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Whenever it seems that the war in Syria can’t get more tragic and dangerous, it does. That conflict has already created the worst humanitarian disaster of a young century and empowered the barbaric self-declared Islamic State. And it could become worse. The Obama administration has avoided an entangling involvement, instead providing refugee aid and supporting some of the less repellent rebel groups, in the hopes that the combatants conclude that an outright military victory is out of reach and accept a power-sharing arrangement. That was a long shot from the beginning and became even less likely as the hatred between […]

Backtracking on earlier plans for a withdrawal of U.S. forces, President Barack Obama announced Thursday that the United States will keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through 2016, before reducing the number to 5,500 by early 2017. “While America’s combat mission in Afghanistan may be over, our commitment to Afghanistan and its people endures,” Obama said during the announcement at the White House. The Obama administration originally planned to cut the number of U.S. soldiers in half by next year, eventually leaving 1,000 troops stationed at the U.S. embassy in Kabul by early 2017. But it changed course with the Taliban’s […]

The war in Yemen has pushed the country to the brink of famine, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program, while Yemenis are dying daily because of a lack of access to clean water supplies, basic medicine and even affordable transport to medical facilities. Yet despite a mounting international outcry, the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen is unlikely to have much of an impact on the calculus of the main players in the conflict, or their foreign backers. In truth, a solution to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis will only come once the warring parties believe a political solution works in their […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of falling oil and commodities prices on resource-exporting countries. Bolivian President Evo Morales has overseen remarkable economic growth since he took office in 2006, and last year the economy grew by 5.4 percent, thanks in large part to exports of gas and other natural resources. In an email interview, Jean-Paul Faguet, professor of the political economy of development at the London School of Economics, discussed Bolivia’s economy and its dependence on commodities. WPR: How effectively has the Bolivian government used the past decade’s commodity boom to […]

Sweden, the biggest country at the heart of rich and peaceful Scandinavia, is in many ways in the eye of the current migration storm tearing through Europe. Although it is admitting fewer refugees than Germany in terms of sheer numbers, Sweden is—and has been for several years—the European Union’s biggest per capita recipient of refugees by quite a wide margin. In 2014, Sweden, a country with just 9 million inhabitants, received more than 80,000 asylum applications. This year, that number is set to grow substantially. From one angle, no other country seems better equipped to handle this challenge. Having weathered […]

When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took a surprise mid-September trip to Khartoum to meet his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al-Bashir, it solidified the unexpected rapprochement in what had been one of Africa’s thorniest relationships. Two of the continent’s longest-serving leaders, Museveni and Bashir have spent much of the past two decades sniping at one another publicly as each secretly worked to destabilize the other’s government. What is bringing them together, curiously, is one of the issues most responsible for this enduring animosity: South Sudan. Uganda provided consistent support to the southern Sudanese rebellion, which ended with South Sudan’s official secession in […]

In the aftermath of last weekend’s horrific bombings in Ankara, the Turkish people and international observers are trying to understand what went wrong with Turkey, a country that until very recently embodied the hopes of a more peaceful and interconnected Middle East. The answer inevitably leads to one man: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The evidence in the twin suicide attack that killed almost 100 people, making it the deadliest in Turkey’s modern history, points to the self-declared Islamic State. And yet, many people, searching for the bigger picture in Turkey’s crisis, have turned angrily in Erdogan’s direction. Turkey’s president, until […]

Tunisia has received more media coverage than usual this week, after the National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.” The award confounded observers; bets were on Germany’s Angela Merkel or Pope Francis. That’s because, with the exception of Tunisia’s closest followers, few had actually heard of the Quartet—which comprised a labor union, an employers’ organization,* a human rights group and a lawyers’ association—or understood its role in advancing Tunisia’s democratic transition. The Quartet, which was spearheaded […]

President Barack Obama’s interview Sunday evening with Steve Kroft of the CBS News program “60 Minutes” offered a revealing insight into the foreign policy mindset of the Washington Beltway—not due to anything that Obama said, but rather due to the questions posed to him by Kroft. When asking about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military interventions in Ukraine and Syria, Kroft directly challenged Obama. “You said a year ago,” said Kroft, “that the United States . . . leads. We’re the indispensable nation. Mr. Putin seems to be challenging that leadership.” Obama tried, in vain, to point out that Putin’s moves […]

