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One of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s main objectives since returning to office has been to improve relations with Russia, a goal also sought by Moscow. Both governments want to enlarge their diplomatic options and gain leverage with third parties as well as achieve mutually beneficial bilateral economic and energy deals. The two sides’ territorial dispute over the Russian-administered Southern Kurils, which the Japanese call their Northern Territories, has long stood in the way of improved ties. Because of the dispute, for instance, Japan and Russia have yet to sign a peace treaty formally ending the state of war between […]

Last week Bulgaria nominated Kristalina Georgieva to be the European Union foreign policy chief. Her nomination appears to be gaining momentum after several countries, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe, raised objections to Italy’s candidate, Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, given her close ties to Russia. The debate over the selection of the next EU foreign policy chief highlights the east-west divide that has existed since the bloc’s 2004 enlargement, when 10 countries in Central and Eastern Europe joined the EU. The very different histories of Eastern and Western Europe since World War II have shaped the political, cultural and economic […]

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fulfilled practically everyone’s predictions by winning the country’s first direct presidential election Sunday. But rather than putting an end to the divisive political battles that have roiled the country and the inflammatory stance that has strained Turkey’s relations with neighbors, Erdogan’s victory promises to usher in yet another era of contentious domestic and international politics. The newly elected, soon-to-be President Erdogan will start a new phase of his plan to become an even more dominant figure in Turkey’s political landscape for many more years to come. As Ian Bremmer put it on Twitter following […]

Ironically for Poland, World War II—a conflict that officially started in order to defend Polish sovereignty and territorial integrity—resulted in the country ceasing to exist as an independent state and military actor. During the Cold War, the Polish People’s Republic military, which was the second-strongest member of the Warsaw Pact after the Soviet Union, primarily served Moscow’s plans, rather than Polish national interests. Formed with little divergence from Soviet vision and doctrine, it was large, with over 400,000 troops in peacetime; heavy, with over 7,000 tanks and armored vehicles; hierarchical; and devoid of indigenous strategic guidance. The fall of the […]

Nations across Europe are commemorating the centennial of World War I, but in Hungary the bitter memory of the war has always lingered. Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which left roughly one-third of ethnic Magyars in neighboring countries. Even today, maps with the pre-Trianon borders are a common sight in Hungary, a country whose nationalist drift is increasingly a source of alarm within the European Union. In April, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s conservative Fidesz party maintained its majority in parliament in national elections, which also saw 20 percent of the vote go to […]

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel visited New Delhi on a political mission to sound out Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new government on the Defense Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) first proposed two years ago by Hagel’s predecessor, Leon Panetta. The United States is promoting DTTI as the “centerpiece” of the India-U.S. defense relationship going forward, hoping it will lead to a renewal of the New Framework for Defense Relationship signed by both sides in 2005, which expires next year. The 2005 framework accord led to U.S. military sales totaling $9 billion to India, but that happened essentially […]

For Islamic extremists, particularly the most angry and violent ones, al-Qaida is yesterday’s news. From Yemen to Africa, fighters are leaving al-Qaida-affiliated groups and joining the ultra-radical and violent movement now known as the Islamic State. This gives some worrisome hints about the future of extremism in the Islamic world. The ascendance of the Islamic State, initially known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is due in part to al-Qaida’s failures. Over the years much of the funding al-Qaida used to energize and stoke militant movements was cut off or dried up. Pummeled by the United States […]

With another ceasefire set to expire, Israeli and Palestinian diplomats are once more in Cairo for Egyptian-brokered talks to end the fighting in Gaza. Egypt is hardly a neutral mediator: President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s hostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas, is no secret; neither, for that matter, is Egypt’s close security relationship with Israel, firmly established under ousted President Hosni Mubarak. But the inner workings of that relationship are rarely exposed. That made the Wall Street Journal’s reporting last week of Israel’s close coordination withel-Sissi during its military assault on Gaza all the more revealing. The month-long conflict […]

