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Earlier this month, Japan announced a three-year, $7 billion investment deal with the countries of the lower Mekong River to boost development and improve infrastructure. In an email interview, Phuong Nguyen, an associate fellow with the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discussed Japan’s relations in Southeast Asia. WPR: How extensive are Japan’s ties in Southeast Asia, and with what countries does Japan have the closest relations? Phuong Nguyen: Japan has a long history with Southeast Asia dating back to the World War II period. Southeast Asia functioned as an important source of resources and […]

This month marks the centenary of the Sykes-Picot treaty, a French-English agreement to establish areas of control and influence in the Arab lands of the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The milestone has stirred up resentments and a sense that the flailing states of the region never really existed as coherent geographic entities. But changing borders is not easy, and even if one could draw a better map of the Middle East, it would not solve its deepest sources of distress. Much is being said about the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement, a minor event […]

Given global headlines, you might think the world is terribly off course. Geopolitical rivalry threatens stability from Eastern Europe to the South China Sea. Jihadi terrorists sow mayhem throughout the Middle East. A scary virus emerges in Latin America, spreading across borders. A Brazilian president is brought down, as the Panama Papers expose corruption in other lands. Publics everywhere, alienated by yawning inequality and anemic growth, vent their frustration at a system rigged for moneyed elites. Populist politicians, sensing the sour mood, promise to reverse globalization by building walls to keep out foreigners and abandoning trade agreements. This noisy, negative […]

Mozambique’s government was recently revealed to have borrowed $1.4 billion in previously undisclosed loans. In an email interview, Fernanda Massarongo Chivulele, a researcher at the Institute of Social and Economic Studies in Maputo, discussed the loan scandal and the fallout for Mozambique’s politics and economy. WPR: What is the background of Mozambique’s debt crisis, and what are the immediate consequences and implications for the donor-dependent government budget? Fernanda Massarongo Chivulele: Mozambique was taken by surprise by an April report in The Wall Street Journal about the existence of an undisclosed loan to the government in 2013, around the same time […]

Decision-makers rarely solve international tensions once and for all. They cobble together temporary fixes and leave future generations to iron out all the glitches later. Europe’s leaders are currently paying the price for their forebears’ failure to establish a durable order in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the U.S. and its allies appeared to have a unique opening to forge a lasting settlement to the continent’s security problems. There was no lack of ideas about to how to do this. Some argued that NATO should expand to cover the old Warsaw Pact, perhaps including […]

South Korean President Park Geun-hye visited Iran earlier this month, pledging to forge ahead and establish a new era of relations with Tehran built on closer economic cooperation. During the three-day visit, Park and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani agreed to 30 joint economic projects, totaling more than $37.1 billion. The two sides also agreed to more than 50 memorandums of understanding dealing with everything from infrastructure cooperation and joint energy ventures to work on medical and health care projects. South Korea was eager to quickly restore relations with Tehran following the finalization of last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and […]

Last week, the Long War Journal reported that the “self-proclaimed head of the Islamic State’s arm in the Sahara has reportedly threatened to attack Morocco,” according to an audio statement sent to Al Jazeera. The message’s authenticity has not been verified, and there has been no official media release of the tape. But it drew attention to the potential terror threats facing Morocco, which has for years taken pride in its domestic anti-radicalization programs and has emerged as an important counterterrorism partner for European countries, including France and Belgium. In 2014, the leader of the Islamic State (ISIS), Abu Bakr […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and host Peter Dörrie discuss the challenges facing NATO, South Sudan’s unstable peace, and Kim Jong Un cementing his power at North Korea’s party congress. For the Report, Ted Henken, joins us to explain what normalization with the U.S. and reforms mean for Cuba’s economy and political opposition. Listen: Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant articles on WPR: From Russia to Refugee Crisis, NATO Faces Biggest Test Since the Cold War Machar’s Return Only the First Step in Bringing South Sudan Back Together North Korea Party Congress Shows Kim’s Power—and […]

