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Anyone trying to understand Latin American politics should pay close attention to urban areas. Of the 600 million people in the southern part of the Americas, 80 percent now live in cities. However, old narratives die hard, which explains why English-speaking articles about Latin America still disproportionately focus on rural issues, peasant struggles, land reform and related topics. Of course, these issues remain relevant, because land ownership, rural or urban, is still a major source of conflict. But it is clear that urban issues will increasingly dominate the region’s political future. Take for instance Venezuela, the most polarized—not to say […]

Peru recently recalled its ambassador to Chile for consultations over allegations of Chilean spying. In an email interview, Christopher Sabatini, adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, discussed the ongoing diplomatic spat between Peru and Chile. WPR: What are the reasons behind the current diplomatic tensions between Peru and Chile? Christopher Sabatini: The specific event that led to the tensions was the sale of information from Peruvian surveillance of Chilean fishing vessels to officers from the Chilean navy. As a result, both countries—at least temporarily—recalled their ambassadors. In truth, neither side comes out looking good on […]

A little over a year ago, Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, weighed in on the most pressing political challenge facing Astana at the time: whether or not to change the country’s name. Before any consensus could be reached, however, unidentified men cropped up in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, saying little and admitting less. Twelve months later, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and amid an intermittent war in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and the central government in Kiev, it’s clear that the status quo ante will not return. In just a year, Kazakhstan’s geopolitical environs have shifted more rapidly than at any […]

Last month, Lee Wan-koo was confirmed as South Korea’s prime minister, despite allegations that he had dodged military service and was involved in suspicious real estate deals. This is just the latest in a series of scandals that have plagued the administration of President Park Geun-hye. In an email interview, Charles Armstrong, professor of Korean studies at Columbia University, discussed South Korean domestic politics. WPR: What have been the most damaging crises and scandals faced by South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her administration, and how effective has she been at navigating them? Charles Armstrong: The biggest single crisis was […]

Here is a modest proposal to resolve the Ukrainian crisis: NATO should invite the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram to send fighters to assist Kiev’s battered military. Die-hard IS and Boko Haram extremists would surely be happy to battle the Russian-backed separatist forces in Ukraine and their Orthodox Christian-nationalist creed. For veteran Islamists, it would bring back memories of past glories in Afghanistan and Chechnya. This whole idea is clearly bonkers. But does it make more sense to ask Russia to help fight threats to Europe from IS and its affiliates in Africa and the Middle East? Last […]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress this week slammed U.S. President Barack Obama’s quest for a nuclear agreement with Iran, unleashing a political firestorm in Washington. While the speech did not compel anyone to shift their position on the Obama policy, it dramatically amplified the debate, with each side fully convinced that Netanyahu made his case or failed to do so. That the United States has been unable to manage its conflict with Iran, or even implement a coherent policy, reflects the intricate complexity of the issue—with its multiple components, clashing priorities and impassioned domestic political […]

For all the frustration and anger surrounding the recent negotiations between Greece and its international creditors, the parties reached a temporary, four-month accommodation that provides a clear sign that both sides still want a durable agreement. They all have good reason to do so, too. Not only does each nation have narrow interests that favor an intact eurozone, but, despite more sanguine accounts of the situation, they all realize how failure risks a destructive financial contagion. That is because the primary risks across the eurozone have shifted from the borrowing costs on sovereign debt to the danger of capital flight […]

There are two leading theories about the death of Boris Nemtsov, the former Russian deputy prime minister and liberal activist gunned down in Moscow last week, and neither one is flattering to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to one interpretation, Putin himself must have signed off on the murder, which took place in view of the Kremlin on a bridge under constant surveillance. A second theory—advanced by Masha Gessen in The New York Times, among others—holds that Putin and his inner circle are not directly responsible, but that Nemtsov was killed by vigilante nationalist gangs, an accidental casualty of the […]

When the idea first emerged of giving a speech before the U.S. Congress on the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his political advisers must have thought the platform would give him a strong boost in Israel’s upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for March 17. The hero’s welcome they expected Netanyahu to receive would all but ensure success in his quest for another term in the prime minister’s office. Electoral politics, to be sure, were not the only or even the principal reason for Netanyahu’s decision to deliver his controversial address. Netanyahu genuinely sees himself […]

