How The Avengers explains the world.
Foreign Policy Magazine
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Most Topular Stories
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Accounts and Accountability and Sea Monsters - By David Rothkopf
Foreign Policy16 May 2012 | 2:04 pm -
BRICs lead the world in software piracy
FP Passport16 May 2012 | 10:59 amThe industry group Business Software Alliance is out with its annual report on global software piracy and it appears that the BRIC countries are still pretty dominant. Yes, Zimbabwe has the world's highest rate of software piracy at 92 percent, overtaking Georgia for the top spot this year. And the United States has the largest illegal software sector in terms of dollar value. But as the chart on the right shows, China, Russia, India, and Brazil combined for more than $17.9 billion worth of pirated software in 2011 -- 28 percent of the global total -- at an average piracy rate of 64 percent. -
The Mumbai Model and the threat of urban terrorism
The AfPak Channel16 May 2012 | 9:54 amsecuring the cities A recent wave of complex attacks in Kabul, Paktia, Logar, and Nangarhar has stirred strategic debate about the future of the war in Afghanistan. But they also pose tactical and operational questions closer to home. Security officials and police throughout the West have long worried about complex attacks like the assault that kicked off the Taliban's latest offensive. The mostly professional response by Afghan security forces and NATO troops demonstrates the limits of complex attacks, but the intelligence failures that allowed them to occur illustrate the general principle… -
The 64 trillion euro question...
Daniel W. Drezner14 May 2012 | 8:09 amWhile I was on the road last week, I see that Greek elections managed to accomplish two things: 1) A requirement for yet more Greek elections; and 2) A recognition among European banking officials that this time, Greece might actually be leaving the eurozone. Sooo ... what happens then? The Financial Times has a useful article that asks the appropriate big questions while providing some useful information. Particularly interesting is the emerging belief that the eurozone now has erected the necessary firewalls to prevent contagion from Greece to the rest of the southern Med and… -
Introducing The Editor's Reader
Marc Lynch16 May 2012 | 9:31 amWhat should you be reading about the politics of today's Middle East, beyond (of course) the outstanding daily content on the Middle East Channel and the news and analysis featured in the MEC Daily Brief? The Middle East Channel Editor's Reader -- or, "Abu Aardvark's guide to good reads on the Middle East" -- is a new regular feature which will highlight what I consider to be the best of the academic journal articles, long-form magazine articles, policy reports and books which come across my desktop. The MEC Editor's Reader will reflect what I'm actually reading and think…
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Foreign Policy
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Accounts and Accountability and Sea Monsters - By David Rothkopf
16 May 2012 | 2:04 pmHow The Avengers explains the world. -
Israel's Image Revisted - By Aaron David Miller
16 May 2012 | 1:44 pmWhat's driving Israel's very bad PR? -
The Rise of Europe's Private Internet Police - Rebecca MacKinnon
16 May 2012 | 12:21 pmActivists are fighting to rein them in. -
Portrait of The Hague as a Young Court - By Joe Sacco
16 May 2012 | 11:07 amAs Ratko Mladic goes on trial for war crimes at The Hague today, graphic artist Joe Sacco takes us back to the international tribunal's early days. -
The Global Middle Class Is Bigger Than We Thought - By Shimelse Ali and Uri Dadush