The series of protests that have gripped parts of Gambia since mid-April present a serious political test for longtime President Yahya Jammeh, who has ruled the tiny West African state since seizing power in a bloodless coup nearly 22 years ago. The protests come at a time when the Gambian government faces international censure for alleged human rights violations, amid reports of security forces employing heavy-handed tactics against demonstrators. With a deteriorating fiscal situation and a presidential election scheduled for December, Gambia could find itself mired in turmoil for months to come. Yet despite Jammeh’s precarious position, the Gambian strongman […]

There has been a distinct pattern to America’s time as a global power: Whenever the United States becomes involved in a conflict, it quickly draws lessons that set the trajectory for the next conflict or problem. American strategy truly is iterative, with the recent past paving the way for future action. This means that getting the lessons right, or at least as right as possible, is a vital part of strategy-making. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, for instance, the lessons of Vietnam haunted policymakers and framed public debate over America’s role in the world. This led the U.S. military to […]

The Seventh Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the first such meeting in 36 years, ended Monday with much pageantry and fanfare in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, but with little evidence that North Korea has changed its policy line in any substantive way. Kim Jong Un received the new title “party chairman”—his late father remains “eternal party secretary” and his grandfather “eternal president.” A new economic plan was also announced, while top positions in the party were reshuffled. Other than Kim appearing for the first time in a Western-style suit to deliver his speeches, the party congress was […]

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his campaign to prevent Ukraine from drawing closer to the European Union in 2014, his strategic objectives went beyond that Eastern European country’s borders. To be sure, Russia was concerned about Ukraine’s political and economic drift toward the West. But Moscow’s warnings to Kiev, which were followed by military action, were also meant as a signal to other countries that might have contemplated following in Ukraine’s steps. The message was aimed at what used to be a clearly demarcated sphere of influence, serving as a threat to any country that was once part of […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the potential impact on members’ economies. Mexican Trade Minister Herminio Blanco told a gathering of Mexican and Japanese business leaders earlier this month that “Mexico will become more competitive when the TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] takes effect.” In an email interview, Raúl Francisco Montalvo Corzo, the director of the EGADE Business School, Guadalajara, discussed the potential effects of TPP membership on Mexico’s economy. WPR: What are the expected economic benefits and potential downsides for Mexico from the TPP, and who are the expected “winners” and […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on the impact of corruption and various countries’ efforts to combat it. Last week, a prosecutor in Argentina asked for an investigation into illegal enrichment allegations against former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her son. In an email interview, Manuel Balán, an assistant professor at McGill University, discussed Argentina’s fight against corruption. WPR: How big a problem is corruption, both low- and government-level, in Argentina, and to the degree it is one, how does it manifest itself in daily life? Manuel Balán: There is generally a great deal […]

A profile in The New York Times Magazine of Ben Rhodes, the Obama administration’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, has been the focus of attention in U.S. foreign policy and media circles since it appeared last week. There’s a lot of ground to cover in giving the article a critical reading, and little of it reflects positively on the author, David Samuels—or on the Obama administration, if not quite for the reasons Samuels claims. In a nutshell, Samuels uses what is ostensibly a profile of Rhodes, who is President Barack Obama’s speechwriter as well as one of his […]

The fallout of the so-called Panama Papers, along with rising civil unrest, security challenges, and the expanding role of the military in civilian affairs, have resulted in the most challenging period for Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, since he took office in 2013. Yet Sharif is likely to survive the current difficulties, given the weak position of the opposition and the military’s lack of interest to force a change in government. However, Sharif’s longer-term political prospects are less clear. They could be hampered by additional repercussions from investigations into Sharif’s family shielding their money in offshore bank accounts and shell […]

In late April, Spain’s King Felipe announced that new elections would be held June 26, six months after Spaniards went to the polls. No party won a majority in December’s elections, however, and months of negotiations failed to produce a viable ruling coalition. The incumbent, conservative People’s Party (PP), led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, won the most votes—nearly 29 percent—but lost its governing majority and over one-third of its deputies in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies. The social-democratic Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) took 22 percent of the vote, followed by the upstart left-wing Podemos with 21 percent. Another […]