A protester marches between police officers during a vigil for 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, in London, March 15, 2021 (AP photo by Matt Dunham).

In the introduction to her 2013 book, “Policing Protest,” the Italian scholar Donatella della Porta described the stereotypical image of a British policeman as a “friendly bobby giving directions to a foreign tourist.” That amiable, unarmed, neighborly figure, she noted, was emblematic of a traditional policing style in the United Kingdom that had once been seen as a model by many agencies elsewhere in Europe. Today, the prevalent image of British security forces could not be more different. On March 12, a London Metropolitan Police officer was charged for the kidnap and murder of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, an […]

Anti-Syrian government protesters mark 10 years since the start of a popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Idlib, Syria, March 15, 2021 (AP photo by Ghaith Alsayed).

Some things haven’t changed in seven years. One of the first pieces I wrote for WPR was on the prospects for transitional justice in Syria someday, roughly three years into a civil war that still hasn’t ended today. The news hook back then was the appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee of a former Syrian military photographer, hidden under a blue hoodie and identified only as “Caesar.” He had defected from the regime and smuggled a trove of roughly 55,000 photographs out of Syria, documenting the deaths of some 11,000 prisoners killed in Bashar al-Assad’s jails—many showing signs of […]

A section of the Amazon rainforest stands next to soy fields in Belterra, Para state, Brazil, Nov. 30, 2019 (AP photo by Leo Correa).

Over the past two years, an extraordinary global campaign has emerged to protect 30 percent of Earth’s total surface from human exploitation by 2030. The members of this so-called 30×30 coalition, which now includes scores of governments, understand that climate change is only one half of the planet’s environmental crisis. The Paris Agreement, while imperative to curb greenhouse gas emissions, will do little by itself to save the planet’s collapsing biodiversity or preserve the massive ecosystems upon which humanity depends—and which we are fast degrading. In April 2019, a group of 19 prominent scientists ignited international interest in the 30×30 […]

An anti-coup protester at a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar, March 27, 2021 (AP Photo).

In the days after Myanmar’s military staged a coup on Feb. 1, it likely hoped to consolidate power with minimal bloodshed. Having overthrown the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, the Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are known in Myanmar, set out to create a managed democracy like neighboring Thailand’s, with an electoral system that guarantees victory for military-aligned parties and their allies. The coup leader, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, probably hoped that neighboring states and possibly even the world’s leading democracies would eventually recognize Myanmar’s new government. Indeed, as protests erupted across the country in the coup’s […]

Anti-government demonstrators march during a national strike in Bogota, Colombia, Dec. 4, 2019 (AP photo by Fernando Vergara).

Pro-democracy activists once held up Latin America as a crowning achievement, a region notorious for 19th-century caudillos and Cold War military strongmen that was almost universally electing its leaders by the early 1990s. In 2001, the Western Hemisphere’s premier political institution, the Organization of American States, adopted the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which commits members to uphold and defend democracy. Nowadays, it is more common to hear about Latin America as a cautionary tale, a flashing red light reminding us of the fragility of new democratic institutions and the allure of old habits. The overachiever of what Samuel Huntington called the […]

Construction work at the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam near Assosa, Ethiopia, June 28, 2013 (AP photo by Elias Asmare).

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Africa Watch by email every week. The latest attempt by Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia to negotiate a resolution to their decade-long dispute over Addis Ababa’s controversial dam project on the Nile River’s largest tributary failed this week, bringing the region closer to a crisis. Tensions were already high heading into the meetings in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, with Egyptian officials warning that it was the last chance to reach an agreement […]

A supporter of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or Movement of Justice, takes part in a rally against the U.S. drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas, in Peshawar, Pakistan, April 23, 2011 (AP photo by Mohammad Sajjad).

When it comes to armed drones, is smaller and more precise necessarily better? The question came to my mind upon seeing the news that the U.S. Air Force just successfully test-launched a new weaponizable drone, the ALTIUS-600, making it the smallest drone in operation. Even more remarkably, this tiny aircraft was launched from the second-smallest-drone, the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie, while the Valkyrie was in flight. There is nothing objectionable about the development of mini-drones. One could even argue they would be improvements, in humanitarian terms, over the use of the much larger Reaper to deliver 500-pound bombs in allegedly “precise” […]

U.S. and Kazakh national flags at the scene of a news conference with then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi, in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan (Sputnik photo by Vladislav Vodnev via AP Images).

As President Joe Biden’s foreign policy takes shape, one issue that still needs clarification is the role of Central Asia. Discussions in Washington about the region usually occur not on its own terms, but in the context of broader issues about Russian and Chinese influence, or security concerns around terrorism and the war in Afghanistan. However, Central Asia is important to the U.S. in its own right. For one thing, it is composed of frontier markets that can be attractive to U.S. companies, apart from the energy firms that already operate there. And some governments share the Biden administration’s interest […]

Matt Duss testifies before the 2016 Democratic Platform Drafting Committee, June 9, 2016 (Screenshot of C-SPAN video).

