Briefing Archive

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated what he really thinks about democracy in his address to a joint session of Congress late last month, and he did so without ever uttering the actual word. As his administration leaked details about his budget, including plans to raise defense spending by 10 percent and slash funding for the State Department and foreign aid, Trump pronounced that “Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people—and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path. My job is not to represent the world. My job is to […]

Last week, The New York Times reported that the United States had secretly stepped up cyber attacks against North Korea’s missile program during President Barack Obama’s second term. The attacks were initially a success, according to the Times. “Soon a large number of the North’s military rockets began to explode, veer off course, disintegrate in midair and plunge into the sea.” Whether or not a series of test failures in recent years were the direct result of U.S. cyber interference, as the Times suggested, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is a prominent target for U.S. cyber warfare—and President Donald Trump […]

Boko Haram, the Nigeria-based jihadi movement affiliated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State, has been in decline for more than two years, since it began to lose territory around Lake Chad under joint military pressure from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. After retreating from major towns in northeastern Nigeria such as Bama and Mubi, Boko Haram now controls only certain remote rural areas in that corner of the country. But even though its strength peaked back in 2015, Boko Haram is still a major threat to Nigeria and its neighbors, as the group’s decline has been uneven and frequently punctuated by […]

Xi Jinping is midway through his tenure as China’s president, and the systemic economic reforms he pledged are nowhere to be seen. The economy is increasingly reliant on debt-fueled investments, while bloated state-owned corporations and banks have yet to be trimmed. All the while growth continues to slow. In other countries, this would be a vulnerable time for the top leadership. Long periods of dramatic growth followed by stagnation or decline have historically been a backdrop for dissent, and even revolution, as the political scientist James Davies first described in his J-curve theory in 1962. And even though China continues […]

Despite years of warnings, Russia has doubled down on its previously alleged violation of a three-decade-old nuclear arms control treaty by deploying a banned intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missile. Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the deployment of the missile to Congress on Wednesday, calling it a violation of “the spirit and intent” of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, commonly known as the INF Treaty. “We believe that the Russians have deliberately deployed it in order to pose a threat to NATO and to facilities within the NATO area of responsibility,” he added. Western […]

Last month, Myanmar inked 16 different business deals with neighboring Thailand, ranging from cooperation in infrastructure to banking and agriculture. Myanmar’s fourth-largest foreign investor, Thailand hosts many migrant laborers from Myanmar, mainly in Bangkok and in the northwest along the border. But Thailand is not the only country Myanmar is forging investment ties with. Singapore led with $4.3 billion in investment last year, followed by China, the country’s largest trading partner, with $3.3 billion. Last fall, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged $7.7 billion in development assistance. As recently as 2011, China was Myanmar’s largest investor by a factor of […]

Almost five months after Morocco’s leading Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party, or PJD, won a plurality in legislative elections, the country still does not have a government. In a region where Islamists in power are the exception—and whose political experiments, when they were in power, were short-lived—the PJD appeared well on its way toward a second term at the helm of the Moroccan government. But unlike past years, the task of building a coalition has proven difficult, if not impossible at this point. The usual coalition parties, all too eager in the past to join the government in […]

Romania’s biggest protests since the fall of communism in 1989 have been widely hailed as a victory for people power and civic activism against a corrupt elite. The weeks-long mass demonstrations, which led to Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu’s new government backing down on controversial plans to weaken anti-corruption laws, energized those previously unengaged with politics. But long-term questions remain about democracy in Romania, where street protests have become increasingly frequent as Romanians lose faith in their political parties. Protests began in January against plans by the government, which is led by the left-leaning Social Democratic Party, or PSD, to effectively […]

It was once almost axiomatic that Africa was a continent of coups, with the military coup d’etat the principal mechanism for regime change. The figures told their own story, with over 200 coups and attempted coups between many countries’ independence in the early 1960s and 2012. The post-independence narrative became wearily familiar, with periods of civilian rule punctuated by military takeovers. There was, however, a perceptible change from the 1990s onward as a result of the democratic wave that swept Africa following the end of the Cold War. Although fragile, incomplete and imperfect, this wave produced a popular intolerance for […]

