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With only days to go before Armenia’s Feb. 18 presidential election, all signs point to a victory for incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan. Should he be re-elected as expected, Armenia will most likely maintain its status quo, which saw Yerevan open modestly to the West and Euro-Atlantic initiatives but ultimately remain bound to its longstanding alliance with Moscow. Sargsyan is likely not only to win the election handily but also to easily clear the 50 percent threshold required to prevent a second-round runoff. With Armenia’s opposition badly fractured and handicapped by the noncandidacies of two of the most credible opposition figures […]

A recent report on patterns in drug trafficking and consumption in the European Union uncovered novel trends, including the consumption of new substances and the emergence of new distribution networks. In an email interview, Caroline Chatwin, a criminology lecturer at the University of Kent who researches European-level drug policy, explained the changing EU drug market and the challenges that remain for a coordinated EU-level drug policy. WPR: How have patterns of drug smuggling and consumption in the European Union changed recently, and what accounts for the rise of synthetic drug use in particular? Caroline Chatwin: Latest figures show a stabilization […]

The early contests for power following the Arab uprisings proved rather easy for the Muslim Brotherhood. What has come since then, however, has been much more challenging, and the Brotherhood’s difficulties are only growing. Where the Brotherhood has not won, it is facing reversals. Where it did come to power, its leaders are finding that governing, and even keeping a country from going off the rails these days, is far more complicated than winning elections. In Egypt and Tunisia, Brotherhood-dominated governments are on the defensive. In Jordan, the Brotherhood’s strategy seems to be failing. In Syria, amid the carnage, the […]

Tunisia’s young democracy has never seemed to be in so much jeopardy. The political opposition is accusing the ruling Ennahda party of the assassination of Chokri Belaid, a popular figure on the political left who was murdered Feb. 6 in front of his home, and hundreds of Tunisians are holding ongoing protests to demand the government’s resignation. Several parties, including one of Ennahda’s coalition partners, are threatening to pull out of the Constituent Assembly, which is tasked with rewriting Tunisia’s constitution. The current political turmoil is an outgrowth of Tunisia’s many challenges, which have multiplied over the past few months […]

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, sponsored the second annual “Opportunity: Africa” conference at Delaware State University. The senator’s remarks emphasized the need for the U.S. to recognize the metamorphosis of the continent. “We’re trying to shift the American mentality toward Africa from aid to trade,” Coons told Trend Lines in an email interview after a full day of conversations on expanding economic engagement with Africa. The U.S. has lagged behind China in seizing trade and investment opportunities in Africa, he said, in part because of outdated assumptions and in part […]

As the Arab Spring enters its third year, several trends have become clear. The world now knows that massive and effective popular opposition to authoritarian regimes can coalesce with stunning speed and little advance warning. In an era of interconnectedness and information saturation, revolution often moves in waves as the collapse of one dictator inspires the opponents of other ones. Getting rid of dictators may be bloody and difficult, as in Libya and Syria, but even when it’s relatively quick, as in Egypt and Tunisia, the transition to a stable post-authoritarian system is extraordinarily difficult and fraught with the potential […]

A recent report (.pdf) by the Open Society Justice Initiative provides new insights into the “extraordinary rendition” program the United States operated after 9/11, revealing just how widely the program spanned: More than 130 people were subjected to extraordinary rendition, and more than 50 countries cooperated. The report thus raises important questions about both accountability for past human rights abuses and the future of U.S. counterterrorism policy. Renditions, or the international transfers of individuals without legal process, occurred before 9/11. But they were previously used to transfer suspects for criminal trial. After 9/11, rendition expanded in size and focus; instead […]

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on East Asian energy cooperation. Part I examined cooperation in energy conservation and natural gas markets. Part II examines cooperation in nuclear energy. Despite heightened political tensions among Japan, China and South Korea over territorial disputes in the East China Sea, Asian economic cooperation remains critical to the global economy as it struggles to return to widespread growth. Energy cooperation among these three Asian powers offers an opportunity for much-needed constructive engagement, and nowhere is this more urgent than in the area of nuclear energy. Before the Fukushima nuclear accident […]

