Column Archive

According to Washington’s punditocracy, there are only two ways to interpret the Pentagon’s announcement Wednesday that it plans to move ahead with withdrawing nearly 12,000 U.S. troops currently stationed in Germany. One view is that President Donald Trump is capitulating yet again to pressure from Russian President Vladimir Putin and handing Putin a gift in the form of a weakened NATO. The other take is that the White House decision to pull troops out of Germany, as Trump has long wanted, is a foolish escalation in his standoff with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. […]

Until recently, it was one of the brightest, most promising trends in Latin America, and one of the strongest arguments for optimism about its future. But tragically, the fight against corruption, which had made determined strides in its drive to uproot graft, influence peddling and venal misuse of resources, has not only stalled—it has shifted into reverse. The backsliding is now converging with the scourge of the coronavirus, adding to the many challenges that Latin Americans face, and raising the barriers to recovery after the pandemic ends. Latin America is not alone in hitting a wall in its attempts to […]

If the European Union were a cartoon, it would resemble an episode of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The EU would be Wile E. Coyote, furiously paving a road with the help of some mail-order Rube Goldberg machine, patch by patch, just ahead of the car he is driving. The Road Runner would be the course of history speeding up alongside him, then zooming off into the distance. This half-finished structure constantly driven forward by the urgent necessity of events is no accident. It was one of the implicit assumptions of the EU’s early architects and builders, who […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Neil Bhatiya is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott, who will return next week. Two developments last week, in the United Kingdom and the United States, highlighted how their common adversaries are still exploiting the global financial system, using long-known loopholes to raise and move illicit money in order to undermine international security and the rule of law. While American and British authorities have often been slow to realize the full magnitude of this threat, their recent actions suggest they may finally be taking it more seriously. First, the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee released […]

How can you square the doctrine of “America First” with the promotion of human rights? It’s a question that has bedeviled the Trump administration since it first took office. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo provided his own answer on July 16, when he unveiled the much-anticipated draft report of the U.S. Commission on Unalienable Rights. In a strident and tendentious speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pompeo attacked the “proliferation” of “new rights” claims to cover an ever-expanding set of groups and issues, saying it was time to get back to basics. Henceforth, U.S. human rights policy should […]

News reports last week that U.S. President Donald Trump granted the CIA broad authority in 2018 to conduct offensive cyberattacks against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have rightfully raised alarm among some in Washington’s national security set. Recent history indicates that when the White House has greenlighted items at the top of the CIA’s wish list, things haven’t always turned out well. See the Senate “Torture Report” and leaked documents on lethal drone attacks in South Asia for more details. In light of these past CIA transgressions, the current handwringing is not unwarranted. Yet, as often happens with sensational […]

Over the past several months, China watchers have been closely following as Beijing tightened its grip on Hong Kong and continued its steady strangulation of the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang. But the regime successfully avoided international attention and opprobrium as it carried out what could prove to be its most devastating push elsewhere, in Tibet. Years ago, Tibet had more success capturing the world’s attention. Under the leadership of the exiled Dalai Lama, Tibetans pared down their demands from China, from full-blown independence to genuine autonomy. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and […]

When the Trump administration began publicly bandying about the idea of barring the popular Chinese social media app TikTok from the American market a couple of weeks ago, the mere possibility of it happening sent shock waves through Chinese society. One might have expected that most of the attention, including lots of predictable fury, would have centered on nationalist sentiments—which are easily aroused in China nowadays—about the alleged unfairness with which the country is being treated by Western competitors, none more so than the United States. Unbeknownst to Americans, who mostly see it as an almost addictive platform for distracting […]

Editor’s Note: WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott this week. Should the four-year-long polar night of Donald Trump’s presidency come to a definitive end this November, most observers of his catastrophic handling of U.S. foreign policy will rejoice. After all, Trump has done significant damage to America’s national interests—and has done so in a uniquely corrosive way. He has undermined America’s alliances and partnerships while emboldening its adversaries, all in pursuit of an ad hoc, incoherent and personalized foreign policy devoid of strategic planning. Meanwhile, he has overseen domestic shifts that leave the U.S. more […]

The global environmental crisis, encompassing runaway climate change, collapsing biodiversity and the slow death of the world’s oceans, has exposed the limitations of traditional political realism as a guide to statecraft in the 21st century. The time has come for the nations of the world to embrace a new approach to world politics that treats the preservation of the biosphere as a core national interest and a central objective of national security policy. Call this new mindset ecological realism. Political realism, which has long dominated the teaching and practice of foreign policy, including in the United States, is a venerable […]

With Egypt reportedly on the brink of invading neighboring Libya, and troops from Chad said to be on their way north to join Gen. Khalifa Haftar in his fight to topple the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, what was already a complicated proxy war could soon become Africa’s first full-on intracontinental war in decades. That may not be all that is at risk, however. If Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi delivers on his promise to come to Haftar’s aid, it could also result in a serious setback for two key American and European security priorities: securing the volatile Eastern Mediterranean […]

Any doubt that the coronavirus pandemic can transform political realities was erased Monday when one of the world’s most entrenched strongmen was formally swept out of power in the tiny South American nation of Suriname. The National Assembly, Suriname’s legislature, officially named Chan Santokhi, a former police chief who prevailed in elections in May, to replace longtime President Desi Bouterse. Grounds for removing Bouterse, who was convicted of murder last year, have never been in short supply. But it took the pandemic and Bouterse’s spectacular mismanagement to bring an end to his rule. Until the coronavirus arrived, Bouterse withstood challenge […]

A series of mysterious explosions have rocked Iran over the past several weeks, including in two locations known to be military and nuclear sites. Although it remains unclear what—or who—is causing the blasts, it is becoming increasingly reasonable to assume they are not mere coincidences. Meanwhile, a leaked document this week purportedly revealed the outlines of a 25-year strategic partnership agreement being negotiated by Iran and China, by which Beijing would provide Tehran with much-needed investment and great-power patronage in return for heavily discounted oil. Both developments highlight the wisdom of the now-teetering Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Edward Alden is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador went to Washington last week to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump and celebrate this month’s official launch of the updated and rebranded North American Free Trade Agreement, now the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Critics of Lopez Obrador, including former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan, called the visit “a colossal error, electorally, diplomatically and strategically.” His supporters said Mexico has little choice but to curry favor with Trump despite the insults he has hurled at the country and […]

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally notified the United Nations last week that the United States would withdraw from the World Health Organization. This imprudent step, taken in the midst of a rapidly accelerating pandemic, weakens global health at the precise moment it needs to be bolstered. It will endanger lives around the world while further shredding America’s tattered reputation as an enlightened global leader. Rather than abandoning the WHO and scapegoating it for its own failures, the United States ought to be reinforcing the U.N. agency’s central role in global health governance. That won’t happen while Donald Trump remains […]

With public pressure growing on the Trump administration to take action in response to the reported Russian scheme to pay bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill American troops in Afghanistan, a natural question to ask is, “What is to be done?” Much of the congressional attention for now will inevitably focus on who in the White House knew what and when about intelligence on the Russian plot. But the reality is that Washington has a limited range of policy options to manage an escalation of tensions with Moscow, and this Congress isn’t likely to do much months before an election. […]

From the moment Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced plans for his first state visit to the United States, where he would meet with President Donald Trump at the White House, the news was greeted with a mixture of revulsion and astonishment. At home and abroad, critics and observers marveled at a decision to undertake a diplomatic mission so rife with potential to cause damage to Mexico and such negligible upside. The lone voices of support maintained that the lopsided odds belied the finely honed political instincts of AMLO, as Mexico’s president is widely known. Dismissing his critics, the […]