Briefing Archive

SANTIAGO, Chile — As conservative billionaire Sebastian Piñera was sworn in as Chile’s 38th president on March 11, hanging lamps and flower displays in the Chilean Congress swayed due to aftershocks from the earthquake that had fractured a large swath of the country less than two weeks earlier. The tremors were a reminder that Piñera’s success as president, and perhaps the future of his party, will depend on his ability to lead an efficient recovery from the country’s worst natural disaster in 50 years. The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that shook Chile before dawn on Feb. 27 toppled buildings and bridges and […]

The outcome of the U.K.’s upcoming general election is no longer a foregone conclusion, with the opposition Conservative Party’s steady lead in opinion polls recently narrowing. An election date of May 6 has been floated, leaving plenty of time for the usual twists and turns of election campaigning. All the same, given Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s political difficulties and popular fatigue with the Labour Party’s long grip on power, a Conservative win is certainly plausible. So what would be the implications of a Conservative victory on foreign and development policy? Answering this question is tricky, not least because a consistent […]

One of the strengths of the Naval War College is that it constantly reviews and assesses its curriculum. In support of that effort, I have been reacquainting myself with E. H. Carr’s seminal work “The Twenty Years’ Crisis,” which got me to thinking: Will we look back on the period of time between 1991 and 2011 as another two-decade interregnum marked by crisis and opportunity? This isn’t an entirely original thought. James Goldgeier and Derek Chollet opened this discussion two years ago when they published, “America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11.” But I wanted to focus on the […]

In announcing on March 8 that Venezuela is interested in restoring diplomatic ties with Colombia, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro noted that any improvement will not take place while current Colombian President Álvaro Uribe remains in office. The jab was just one of many that Bogotá and Caracas have traded over the past eight tumultuous years, but the conciliatory rhetoric suggests that the two countries may be turning a corner in bilateral relations. A lot remains to be accomplished. Ties between the two neighbors, always tense, took a turn for the worse after a March 2008 attack by Colombian forces […]

As the United States steps up its campaign to impose economic sanctions on Iran, fears are growing in Washington and in the Middle East that Iran will try to trigger a new war in the region in order to shift attention from its nuclear activities, throw the U.S. and its allies off balance, and put Israel on the defensive. Few people, if any, envision Iran launching a direct attack. Rather, the concern is that Tehran will manage to stir up trouble in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, or even Syria, in order to spark a new confrontation between Israel […]

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — Standing on a mountaintop, 1st Lt. Maximilian Soto swept his arm from side to side, indicating a 400-square-mile expanse of fields, rivers and streams surrounding the village of Estalef in Parwan province, just north of Kabul. “All this,” he said, “is mine.” With a force of just 26 men from the Special Troops Battalion of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, Soto provides security for a chunk of Afghanistan the size of a typical American county. “It’s quite difficult,” he told World Politics Review. In December, U.S. President Barack Obama announced he would be sending 30,000 new […]

As president of the G-20 this year, South Korea seemingly has an appetite for tackling the global economy’s biggest problems. And few challenges loom larger than the significant global imbalances that helped pave the way for the recent international financial crisis. The Koreans have been busy promoting an apparently novel solution to this very problem: an international currency swap regime. But how would such an arrangement work, and could it actually help correct current imbalances? As important, is there any chance this idea will get off the ground? The global economy of today is — and has been for some […]

The run up to this weekend’s Iraqi election — the second general election held since the fall of Saddam’s regime — was marked by speculation, anticipation and no shortage of controversy. Since the last such election in 2005, the Iraqi people have witnessed continual changes to their country and political map, and the trajectory of Iraq as determined by this latest election could change accordingly. There is little doubt that, although the elections saw some violence, they were a marked improvement from 2005 and a testament that democracy is taking root in Iraq. There is much at stake in the […]