16 May 2012 | 10:41 amA new way of measuring prosperity has enormous implications for geopolitics and economics.
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FP Passport
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BRICs lead the world in software piracy
16 May 2012 | 10:59 amThe industry group Business Software Alliance is out with its annual report on global software piracy and it appears that the BRIC countries are still pretty dominant. Yes, Zimbabwe has the world's highest rate of software piracy at 92 percent, overtaking Georgia for the top spot this year. And the United States has the largest illegal software sector in terms of dollar value. But as the chart on the right shows, China, Russia, India, and Brazil combined for more than $17.9 billion worth of pirated software in 2011 -- 28 percent of the global total -- at an average piracy rate of 64 percent. -
Map of the day: 1,000 years of Europe
16 May 2012 | 9:40 amIn case you need a little perspective on all the apocalyptic eurozone speculation, take the next 10 minutes to witness a millennium of war, conquest and genocide! If you're impatient, here's the three-minute version. Update: Looks like the videos have been taken down for copywright reasons. Sorry folks. Hat tip: Kottke -
Morning Brief: Ratko Mladic's war crimes trial begins
16 May 2012 | 7:11 amRatko Mladic's war crimes trial begins Top news: Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb leader who was captured last May after more than 15 years on the run, appeared in a courtroom in The Hague on Wednesday to begin his trial for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in connection with the Bosnian war in the 1990s. In outlining its case against Mladic, the prosecution accused the former military commander of "realizing through military might the criminal goals of ethnically cleansing much of Bosnia" by orchestrating the slaughter of 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys in… -
Department of Omens
15 May 2012 | 4:24 pmThis is probably not what Francois Hollande wanted on the first day of his presidency: After a succession of rain-drenched and pomp-filled ceremonial inauguration events, Hollande took off in a Falcon 7X aircraft for Berlin. The plane was hit by lightning shortly afterward, and returned to the Villacoublay air base outside Paris as a precaution for inspection, Defense Ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet said. Defense officials say the president and his entourage were transferred to another aircraft, a Falcon 900, and left shortly thereafter. That made Hollande about an hour and a half late for… -
Who is responsible for 'grexit'?
15 May 2012 | 3:44 pmOne of the most unfortunate neologisms of the European financial crisis has to be "Grexit," the now-ubiquitous term referring to a possible Greek exit from the eurozone. (I'm pretty fond of PIIGS, on other hand.) I was curious about who had first used the term. This FT Alphavillle post from Feb. 7 would seem to have the answer: Grexit being, of course, a Greek exit from the eurozone. (Also, an app for archiving and sharing Gmail threads. Bummer for them.) The term comes from Willem Buiter and Ebrahim Rahbari at Citi, who are now leaning towards the “let them leave”…
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The AfPak Channel
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The Mumbai Model and the threat of urban terrorism
16 May 2012 | 9:54 amsecuring the cities A recent wave of complex attacks in Kabul, Paktia, Logar, and Nangarhar has stirred strategic debate about the future of the war in Afghanistan. But they also pose tactical and operational questions closer to home. Security officials and police throughout the West have long worried about complex attacks like the assault that kicked off the Taliban's latest offensive. The mostly professional response by Afghan security forces and NATO troops demonstrates the limits of complex attacks, but the intelligence failures that allowed them to occur illustrate the general principle… -
Zardari to attend NATO summit on Afghanistan
16 May 2012 | 8:00 amThe Brief Better late than never: The spokesman for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said Tuesday that NATO had extended an invitation to Pakistan to attend this weekend's summit in Chicago, as officials from both the United States and Pakistan indicated that the two countries are close to finding an agreement on reopening the NATO ground supply routes to Afghanistan (NYT, AP, Reuters, AFP). Hours after NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen invited Zardari to the summit, the Pakistani Cabinet's Defense Committee gave the government the green light to lift the blockade on the shipment of… -
Justice and the enemy
15 May 2012 | 12:47 pmThe Shelf On November 13, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, would be tried in federal court alongside four co-defendants, reversing the 2008 Bush administration decision to try the 9/11 conspirators before a military commissions tribunal. On April 4, 2011, after an avalanche of criticism based on legal and security concerns, Holder sheepishly announced a reversal of policy. The country was now back where it had started: Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) would be tried by military commission at Guantanamo Bay. -
Pakistan hints at reopening NATO ground routes
15 May 2012 | 7:17 amThe Brief Enough is enough: Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar alluded on Monday to the reopening of NATO ground supply routes to Afghanistan, saying their closure was "important to make a point. Pakistan has made a point and now we can move on" (WSJ,AFP, AP, ET, Tel, DT). Khar's comments came after a series of high-level talks between U.S. and Pakistani officials, including a meeting this weekend between the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan Gen. John Allen and the chief of Pakistan's powerful military, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Pakistani human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar… -
Karzai's bid for a dictatorial detention law
14 May 2012 | 11:34 aminjustice system In March, the United States and Afghanistan announced that the U.S.-run Bagram prison near Kabul will soon be handed over to Afghan control. It was a major diplomatic breakthrough that paved the way for the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement by President Obama and President Karzai on May 2. But the agreement to handover Bagram is leading to a dramatic and dangerous expansion of detention power in Afghanistan-and a potentially disastrous legacy for the United States. As part of the agreement to transfer control of Bagram, the Afghan government is creating the…
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Daniel W. Drezner
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The 64 trillion euro question...
