Drone War Expands to Somalia

The announcement this week of a Somali terror suspect’s transfer to U.S. federal court came just after reports of the U.S. drone war’s expansion into Somalia. Both developments highlight the growing U.S. counterterrorism interest in Somalia and raise questions about how it might be expected to impact the country’s 20-year-old civil war. “American strategy in Somalia has not always matched up with the reality on the ground, and at the moment the reality is shifting very quickly there,” says David Axe, an independent correspondent and World Politics Review contributor who has reported from Somalia. A leading concern for the U.S. […]

Ecuador’s June 28 extradition to Colombia of Fabio Ramirez Artunduaga, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (FARC) 48th Bloc, marks a significant step in the restoration and normalization of ties between the two South American neighbors. Acting on months of intelligence work by Colombian and Ecuadorean officials, Ecuadorean police arrested Ramirez during a sting in Quito, a world away from the jungles where his bloc operates. Citing his status as an undocumented foreign national, Ecuadorean courts promptly announced Ramirez’s extradition to Colombia. Within 48 hours of the arrest, Ramirez was in custody in Colombia. One year ago, […]

Global Insider: Rebel Disarmament

An ongoing effort by the Central African Republic to disarm rebel groups highlights the prominent role that disarming former combatants plays in peace agreements. In an email interview, Robert Muggah, research director of the Small Arms Survey and a research fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, discussed the process of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration. WPR: How significant are disarmament initiatives in post-conflict scenarios, and are there any scenarios in which they are counterproductive? Robert Muggah: Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) is currently a fixture of the stabilization and peacebuilding landscape. The vast majority of the roughly […]

The Realist Prism: Countdown Begins on NATO-Russia BMD Deal

Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has set a timer in motion for resolving the outstanding differences between the North Atlantic alliance and Russia over a proposed ballistic missile defense system in Europe. Since the architecture for this shield is expected to be finalized at the May 2012 NATO summit in Chicago, Rogozin said that time is running out to determine what role, if any, Russia will play in the system. “Our current dialogue on missile defense is very difficult,” Rogozin said, “but we must finally either agree or disagree by the end of this year.” If not, Rogozin warns […]

After seven years of debate and impasse, the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 46-nation group of nuclear technology suppliers, agreed at a meeting last month in the Netherlands to revise the guidelines for trade in enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology. The move was immediately criticized in India by the media and opposition parties as a reversal of the NSG’s 2008 waiver allowing the transfer to India of sensitive ENR technology, which can be used for the production of both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. The NSG’s original guidelines dated from 1978, three years after the group was formed in response to […]

MAE SOT, Thailand — On June 9, deadly clashes broke out in northern Myanmar between the country’s army and the ethnic minority Kachin Independence Army (KIA). The fighting reportedly erupted after Myanmar’s military moved to secure the Tarpein Hydropower Project, a Chinese-built dam that came online in January. The plant, which sits on a tributary of the Irrawaddy River close to rebel-held areas, has since suspended its operations, and the clashes have spread to surrounding regions, pushing Myanmar’s strategic borderlands to the brink of civil war. Rights activists say the Myanmar army’s offensive has brought a range of rights abuses, […]

When the generals in Myanmar orchestrated their pseudo-democratic pageant last November, the exercise was labeled a “sham” by most of the world. Some in the West, however, speculated that despite the deeply flawed elections, the long-ruling junta might still redeem itself and allow real democratic progress in the wake of the polls. So far, however, the optimists are being proven spectacularly wrong. In the months since the vote, the country has marched in the direction of civil war and intensified oppression rather than toward democratic reconciliation and real reform. The election may, in fact, have made matters worse. Myanmar’s new […]

Chávez’s Absence Revealed Leadership Void in Venezuela

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is known for a ubiquitous and theatrical presence in his nation’s media. So his sudden extended absence for the past month initially created something of a vacuum. As the news broke that he was in a Cuban hospital under treatment for cancer, however, that vacuum was quickly filled by speculation over who might take charge of the nation’s decade-old socialist revolution should Chávez turn out to be gravely ill. According to Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, the sudden lack of leadership that became evident in the […]