While Iran’s nuclear program has topped the headlines in recent years, its missile program has mostly remained off the radar, with the exception of discussions of a potential Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which could be used against the continental United States. Iran’s missile program, however, is relatively transparent, so it is remarkable that notable improvements in the range, accuracy and lethality of its arsenal have received far less attention than its nuclear ambitions, especially as these developments signal the missions Iran has in mind for its missiles. In particular, they suggest that unlike North Korea, Iran is in no […]

Despite its short existence, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has already developed into an important tool of South American crisis management. It assumed a leadership role in de-escalating the ongoing border dispute between Venezuela and Colombia, following earlier efforts to diffuse regional crises—again between Venezuela and Colombia but also between Colombia and Ecuador and in Bolivia. It has generally done so without taking sides or holding leaders to account when they ignore established regional norms. In large part this is due to the fact that UNASUR gives priority to the absolute sovereignty of its member states, rather than […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of corruption and various countries’ efforts to combat it. Barely noticed by a world preoccupied with crises ranging from migrants and refugees in Europe and fighting in Ukraine, to civil war in Syria and stock-market plunges in China, Romania put its prime minister on trial for corruption on Sept. 21. Victor Ponta, who stubbornly remains in office and denies all charges, stands accused of a range of activities largely committed before his tenure as premier, when he was working as a lawyer. That the sitting head […]

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Tunisia’s so-called National Dialogue Quartet was deeply moving to those us who are familiar with the country where the Arab uprisings began in late 2010. The Nobel Committee’s selection of the four civil society organizations for their work in facilitating Tunisia’s democratic transition since then was a welcome revalidation of the country’s potential to build a durable democratic state. For long-time watchers of the committee, it was equally striking that the Nobel Peace Prize did not honor an institution or individual committed to nuclear disarmament, as it has at every mid-decade year […]

Canada votes on Monday, and the latest polls show the centrist Liberal Party with a slight lead over the ruling Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party. In an email interview, Brian Tanguay, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, discussed what is a stake in Canada’s elections. WPR: What explains the emergence of the New Democratic Party (NDP) as a national political contender, and why have its prospects faded recently? Brian Tanguay: In the early days of this very long campaign, most polls indicated that the NDP would, for a second straight election, sweep Quebec—a phenomenon known as the […]

The sight of Syrian rebels blowing up Russian-made Syrian army tanks with advanced American missiles, captured in videos uploaded last week to YouTube, has brought a nominally covert CIA program into the spotlight. For all the attention on the Pentagon suspending its failed program to train and equip a Syrian rebel force to fight the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the CIA’s two-year-old program to supply a handful of vetted rebel groups with TOW missiles, with Saudi Arabia and Turkey’s help, has been a surprising success, blunting a recent joint offensive by the Syrian army and newly arrived Russian forces near Hama […]

It has been a bad year for former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his nationalist support base, which comes predominantly from the country’s majority Sinhalese ethnic group. Rajapaksa’s rout in January’s presidential election, followed by his August defeat in parliamentary elections, can be seen as nothing short of a mandate from the Sri Lankan people to distance themselves from his authoritarian tendencies and divisive policies and move toward political reform and reconciliation. Rajapaksa managed to secure a parliamentary seat in Kurunegala district, a stronghold of the United People’s Freedom Alliance in the Sinhalese heartland. But his dissident faction of […]

Does India still need the United Nations? Does the U.N. still need India? New Delhi and the New York-headquartered organization have always had a complex political relationship. India prides itself on having acted as a leading voice for the developing world at the U.N. in the era of decolonization. It remains a leading contributor of troops and police to blue-helmet peace operations. But there is little heartfelt warmth in the relationship these days. Indian officials have made very little progress toward their overarching goal at the U.N.: securing a permanent seat on the Security Council. New Delhi has been pressing […]