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The climate change agreement hammered out at the COP21 conference in Paris this weekend inspires a cocktail of contradictory emotions: relief, cynicism, awe and melancholy. It is hard not to be relieved that world leaders have finally agreed on an ambitious agenda to limit global warming. It is equally difficult not to read their pledges with some skepticism. While the Paris deal was bolder than many had predicted, aiming to stop global temperatures rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, many crucial parts of the deal are not legally binding. The package only has a chance of success if major […]

Frontex, the European Union’s border agency, announced yesterday that it would deploy a so-called Rapid Border Intervention Team to help manage the large number of refugees arriving on the Greek islands. The announcement followed one last week that the agency will send staff to Greece’s northern border with Macedonia to help register migrants there, and will supplement the 195 Frontex staff already working in the Greek islands in the Aegean that have been most affected by the refugee crisis. The moves come after officials from the EU and several member states accused Greece of not doing enough to protect its […]

Last week, World Politics Review launched Trend Lines, its new weekly podcast, which will appear every Friday. The show has two sections: In the Briefing, host Peter Dörrie interviews a WPR editor about the week’s most important events. In the Report, a WPR contributor or on-the-ground source takes an in-depth look at a single issue. In this week’s Briefing, WPR Editor-in-Chief Judah Grunstein and Peter Dörrie discuss China’s naval diplomacy, French elections and Iraqi politics. For the Report, Edward Alden of the Council on Foreign Relations joins us to give his insights into global trade negotiations and how the Trans-Pacific […]

Critics no longer stop at questioning or attacking the Obama administration’s strategy in dealing with the so-called Islamic State. As Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, bluntly claimed last month, “We don’t have a strategy.” Even Democratic lawmakers like Sen. Tim Kane have joined in, saying, “I don’t think the administration has done a good job of laying out a clear strategy.” Yet President Barack Obama insists that his administration has an effective strategy based on four components: airstrikes against Islamic State targets; support to Iraqi security forces and Iraqi militias fighting the […]

The energy world has been abuzz since Mauricio Macri won a surprise victory in Argentina’s presidential elections on Nov. 22. The former mayor of Buenos Aires’ pro-business platform has raised expectations at home and abroad among investors and analysts anxious for change. Argentina has the potential to be both a regional and global energy leader, but after 12 years of Kirchnerismo, Macri has a long road ahead. Still, the prospects for an economic and energy turnaround have never been brighter, and Argentina’s energy sector has the potential to become a significant driver of future economic growth. Macri, who was sworn […]

If there was one surprise in the overwhelming electoral victory by the Venezuelan opposition in Sunday’s legislative elections, it was that the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) accepted defeat so quickly and peacefully. But anyone who thinks that means the political temperature will cool down in Venezuela should think again. Opposition leaders never doubted they had the votes to overtake the heirs to the late Hugo Chavez. The question was whether President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s successor, and his backers would allow a free election to take place—and if they did permit the true vote count to be revealed, […]

In recent years, Algeria has focused more of its foreign policy on its immediate neighborhood, both in North Africa and farther south in the Sahel. Its busy foreign minister, Ramtane Lamamra, has been active in mediation efforts in Mali, Libya and Tunisia, earning plaudits from Western partners. Some officials and observers have seized on this foreign policy outreach as a purported “awakening” of Algerian diplomacy in Africa, a revitalization of the country’s historically strong role in continental affairs. Lamamra himself highlighted Algeria’s important regional efforts in an interview in October with the French daily Le Monde. But has Algeria’s Africa […]

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. According to a recent report in the Financial Times, certain regions of Australia have been hard hit by the commodities bust and declining Chinese demand. In an email interview, David Meredith, an associate member of the history faculty at the University of Oxford, discussed Australia’s economy and the role commodities play. WPR: How important are commodities for Australia’s economy, and what effect have falling commodity prices had on Australia’s economic growth? David Meredith: Although Australia has other […]