After a string of scandals throughout 2014, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s corruption-related troubles haven’t let up this year. A high-profile former governor with close ties to Pena Nieto’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has had his vast collection of luxury real estate in the United States revealed, prompting accusations of impropriety, while another former governor is under investigation for embezzling millions of dollars of public funds. The latest examples of graft and perceived conflicts of interest help explain why Mexico still lags behind Chile, Colombia and Brazil, three of Latin America’s most developed economies, in Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption […]

Last weekend, the Iraqi government reopened the country’s national museum in Baghdad 12 years after it was looted during the U.S.-led invasion. The unexpectedly early reopening was a small act of defiance after militants of the self-declared Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIS, released a propaganda video showing a rampage through the Mosul Museum. Some of the objects destroyed by the extremists in Mosul were plaster reproductions, and when toppled over smashed quickly in a cloud of dust. But others were ancient limestone originals, millennia-old, struck with sledgehammers and jackhammers. The museum houses a vast collection of antiquities from […]

Diplomacy has always had a long, hard slog in the effort to find a settlement of the Iranian nuclear question. That slog hit its latest obstacle yesterday: With the U.S. and its negotiating partners in the final stretch of trying to hammer out an agreement with Tehran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress in an attempt to derail the deal. That there is even the possibility of a deal for Netanyahu to derail is itself something of a testament to the negotiators’ Herculean efforts, given the initially diametrically opposed preferences of the two main interlocutors, the Islamic […]

In recent months, Kenya has increased its crackdown on Islamic extremism, including mosque raids and alleged extrajudicial killings. In an email interview, Jeremy Prestholdt, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, discussed Kenya’s counterterrorism policies. WPR: What is Kenya’s current approach to counterterrorism, and how effective has it been at tackling terrorism threats? Jeremy Prestholdt: In recent years Kenya has experienced a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks. This escalation is closely linked to Kenyan military actions against al-Shabab insurgents in Somalia. In the wake of Kenya’s 2011 offensive, al-Shabab and its sympathizers in Kenya initiated a terror campaign […]

After months of political tensions that have left more than 100 people dead since the beginning of the year, Bangladesh again made headlines last week when an American blogger known for his criticisms of fundamentalist Islam was hacked to death by a group of attackers in the capital, Dhaka. The murder of Avijit Roy, coupled with the country’s continuing backdrop of seemingly endemic political instability, have overshadowed Bangladesh’s achievements in social development, which include providing basic health care, curbing child mortality, improving nutritional levels of small children and simultaneously reducing the country’s birth rate. Worse still, there is little reason […]

Two parliamentary brawls in as many days, filibusters, street demonstrations and a courthouse sit-in have characterized the controversy over a new domestic security bill that Turkish legislators look set to make law. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) insists the security “package” is up to European Union standards and needed urgently. Critics argue it will create the legal conditions for a police state. They point in particular to two immediate concerns. First, Kurdish national leaders have warned the law could scuttle the government’s high-stakes peace process with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to end the three-decade insurgency that has […]

The assassination last week of Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister and opposition political leader, in downtown Moscow, just a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, presents a challenge for Washington. The current tensions in U.S.-Russia relations over crises ranging from Ukraine to Syria make a successful engagement with Moscow on human rights even more unlikely. Yet the U.S. must somehow find ways to support the democratic vision for Russia advocated by Nemstov and other political and civil society activists. Nemstov’s murder is in some ways reminiscent of 1990s-era Russia under then-President Boris Yeltsin. At the time, law and […]

For many years, U.S. special operations forces (SOF) did important, often invaluable work, but were at the periphery of the U.S. military, simultaneously part of the team yet different. Commanders of conventional units often complained that SOF operating in the same area as their troops did little coordination and seemed to have their own objectives. The actions of special and conventional forces were more in parallel than synchronized. Even in the classrooms of the military’s staff and war colleges, the special operators were easy to spot, connected to their fellow students while somehow distinct. Then the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and […]