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Later this month, representatives from Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States will meet in Washington to discuss a possible accord that would regulate commercial fishing near the North Pole. Until recently, lack of regulation over the Arctic Ocean was not a priority for world powers, since ice made its waters inaccessible. But as the world warms, more and more polar ice thaws during the summers, creating newly opened waters and the need to address commercial exploitation. The agreement under discussion, a possible fishing moratorium, “would set an important precedent by way of deviating from the frontier mentality that […]

In responding to the growing security crisis emanating from Syria, Jordan finds itself caught between the positions of the United States and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with the U.S. insisting on restraint and gradualism in Syria and the six-member GCC pushing hard to tip the military balance against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Jordan’s King Abdullah must negotiate these competing forces to manage what he sees as an imminent threat in Syria. Seen from Jordan’s perspective, that threat can be explained in terms of three concentric rings of security. The first ring is the growing influx of Syrian refugees, who […]

The significance of the ethnicity of the two Boston Marathon bombers is still unclear, as are the reasons for the Tsarnaev brothers’ transformation into Islamist terrorists, but the latest evidence seems to suggest that the elder brother’s trip last year to the North Caucasus played a key role. Many of the family’s friends and relatives still live in the North Caucasus, which includes the republics of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. The region has been a hotbed of radicalism and militarism for at least a century. The North Caucasus became radicalized after Czarist Russia conquered the previously independent Muslim peoplesin the […]

This year has been marked by skirmishes between Indian and Pakistani forces over the countries’ disputed de facto border in Kashmir, as well as an upcoming change of government in Pakistan, each of which may slow down the long and difficult peace process between India and Pakistan. In an email interview, Sadika Hameed, a fellow in the Crisis, Conflict and Cooperation program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has researched cooperation in South Asia, discussed the state of the India-Pakistan peace process. WPR: What is the current state of the India-Pakistan peace process, especially in light of […]

On Sunday, Colorado Party candidate Horacio Cartes was elected as the new president of Paraguay, beating his challenger, Efrain Alegre of the governing Liberal Party, by nine percentage points. The Colorado Party also secured a congressional majority and 15 out of 17 governorships. But while Cartes has promised “a new direction” for Paraguay, an expert who spoke with Trend Lines predicted that the vote would have the opposite impact. “The result, although widely expected, is a step back,” Peter Lambert, an expert on Paraguayan politics and an associate dean in the faculty of humanities and social sciences at Bath University, […]

The United Nations may be on the verge of launching a new wave of peace operations, beginning with a blue helmet force in Mali in July. Further deployments to Somalia and Syria are also on the horizon. Yet the U.N. still has a huge amount of unfinished business to complete in countries where peacekeepers are already deployed, ranging from Haiti to Liberia and Lebanon. As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his advisers look for the resources for a new generation of missions, they will face pressure to cut costs and downsize existing missions — even if that means leaving some fragile […]

The Obama administration’s response to the steady drumbeat of threats issuing from North Korea in recent weeks could not have been clearer. “The United States will, if needed, defend our allies and defend ourselves,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said during his April 12 visit to South Korea. The American F-22 stealth fighter jets and nuclear-capable B-2 bombers that flew drills over South Korea in March and the two missile-defense ships that sidled up to South Korea earlier this month undoubtedly sent the same message. As a crisis management policy, that message was exactly right. As a strategic signal […]

This week, Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy, addressed the future of U.S. grand strategy and suggested needed Defense Department reforms in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. Flournoy, who founded the Center for a New American Security before becoming senior adviser at the Boston Consulting Group, emphasized how the U.S. should exercise leadership on the world stage even as sequestration takes its toll on the Department of Defense. “Sequestration was the Sword of Damocles that was supposed to force everyone to get to a budget deal,” Flournoy said. “It was never supposed to […]

Even without the tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon this week, it is unlikely that the visit of U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon to Moscow would have generated front-page news. But his meetings — including direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin, to whom Donilon handed over a personal letter from President Barack Obama — could end up being quite significant. After a year in which U.S.-Russia relations have deteriorated, Donilon’s visit, which had already been postponed twice, was intended to reverse this decline and break the deadlock created by disagreements over Syria and human rights. Unfortunately, Donilon arrived […]

Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on Cuba’s economic reforms. Part I looked at the reforms to date. Part II examines the challenges facing future efforts. Cuba’s economic reform — or “updating” of the economy, as the Cubans prefer to call it — is aimed at introducing market mechanisms to boost Cuba’s anemic productivity. “We have to erase forever the notion that Cuba is the only country in the world in which people can live without working,” President Raul Castro told the National Assembly in August 2010. So far, the changes being carried out in the […]

Few people expected Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles to defeat the handpicked successor to the late Hugo Chavez. The larger-than-life former president’s chosen heir, Nicolas Maduro, was, in fact, named the winner of Sunday’s election. But the election results still managed to stun. The two candidates received almost the same number of votes. The opposition is demanding a recount, and Maduro has emerged from the election surprisingly weakened, despite his victory. It is a risky turning point for the country, a challenge to Maduro’s untested skills and a perilous time for Chavismo. Venezuela went to the polls within weeks of […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on Cuba’s economic reforms. Part I looks at the reforms to date. Part II will examine the challenges facing future efforts. Since assuming office in July 2006, Cuban President Raul Castro has been on a crusade to bring the Cuban economy into the 21st century. The hyper-centralized model imported from the Soviet Union in the 1960s “doesn’t even work for us anymore,” Fidel Castro admitted. When Raul took over, the Cuban economy had yet to fully recover from the “Special Period” — the deep depression that followed the Soviet Union’s […]

On Tuesday, Morocco cancelled its annual joint military exercises with the United States and other international observers just as the “African Lion” war games were set to start, according to U.S. officials. Though no formal explanation for the cancellation was given, the move follows an expression of support from the White House for broadening the mandate of the United Nations observer mission in Western Sahara, MINURSO, to allow it to monitor human rights in the disputed territory, which was annexed by Morocco in the 1970s. According to Human Rights Watch, “Moroccan abuses in Western Sahara particularly target Sahrawis” — residents […]

The International Energy Agency, an organization comprising 28 industrialized countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) aimed among other things at preserving global energy security, is reportedly seeking to expand energy cooperation with emerging powers. In an email interview, Thijs Van de Graaf, a postdoctoral fellow at the Ghent Institute for International Studies specializing in global energy politics and international institutions, explained the IEA’s expansion drive and its likely effects. WPR: What is motivating the IEA’s push to form an “association” with emerging economies for the first time in its 40-year history? Van de Graaf: When […]

The American military is led by some of the most educated professionals in the world. It’s not unusual for a retiring commissioned officer to have spent more time learning in the classroom than a physician, attorney or professor. All commissioned officers and a surprising number of career noncommissioned officers have a four-year college degree; many add an advanced civilian degree — or several of them. This is bolstered by what is called the “professional military educational system,” which is made up of specialized schools operated by the military services themselves. The most important are staff colleges, whose students have 12-14 […]

RAQQA, Syria — This dusty, nondescript provincial capital in eastern Syria has all the hallmarks of a city recently captured by rebel forces. A statue of former President Hafez Assad has been pulled down from its plinth, its lips painted red and a pair of horns fixed to its head. Nearby, houses have been reduced to rubble by government air raids, while many that remain standing are pockmarked by small-arms and heavy-weapons fire. One feature, however, sets Raqqa apart from other towns captured by Syria’s rebels: The Syrian rebellion’s traditional flag — green, white and black with three red stars, […]

Today both states and their challengers face a conundrum. Images of dissent and grievance circulate at lightning speed through the global media landscape, fueling demands for change and even revolution. Furthermore they encourage populations to expect governments to fall in response to people power in ever-contracting timeframes. States are perplexed at how rapidly calls for change can spread through social networks. Their challengers too are concerned: They face a loss of control and message coherence. Political change has always been about the long game, as Egypt and Syria demonstrate today. Nevertheless, there remains the challenge of organizing collective action in […]