Briefing Archive

Leaders from NATO, its partner countries, the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank met in Warsaw last week for the alliance’s largest-ever summit. Among the key outcomes from the gathering, NATO leaders agreed to deploy four battalions to the Baltic countries and Poland in order to counter the growing threat from Russia; resolved to continue funding Afghan security forces and keep NATO forces in Afghanistan beyond 2016 for training purposes; and offered continued support for Ukraine’s military modernization efforts. Perhaps the most overlooked agreement to emerge from the Warsaw summit was the joint declaration between the EU […]

Even by the turbulent standards of Jacob Zuma’s presidency, 2016 has been a rough year for South Africa, as a series of economic and political convulsions have shaken the country. Local elections are set for Aug. 3 against a backdrop of weak governance, a flailing economy, and profound divisions within the ruling African National Congress (ANC). While the ANC’s opponents on the right and the left should be able to seize on this uncertainty at the polls, next month’s electoral outcome will reveal much about the opposition’s prospects for ending the ANC’s dominance in the next general election in 2019. […]

In the summer of 2014, the Obama administration found itself between a rock and a hard place. The Islamic State had just swept through northern Iraq, decimating the American-trained Iraqi army left to keep the peace after the U.S. withdrawal. Islamic State foot soldiers executed Iraqi troops and commandeered their American weapons, growing stronger and better equipped as they passed through each town. The U.S. had few options to counter the Islamic State’s rise. Having just vacated Iraq in 2010, any thoughts of a massive military deployment returning to the Middle East to win back Sunni “hearts and minds” would […]

In late June, Israel and Turkey struck a long-awaited deal to normalize diplomatic ties, ending the six-year chill sparked by Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that killed eight Turks and an American citizen of Turkish origin. Under the deal, Israel will allocate $20 million for compensation of the victims’ families. As ties are restored, each country will return its ambassador, and the two sides could even enter talks on a natural gas pipeline. Turkey, for its part, will halt all criminal or civil claims against Israeli military personnel involved in the raid. Shortly after the deal was signed, a […]

The tenor of NATO’s summit in Warsaw late last week focused overwhelmingly on deterring Russia’s military adventurism. While it was a positive turn for members of the alliance’s eastern flank, such as Poland and the Baltic states, longstanding NATO aspirants like Georgia are unlikely to see any genuine relief from their extended membership limbo. This is largely a consequence of NATO’s increasingly fraught internal politics, but Tbilisi itself cannot escape some blame. NATO’s shift from retrenchment and reassurance to deterrence in response to Russian aggression in Eastern Europe was evident in its plans, announced in Warsaw, to deploy four multinational […]

In November, Nicaraguans will head to the polls to elect a president, members of the National Assembly and representatives to the Central American Parliament. The elections will be the country’s first since constitutional reforms were passed in 2014. The likely victor of the presidential race, President Daniel Ortega, can now be elected with a simple plurality, although he is predicted to win more than 60 percent of the vote. It would be his fourth term since being elected in 1984 and his seventh presidential campaign overall. Though his candidacy comes as no surprise, two recent controversies—one international and one domestic—have […]

The result of the United Kingdom’s referendum on its membership in the European Union was a shock, even to leaders of the “leave” campaign, exposing a lack of planning for the new British relationship with Europe. Amid the turbulence of Brexit, less attention has been paid to its geopolitical effects. But on the key issues of Russia, Syria, China and trade, Brexit will have direct and significant impacts. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s purported desire for Britain to leave the EU was a debating point during the referendum campaign. While Putin’s public statements on the outcome suggest mild approval, private sources […]

With Brexit taking up most of the oxygen in Brussels these days, it was easy to miss the release last week of the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy. Federica Mogherini—the EU’s foreign policy chief and a vice president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch—was tasked with developing the new strategy last June. It was drafted after extensive consultations with the commission, the European Parliament, EU member states and think tanks. Officially titled “Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe,” the strategy outlines the foreign policy objectives of the EU and asserts the bloc’s […]

NATO leaders meet for their summit in Warsaw today buffeted by crises and conflicts on all sides. Many of them could have been averted. From the global refugee crisis to conflicts across the world, much of the current instability stems from world leaders’ failure to adequately respond to human rights violations, especially if other political or economic interests are at stake. Instead, when a crisis breaks out, when the bodies start piling up, and when refugees flee by the thousands, leaders say they didn’t see it coming, and start yet another discussion about the necessity of new, more advanced early […]

Every American policy analyst who has passed through the doors of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney in recent months asks a version of the same rhetorical question about Australian politics: What are you Aussies complaining about? We get fewer British visitors at Lowy than Americans, but I imagine they are thinking the same thing. They have a point. From their perspective, Australia looks prosperous—with unemployment below 6 percent, continuous economic growth for the past 24 years, and a generous social safety net—and thus well governed. Nor is Australia suffering the kind of political schisms seen in the […]

There has been a resurgence of violence in the chronically unstable and impoverished Central African Republic (CAR), as regional and international efforts to push back against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continue to fall short, and ongoing tensions between Muslim and Christian militia groups rage. CAR has experienced episodic violence for decades, but instability deepened in March 2013, when a predominantly Muslim rebel coalition known as the Seleka seized power, overthrowing former President Francois Bozize. That precipitated a bloody war between Seleka fighters and the mainly Christian “anti-balaka” militias, fought along religious and intercommunal lines. Since then, approximately 6,000 people […]

June 20 marked the one-year anniversary of the landmark peace deal struck in Algiers between the government of Mali and separatist Tuareg rebel fighters. In 2012, the fighters, joined by Islamist militias allied with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), led an uprising against the central government, claiming an independent northern state called Azawad. The Algerian-brokered deal was a bid to put an end to the cycle of rebellions that have tormented northern Mali since the 1960s. The agreement also sought to bring sustainable peace more generally to Mali, a former beacon of democracy. This, according to the agreement, known […]

On June 12, an uneasy peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea that had lasted 16 years came to a dramatic end, as border clashes claimed 200 Ethiopian lives and an unknown number of Eritrean casualties. While both countries blamed each other for escalating hostilities, the causes of current tensions differ markedly from those underpinning past wars between them, with implications for efforts by international partners seeking to mediate between the two sides. Historically, conflicts between Ethiopia and Eritrea have been triggered by territorial disputes and national security concerns. The 30-year war that lasted from 1961 to 1991 was a struggle for […]

Perhaps more than they have with regard to any other region of the world, pundits, political scientists and foreign ministries have latched on with an astounding vigor to the notion that the Arctic is an entirely peaceful region, ruled by laws and largely immune to geopolitical shocks. The United States’ 2013 Arctic Strategy is prefaced with the assertion that “the Arctic region is peaceful, stable, and free of conflict.” Indeed, the very possibility of conflict there is so beyond the pale that the Arctic Council—the primary organ of governance in the region—is precluded by its mandate from addressing military security. […]

At the foundations of the major crises that have rocked Europe over the past three years can be found questions of geo-economics. Whether in the Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014, the migration crisis that began in earnest in 2015, or last week’s decision of British voters to approve an exit from the European Union, governments and peoples are making choices as to what sources of human capital, raw material and manufacturing potential, as well as which larger economic groupings, they wish to be associated with. The neat division of the world into largely self-sufficient Westphalian states defined by clear […]