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The European Union formally signed an agreement normalizing ties with Cuba on Monday. The so-called Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement covers issues such as trade, human rights and migration, and allows for greater cooperation on climate change, culture and tourism. Talks on expanded political ties began in 2014, and after seven rounds of talks, a final agreement was reached in March. Previous attempts at a cooperation agreement failed in large part because of the EU’s “common position” on Cuba, which set out the objectives for EU policy in Cuba, namely the transition to a pluralist democracy with respect for human […]

On the morning of Aug. 17, 2014, an officer in the special operations section of the Maldives police force heard the beep of an incoming message from his cell phone. It was from Ahmed Adeeb, who at the time was the country’s tourism minister. “You guys need to focus on this auditor general,” he wrote in his message, referring to Ibrahim Niyaz, who had been investigating corruption in the country’s tourism marketing authority, the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC). “No worries,” the officer texted back. “Maybe we need to light up his office, as he is continuously making […]

Mauricio Macri assumed the presidency of Argentina a little over a year ago, on Dec. 10, 2015, intent on correcting years of mistakes by his predecessors and eager to cement his place as a leader of significance. While he has largely succeeded in the first goal, the second remains stubbornly out of reach, and efforts to build an enduring legacy will only grow more complicated in the years to come. Macri’s surprising victory in the 2015 election—polls initially showed him likely to lose outright in October’s first round of voting—ended 12 years of rule by Nestor Kirchner and his wife, […]

When the Gulf Cooperation Council states and their Western defense partners meet, the demand for changes in regional security cooperation and threat management has long come from the outsiders. The Western partners, the U.S. in particular, continue to call for more defense modernization and more integration of effort among these rich oil states. But the Gulf states are clearly not ready to take ownership of regional security, nor do they take the initiative for improving it. The mood on the Arab side of the Gulf is one of worry. The six GCC countries—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, […]

A new, expanded mandate for the Japanese military, known as the Self-Defense Forces (SDF), participating in the United Nations mission in South Sudan went into force Monday. Japanese soldiers are now allowed to rescue humanitarian workers under attack and play a larger role in protecting U.N. camps. In an email interview, Ippeita Nishida, a research fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, discusses the Japanese military’s overseas activities. WPR: What U.N. and multilateral security missions is Japan participating in, and what is public opinion toward participating in them? Ippeita Nishida: Japan has a 350-strong SDF engineering unit and some staff officers […]

This may be one of the last times I write about Ban Ki-moon, a thought that makes me unexpectedly melancholic. The United Nations secretary-general will hand over his duties to Antonio Guterres at the end of the month, after 10 years in office. Over that time, I estimate that I have written about 50,000 to 60,000 words about Ban’s performance, in addition to more general pieces on U.N. diplomacy. Quite a few of those words have been unkind: I have frequently criticized Ban for being too cautious, too hidebound by protocol and too slow to grasp many of the U.N.’s […]

After meeting briefly on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged the need for improved ties. Despite the diplomatic gesture, though, relations remain strained. Next year marks the 45th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, but celebrants of that auspicious occasion may unfortunately find little reason to cheer. The most immediate source of tension stems from a deepening confrontation in recent months over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which China claims as the […]

On Dec. 4, a man with an assault rifle entered a Washington, D.C., pizza shop, planning to “self-investigate” a conspiracy theory purporting that Hillary Clinton was at the center of a “pedophilia ring” being run out of the restaurant. The rumor—which has, needless to say, been emphatically debunked—can be traced to Twitter posts with the hashtag #pizzagate, which started trending on Twitter in early November and were subsequently tweeted and retweeted thousands of times over the next several weeks. The incident is one of many that have drawn attention to social media’s changing role in a tense political and social […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and senior editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and the implications for U.S.-China relations. For the Report, Miles Pomper talks with Peter Dörrie about the future of nuclear energy. Listen:Download: MP3Subscribe: iTunes | RSS Relevant Articles on WPR: Why Trump’s Taiwan Call Might Be the Least of Traditional Diplomacy’s Worries Will Trump Regret Backing China Into a Corner on Taiwan and the South China Sea? What’s Behind Jammeh’s Perplexing Decision to Accept Gambia’s Election Results? Will the Syrian Crisis Doom the […]