Last week, the Israeli national security agency Shin Bet announced a series of arrests of extremist Israeli settlers suspected in the July arson attack that killed a Palestinian family of three in the West Bank village of Duma. The grisly incident, in which radicals from illegal Israeli settlements set a home on fire, leaving an 18-month-old boy to burn to death, brought settler violence to the fore. Although the Duma attack renewed concerns over settlement expansion and the violence it brings, such episodes are not new. As far back as 2008, settlers coined the term “price tag” to describe acts […]

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s trip to Kosovo last week was literally a “flying visit”; he didn’t leave Pristina’s Adem Jashari Airport. But that didn’t diminish the significance of the trip, which comes at a delicate time for Kosovo’s government. Prime Minister Isa Mustafa’s administration faces a domestic opposition so enraged that it has resorted to dropping tear gas in parliament, and a sharp worsening of relations with Serbia. Kosovo has also seen a larger proportion of its citizens join the self-proclaimed Islamic State than any other country in Europe, with high unemployment and disillusionment with mainstream politics making […]

Everyone it seems has a strategy for defeating the self-declared Islamic State. But the ones proposed by two of the Republican candidates for president truly stand out. Sen. Ted Cruz said last week that the United States should “carpet-bomb [the Islamic State] into oblivion.” He added, “I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out.” Donald Trump has a similar plan. Though he recently replied, when asked how he would deal with the group, that he would “leave [that] to your imagination,” he has talked previously about “bombing the [crap]” out of the […]

Last month, clashes between the Congolese army, backed by U.N. peacekeepers, and the Islamist Ugandan rebel group the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) left at least 30 dead in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In an email interview, Daniel Fahey, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, discussed the ADF and its role in the DRC. WPR: What is the current size and geographic reach of the ADF, and what are the group’s objectives and grievances? Daniel Fahey: The estimates of the ADF’s size in late 2015 range from 100 to 250 combatants. The ADF’s footprint […]

Over the course of its armed struggle with the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Iraq has devolved into a state captured by militias and foreign powers. The instability caused by a revived insurgency that took over Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul in June 2014 has facilitated the emergence of new armed actors and deepened the influence of older ones. The level of security engagement Baghdad receives from the West, including cooperation with the 60-nation coalition against the Islamic State, has not strengthened Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s position. His government remains fragile and fragmented, unable to consolidate power and exercise authority over militias […]

In the years leading up to the Iran nuclear deal, Iran and China found their interests at times aligning and at others diverging. Since the late 1990s, China had reduced its defense ties with Iran under U.S. pressure. At the same time, espousing a discourse of peace and cooperation, Beijing did not want the West to go to war with Iran. Moreover, Tehran’s perseverance in the face of Western efforts to isolate Iran was a counterbalancing force against U.S. hegemony in the Middle East, which suited China’s strategic interests. However, the conflict with Iran over its nuclear program also indirectly […]

President Barack Obama’s oval office speech Sunday was intended to show toughness and resolve in the war against the self-declared Islamic State, and to reassure a jittery public in the aftermath of the domestic attack by followers of the group in San Bernardino, California. At the end of his remarks, however, he reminded Americans to not allow their anxieties about terrorism to turn into hostility toward Muslim Americans. This is not sentimental rhetoric. It’s a critical part of the strategy toward defeating the group that can strengthen America’s social capital at home and soft power abroad. From Paris to San […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the European refugee crisis and European Union member states’ approaches to addressing it. In November, Slovenia started construction of a fence along its border with Croatia to help control the flow of refugees entering the country. In an email interview, Katarina Vucko, a legal expert and researcher at the Peace Institute in Ljubljana, discussed Slovenia’s response to the refugee crisis. WPR: What policies is Slovenia pursuing on the national and European Union level to address the influx of refugees, and what is the government’s stance on the EU […]

There is no other area of global governance—not climate change, not management of the oceans, not monetary policy, not peacekeeping—in which the nations of the world have agreed to cooperate more closely than on the rules governing international trade. But over the past half-century, each step toward greater trade cooperation has been a bit harder than the last. The fate of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement—the recently concluded mega-regional deal linking the United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim countries—will likely decide whether the historic project of building better global rules for trade continues, or collapses under its […]