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More than three weeks have passed since members of the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram burst into a girls’ school in the northeast of the country and kidnapped hundreds of girls. It took at least two of those weeks before international attention turned to the crisis, and even longer for the Nigerian government to sharpen its response and accept help rescuing the girls. Among the many questions surrounding the attack, one of the most puzzling is why Nigeria failed to react effectively for so long. By the time Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan at last spoke publicly about the kidnapping, the […]

Last month, amid nonstop coverage of the Ukrainian crisis and an onslaught of domestic U.S. issues, the New York Times published an editorial urging the U.S. Congress to pass legislation to comply with international obligations on illegal fishing. Why did the editorial board think this issue warranted ink? Part of the answer is that the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) trade in fish is no longer just a conservation and biodiversity challenge. Environmental crimes across the board today have significant consequences for countries’ development aspirations, in addition to global security implications. In this light, governments around the world need to […]

“Russia fulfilled none of its commitments. None. Zero.” Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, that was how Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland described Russia’s implementation of the Geneva agreement reached on April 17 to de-escalate tensions between Russia and Ukraine. In response, she said, the administration will continue its policy of “steadily raising the economic costs” for Russia, including targeted sanctions on Russian entities and individuals. One target of more muscular sanctions will be the Russian defense industry. A White House statement announced that the departments of State and Commerce would pursue a “tightened policy to deny […]

For the first time since a military coup in 2012, Guinea-Bissau held presidential and parliamentary elections on April 13, setting the stage for the country’s return to civilian rule. With over 700,000 registered voters, 13 presidential candidates, 15 parties running for parliament and a history of chronic political instability, the elections could have been a recipe for more turmoil. But these fears proved unfounded, as on April 23 Guinea-Bissau’s National Elections Commission announced the final results of the parliamentary poll and the first-round results of the presidential election; more importantly, none of the country’s political forces disputed the results. The […]

Even while U.S. troops are still disengaging from combat in Afghanistan, the American military is hard at work distilling lessons from its long, costly counterinsurgency campaigns of the past decade. Two new counterinsurgency doctrine manuals—a joint one released last November and an updated Army/Marine Corps publication that will hit the streets in the next few days—provide a window into what lessons the military drew from Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet both are also important for what they do not or cannot address. Military doctrine institutionalizes the recent experience of the armed forces and identifies “best practices” for future operations. That the […]

Last month, police in Peru destroyed $20 million worth of mining equipment as part of a wider crackdown on illegal mining in the country. In an email interview, Miguel Santillana, an expert on the mining industry at Instituto del Peru, discussed the Peruvian government’s response to illegal mining. WPR: What is the relative importance of the mining sector in Peru’s economy, and what has been the scale of damage to the sector caused by illegal mining? Miguel Santillana: The extractive industry accounted for 11 percent of Peru’s GDP in 2011, up from 5 percent in 2006, according to the IMF, […]

In the early 1960s, Canada’s Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism warned that while Canadians might not be fully conscious of it, their nation was perhaps passing through its greatest crisis. At the time, the commission observed that the relations between English and French Canadians had so seriously deteriorated that their very will to live together was in jeopardy. Underlying these concerns were fears about the future of the French language in Canada, the survival of which certain demographers warned was at risk in a predominantly English-speaking country and continent. In seeking measures to establish an equal partnership between the […]

Twenty years ago, hardly anyone outside of China and Taiwan gave any thought to Chinese. Though spoken by a whole lot of people in a rapidly developing country, the language was seen as obscure, possibly nearly unlearnable. Nowadays, however, Mandarin Chinese language instruction worldwide is experiencing huge growth. Increasingly, Chinese is not just being taught in elite U.S. secondary and tertiary schools, it is also being spoken more in areas where China has secured access to key natural resources, like Australia, Kazakhstan and sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, Mandarin has also eclipsed all other varieties of Chinese as the premier language of […]

