WPR Blog Archive

After flagging this very valuable post by Tim Lynch on conditions inthe southeast of Afghanistan, Joshua Foust observes, “[T]here is afundamental disconnect between what we are doing in Afghanistan andwhat we expect to happen.” Lynch’s post is a long but essential read,and I second Foust’s assessment. The question is, Will the added troopsand vaguely hinted-at shift in operational priorities be sufficient torecouple what we’re doing with what we expect to happen? With that question fresh in my mind, I clicked through tothe new CNAS report (.pdf) on Afghanistan and Pakistan, which offers proposalsfor metrics and operational priorities on both sides […]

Jean Quatremer revisits the numbers to make the case that the level of abstentionism in Sunday’s EU Parliament elections does not necessarily reflect voter apathy, let alone hostility, towards the European project. Case in point, Poland, where the EU is popular, only saw a 25 percent turnout rate, reflecting the fact that Eastern Europe has low turnouts in general, even for national elections. Quatremer’s analysis of the national abstention rates makes a convincing argument for a more nuanced view than simply “low voter turnout = apathy toward Europe.” In a previous post, Quatremer argues that two obstacles complicated voter engagement […]

Along the same lines of last week’s post regarding Turkey’s shifting foreign policy priorities, Yigal Schleifer (whose blog Istanbul Calling is must reading if you have an interest in Turkey), flags a paper regarding Turkey-EU relations. Essentially, to assuage doubts about his — and Turkey’s — Western-friendly bona fides, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reaffirmed Turkey and Europe’s mutual engagement, putting it in the context of a shared history that dates back to the 11th century. Seriously. The dude’s old school. Clicking through to the paper itself (.pdf), I was not surprised to see it identify Cyprus as the “ticking […]

For those of you who enter the site through the blog, I’d like to encourage you to take a look at our new feature issue, which just went live today. In it, we take a close look at three intractable conflicts that have resisted solutions for generations, and that we’ve all seen drifting in and out of the headlines for decades now: Sumantro Bose examines the Kashmir conflict, Brian Calvert looks at Sri Lanka, and Gareth Jenkins shines a light on Cyprus. (All three sub. req.) What I found most fascinating, in going through them all, is that while the […]

Royal Dutch Shell agreed Monday to pay $15.5 million in an out-of-court settlement, in compensation to families of Nigerian victims of alleged human rights abuses committed by the company in the 1990s. The move came just days before a New York court was scheduled to hear the case and despite company claims of no wrongdoing. Ten Nigerian plaintiffs, including the son and brother of slain writer/activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, brought suit against the oil giant over the execution of eight anti-Shell environmental activists by Nigeria’s military rulers in 1995. The suit was filed in U.S. courts under a 200-year-old law that […]

Last week there were a bunch of posts at various blogs about the nature of EU Parliament elections. The EU Parliament, everyone remarked, has gained power within the EU institutional structure, and MEPs have even begun behaving increasingly as transnational voting blocs, but voters have continued treating the election campaigns as referenda on national politics, if they cared at all. In other words, European voters are apathetic about Europe at a time when the European project is maturing but could use a gentle nudge. Truth be told, I found this a compelling narrative last week, myself. But there are a […]

The chief of staff of the French Air Force, Gen. Stéfane Abrial, has just been nominated to the commanding officer position for NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (via Jean-Dominique Merchet). The command is one of two that France secured in return for fully reintegrating NATO’s military command. Three quick thoughts. First, according to his official bio (.pdf), Abrial spent a year as a student officer back in ’73 at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and another at the Air War College at Maxwell AFB in ’91. He’s also spent some time at NATO headquarters in Brussels. So part of this assignment […]

Had Queen Elizabeth II been present at Saturday’s 65th anniversary D-Day ceremonies, she would, as the United Kingdom’s head of state, have delivered the British address. But the queen had not been invited to the ceremony. Instead, Prime Minister Gordon Brown shared the honors — and the limelight — with President Barack Obama and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy. The original slight or oversight in not issuing an invitation to the queen in the first place was French. Sarkozy later argued that the Normandy invasion was primarily a U.S. and French operation — a clear distortion of the historical facts. In […]