During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, it was hard to get a firm grasp on Donald Trump’s intended national security policy. His own lack of experience and his campaign’s scarcity of advisers steeped in defense issues led candidate Trump to rely on broad themes and searing criticism of the policies of the Obama administration—and by extension Hillary Clinton’s likely approach to the world. Now, with only weeks until Trump takes office, he has much of the senior echelon of his national security team in place and is beginning to flesh out his policy. As the Trump strategy emerges, the tensions […]

Over four months on from Britain’s referendum on whether or not to remain a member of the European Union, what exactly Brexit will look like is still not any clearer. There has been no shortage of claims and counter-claims, posturing and rhetoric. The debate, if an exercise in guessing can be called that, has focused on the degree to which the United Kingdom will be able to have access to the single market. This will depend on its acceptance of the four freedoms—movement of people, capital, goods and services—as consistently emphasized by EU and member state officials, yet dismissed as […]

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned Wednesday after nearly 60 percent of voters rejected a referendum Sunday on a series of changes to the constitution that Renzi had staked his premiership on. The referendum’s failure and the resignation of the brash prime minister have plunged Italy into political and economic uncertainty, leading many to speculate about Italy’s future in the eurozone and the strength of populist movements across Europe. Renzi said the constitutional reforms would make Italy a more governable country by reducing the size and power of the Italian Senate, the upper house of parliament, and empowering the lower […]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan last month saw the conclusion of an India-Japan nuclear deal that had long been in the works. Not so many years ago, that development would have elicited major international reaction, given India’s status as a nonsignatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The lack of such reaction to the latest bilateral agreement is perhaps due to the fact that India already has 14 such deals in place, with a list of countries that includes the United States, Russia and France. Nevertheless, that India became the first non-NPT country to firm up such […]

Donald Trump’s surprising election victory has been met with caution around the world as America’s friends and rivals try to gauge the future direction of U.S. foreign policy under the new administration. In Japan, whose cornerstone relationship with Washington helps guide U.S. strategy in Asia, Trump’s win has elicited pause and an intense effort to shore up Japanese interests. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was quick to send a congratulatory cable to the president-elect, lauding his victory and indulging him by complimenting his acumen as a successful businessman. Abe followed up with a shrewd move to arrange a face-to-face meeting with […]

Brazil, the embattled South American nation that has seen its fortunes rise and fall dramatically in the past few years, is once again looking like a country that foreshadows major global trends. This time, it is flashing warning signs about the coming battles in the worldwide campaign against corruption. For the past few years, Brazil has been in the news for its successes in rooting out embezzlement and bribery schemes involving the country’s industrial giants and its political class. But last week, Brazil’s corruption-plagued Chamber of Deputies took a controversial late-night vote. Rewriting an anti-corruption bill into one that would […]

The next time they meet, Matteo Renzi, the soon-to-be former Italian premier, and Francois Hollande, the lame duck French president, will probably take a moment to console each other for their recent misfortunes. Afterward, they might spend some time trying to figure out where things all went wrong. Both entered office with the intention of bolstering the European Union’s fraying solidarity in the aftermath of the sovereign debt crisis that threatened to sink the euro and the union itself in 2009. Both were vocal advocates for a stimulus-driven response to the EU-wide economic stagnation that followed. Both are now political […]

For years, Costa Rica has been a Latin American success story. The country’s democratic institutions and attention to good governance have enabled its resource-poor economy to thrive in a dangerous part of the world. The country overachieves on various measures of prosperity, with its ranking on indices such as economic quality, business environment, governance, education, health, personal freedom, social capital and the natural environment above the norm for countries at a similar level of development and wealth—and often considerably so. In terms of overall economic growth, data from the International Monetary Fund show the economy expanded at a steady rate […]