between Chile and Bolivia has not materialized. Less than a decade ago, geopolitical tensions surrounding the dispute played a part in blocking Bolivia from participating in a clear market solution to Chile’s natural gas crisis. Today, that dynamic has deteriorated for Bolivia: The region’s shifting energy market realities have removed what leverage Bolivia had in its […]

It was the “f**k” heard round the world. But did anyone truly grasp what the expletive really meant? Foreign affairs specialists snickered last week as an unknown source released a recording of Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs at the U.S. State Department, saying, “F**k the EU.” Nuland used the expletive during a phone discussion of potential arrangements for overseeing a political transition in Ukraine, which has been in turmoil since its government rejected an economic deal with Brussels under Russian pressure last year. European Union officials including the bloc’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton […]

After Michael McFaul, the current U.S. ambassador to Russia, announced that he would be stepping down from his post after the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, lobbying began quickly for the president to send an openly gay replacement to represent the United States in Moscow. The Human Rights Campaign, the leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender special interest organization in the U.S., argues that such a step “would send a vital message to the world that America’s belief in international human rights is as strong as ever” and “would give LGBT Russians a hopeful diplomatic role model to look to […]

In recent weeks, the State Department has begun a new push on Sri Lankan human rights issues in the aftermath of that country’s decades-long war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which came to an end in May 2009. This push will likely include a new resolution in the United Nations Human Rights Council, the third such resolution in recent years, intended to pressure the government of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Sri Lankan government’s final push against LTTE-held territory, in the north of the country, resulted in the defeat of the group. But international observers criticized […]

The most recent replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association, a fund through which the bank provides grants and loans to poor countries, involved attempts to enlist more support from the so-called emerging donors—developing countries that have only recently begun giving aid to other developing countries. In an email interview, Sadika Hameed, who works with the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained how developing countries contribute to each other’s economic growth through trade and aid. WPR: What has been the recent trajectory of “South-South” trade? Sadika Hameed: Following the financial crisis […]

With 63 percent of all eligible voters turning out to the polls in El Salvador’s presidential elections on Feb. 2, former guerilla commander Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) captured 49 percent of the national vote.* Since the country’s electoral rules require the winner to surpass 50 percent, Sanchez Ceren will advance to a March 9 runoff against the second place finisher, Norman Quijano of the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), who secured 39 percent of the vote. Sanchez Ceren’s incumbent FMLN party has roots dating back to the country’s 1980s civil war. After competing in […]

U.S. leadership in the global security system is not what it used to be. Ukraine is in turmoil while Washington does little but warn and plead. Libya remains chaotic while the violent detritus of its 2011 civil war destabilizes Africa and the Levant. China uses ancient claims to assert ownership of tiny islands and potentially valuable stretches of the open sea. Gulf states are apoplectic over American inaction on the horrific Syrian civil war and the beginning of detente between Washington and Iran. America’s arch enemy al-Qaida seems as influential and dangerous as ever, with franchises popping up faster than […]

With growth still lagging after the financial crisis, countries in the developed and developing worlds alike are looking to new trade agreements, closer financial integration and reforms to global economic governance to raise their economic outlooks. This WPR special report looks at the prospects for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the Pacific Alliance and the future of the dollar, among other topics, through articles published in the past year. Trade and Integration Opportunity Knocks for Obama on TradeBy Edward AldenJan. 8, 2013 With TPP and TTIP, U.S. and EU Reassert Control Over Rules of Global TradeBy […]

Revelations about Russian and Chinese missile tests last month raised alarm among analysts and lawmakers. The tests underscored that cutting-edge missile systems remain an area of active competition among high-end military powers as Russia and China try to catch up with the capabilities of the United States. Russia is in the midst of an ambitious modernization of its nuclear arsenal, including the development of several new long-range missile systems. Recent Russian flight tests of a new ground-launched cruise missile, reported last week, may put Russia in violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The treaty prohibits both Russia […]

When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Tehran last week, his Iranian hosts made no mention of the domestic troubles facing him back home. That contrasts sharply with the kinds of criticism the notoriously touchy Erdogan regularly hears these days when traveling in the West. In particular, the problems facing Erdogan’s AKP government are placing a major burden on Turkey-U.S. relations. His authoritarian tendencies and proclivity to blame everyone, including Washington, for his domestic challenges have become increasingly difficult for the administration of President Barack Obama to ignore, despite the warm personal relationship between the two leaders. These challenges […]