World Politics Review managing editor Judah Grunstein appeared on France 24’s panel discussion program, The Debate, last Thursday to discuss President Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo. Guests included the NY Times’ Paris bureau chief Steven Erlanger, and author Irshad Manji. Part one can be seen here. Part two can be seen here.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s embattled prime minister, will leave Harare soon for a three-week visit to the United States and Europe, where he hopes to convince Western governments to lift current sanctions against Zimbabwe, as well as to appeal for a new round of foreign investment. Though Western leaders should be polite and listen, they should never forget who the real boss is back home in Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai’s visit comes on the heels of a meeting between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, chairman of the congressional committee on Africa and Global Health. Payne met with Mugabe in […]

Today’s selection selected itself. It’s been a while since it was so easy to find something topical, actually, and it comes from one of the great bands, one that managed to build on its initial derivative gimmick to end up with an original sound that can only be described as, well, the heavy, heavy monster sound of Madness. I missed the one chance I had to see them play live, at the old Concert on the Pier series, in ’83, it must have been. If memory serves correctly, I’d just gotten grounded after Pops found out about my 14-year-old fondness […]

I’m not the only one who sees a short expiration date on our NATO allies’ commitment to Afghanistan now that the war has been “Americanized.” Here’s Jari Lindholm: I’m no apologist for ISAF ineptitude, but let’s be honest: for eightyears, Europeans have been covering America’s ass in the north. Whathappens when they pull out is anybody’s guess. Make no mistake, though:now that they’ve been handed an excuse on a silver platter, they will leave. Lindholm leaves some room open for the French to stay, and I’d go as far as to say it’s unlikely they’ll leave. There hasn’t really been […]

This James Joyner post has a couple links that offer some good context for Turkey’s shift in recent years from sometimes problematic Western ally to more assertive regional player: his own interview with Swedish diplomat Henrik Liljegren (scroll down to question 5) and this Der Spiegel article. Both highlight the ways in which Turkey has essentially concluded that it has more to offer the West in general and the EU in particular than the reverse. This tracks with what Gareth Jenkins wrote in his Strategic Posture Review for the March/April issue (sub. req.) of WPR’s digital journal. (The SPRs are […]

Great Michael Wolff piece (via Laura Rozen) on the Obama administration’s vice-like grip on image control and media management in general. I’ve noticed the same thing in trying to find open source White House photos of the president to accompany WPR articles. There’s almost nothing available outside of the carefully stage-managed “slide shows.” (Does no one else remember that slide shows were once code for boring presentations that primarily interested the person who insisted on subjecting unsuspecting guests to them? Does no one else agree that that has not changed just because they’re now delivered over the internet?) I never […]

Commemorations of the 20th anniversary of China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square today produced images ranging from the momentous to the surreal. In Beijing, plain clothes security officials sparred with reporters in a darkly comical umbrella dance at Tiananmen Square, where police outnumbered tourists. In Hong Kong, organizers estimated that 150,000 people turned out for a candlelit vigil in Victoria Park. International discourse on the anniversary reached a fever pitch over the last week, with hardly a pundit on the planet — outside China, that is — silent on the subject. That China’s democratic credentials or lack thereof […]

Watching President Obama’s speech yesterday was both a moving but also a frankly discomforting experience. The fact that he was speaking in Egypt and said absolutely nothing supportive or reassuring to the Egyptian people who have been suffering for decades under Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorial whims and repression suggests Obama may have good manners but is still not willing to say “in public” what he undoubtedly knows in private. If anything Obama’s presence and demeanor in Cairo will likely reinforce Mubarak’s legitimacy and undermine Obama’s message that America now stands for change. What’s new about America’s self-serving support for […]

In Italy, it’s open season on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s alleged weakness for young models and starlets now that his wife has publicly said, “Basta!” and is seeking a divorce. According to one widely reported story, the prime minister was guest of honor at the18th birthday party of an aspiring model who has said she calls him “papi,” the equivalent of “daddy.” Last week, Berlusconi was also trying to block publication of photographs taken at a party at his home in Sardinia for the Czech prime minister at which several young girls were also present. Berlusconi’s wife, Veronica Lario, revealed […]