Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, then head of the Taliban’s political office, in Tianjin, China, July 28, 2021 (photo by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China).

In the wake of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan amid the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces and their allies, China has rhetorically seized upon America’s failures. The official Xinhua news agency lambasted the United States as “the world’s largest exporter of unrest,” arguing that “its hegemonic policies” have led to far too many human tragedies, and that the fall of Kabul marked the collapse of America’s international image and credibility.  Beijing also appears to be extending an enthusiastic hand to the Taliban. In late July, several of the group’s leaders visited China and met directly with Foreign Minister […]

Taliban fighters outside Kabul University, in Afghanistan, Sept. 11, 2021 (AP Photo by Bernat Armangue).

No one in the Iranian government was sad to see U.S. and NATO troops leave Afghanistan. In fact, Tehran would prefer to have the Taliban next-door than often-hostile Western powers. But Shiite-majority Iran has also been a target of attacks in the past from the Sunni Islamist Taliban, and it worries that if Afghanistan descends into chaos, it could negatively affect Iran’s ability to exert influence and trade with its neighbor—or worse, that the volatility could spill over into Iran. Tehran will have to pull off a delicate balancing act if it’s to benefit from the U.S. and NATO withdrawal.  […]

Election officials wait for voters inside a polling station, in Rabat, Morocco, Sept. 8, 2021 (AP photo by Mosa’ab Elshamy).

Wednesday’s legislative elections in Morocco delivered a crushing defeat to the ruling Justice and Development Party, or PJD, a moderate Islamist party that had been the largest in Parliament since 2011. Thanks in part to mandatory quotas for female representation, the new crop of lawmakers is on track to be more diverse, with a greater number of women, as well as young people. But it will also be more deeply fragmented, and with royalist parties emerging as the victors of the vote, the incoming Parliament is unlikely to pose any meaningful challenge to King Mohammed VI, who controls nearly all […]

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni speaks during a visit to Juba, South Sudan, Oct. 15, 2018 (AP photo by Bullen Chol).

KAMPALA, Uganda—Fifty-one Afghan evacuees arrived at Uganda’s international airport in Entebbe on a chartered flight on Aug. 25. They were shunted across the hot tarmac into buses and brought to lakeside hotels previously emptied due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Their arrival was the result of a deal Uganda made with the United States, in which Kampala promised to provide temporary shelter to some 2,000 “at risk” Afghan evacuees. The agreement was celebrated by Ugandan and American politicians, but the details of exactly how it came about, and the fate of the asylees themselves, remain shrouded in secrecy. The deal also […]

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken participates in a virtual bilateral meeting with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at the State Department, Washington, April 27, 2021 (AP photo by Leah Millis).

U.S. President Joe Biden campaigned for the 2020 Democratic nomination promising not only to restore the defense of human rights and democracy to a central position in U.S. foreign policy, but also to “build back better” in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. But for Africa’s 54 countries and 1.4 billion people, despite a welcome change in tone from the administration of former President Donald Trump, there is little to show for the first nine months of Biden’s presidency when it comes to engagement on values—or anything else of substance.  In his first foreign policy speech as president, Biden triumphantly […]

Elisa Loncon, president of the Constituent Assembly, raises an Indigenous Mapuche flag during the inaugural session of the Constitutional Convention in Santiago, Chile, July 4, 2021 (AP photo by Esteban Felix).

In June, Chile’s Constitutional Convention was seated, culminating a process that began with spontaneous protests in late 2019 and soon crystallized into demands for an overhaul to the country’s social model and rewriting Chile’s constitution, which dates back to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.  As central protagonists in the protest movement that led to the successful constitutional referendum in October 2020, Chile’s Indigenous peoples have sought to make sure that the new constitution drafted by the convention includes formal recognition of their status, as well as a designation of Chile as a plurinational state. Both demands grow out of the deep and […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin takes part in a virtual meeting with leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, in Moscow, Aug. 23, 2021 (Kremlin pool photo by Evgeniy Paulin via AP).

While the failure of the United States’ two-decade campaign to reshape Afghanistan was a source of no little schadenfreude in Moscow, the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s U.S.-backed government has thrust Russia into a challenging position. Even as President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia has no intention of deploying troops to Afghanistan itself, the potential for radicalization and violence around Russia’s borders is foisting greater responsibility for regional security on Moscow at a time of mounting domestic difficulties.  The Ghani government’s collapse and the departure of U.S. forces from central Eurasia, seemingly for good, also offers Russia a window of opportunity to […]

President Andry Rajoelina of Madagascar before a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Aug. 27, 2021 (AP photo by Lewis Joly).

Late last month, Malagasy authorities announced that they had foiled an assassination attempt on several high-profile political figures, including President Andry Rajoelina. According to a statement by the general prosecutor of the Antananarivo Court of Appeals, “several foreign and Madagascar nationals were arrested on July 20th as part of an investigation into an attack on state security.” Since then, over 20 well-connected individuals and high-ranking army and police officials have been arrested, including two French nationals, a retired general, a former prime minister, a former candidate for the Madagascan presidential election in 2006, and a senior official of the Gendarmerie, […]

An anti-government protester uses a sling in clashes with riot police during a protest in Bangkok, Thailand, Aug. 11, 2021 (AP photo by Sakchai Lalit).

In recent weeks, Thailand, like several other Southeast Asian countries, has erupted in increasingly ferocious street protests. Throughout August, thousands of Thais, including many young people, took to the streets to express their anger at the current government and demand changes at the top. Some younger, desperate and increasingly uncompromising demonstrators have started driving around in groups, battling police and destroying small police stations. The demonstrations initially seemed to take the government, led by former coup leader and now Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, by surprise. But the situation has now become far more dangerous. Thai police have resorted to force, beating demonstrators and firing rubber bullets […]

Somali soldiers trained by various European Union forces go through drills in Bihanga training camp, west of Uganda’s capital Kampala, Aug. 31, 2011 (AP photo by Stephen Wandera).

It is difficult to speak of European ambitions for international crisis management against the backdrop of the images from Kabul over the past few weeks, which seem to tell a story of the failure of Western interventionist policies. But that discussion is urgently needed. Yes, it will be necessary to assess the lessons of the defeat in Afghanistan. But that war, with its U.S.-dominated state-building, is in many ways a special case that must be analyzed distinctly. In the meantime, there are many other global crises and conflicts in which the European Union, as well as the United Nations and […]

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