On Aug. 1, heavy clashes erupted along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, prompting worries that the unresolved conflict over the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh was about to reignite into a full-fledged war. With a death toll of at least 15, the skirmish was the worst outburst of violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the cease-fire protocol came into effect in 1994. Publicly, each side has tried to blame the other for the escalation. However, a number of factors suggest that the recent escalation might have less to do with the two belligerent parties and more with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s growing geopolitical […]

Next month’s NATO summit needs to make greater progress on so-called Smart Defense, the alliance-wide effort to get more collective benefits out of individual members’ defense budgets. The initiative aims to induce NATO governments to acquire military capabilities collectively that they cannot afford individually, so that even members with limited resources can contribute to expensive joint projects. The May 2012 Chicago summit launched almost two dozen Smart Defense projects in such areas as logistics and sustainment; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and force protection. One country leads each project. For example, Germany is in charge of pooling maritime patrol aircraft; France […]

Mexican Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Meade visited Jordan last month to discuss expanding diplomatic ties. In an email interview, Alejandra Galindo Marines, professor of social sciences at the University of Monterrey, discussed Mexico’s relations with the Middle East. WPR: Who are Mexico’s primary partners in the Middle East, and how extensive are relations? Alejandra Galindo Marines: In terms of historical ties, Mexico’s main partners are Egypt, with whom Mexico has had relations since the 19th century, and Lebanon, with whom ties were established in 1947. Both countries provided an avenue to advance Mexico’s interactions with the rest of the Middle […]

This year, while Europe commemorated 100 years since the beginning of World War I, a long-forgotten conflict on the edge of the continent rumbled on. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a contest for control over Nagorno-Karabakh for more than 25 years. Beginning as an obscure conflict in a remote Soviet province during perestroika, the Nagorno-Karabakh stand-off has evolved into an enduring rivalry between two independent states, profoundly affecting both and casting a consistent shadow of insecurity across the South Caucasus. The conflict began in 1988, when a movement formed by the local Armenian majority in Nagorno-Karabakh, then an […]

Last month, scientists discovered that the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), so far responsible for just under 300 deaths in Saudi Arabia, may spread through the air. In an email interview, Jeremy Youde, associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota Duluth, discussed Saudi Arabia’s public health system and its response to the MERS outbreak. WPR: What is the current status of the MERS outbreak, both in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf region more generally? Jeremy Youde: WHO has identified 837 cases of MERS and at least 291 deaths. More than 80 percent of the cases are […]

Eyebrows arched in Chile at the end of July when President Michelle Bachelet canceled her participation in a summit of MERCOSUR leaders in Caracas, Venezuela, to focus on her domestic agenda. Critics suggested this was because her signature education reforms are in trouble. The Chilean president was elected for a second time at the end of 2013 and inaugurated in March with a mandate for overhauling the country’s education system, and she has moved quickly to introduce the first phase of a process that will ultimately lead to universal free higher education by 2020. Students have been a well-organized and […]

There has been a lot of talk about humanitarian interventions over the past week, but much of it has been muddled, misleading or both. Russia has pressed for a “humanitarian mission” to the war zone in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and its allies argue that Moscow is just using this as a pretext to invade the region. While telling Russia to back off, the Obama administration has stumbled into a new intervention of its own, launching air strikes in northern Iraq against the forces of the Islamic State, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The […]

The list of applicants for the job of “international financial crisis manager” just got a bit longer. After two years of negotiations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—known collectively as the BRICS—have unveiled a new international financial institution. The centerpiece of the aptly named New Development Bank is a $50 billion pool of resources set aside to fund infrastructure and other development projects in the BRICS countries. However, the group also announced the creation of the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), a $100 billion fund designed to provide short-term liquidity support to members of the group, similar to the Western-dominated […]

The United States and Iran held snap bilateral talks on Thursday in Geneva as part of an effort to overcome differences that have prevented the conclusion of a final, lasting agreement on the status of Tehran’s nuclear program. Curiously, two of the three senior U.S. government representatives that participated according to the sparse State Department announcement—Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and the vice president’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan—are both expected to depart the Obama administration in a matter of months. This raised questions as to whether the Obama national security team was seeking to give the president some […]