It could take over a month before the Iraqi Supreme Court confirms the results of Sunday’s legislative elections, but the process itself has already shown significant successes in several dimensions. Even so, important questions regarding Iraq’s future, and America’s role in it, remain unresolved. Most importantly, this latest election confirms Iraq’s status as a functioning democracy in which multiple candidates and political parties compete for office in essentially free and fair elections, whose outcome could not be predicted in advance. While such an achievement would not be remarkable in many parts of the world, it is a rarity in the […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — It’s easy to confuse the interior of Nairobi’s Habesha restaurant with a lost corner of Ethiopia. The smell of frankincense and thick, dark coffee waft through the air as the latest tunes by Teddy Afro vie to be heard over the Amharic-language patter of denizens from Addis Ababa, Lalibela, Mekele and Gonder. There’s a good reason for the resemblance: Many of Habesha’s clients are in exile for speaking out against the government of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. And if the 2005 elections as well as this year’s campaign season are any indication, it might be even […]

China has designated 2010 “The Year of China-Indonesia Friendship” to mark the 60th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations with the world’s fourth-largest country. But while both countries are poised to reap major benefits from their improved bilateral ties, Beijing and Jakarta must manage their asymmetric relationship skillfully to mitigate potential tensions in the future. Relations between China and Indonesia have certainly come a long way since the height of the Cold War. Beijing, then reviled by Jakarta as a fomenter of communist insurrection, is now welcomed as a key investor in Indonesia’s economic future. Bilateral trade has mushroomed by an […]

National security types have long noted — and complained about — the relative lack of military veterans in Congress, which results in too few experienced votes being cast when the prospect of overseas interventions is raised. I have long noted — and complained about — the fact that Congress’ most prominent military vets hail from the Vietnam era, which has led many to instinctively reject the necessity and utility of conducting nation-building and counterinsurgency. Clearly, our lengthy interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan will alter this generational equation, but how will the experiences of today’s veterans impact their votes in tomorrow’s […]

Iraq’s parliamentary elections this Sunday, March 7, will close the first full chapter in the country’s transformation to a democratically elected, majority-rule system of government. The government elected in December 2005 consolidated Shiite rule and eventually brought Iraq a degree of security as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki tightened his grip on the levers of power. Now the nation’s corruption, fragile peace and lack of national reconciliation have left many looking for change — including American officials eager to see, if not a new Iraqi leader, at least a shake-up in the composition of his government. They will likely be disappointed. […]

Last week, senior students at the Naval War College presented their Final Exercise briefs. In assessing how the world of 2030 will take shape, many drew on the National Intelligence Council’s report, “Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed,” particularly its assessment — as a “relative certainty” — that “a global multipolar system is emerging with the rise of China, India, and others.” This is the future everyone expects, but in order to determine what steps the United States should take now, in 2010, to mold and nudge how this future will unfold, we need to answer a fundamental question: What […]

Proposals in Brussels to throw a financial lifeline to debt-strapped Greece have met with resistance from some EU governments, in part because of the poor precedent a bailout would set for other member states in similar predicaments. But there is also mounting public opposition to such a move, particularly in Germany. As a result, despite the threat a Greek meltdown would pose to the eurozone as a whole, the German government has adopted a hard-line position in negotiations over how the EU should respond, causing relations between the two countries to become increasingly strained. The German government has historically extended […]

In the wake of a major natural disaster, the narrative arc that subsequently unfolds has the potential to reshape the political landscape of the affected country. The script has been written and performed many times in many countries, with no two times ever exactly the same. After this weekend’s massive earthquake in Chile, keep an eye on the response from the governments — both the outgoing and incoming one — to see how the quake ends up altering that country’s long-term political picture. No matter where disaster strikes, the script opens with shock, heartbreak and compassion. Then, it inexorably moves […]

As U.S. policymakers and other governments around the world search for an approach that will convince Iran to stop short of crossing the nuclear weapons threshold, Iran continues to send very mixed signals, and shows no signs of abandoning progress toward producing weapons-grade nuclear material. Meanwhile, Iran is in the midst of an internal political struggle that is often opaque from the outside, but could have major consequences for the country’s position in the region and the world. This World Politics Review special report examines “The Iran Enigma.” This report is a compilation of 25 articles on Iran published in […]