14 May 2012 | 8:09 amWhile I was on the road last week, I see that Greek elections managed to accomplish two things: 1) A requirement for yet more Greek elections; and 2) A recognition among European banking officials that this time, Greece might actually be leaving the eurozone. Sooo ... what happens then? The Financial Times has a useful article that asks the appropriate big questions while providing some useful information. Particularly interesting is the emerging belief that the eurozone now has erected the necessary firewalls to prevent contagion from Greece to the rest of the southern Med and… -
I thought China was in a bubble before thinking that was cool.
11 May 2012 | 11:40 amYour humble blogger has been banging on about how China's weaknesses are significant and its strengths have been badly overestimated. So you would think I'd be happy to read this Edward Wong front-pager for the New York Times: After the economies of Western nations imploded in late 2008, Chinese leaders began boasting of their nation’s supremacy. Talk spread, not only in China but also across the West, of the advantages of the so-called China model — a vaguely defined combination of authoritarian politics and state-driven capitalism — that was to be the guiding light for this century. -
Your weekly post on higher education
10 May 2012 | 4:59 pmLots o' stuff to chat about in the higher education universe, but let's keep it to three items in this blog post: 1) My student-soon-to-be-Doctor-of-Philosophy Patrick Meier and Chris Albon blog "Advice to Future PhDs from 2 Unusual Graduating PhDs." They make some interesting, provocative, and dare I say counterintuitive arguments. I disagree with a couple of their points. First of all, I ain't buying "the blog is the new CV." The blog is a calling card, and if you're lucky it's a branding device -- but it's not the same thing as a vita. Second of all, I… -
What I learned about Sino-American relations yesterday
9 May 2012 | 10:15 amYesterday your humble blogger attended a Hoover Institution conference devoted to China's evolving military and its implicatons for U.S. foreign policy. I can't say who said what, but I can say that atendees included several high-ranking military folk, multiple former policy principals, top China people from the academic and think tank communities, and at least one former presidntial candidate. Chatham House rules prevent me from revealing who said what, but what was interesting was the areas of consensus among most of the attendees. In order: 1) China has bigger worries than the… -
Paul Saunders wins this week's Vizzini Award
7 May 2012 | 5:22 pmI spent most of today on a transcontinental flight either sitting on the tarmac or cursing at the executives at United Airlines dumb enough to think 1) A Katherine Heigl movie will put everyone in a better mood; and 2) Running out of food -- for purchase, mind you -- halfway through the flight would be a swell idea. I was, in other words, in a very cranky mood. And then someone asked me to look at a Paul Saunders essay over at The National Interest. Here's how it opens: The Obama administration’s poor handling of its interaction with Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has prompted…
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Marc Lynch
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Introducing The Editor's Reader
16 May 2012 | 9:31 amWhat should you be reading about the politics of today's Middle East, beyond (of course) the outstanding daily content on the Middle East Channel and the news and analysis featured in the MEC Daily Brief? The Middle East Channel Editor's Reader -- or, "Abu Aardvark's guide to good reads on the Middle East" -- is a new regular feature which will highlight what I consider to be the best of the academic journal articles, long-form magazine articles, policy reports and books which come across my desktop. The MEC Editor's Reader will reflect what I'm actually reading and think… -
Jordan, Forever on the Brink
7 May 2012 | 3:30 pmThe sudden, unprecedented resignation by Jordan's Prime Minister Awn Khasawnah last week threw a sudden spotlight on the ongoing shortcomings of political reform in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The deficient new election law rolled out last month, like every step the King has taken over the last year and a half, did too little, too late to respond to the concerns of Jordanian citizens. Limited reforms have done little to stem a rising tide of protest across the towns of the south, a deeply struggling economy, loud complaints of corruption, and an intensifying edge of political anger. Add… -
Give Annan's Syria Plan a Chance