Over the course of the past five years, a number of figures on the Democratic Party’s left wing, supported by grassroots organizations and advocacy groups, have been expanding the range of discussions about U.S. foreign policy. The progressive agenda that has emerged, although not a formal platform, is beginning to play a more prominent role in policy debates in Washington’s foreign policy establishment, including within the Biden administration. In this week’s Trend Lines interview, Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, joins WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein to discuss what a progressive foreign policy would look like and how […]

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The White House’s announcement last month that the United States will offer millions of coronavirus vaccines to its two immediate neighbors, Mexico and Canada, is a welcome step toward the reversal of the Trump administration’s “America First” policies. But for humanitarian, economic and strategic reasons, it must be just the first step toward an intentional program of U.S. leadership to vaccinate the Americas. In the global struggle against COVID-19, Latin American and Caribbean countries have fallen behind. Weak health systems, uncertain leadership, high numbers of informal workers and bad luck have created a perfect storm in the region. Even as […]

A woman passes Likud party campaign posters for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the city of Sderot, Israel, March 19, 2021 (AP photo by Tsafrir Abayov).

TEL AVIV, Israel—As the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history, Benjamin Netanyahu has dominated the country’s politics for over a decade. Despite his ongoing trial on corruption charges, he made a bid for yet another term in last month’s elections. He did not succeed, but neither did any of his rivals, resulting in what the Israeli mainstream media are calling the “imbroglio.” It is the same logjam that triggered the vote: Neither the pro- nor the anti-Netanyahu bloc secured the parliamentary majority needed to form a stable governing coalition. The election also did little to alter Israel’s rightward trajectory on […]

Caretaker Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte listens to the debate in parliament in The Hague, Netherlands, April 1, 2021 (AP photo by Peter Dejong).

It was exactly two weeks ago when my column about the Dutch election proclaimed Prime Minister Mark Rutte the “clear winner,” after leading his Party for Freedom and Democracy, or VVD, to a comfortable victory the previous week in an otherwise muddled race. In the wake of a VVD election campaign successfully centered on him, Rutte looked like he stood on solid ground, unquestionably the most powerful politician in the Netherlands, a decade after taking the top job. He was strongly positioned to form a new government and easily hold the job until next summer, when he would become the […]

Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi, right, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, left, arrive for the opening session of U.S.-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska, March 18, 2021 (pool photo by Frederic J. Brown via AP).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Rachel Cheung and Assistant Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive China Note by email every week. China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy may have backfired in Australia, Canada and most recently France, but in a sign of its hardening attitude toward the West, Beijing is not backing down from its aggressive posture. Defying diplomatic norms, a growing number of Chinese envoys are adopting a belligerent tone in their speeches and tweets, which Chinese authorities have justified as a necessary response to […]

Sen. Bernie Sanders, left, and Joe Biden talk before a Democratic presidential primary debate in Charleston, South Carolina, Feb. 25, 2020 (AP photo by Matt Rourke).

Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, a recurring theme among the Washington foreign policy establishment was how to repair the damage he was doing to America’s global standing. For many, particularly the centrist current of the Democratic party, that meant restoring the traditional approach to American foreign policy that Trump consistently undermined during his four years in office. But some figures on the party’s more progressive left wing saw returning to the status quo ante as insufficient. People like Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ro Khanna, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, began expanding the range of policy discussions and debates, […]

Chinese People’s Liberation Army cadets take part in bayonet drills at the PLA’s Armored Forces Engineering Academy Base, on the outskirts of Beijing, China, July 22, 2014 (AP photo by Andy Wong).

There is perhaps nothing so difficult or so important as thinking independently in the face of a gathering consensus. Very few people have the courage displayed by Rep. Barbara Lee, who just three days after the attacks of 9/11 cast the sole vote in Congress opposing the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which gave the Bush administration broad discretionary powers to wage war against terrorists. Lee’s opposition was not based on naïveté or ideological purity, both of which can be the source of what otherwise resembles iconoclastic thinking. Rather, she had the prescience and lucidity to see the dangers […]

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, fourth from right, flanked by Vice President Hamilton Mourao, left, and then-Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo, in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 20, 2021 (AP photo by Eraldo Peres).

Facing his most severe political crisis since taking office in 2019, Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, resorted to a broad reshuffle of his Cabinet last week, giving more of a voice to center-right parties in order to shore up his support and reduce the risk of impeachment while ousting three military commanders whom he considered insufficiently loyal. As Brazil heads into a perfect storm—an out-of-control pandemic combined with economic collapse and growing political discontent—Bolsonaro appears to be surrounding himself with loyalists who are willing to protect him and his four sons, all of whom are under investigation for crimes ranging […]

Protests against the arrest of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko in Dakar, Senegal, March 5, 2021 (AP photo by Leo Correa).

It all started with an accusation of rape. In early February, the Senegalese press reported that a young woman who works at a massage parlor in Dakar had filed a complaint against Ousmane Sonko, a prominent opposition leader and a member of parliament, accusing him of raping her and threatening her life. On hearing the news, Sonko, who came in third in the country’s last presidential election in 2019, cried conspiracy, accusing Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, of fabricating the claim in order to destroy his political career and send him to prison. As a member of parliament, Sonko was in […]

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