Guinea’s Junta President Col. Mamady Doumbouya, center, after a meeting with an ECOWAS delegation in Conakry, Guinea, Sept. 10, 2021 (AP photo by Sunday Alamba).

For the past decade and more, the U.S. and other international actors have prioritized a narrowly defined form of stability over democratic accountability in their diplomatic, development and security engagement in West Africa. The only problem is that this approach is not working. West African countries enjoy neither the stability their international partners seek, nor the democracy their citizens desire.  Why, then, is the United States and the rest of the “international community” unwilling or unable to make a course correction in their West Africa engagement? To begin to answer that question, a bit of historical background is necessary. Beginning […]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and Emirati National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan before a meeting in Ankara, Aug. 18, 2021 (Turkish Presidency photo via AP).

This time last year, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey appeared to be on opposing sides of a range of issues spanning the broader Middle East and North Africa region. But recently, leaders from the two countries have started to talk again. Concerns in 2019 and 2020 that a regional “cold war” pitting Emirati and Turkish interests against each other in Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa and even the Caucasus have given way to a thawing of relations. The shift in approach by Abu Dhabi toward deescalating regional points of tension is part of a broader effort […]

Russian troops line up before the start of joint military drills with Tajik and Uzbek forces at the Harb-Maidon firing range, in Tajikistan near the Afghan border, Aug. 10, 2021 (AP photo by Didor Sadulloev).

On Feb. 15, 1989, Col. Gen. Boris Gromov became the last Soviet commander to leave Afghanistan, crossing the Friendship Bridge into what was then the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Gromov’s departure ended the USSR’s decade-long military occupation of Afghanistan, characterized by some as the country’s version of the Vietnam War. Moscow left behind capable local security forces, infrastructure projects and a pipeline of assistance to support its client, the socialist government led by then-President Mohammad Najibullah. Although Najibullah’s government would hold out for another three years, Moscow’s Afghanistan debacle helped bring about the implosion of the Soviet empire between 1989 to […]

U.S. President Joe Biden with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during the G-7 summit in Cornwall, United Kingdom, June 12, 2021 (pool photo by Leon Neal via AP).

Joe Biden began his presidency with a great deal of goodwill from the international community. His foreign policy platform promised to undo the tense relationships former President Donald Trump’s administration often had with its allies and partners, including those in Africa. However, Biden’s approach toward the continent thus far shows that a willingness to reset relations does not presage a fundamental shift in U.S. Africa policy. Given the rising challenges of Chinese and Russian influence across the continent and the metastasizing threat of terrorism, simply restoring the cordial yet detached Africa policy of pre-Trump administrations may not be enough. The […]

Myanmar nationals living in Thailand protest against the military coup in front of the United Nations building in Bangkok, Thailand, March 7, 2021 (AP photo by Nava Sangthong).

In the run-up to this year’s high-level meetings of the United Nations General Assembly, there were almost too many issues to address: a global pandemic, climate change, renewed and continuing conflicts and great power competition, to name a few. But when it came to the crisis in Myanmar, attention focused on a single question: Who should represent the country in New York? The answer would determine how much the international community can do to help Myanmar, a country now teetering on the edge of civil war, in the months ahead. The turmoil began on Feb. 1, when Myanmar’s military, known […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping conducts a press conference at the Belt and Road Forum, at Yanqi Lake on the outskirts of Beijing, April 27, 2019 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein).

The prevailing foreign assistance architecture of today’s world, which prioritizes transparency, inclusion and accountability, was developed and codified in a unipolar system—with significant U.S. leadership and influence. Since the end of the Cold War, Western donors have supported this framework, further developing and codifying it in the Millennium Development Goals of 2000; the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness; the 2008 Accra Agenda, which built on the Paris Declaration; and the 2011 Busan Agreement to standardize good development practice, norms and standards. This architecture is now coming under pressure, largely due to China’s growing interest in and influence over today’s […]

Candidates in the LDP leadership election-from left, Kono Taro, Kishida Fumio, Takaichi Sanae and Noda Seiko-pose before a debate hosted by the Japan National Press Club, in Tokyo, Sept. 18, 2021 (AP pool photo by Eugene Hoshiko).

Leadership elections in Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party are generally predictable, even dull affairs. The head of the LDP is chosen through a nominally democratic process, but the real action traditionally unfolds behind closed doors, with factional bosses picking their favored candidate well in advance of the vote. Once a candidate gains a critical mass of support, the rest of the party tends to fall in line in a kind of bandwagon effect, lest they miss out on any of the political benefits that come with having bet on the winning horse.  In a refreshing change of pace, however, the […]

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati speaks duringing a parliamentary session to confirm the new government, in Beirut, Sept. 20, 2021 (AP photo by Bilal Hussein).

BEIRUT—After 13 months of political paralysis, Lebanon finally has a new government, the first since former Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned along with his entire Cabinet after the Beirut port explosion of August 2020, which killed over 200 and devastated the capital city.  The new administration is led by Lebanon’s richest man, billionaire Najib Mikati, who previously served as prime minister from 2011 to 2014, and for several months on an interim basis in 2005. He was sworn in earlier this month, and his government received a vote of confidence in Parliament on Monday.  His government is technocratic, its ministers […]

Col. Assimi Goita, left, head of Mali’s military junta, and retired Col. Maj. Bah N’Daw, right, as N’Daw is sworn into the office of transitional president, Bamako, Mali, Sept. 25, 2020 (AP file photo).

