Briefing Archive

One of the principal challenges for U.S. policy toward Russia is the desire to balance the promotion of human rights with other American interests, such as security and trade. Advancing these pragmatic interests is often assumed to require shelving human rights issues. This problem is at the center of the so-called Magnitsky Act, which will come before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee later this month. This bill, however, takes a misguided approach to striking this balance, addressing an individual case rather than underlying problems, and creating confrontation where none need exist. The act seeks to punish those Russian officials responsible […]

There’s a warlord in the news again. With 86 million views and counting, the “Kony 2012” web video and its recently released sequel brought unprecedented attention to Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The videos are part of a campaign orchestrated by the U.S.-based NGO Invisible Children to rally international support for Kony’s capture. The major news outlets responded in kind, with ABC, CNN and the New York Times casting Kony as a warlord. The problem is, warlords don’t exist. At least not as Invisible Children and its growing audience think they do. The existence of warlords may […]

As tensions over Iran’s nuclear program rise, assertions that Israel’s increasing closeness to Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim state on Iran’s northern border, represents the emergence of an anti-Iran “tag team” are gaining currency. But despite undoubtedly warming ties between the two countries, there is no indication that Baku is in any hurry to sacrifice its national interests by participating in a conflict that could possibly drag it into a regional conflagration. Though a recently signed $1.6 billion arms deal has put the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship in the spotlight of late, an article on the Foreign Policy website, vaulted the South Caucasus […]

NAIROBI — As conflict continues to rage along the poorly demarcated, oil-rich border separating Sudan and South Sudan, international parties are scrambling to avert full-scale war. The African Union (AU) hosted reconciliation talks Monday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. In a result reflective of the AU’s two-year mediation, however, Northern and Southern Sudanese officials failed to reach any tangible resolution. The current crisis constitutes the largest scale of violence between the two national armies since South Sudan officially seceded in July 2011. Each side blames the other for instigating the aggression. South Sudan claims its northern neighbor continues to […]

Over the weekend, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) seized Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, the three major cities of northern Mali that lie within the region the Tuareg rebel group refers to as “Azawad.” This development highlights the inability of the military-led junta currently ruling the country, the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDR), to stem the MNLA’s advance, despite having deposed Malian President Amadou Toumani Touré for his anemic response to this latest round of Tuareg rebellion. Before his overthrow, Touré had also come under fire from regional and international critics for […]

The civil war in Syria is now more than a year old, with estimates putting the civilian death toll at the hands of the Syrian army at 9,000 people in the past 13 months. As the slaughter continues, President Barack Obama has offered little more than promises of nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition and intonations about establishing “a process” to transition to a “legitimate government.” Inaction in the face of such butchery is easy to criticize, of course, and America cannot intervene everywhere. Nonetheless, Obama’s inaction in the face of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brutality is especially glaring in […]

NATO’s upcoming Chicago summit in May offers an opportunity for deliberation about the current state of the military alliance, including operations outside its core strategic area. In this context, the recent military intervention in Libya will likely be hailed as a successful and hopefully replicable model (.pdf). Swift and precise action followed by rapid withdrawal represent a welcome change from the alliance’s drawn-out mission in Afghanistan. In contrast to the Afghan quagmire, the Libyan model, with its prompt termination of military operations and deliberate lack of involvement in the subsequent political transition, looks like a promising alternative. Yet the assumption […]

Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the bloody 74-day war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas, in the South Atlantic. It was an anniversary that did not go unnoticed in either country, with the islands’ offshore oil reserves largely driving the renewed attention. Exploratory oil drilling commenced in early 2010 in the waters off the string of islands where sheep have long outnumbered people. Several British oil concerns have spent the past two years drilling to assess the potential in the waters surrounding the islands, with increasing success. Though relevant for […]

Historical antagonisms are again preventing Japan and South Korea from cooperating on important issues. Despite being neighbors with a range of shared economic and security interests, unsettled grievances continue to damage relations between two of Asia’s largest military and economic powers. Two hot-button historical issues have popped up recently, both of which have their origins in the colonial era and its hasty conclusion. South Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910-1945 and gained independence in the wake of Japan’s defeat in World War II. The first is the two countries’ long-simmering feud over the Dokdo islets, a series of rocks […]