24 Apr 2012 | 10:00 amI was invited to testify before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia to be a witness at the April 25, 2012 hearing "Confronting Damascus: U.S. Policy toward the Evolving Situation in Syria, Part II." The other two witnesses where Andrew Tabler and Mara Karlin. My prepared statement is after the break. [[BREAK]] My prepared statement follows: "It is time for the Obama Administration to acknowledge what is obvious and indisputable in Syria: the Annan Plan has failed." This declaration by Senators Lieberman, McCain and Graham… -
Bahrain's Epic Fail
22 Apr 2012 | 2:01 pmNine days ago, the courageous Bahraini activist Alaa Shehabi wrote for Foreign Policy about the then sixty-four day hunger strike by Abd al-Hadi al-Khawaja. His death, she warned, "could mark a significant breaking point for the regime's efforts to rehabilitate its tarnished reputation -- and could accelerate the disturbing trend toward militant radicalization in the opposition." As of today, Khawaja remains thankfully alive. But Bahrain's ill-conceived Formula One race event has nevertheless already turned a harsh international spotlight onto the regime's ongoing repression. … -
Cherif Bassiouni: The FP Interview
18 Apr 2012 | 9:28 amThe United Nations should establish an investigation commission to collect evidence about war crimes in Syria to prepare the ground for any future investigation, leading Arab international law expert Cherif Bassiouni told Foreign Policy during a wide-ranging interview yesterday following his talk at George Washington University's Institute for Middle East Studies [videos of both the interview and the talk will be posted shortly]. He warned that Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh should not count on his immunity deal holding up, discounted the ability of Libya's courts to try Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,…
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The Best Defense
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Tom's World War I binge continues: A few lines from the play 'Journey’s End'
16 May 2012 | 5:10 amReading Six Weeks persuaded me to buy R.C. Sherriff's play Journey's End, which I'd never read. I liked it especially because it is unique to the circumstances of its war-British class differences, trench warfare, losses by years of attrition. The entire thing takes place in an underground bunker. I doubt that it could be "updated," for example, into a drama about the Vietnam War. The concerns, the histories, the values of the soldiers involved are just too different. I suspect that when it came out it was a shocker, but now it seems like half the war movies we've seen since. Lines… -
William Faulkner gets his third star, let's hope he buys a round for the room tonight
16 May 2012 | 5:07 amFaulkner, the writer of Mississippi, famously said that the past isn't dead, it is not even past. Turns out he was more right than he knew: He is still with us, and just got promoted by the Marines to lieutenant general. Maybe he can hang out with my favorite U.S. admiral, Julius Caesar. If you think I am joking, click on that last link. I don't know General Faulkner, but I have met John Toolan, whom I interviewed when I was writing 'Fiasco.' I was impressed to see him promoted as well, to CG IMEF. He is exactly the kind of sober, tough leader you'd like to see leading your son or daughter in… -
Law of the Sea: Less boring than you think
16 May 2012 | 5:01 amBy Will Rogers Best Defense bureau of natural security Washington is gearing up for another fight over the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) as the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee prepares to hold hearings in the coming weeks. But while the thirty year LOSC debate may start to sound like a broken record to some, the stakes of not ratifying the convention are the highest they have ever been for the United States. Although the United States has safeguarded its interests at sea by relying on customary international law, this approach is becoming increasingly risky. Critics of LOSC… -
The cadre: Thinking outside the box about how rotation affects operations
15 May 2012 | 6:10 amBy Andrew Person Best Defense department of personnel-as-policy affairs After over a decade spent fighting in Afghanistan, American officers are still having their first cups of tea with key Afghan leaders in government, tribes, and villages. As I argue in a piece I wrote for the Small Wars Journal titled "Getting Past the First Cup of Tea" (available on page 10 at this link), the Lazy Susan style rotation of American leadership in Afghanistan makes our mission impossible. What would an alternative model look like? If the U.S. had established a permanent cadre of military leaders… -
What sort of help do Google and the National Security Agency give each other?