One of the effects of the Western military drawdown from Afghanistan has been to strengthen Russian-Indian security ties. Whereas New Delhi has tried in recent years to diversity its defense relationships, including by seeking out better ties with the United States, the need to prevent the pro-Pakistani Taliban from returning to power in Afghanistan has given a second wind to its security alignment with Moscow. Until now, their mutual engagement regarding Afghanistan was mostly diplomatic. But media reports have now emerged of a new arms-transfer arrangement in which India will buy weapons from Russia for delivery to the Afghan military […]

In Ukraine, language politics is so contentious that politicians will go to almost any lengths to deny that the issue even exists. Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko once dismissed regional divisions between Eastern and Western Ukraine as “children’s fairytales.” More recently, opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko told a German news magazine that people in the East and South of Ukraine “are only superficially concerned about language, history and national identity.” Ukrainian politicians commonly say that the language issue only comes up during election campaigns, but then these same politicians have also come to blows in the parliament over this issue. This […]

Against the backdrop of a threatened new nuclear test, North Korea is doing what it has long done to hedge against political and economic isolation: maintain and expand its network of partners. As it anticipates new international sanctions and a cooling of relations with China, North Korea has just concluded new trade deals with Russia and Uganda and is continuing to boost trade with the rest of the world, despite U.N. sanctions and U.S. efforts to sever its connections to financial institutions around the globe. Often miscast as a “hermit kingdom,” North Korea has been anything but that when it […]

Portugal and other European nations have seen their social safety nets stretched following the eurozone crisis and years of austerity measures. In an email interview, Arne Heise, a professor of economics and director of the Center of Economic and Sociological Studies at Hamburg University, discussed the eurozone crisis’s impact on European social welfare policies. WPR: Which European social programs have experienced the greatest impact from austerity measures? Arne Heise: Almost every European Union member state had to implement changes to their economic policies after the 2007 global financial crisis. However, the size and concrete types of measures taken were very […]

With six months until the U.S. midterm elections, it’s time for planning, panic or musing, depending on where you sit, about how they will affect U.S. foreign policy. Democratic Party bravado about retaking the House of Representatives is gone. Instead, the topical question has now become, Will the GOP take back the Senate, and if so, then what? On domestic policy, the “Then what?” question has been framed as an either-or: Will GOP senators, especially the presidential hopefuls among them, want to run in 2016 on achievements, which, for immigration or tax reform, require cooperation with the White House? Or […]

In the wake of the Ukraine crisis, Finland and Sweden are facing increasing pressure to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as full members. While the NATO debate has been simmering in both countries for some time, especially after Russian bombers practiced attacks against targets in Sweden in an exercise during Easter last year, Stockholm and Helsinki are now being encouraged to seriously consider membership by their Nordic and Baltic neighbors, as well as the United States. NATO leaders and security experts believe that the Ukraine crisis has exposed a real vulnerability on NATO’s northern flank, where Sweden and Finland […]

“Russia, whatever they’re doing right now, is not the Soviet Union,” said Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith yesterday at a discussion of the U.S. defense budget. Although most of his congressional colleagues would likely agree with that statement, there is no consensus on Capitol Hill about how to respond to a crisis in Ukraine that appears to leave the United States with few options. And while the differences in large part follow party lines, internal divisions within each camp have also surfaced. Democrats appear to generally support, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the Obama administration’s approach of gradually increasing pressure […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama today amid escalating tensions in Ukraine and lingering mistrust over NSA spying revelations. In an email interview, Sudha David-Wilp, senior trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, explained where the two countries’ interests overlap, and where they diverge. WPR: How closely do the U.S. and Germany’s political and economic interests converge—within Europe, in the trans-Atlantic context and globally—and where do they diverge? Sudha David-Wilp: Germany and the U.S. refer to the trans-Atlantic partnership as one steeped in common values. Under that broad justification for working […]

As British troops withdraw from Afghanistan, the U.K. must make hard choices ahead of its forthcoming Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), due for release in the months following the U.K.’s May 2015 general election. Yet efforts to realign Britain’s defense strategy as part of this process are likely to be constrained once again by financial considerations and the need to maintain continuity in certain areas. Overcoming these tensions will therefore require sound judgment in the coming months. Otherwise, Britain could be left with a strategically incoherent defense posture insufficient to meet the demands of the post-Afghanistan operating environment. The […]