With rising communal and interethnic violence gripping swaths of the country, two coups in less than a year and a deadlocked transition to civilian rule, Mali is arguably facing its most uncertain moment since the 1991 March Revolution, which paved the way for the country’s return to civilian government nearly 30 years ago. Throw in a peace accord with northern insurgent groups on life support, a drawdown of Operation Barkhane—France’s massive counterinsurgency mission across the Sahel—and a rumored deal to deploy Russian private military contractors from the Wagner Group to the country, and it’s fair to say Mali’s immediate and […]

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid gives a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 21, 2021 (AP photo by Bernat Armangue).

The Taliban’s announcement earlier this month that it had formed an all-male “interim” Cabinet in Afghanistan comprising only the movement’s members—many of them veterans of the Taliban’s last stint in power in the 1990s—took many observers by surprise. Members of the notorious Haqqani network, which controls southeastern Afghanistan, were placed in influential positions. While the Taliban appointed several outsiders and members of ethnic minorities to some additional Cabinet positions this week, none of them were given important portfolios.  The announcement of the main Cabinet lineup on Sept. 7 followed a trip to Kabul by Faiz Hameed, chief of Pakistan’s powerful […]

A man helps hold up a banner with a hashtag that reads in Spanish, “terrorism never again,” as he joins others outside the anti-terrorism directorate to celebrate the death of Abimael Guzman, in Lima, Peru, Sept. 11, 2021 (AP photo by Martin Mejia).

LIMA, Peru—Less than a week after Abimael Guzman—the aging founder of the Maoist Shining Path guerilla group that once drenched this Andean nation in blood—died in prison, Peru’s divided Congress passed a law ensuring the cremation of his body. The rushed piece of legislation, approved last Friday with 70 votes in favor and 32 against, was intended to head off the possibility of Guzman’s tomb becoming a shrine to his fundamentalist ideology. Guzman and his followers believed a proletarian utopia should be built, almost literally, on the bones of the bourgeoisie—a class it defined as anyone who had not signed […]

President Joe Biden, joined virtually by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, announces the AUKUS agreement from the East Room of the White House, Washington, Sept. 15, 2021 (AP photo by Andrew Harnik).

The newly announced nuclear-powered submarine deal and trilateral security partnership between the U.S., the U.K. and Australia is remarkable for the sheer range of regional and subject matter experts needed to make sense of it. Like the proverbial three blind men and the elephant, it means something very different depending on where you grab hold of it. Some of issues raised by the sub deal, particularly over the technical specifications and proliferation concerns, remain open questions that will only be answered 18 months from now, when the framework agreement is due to be finalized in an actual contract, although that […]

The Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Oklahoma City returns to the U.S. Naval Base in Guam, Aug. 19, 2021 (U.S. Navy photo by Naomi Johnson via AP).

The newly minted Australia-U.K.-U.S. security pact, known by its acronym AUKUS, was announced just days after the 70th anniversary of another regional trilateral defense arrangement, the ANZUS treaty, which comprises Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The genesis of both deals was deeply informed by history and geography.  Signed in 1951, ANZUS built on its signatories’ close cooperation in the Pacific theater of World War II and reflected a common sense of identity between the three signatories—all Pacific Ocean-facing, English-speaking democratic societies of the New World. But ANZUS was always a precarious alliance, never including a NATO-like Article 5 […]

A user holds a smartphone with an opened Facebook page in Moscow, Russia, June 10, 2021 (AP photo by Pavel Golovkin).

While Congress debates new online privacy rules and the European Union slaps ever more fines on tech giants, another government has been increasing the pressure on Silicon Valley: Russia. Over the past year or so, Moscow has employed ever more punitive measures against Western technology companies in order to force them to bend to its wide-ranging demands on issues like content censorship, local data storage and market practices. The latest development came last Friday when, in response to pressure from the Russian government, Apple and Google removed an app from its online stores that was meant to encourage users to […]

A supporter of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at a rally marking Independence Day in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sept. 7, 2021 (AP photo by Andre Penner).

Following the coup that took place in Myanmar in early February, a video was posted online and quickly went viral. Filmed in the capital, Naypyidaw, it showed a fitness instructor performing aerobics to a bouncy dance tune as a military convoy passed behind her, on its way to parliament to oust the elected government. “As it isn’t uncommon for Nay Pyi Taw to have an official convoy, I thought it was normal so I continued,” the instructor, Khing Hnin Wai, wrote in a subsequent Facebook post. More than six months later, on Aug. 10, a parody video spread widely on social networks […]

Russian and Syrian flags fly over a damaged building in the southern city of Deraa, Syria, Sept. 12, 2021 (AP photo).

For much of the Syrian civil war, the southern city of Deraa and the surrounding Houran Plains, an agricultural region near the Jordanian border, were divided between government forces and armed rebels. Fighting raged back and forth, killing thousands. It was not until Russia backed a government offensive in 2018 that the situation changed in earnest. That year, Moscow brokered a series of agreements with rebel factions that brought the area back under loose government control.  This summer, fighting returned to Deraa—the epicenter of the initial 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that sparked the civil war—when government forces moved to […]

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, and Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole take part in a televised debate, in Gatineau, Quebec, Sept. 8, 2021 (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP),

Canadian voters will go to the polls next Monday for the second time in less than two years. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called this snap election last month in the hopes that his Liberal Party might capitalize on Canada’s pandemic-era trend of rewarding political incumbents and retake the parliamentary majority in the 338-seat House of Commons that it lost in 2019. However, current polling suggests the party may have miscalculated, and that another minority government may be the best outcome it can hope for.  Every Canadian election is effectively a referendum on whether the Liberals are fit to govern. The […]

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