Global Insider: South Korea-Africa Relations

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is currently on a three-country tour of Africa. In an email interview, Gabriel Jonsson, an associate professor of Korean studies at Stockholm University, discussed trade and diplomatic relations between South Korea and Africa. WPR: What is the recent history of South Korea’s diplomatic relations with Africa? Gabriel Jonsson: Although South Korea began to establish diplomatic relations with African countries starting in the early 1960s, relations with Africa have been less active than with any other continent. In 2006, President Roh Mu-hyon became the first South Korean head of state to visit Africa since 1982. Roh […]

The Republican Party’s increasing divisions on foreign policy have now moved beyond Tea Party-inspired financial grumbling to find their way into the race for the GOP presidential nomination. Could the party’s 2012 nomination turn on foreign policy? If so, it would echo the 2008 Democratic primary campaign, in which foreign policy played an unusually strong role: Barack Obama is president of the United States today in large part because he opposed the Iraq War in 2003, compared to Hillary Clinton, who had been in favor of the war. However, supporters of a noninterventionist turn in the GOP are likely to […]

In Senegal, popular anger over chronic electricity shortages and the autocratic behavior of octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade have produced several waves of protest since last summer. The same anger flared again on June 23, when protesters took to the streets to denounce Wade’s plans to amend the constitution and lower the threshold necessary to win in the first round of next February’s presidential election. Shaken, Wade backed down from what was widely perceived as a power grab. The protesters’ triumph does not mark the end of the conflict, however: Wade still intends to run for a third term, and protests […]

Global Insider: U.K.-Brazil Relations

In June, U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg traveled to Brazil to promote economic ties between the two countries. In an email interview, Marieke Riethof, a lecturer in Latin American politics at the University of Liverpool, discussed U.K.-Brazil relations. WPR: What is the current state of U.K.-Brazil political and economic relations? Marieke Riethof: Although the U.K. is a relatively small trading partner for Brazil, bilateral trade and investment between the two countries have increased over the past 10 years. During the first half of 2011, total trade between the U.K. and Brazil increased by 8 percent compared to the same […]

Despite an agreement among the U.S., Russian and French presidents at the G-8 summit in Deauville, France, that it is time for a peaceful settlement to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev failed to make much progress when they met in Kazan, Russia, last week. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the meeting “disappointing,” though she added, the parties “had improved their understanding on a number of issues.” The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has its roots in Soviet-era boundaries that located the Armenian-populated enclave as an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan in 1921. […]

In secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan that concluded in Islamabad on June 25, the two nations decided to set their differences aside and work toward a new future. But even as both sides reassess their ties and mull confidence-building measures, the thorny issue of tactical and strategic missile tests and ballistic missile defense (BMD) continues to cast a long shadow over the bilateral relationship. Recent reports that India is seeking to develop longer-range strategic missiles have raised anxieties in Pakistan. On June 2, the head of Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), India’s premier defense-research agency, declared that India […]

A stalemate has set in between President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress over the president’s authority to initiate and continue combat operations against Libya. This should surprise no one. The limits on the president’s constitutional authority to wage war are as uncertain today as they were when the Constitution was ratified. Complicating this uncertainty is that pesky law passed by Congress in 1973 over President Richard Nixon’s veto: the War Powers Resolution (WPR). Enacted in response to the widespread belief that it had become far too easy for a president to commit the nation to war, the WPR sought […]

Robert Gates could boast a remarkable public service career when he retired from the Pentagon on July 1. In addition to his other contributions, Gates was the only defense secretary to have overseen two different wars serving under two presidents of two different parties. His solid if low-key Republican credentials and reputation as a prudent hawk helped depoliticize national security issues during and well beyond the presidential transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. These qualities also helped Obama avoid the kinds of problems experienced by President Bill Clinton, the previous Democratic president whose clashes with senior military officers […]

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