15 May 2012 | 6:03 amSomething, it looks like, but we are not going to be told about it, if a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling issued last Friday stands. I wonder if Google and NSA will merge one day. On the other hand, something that discourages intelligence operatives in China from hacking into our e-mails is probably a good thing. Hmm -- maybe I am learning how to love Big Brother?
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Stephen M. Walt
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Turkish Delight?
15 May 2012 | 6:03 amMy papers are graded and final grades submitted, so I'm off to Istanbul this afternoon to attend the Istanbul World Political Forum. I'll be speaking on two panels -- one on "A New and Just Global Order?" and another on "Can the Cold War Between Israel and Iran Turn to Hot War?" -- and I'm looking forward to hearing what my hosts and the other attendees think about Syria, the U.S. election, China, the Euro crisis, and a host of other issues. It's a very full schedule and there won't be a lot of time for blogging, but I will try to post something if I get a moment and the… -
Why is there so little accountability in foreign policymaking?
14 May 2012 | 11:07 amI gave a lecture last night at the Cape Ann Forum, on the topic of America's changing position in the world and what it might (should) mean for U.S. grand strategy. My hosts were gracious and the crowd asked plenty of good questions, which is what I've come to expect when I speak to non-academic groups. Indeed, I'm often impressed by how sensible many "ordinary" Americans are about international affairs in general and U.S. foreign policy in particular. And so it was last night. One of the attendees was iconoclastic journalist Christopher Lydon, who's been a friend for some years… -
A heated rant about climate change
11 May 2012 | 10:53 amStrategy is all about setting priorities: Deciding which problems merit the most attention and allocating the right level of resources to each challenge. It is about not letting the urgent overwhelm the important, and not getting blown off course by random events or unexpected surprises. Whether we are talking about a country's overall policy menu, a corporate business plan, or a military engagement, success requires first identifying what really matters. So when I read James Hansen's op-ed about climate change yesterday, my first thought was: "Boy, do we have our priorities screwed… -
Hail Mary time: A far-fetched plan to solve the Syrian mess
9 May 2012 | 11:54 amWhat to do, what to do about Syria? Hardly anyone is confident that the Annan mission will resolve the struggle between the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition. Today I want to offer a more-or-less realpolitik approach to the problem, though I am not at all certain it would work or even that it would make sense to try. Consider it an effort to think outside the box. As I've noted before, the central problem here is that there doesn't seem to be a genuine "compromise" option available that would leave Assad & Co. in place yet guarantee the safety of the opposition and their… -
Department of self-promotion (updated)
9 May 2012 | 11:06 amA heads-up for readers with time on their hands: I'll be delivering the annual Hisham Sharabi Memorial Lecture at the Palestine Center in Washington DC tomorrow at noon. The title of my talk is "Deja Vu All Over Again?: Iraq, Iran, and the Israel Lobby," and I'll be comparing the campaign for war against Iraq and the current campaign for military action against Iran. There are some obvious similarities between these two episodes but also some important differences, for which we can be grateful. The lecture will be live-streamed here. UPDATE: You can watch a recording of the…
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The Cable
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Chen Guangcheng calls into another congressional hearing
15 May 2012 | 1:36 pmBlind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng called into a U.S. congressional hearing Tuesday -- for the second time this month -- and asked the international community not to forget about his extended family members and friends suffering government harassment in China. Chen was able to speak at the hearing through the iPhone of his friend, Pastor Bob Fu, who was testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights, chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). Smith has long been active on the Chen case and is determined to raise awareness about the plight of Chen's associates in China,… -