In his second annual report on the state of the NATO alliance, released at the end of January, and in his Feb. 2 speech to the 2013 Munich Security Conference, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen laid out a very ambitious current and future security agenda for the alliance, while stressing the need for NATO governments to sustain adequate defense spending to develop the capabilities needed to achieve the alliance’s goals. In this regard, Rasmussen identified four gaps where spending levels are producing capabilities deficits. The first is the traditional trans-Atlantic gap between the United States and its European allies, which […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on East Asian energy cooperation. Part I examines cooperation in energy conservation and natural gas markets. Part II will examine cooperation in nuclear energy. Over the past few months, Japan’s relations with China and South Korea have deteriorated rapidly over territorial disputes. This is particularly true for relations between Japan and China, which are often described as having “cold politics and a hot economy,” with the implication that political tensions will not damage economic ties. But now, reactions to the territorial disputes are beginning to spill into the economic realm, […]

On Jan. 30, the Philippine government announced plans to buy 12 South Korean fighter jets — its first new fighter jet purchase since retiring the last of its U.S.-designed F-5 fleet in 2005. Chung-in Moon, a political science professor at South Korea’s Yonsei University, described the state of the Korean aerospace industry and what the purchase means in an email interview. WPR: What is the current state of South Korea’s aerospace sector?Chung-in Moon: The South Korean aerospace industry underwent a major restructuring in 1999 following the Asian financial crisis. Daewoo Heavy Machinery, Samsung Aviation (now Samsung Techwin) and Hyundai Aerospace […]

Friday was Iraq’s bloodiest day in more than two months, as suspected Sunni insurgents targeted crowded Shiite areas, bombing a pet market, a vegetable market and a group of taxi vans waiting for passengers returning from prayers. But while there has been an increase in such deadly attacks in recent weeks, Douglas Ollivant, senior vice president at the global strategic consulting firm Mantid International and a senior fellow in the New America Foundation’s security studies program, emphasized that they are unlikely to escalate into a broader sectarian civil war. “Until and unless we see the return of Shia militias going […]

European soldiers, often mocked by American analysts in recent years, are back in fashion. France’s intervention in Mali has inspired commentators on both sides of the Atlantic to wonder whether, in the words of Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post, “the European Union could become the world’s policeman.” French President François Hollande’s willingness to go to war excites those who believe the Obama administration is too cautious in its use of military strength. Philip Stephens of the Financial Times observes that “Europeans have caught the interventionist bug just as the U.S. has shaken it off.” There are some obvious problems […]

Pakistan’s decision to allow a Chinese company to take over operations of the Gwadar port in Baluchistan has raised anxiety levels in South Asia. Since Jan. 31, when reports first emerged of the Pakistani Cabinet’s decision to transfer operational control of the port to China Overseas Port Holdings, India has been worried about the strategic consequences of what is being described as the establishment of a de facto Chinese outpost in the Indian Ocean. Many in India see the move as another bead in China’s “string of pearls” strategy of investing in port and infrastructure deals throughout South and Southeast […]

On India’s Navy Day in December, Indian Chief of Naval Staff D.K. Joshi declared that the Indian navy was prepared to operate in the South China Sea if called upon to do so. The government subsequently downplayed Joshi’s remarks, but the fact remains that the South China Sea has emerged as a vital sea corridor for India, with more than half the country’s trade currently passing through it. The security of the South China Sea will grow even more important to New Delhi in the years to come as India looks to link itself to East Asian supply chains and […]

For roughly a decade now, I’ve been advocating that America needs to be unsentimental in choosing its military allies for the 21st century. Europe and Japan are aging and seem increasingly less willing to protect their interests abroad, while India and China are becoming budding superpowers with global interests that, to a stunning degree, overlap with America’s. Most pointedly, we live in an age of “frontier integration” triggered by globalization’s rapid advance, a process in which China and India, and not the “old” West, are the two rising pillars. So it makes sense for America to focus future alliance-building efforts […]

It was months in the making, persistently delayed and then twice rescheduled. But when British Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech on the future of the U.K.’s relationship with the European Union finally arrived late last month, at least it did not lack ambition. Cameron hopes to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU and push forward a process of reform for the whole union. His aim is to secure a looser relationship with a streamlined Europe, one that all but the more strident europhobes in his party and the public would prefer to full departure from the bloc. Should the Conservatives […]