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Sudan and Saudi Arabia are currently holding a joint air force drill that reportedly involves hundreds of air force personnel from both countries. It is the first such drill since Sudan joined the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen in 2015. In an email interview, Alex de Waal, a Sudan expert and research professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, explains how ties have developed between the two countries and why both sides approach the relationship with caution. WPR: Historically, what has been the nature of ties between Saudi Arabia and Sudan, and how have they evolved […]

Guest columnist Nikolas Gvosdev is filling in for Judah Grunstein this week. President Donald Trump’s meeting at the White House on Monday with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi gave the clearest indication yet of how the Trump administration plans to conduct American foreign policy. One of the most striking elements of el-Sisi’s visit was how the Trump team, in contrast to its predecessors in the Obama administration, decided to pursue a very focused, prioritized agenda. President Barack Obama found himself caught amid the push and pull of contradictory impulses and interests when it came to the U.S. relationship with Egypt. El-Sisi […]

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepalis are heading to the polls on May 14 to elect local government officials for the first time in two decades and inaugurate voting under the new constitution that passed in September 2015. But just six weeks before the voting begins, politicians are scrambling to strike a deal with the Madhesis, an ethnic group from Nepal’s southern plains that has pushed back against provisions in the new constitution. Madhesi political parties are pushing for a constitutional amendment to give them greater representation in government and redraw provincial boundaries in order to create two federal provinces that stretch […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series about China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. Under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka was an eager player in China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, hoping to use Chinese capital to execute a massive postwar infrastructure upgrade. But OBOR has run into a number of problems in Sri Lanka. The country has reportedly borrowed more than $6 billion for infrastructure projects, mostly from China, and officials now say the loans are too expensive. […]

Donald Trump is being drawn into the hot conflicts of the Middle East in ways that will define his presidency. Like the idealistic Barack Obama before he became president in 2009, Trump campaigned on promises that he would not allow the United States to get stuck in the region. Unlike Obama, Trump is confident that more military might will provide quick results, while showing little sign of preparing for postwar challenges or real disagreements with regional partners. Reality is catching up with the new administration. The Middle East has long proven its power to lure American leaders, often reluctantly, into […]

Bulgaria may have had three parliamentary elections in four years, but there is little sense of change in the air. After the latest vote on March 26, the next government seems set to be another unstable coalition patching together various egos, business interests and veneers of political philosophies. While EU wannabes Serbia and Macedonia continue to attract criticism and scrutiny for weighing Western and Russian interests against each other, member state Bulgaria will continue its own balancing act. Perhaps the biggest change after last month’s election is that tentatively reformist parties are now shut out of parliament, while the mainstream […]

After clearing all the legal and political obstacles with surprising ease, British Prime Minister Theresa May filed the papers for the United Kingdom’s divorce from the European Union in Brussels on March 29. In political terms, there is no way back for the U.K., now that it has pulled the trigger on Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, formalizing its departure from the bloc. But the U.K. finds itself only at the end of the beginning of the long and arduous road toward Brexit. And while the focus for the next two years will be on the British-European relationship […]

Is it possible that I am a minor source of moral inspiration to the Trump administration? This may sound like a belated April Fool’s joke. The Trump team, with its emphasis on transactional politics, is not exactly a conclave of moralists. And as a liberal internationalist of European origin, I am not entirely in tune with the “America First” crowd. As I have noted, Trump supporters on right-wing websites have cheerfully dismissed me as a “hysterical” globalist or worse. They are unlikely to look to me for inspiration. Yet, tracking recent debates about American proposals to make severe cuts to […]

On a recent visit to Buenos Aires, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, foreign affairs minister for the United Arab Emirates, signed several agreements with his Argentinian counterpart, Susana Mabel Malcorra, while talking enthusiastically about the potential for the two countries “to enhance cooperation, explore opportunities and overcome challenges” as they continue to develop their relationship. Yet attempts to deepen ties between Latin American and Gulf countries have long run into geographic, political and cultural obstacles. In an email interview, Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, discusses the slow process of trying to bring the two regions closer together. […]

As the worldwide movement to combat climate change gets underway in earnest following the 2015 Paris Agreement, oil-rich Saudi Arabia finds itself in an awkward position. The world’s largest producer of fossil fuels, the kingdom needs to pump ever-increasing amounts of oil to support a rapidly expanding population in a new era of relatively low global oil prices. But the hot, arid country is one of the most vulnerable to the effects of rising temperatures. There is the distinct possibility that if the emission goals of the Paris Agreement are not met, some areas of the Arabian Peninsula, including Mecca, […]