Flournoy: Defense sequestration won’t be solved until after election
15 May 2012 | 11:02 amThe Defense Department and Congress are playing chicken over $600 billion of mandatory defense cuts identified by a process known as "sequestration," but a compromise probably won't surface until after the November elections, according to former top Obama defense official Michèle Flournoy. "I think during that period after the election and before the sequestration goes into effect [on Jan. 3], that will be the period when people will become intensely focused on this," Flournoy said in response to a question from The Cable at an event Tuesday at the American Enterprise… -
Bush: The authoritarian regimes of the Arab world will fall
15 May 2012 | 7:17 amPresident George W. Bush predicted Tuesday that the remaining authoritarian regimes in North Africa and the Middle East are unsustainable and will give way to movements driven by the quest for freedom and human rights. "These are extraordinary times in the history of freedom," Bush said in Tuesday morning remarks. "In the Arab Spring, we have seen the broadest challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism. Great change has come to a region where many thought it impossible. The idea that Arab people are somehow content with oppression has been… -
Internal U.S. report: Syrian military violating ceasefire, attacking aid workers
14 May 2012 | 11:34 amSyrian government forces continue to attack opposition forces, civilians, and aid volunteers, preventing the international community from getting emergency aid to the Syrian people, USAID has detailed in a series of internal reports obtained by The Cable. In its latest "humanitarian update," written at the end of April, USAID reported in detail the extensive attacks perpetrated by Syrian Arab Republic Government (SARG) troops, despite an ongoing U.N. monitoring mission and in direct violation of the "cease-fire" there. The USAID report, marked "sensitive but… -
Bipartisan push for easing sanctions on Burma
14 May 2012 | 9:14 amSenators from both parties are now urging the Obama administration to drastically scale back U.S. sanctions on Burma in light of that country's moves toward reform and democratization. Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican John McCain (R-AZ), who has traveled to Burma twice in the past year, announced Monday morning that he now support the "suspension" of a host of sanctions against Burma and the ruling regime. "Another major test for U.S. diplomacy is Burma," McCain said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I have traveled…
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Shadow Government
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Does Obama really have an advantage with the veteran vote?
15 May 2012 | 12:15 pmDrudge is pushing poll results that show a surprising tilt in favor of Romney: a 46-44 advantage among women registered voters. I am puzzled, however, by a different poll that shows something different but equally surprising: a tilt in favor of Obama, but this time among the "veteran vote." According to Reuters, "If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population." Part of the explanation is the way Reuters defines "veteran vote" to include not only the veteran… -
Why Obama's second term foreign policy priorities are misguided
11 May 2012 | 9:59 amYesterday's column by David Ignatius ostensibly detailing the Obama administration's reelection campaign's strengths on foreign policy is revealing, but probably not in the way the White House hopes. While some more critical analysis from Ignatius (usually one of the most perceptive of foreign policy columnists) would have been preferred, in this case he seems to be channeling what he's hearing from the White House, so the column serves the useful purpose of explaining the administration's mindset. No doubt Obama's experience and understanding of foreign policy has, um, evolved during his… -
Where is the outrage?