Earlier this week, as President Donald Trump released his revised travel ban on citizens from six Muslim-majority countries entering the United States, Israel announced a ban of its own: a law that prohibits the issuing of temporary visas and residency permits to any non-Israeli who has publicly supported or participated in or called for a boycott of Israel. The vaguely worded law, which passed by a comfortable margin of 18 votes in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, not only applies to supporters of the “Boycott, Divest, Sanction” movement, known as BDS, but of “any area under Israeli control”—a clear reference to […]

KINSHASA, Congo — Since the Democratic Republic of Congo secured its independence in 1960, its people have become accustomed to living under unstable or dictatorial governments, but they entered 2017 especially unsure of where their country stands. At the heart of their uncertainty is the continuing refusal of President Joseph Kabila to clarify his long-term ambitions. But the death of a longtime opposition leader last month has only added to the confusion. Many Congolese remain convinced that Kabila aspires to a third term, currently forbidden by the constitution. Several of his influential supporters have openly advocated for a referendum that […]

Economic disputes, trade restrictions and public tirades are not usually the stuff of strong, bilateral partnerships. But that’s the nature of relations between Russia and Belarus these days, two geopolitical partners who have experienced an unusually bitter falling-out in recent months. Mutual frustration between Russia and Belarus isn’t exactly new. In the past few years, Moscow and Minsk have traded jabs on everything from dairy products to energy prices. The Russian jabs have typically been attempts to exert political and economic pressure on Minsk to make sure it stays loyal. For Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, tensions with Moscow have provided […]

Just when the United States seems to be retreating from competition in global markets, and possibly even NAFTA, socialist Cuba is moving in the opposite direction. With the signing late last month of a new trade agreement with the 15 countries of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, Cuba is looking to capitalize on trade and economic links with its neighbors. The feeling is mutual. The Caribbean countries have begun to see Cuba in a different light following the start of the normalization of relations between Havana and Washington and the prospect of the U.S. lifting, or at least relaxing, its […]

Within the span of a week, Tunisia’s government was lauded abroad for passing a comprehensive anti-corruption law and lambasted at home for its muddled response to the growing number of its nationals returning from fighting among the ranks of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It should come as no surprise that Tunisia made headlines, on one hand, for progress on democratic reform and, on the other, for lackluster security policies. Relative to its neighbors, the country emerged relatively unscathed by the popular uprising that ousted former dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, and it has been […]

South Korea’s Constitutional Court must rule by June on whether to uphold the impeachment of beleaguered President Park Geun-hye. South Korea has been embroiled in scandal for months over Park’s alleged collusion with an unsanctioned adviser, her controversial friend Choi Soon-sil. If the court backs the National Assembly’s vote in December to impeach Park, who was accused of bribery, extortion and abuse of power, South Korea will have to hold an election within 60 days of the ruling. Most analysts and legal experts in Seoul have indicated that the court will likely decide to remove Park from office, potentially as […]

Late last year, in the early morning hours of Dec. 16, 40 heavily armed fighters stormed a military post in Nassoumbou, in northern Burkina Faso, about 18 miles from the border with Mali. Many observers assumed the attack was conducted by one of the extremist groups that are active across the Sahel and that find a safe haven in parts of Mali. Burkina Faso had already suffered several attacks at the hands of foreign insurgents, most often in its remote northern provinces, but also when operatives of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb infiltrated Ouagadougou, the capital, in January 2016, killing […]

On April 16, Turks are set to vote “yes” or “no” on a package of 18 constitutional reforms that would abolish the current parliamentary system of government in favor of a strong executive presidency. The only politician who stands to gain more from the reforms’ passage than President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—who sees them as the flagship project of his political career—is Davlet Bahceli, the long-time leader of the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP. Bahceli has decided to throw his full support behind Erdogan and the “yes” campaign. Indeed, without his support, Erdogan’s allies in parliament from his Justice and […]