Q & A Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. After months of protests and more than a dozen deaths, the situation in Togo is beginning to draw more attention, and public comment, from other heads of state in West Africa. Since August, opposition leaders in Togo have organized large-scale anti-government protests in cities throughout the country, calling for reforms and the departure of President Faure Gnassingbe. The Gnassingbe family has been in power for half a century, with Eyadema Gnassingbe ruling for 38 years before dying in office […]

The revolution in shale oil production in the United States has had a major impact on global energy markets, leading to the collapse of energy prices but also limiting their vulnerability to geopolitical instability. In an email interview, Meghan L. O’Sullivan, the Jeane Kirkpatrick professor of the practice of international affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, where she directs the Geopolitics of Energy Project, and the recent author of “Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power,” discusses what a rebalancing of supply and demand will mean for geopolitics going forward, if a supply gap […]

Long before a demonstration against South Sudan’s president forced Nikki Haley to evacuate a displaced persons camp in Juba on Wednesday, it was a safe bet that much of the coverage generated by her first trip to Africa as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. would concern the civil war in that country—with some possible competition from her stop in the Democratic Republic of Congo. President Donald Trump specifically mentioned both countries when he announced in September that he planned to send Haley to the continent. Haley has been openly critical of the South Sudanese and Congolese presidents for months, increasing […]

In late September, an exiled political dissident and pro-independence leader from the Indonesian territory commonly known as West Papua submitted a petition to the United Nations calling, in part, for a vote on West Papua’s independence from Indonesia. The petition was reportedly signed by a large majority of native Papuan people before it was smuggled out of the territory. But the U.N. refused to accept it, in the latest setback for an independence movement that goes back decades. In an email interview, Greg Earl, a columnist for the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter and a member of Australia’s ASEAN Council, discusses […]

In mid-September, Nepal closed the chapter on its first local elections in two decades, as the third phase of voting for municipal bodies took place in restive southern Nepal. The vote was free from the violence that marred the adoption of the country’s new constitution two years ago, when scores of people were killed in protests. Nepal is now preparing for general elections to be held Nov. 26, despite ongoing disputes over changes to the constitution and the longstanding marginalization of southern Nepal’s ethnic Madhesi population. In an email interview, George Varughese, the Asia Foundation’s representative to Nepal, discusses the […]

In late August, Colombia’s largest guerrilla movement, the FARC, launched a new political party, known as the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force—preserving the FARC acronym. It was the latest step toward the FARC’s political normalization after last year’s historic peace accord. In an email interview, Adam Isacson, a senior associate for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, explains how the new party fits into Colombia’s political landscape and assesses its chances for electoral success. WPR: What history does the FARC have in establishing a political party in Colombia, and how might that influence the current formulation and decision-making […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. “I did not do anything that can make me regret.” That was South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, defending his leadership of the world’s youngest nation in a rare interview with The Washington Post published over the weekend. Most people, though, would dispute Kiir’s claim that he has not been a main driver of the country’s civil war, which began in 2013 with fighting between factions loyal to Kiir and the former vice president, Riek Machar. Kiir’s soldiers have been […]

On Oct. 14, a huge truck bombing in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, killed at least 350 people, the deadliest act of terrorism in the country’s history. The manner and scale of the attack reveal much about the security situation in Somalia and the ongoing war against the Islamist militant group al-Shabab. In an email interview, Yasin Ahmed Ismail, who leads GLAFPOL, a research, analysis and consultancy group operating in East Africa and the Horn of Africa, explains the faults in Somalia’s security system, the government’s ongoing campaign against al-Shabab, and how the Trump administration’s intensified engagement in Somalia could change things […]

With talks to renegotiate NAFTA deadlocked this week over the hard-line positions of the Trump administration, Mexico was again left pondering the fate of its biggest trade relationship. Negotiations over the trade deal will now extend into next year, heightening both the economic uncertainty and Mexico’s desire to branch out, as countries like China look to expand their stake in the Mexican economy. In an email interview, Carin Zissis, editor-in-chief of AS/COA Online, the website of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, discusses the evolving nature of Mexico’s ties with China, how a change in NAFTA could affect them, and […]

The most common reaction to the deaths of four United States Army Special Forces in Niger earlier this month seems to have been surprise that the U.S. had any kind of military presence in the country in the first place. In the wake of the ambush, which has been blamed on yet-to-be-identified Islamist militants, various media outlets placed it in the context of a broader American “shadow war” carried out in “one of the most remote and chaotic war zones on the planet” despite “little public debate” back home. But for those who track the various military efforts to combat […]

When he recently called for snap elections to be held on Oct. 22, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe likely viewed his rising approval ratings in recent opinion polls as creating opportune conditions for him to consolidate power. Despite what appeared to be a serious challenge from his one-time colleague Yuriko Koike, who now heads an opposition party but has decided not to run herself, any threat from the opposition to Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party has since dimmed. In an email interview, J. Berkshire Miller, a senior visiting fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo and […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on income inequality and poverty reduction in various countries around the world. In late August, British Prime Minister Theresa May wrote in an op-ed that excessive pay to some business executives in the United Kingdom represented the “unacceptable face of capitalism.” The statement followed up on her Conservative Party’s manifesto, which was unveiled last spring and includes a proposal to limit corporate executive compensation in an effort to reduce income inequality. But those plans have gone nowhere so far, despite popular resentment over Britain’s inequality—an important factor in the […]

When U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled his new strategy for the Afghan war in August, he called on India to become more involved in Afghanistan’s security. Secretary of Defense James Mattis followed up with a visit to India in September to discuss deepening economic and defense ties, raising the possibility of a greater partnership between Washington and New Delhi. In an email interview, Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security, explains why closer cooperation between the U.S. and India has failed to fully materialize despite obvious advantages, and what the Trump administration can do to overcome […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The target for elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo only seems to get further away. This week, the country’s national election commission issued a statement saying it would be unable to organize a vote before April 2019—nearly two and a half years after the expiration of President Joseph Kabila’s mandate. Congo’s opposition and the donor community were expected to lodge strong protests to the new timeline, which would represent a brazen violation of a political accord reached at […]

When China’s top officials convene in Beijing next week for the Communist Party’s 19th Congress, President Xi Jinping could further consolidate his growing political power and advance his agenda. Xi has already dismissed two high-ranking generals, in his latest maneuver to reform the People’s Liberation Army and assert more authority over its ranks. In an email interview, Timothy R. Heath, a senior international defense research analyst at the RAND Corporation specializing in China, explains what further steps Xi will likely make at the Party Congress, what they mean for reform in the Chinese military, and if Xi could face any […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, and associate editor, Omar H. Rahman, discuss the Trump administration’s move to decertify the Iran nuclear deal and what it means for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. For the Report, Emirza Adi Syailendra talks with Peter Dörrie about why 19 years after the fall of Suharto, Indonesia’s democracy remains tenuous and its institutions weak. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines, as well as what you’ve seen on WPR, please think about supporting our work by subscribing. We’re currently offering a 25 […]

On Oct. 15, Austrians will go to the polls to elect a new government, with all signs pointing to a rightward shift in its ruling coalition. Just two weeks before the parliamentary elections, the government put into force a new law that prohibits individuals from covering their faces in public—a not-so-subtle signal to right-wing voters of the government’s stance on Muslims and the full-body burqa and other coverings worn by some Muslim women. In an email interview, Stefan Lehne, a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe and former director general of political affairs at the Austrian Ministry for European and International […]