11 May 2012 | 8:15 amResponding to six months of DOD clamor that the Budget Control Act would decimate our national defense, this week the House of Representatives moved forward with a budget that would allow the Department of Defense to escape the strictures of sequestration, giving DOD a $519 billion baseline budget and $88.5 billion operations fund. Sequestration would have imposed a roughly 12 percent cut to Defense across ten years. The same House budget imposes a 12 percent reduction this year on the State Department budget requested by the White House. Yet where is the leadership of the Department -- and… -
Isolated from reality on Iran
10 May 2012 | 12:41 pmEarlier this week, Vice President Joseph Biden misspoke. Normally, this would not be news. But unlike using obscene language, or confusing which Supreme Court Justice administered his oath of office, or talking about the president's "big stick," this time it matters. The vice president said: "When we took office, let me remind you, there was virtually no international pressure on Iran. We were the problem. We were diplomatically isolated in the world, in the region, in Europe." Beyond the obvious point that "we" were not the problem, that Iran's longstanding and… -
Civilian capability in an age of austerity
10 May 2012 | 12:23 pmA recent Cable item from the intrepid Josh Rogin tells me that one of the consequences of the era of declining defense budgets may well be a further shifting of civilian roles back on to defense shoulders. That is not a typo. For years pundits have complained about the "militarization" of foreign policy, referring to the way that foreign policy tasks get assigned to the military even if the tasks do not involve military expertise per se (i.e. blowing things up). For decades, the military has been deployed to do everything from disaster relief to rural development to local banking…
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The Call
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Putin's G-8 snub could keep the U.S. and Russia talking
15 May 2012 | 10:51 amBy Alexander Kliment Russian President Vladimir Putin's last minute decision to skip a G8 summit with President Barack Obama is a snub to Washington, but the Russian president's no-show may in fact increase the chances for a constructive relationship between the two countries. Last week, just days after his inauguration, Putin let it be known that he would not attend the upcoming G8 summit at Camp David, where he and Obama were set for a one on one meeting. The White House, in turn, said Obama wouldn't attend the 2012 Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) summit this fall in Vladivostok,… -
Hollande's victory means little for EU crisis management
10 May 2012 | 11:47 amBy Antonio Barroso and Mujtaba Rahman Francois Hollande's May 6 victory in one of France's tightest presidential elections ever will have few implications for the EU's management of the eurozone crisis. Hollande is taking shape as a pragmatist who will follow reason on the European front, as signaled by the candidates he's likely to put in important positions in France's new government. The president-elect claims he has already selected the new prime minister, who will be revealed on May 15 after Hollande takes office. Socialist Party (PS) leader Martine Aubry and long-time socialist… -
China's leaders in the glare of an unwelcome spotlight
7 May 2012 | 6:03 amBy Damien Ma Though the curious case of blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has badly embarrassed China's leaders, it has provided them one important benefit -- it has diverted attention from the far more dangerous story of Bo Xilai. Regardless of the outcome in either case, the Communist Party's image has been badly tarnished. For a Chinese government that seems bent on investing in soft power, these last few months have offered clear reminders that soft power cannot be bought. It must be earned. For a Chinese government that prefers to keep its differences behind closed doors, the Bo… -
Think austerity is losing steam in Germany? Think again.
1 May 2012 | 10:38 amBy Carsten Nickel "It's not for Germany to decide for the whole of Europe," Francois Hollande, the socialist candidate favored to win the presidential run-off, reminded Chancellor Angela Merkel on French TV last week. Gone seem the days of the "Merkozy" era when Merkel decided that austerity was the way forward out of the euro crisis -- and President Nicolas Sarkozy followed suit. With much of Europe caught in recession and political opposition from Paris on the rise, the question is: Is the austerity doctrine coming under pressure in Germany? The answer is: Probably not. -
Business as usual in Mexico?
26 Apr 2012 | 10:24 amBy Carlos Ramirez Allegations that WalMart-Mexico's executives bribed local officials to speed up permitting for new stores highlight the issues of corruption in Mexico, but will have little impact. In the short term, the Mexican federal government has announced an investigation regarding the federal permits granted to the retailer. But that seems to be a political response to the growing criticism of inaction by the authorities rather than a serious case against the company. Because the allegations of wrongdoing relate to local-level permitting, any federal investigation will likely turn up…
