In post-Gaddafi Libya, the dream of a stable central government is fading. Militias are filling the gap.
Foreign Policy Magazine
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Most Topular Stories
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The Lesson of Bani Walid - By Christopher Stephen
Foreign Policy27 Jan 2012 | 6:15 pm -
The Election 2012 Weekly Report: Sunshine Policies
FP Passport27 Jan 2012 | 2:19 pmGingrich slipping Newt Gingrich charged into Florida this week with a head of steam, hoping to capitalize on his victory in South Carolina and attack competitor Mitt Romney on immigration and his somewhat exotic personal finances. Gingrich attacked Romney's suggestion that "self-deportation" could be a solution to illegal immigration: "You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic, you know, $20 million a year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality." But Gingrich seemed to falter at a debate on Thursday… -
Small wars, big prices
The AfPak Channel27 Jan 2012 | 4:27 pmHubris Insurgency and counterinsurgency have become topics of great debate recently. The end of our adventure in Iraq, the drawdown in Afghanistan, and the hovering budget axe have created a perfect storm in the defense establishment as competing worldviews, ideologies, and interests jostle for position in the post-Global War on Terror years. The debate over counterinsurgency has become particularly heated, as various parties not only conduct a postmortem on the tactics and operational art of recent conflicts, but also seek to find closure (and perhaps fault for mistakes made and incredible… -
Is American influence really on the wane?
Daniel W. Drezner27 Jan 2012 | 8:37 amMy recent post on the overstatement of American decline has probably been my most popular single non-zombie item since moving the blog to Foreign Policy. It has also attracted some useful observations on Michael Beckley's International Security essay in particular -- see Phil Arena and Erik Voeten for some trenchant criticisms. My FP co-blogger Steve Walt has also weighed in, however, arguing that obsessing about the Sino-American comparison misses some larger points about the decline of American influence: The United States remains very powerful -- especially when compared with some… -
Egypt's parliament gets to work
Marc Lynch23 Jan 2012 | 8:59 amThe formal seating of Egypt's Parliament today, after a grueling two months of elections and political turmoil, marks the end of one stage of Egypt's transition. The Islamist-dominated Parliament will begin its work without clearly defined powers or responsibilities amidst a fractured, suspicious political environment. We will now see whether this Parliament will be able to deliver on the hopes invested in electoral legitimacy and emerge as an effective check on the power of the SCAF. In many ways, the real struggles start now. The first test of the resilience of this path will come in two…
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Foreign Policy
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The Lesson of Bani Walid - By Christopher Stephen
27 Jan 2012 | 6:15 pmIn post-Gaddafi Libya, the dream of a stable central government is fading. Militias are filling the gap. -
Yemen’s State Within a Failed State - Photos By Tom Finn
27 Jan 2012 | 5:23 pmA rare journey to the rugged province of Saada, the battle-torn region that has fallen out of the government's control during the past year. -
Twitter's Misguided Flirtation with Censorship - By Uri Friedman
27 Jan 2012 | 4:53 pmWhy Twitter will regret its misguided flirtation with censorship. -
Why Putinomics Isn't Worth Emulating - by Peter Passell
27 Jan 2012 | 4:34 pmDon't let the Russian economy fool you: It's still all about oil. -
Mexican Standoff - By Michael A. Cohen
27 Jan 2012 | 3:54 pmRepublicans have a historic chance to win the Hispanic vote. They're shooting themselves in the foot.
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FP Passport
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The Election 2012 Weekly Report: Sunshine Policies
27 Jan 2012 | 2:19 pmGingrich slipping Newt Gingrich charged into Florida this week with a head of steam, hoping to capitalize on his victory in South Carolina and attack competitor Mitt Romney on immigration and his somewhat exotic personal finances. Gingrich attacked Romney's suggestion that "self-deportation" could be a solution to illegal immigration: "You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic, you know, $20 million a year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality." But Gingrich seemed to falter at a debate on Thursday… -
North Korea: Please turn off your cell phone... or else
27 Jan 2012 | 10:12 amPut your phones and personal electronics away in North Korea, or risk a messy ending. The Telegraph reported this morning that cell phone users in North Korea will be deemed "war criminals," as part of the new rules being implemented for the 100 days of mourning following former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's death. Of course, it's easy to see why the regime is becoming so antsy about cell phone usage. The Arab Spring protests were energized by Twitter and Facebook via cell phones, and other mass movements including the Occupy protests were spread through this medium as well. -
Morning Brief: Egypt bars American NGO workers from leaving the country
27 Jan 2012 | 7:43 amEgypt bars American NGO workers from leaving the country Top story: The Egyptian government has barred at least half-a-dozen Americans from leaving the country as part of an ongoing crackdown on foreign-funded NGOs. The travel ban targeted employees of the U.S.-funded International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute and included IRI's Egypt director Sam LaHood, son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who was stopped at Cairo airport before he could board a flight to Dubai. Just a day before, President Barack Obama had reportedly warned Egypt's military leader,… -
Is Newt's zero-gravity sex idea any good?
26 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pmThis author cannot answer the question posed above from experience. But space sex has been a kind of final frontier for mankind (and a bonanza for headline writers: See "Houston, We Have a Problem"). And Newt Gingrich's contribution to this grand (dare we say grandiose?) quest has resurfaced in the wake of his pledge yesterday in Florida to establish an American colony on the moon by the end of his second term. In the mid-1990s, Gingrich predicted in his book To Renew America that "space tourism will be a common fact of life during the adulthood of children born this year, that… -
Australian PM flees Aboriginal protest
26 Jan 2012 | 4:01 pmThings got very ugly between Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's entourage and a group of Aboriginal protesters at an Australia Day even in Canberra today. The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Violent scenes were seen outside the Lobby restaurant several hundred metres from Parliament House, where Julia Gillard and Mr Abbott were presenting the inaugural National Emergency Medals, after more than 100 people from the tent embassy surrounded the building for more than 20 minutes. The situation was so volatile that Ms Gillard's federal police escort decided to rush her from the event. As…
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The AfPak Channel
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Small wars, big prices
27 Jan 2012 | 4:27 pmHubris Insurgency and counterinsurgency have become topics of great debate recently. The end of our adventure in Iraq, the drawdown in Afghanistan, and the hovering budget axe have created a perfect storm in the defense establishment as competing worldviews, ideologies, and interests jostle for position in the post-Global War on Terror years. The debate over counterinsurgency has become particularly heated, as various parties not only conduct a postmortem on the tactics and operational art of recent conflicts, but also seek to find closure (and perhaps fault for mistakes made and incredible… -
Daily brief: Rockets strike Pakistani military academy
27 Jan 2012 | 7:59 amDa Brief Editor's note: Today will be my last day writing the AfPak Channel Daily Brief. Starting next week, my colleague Jennifer Rowland will be writing it full time. Thank you for reading! -- Andrew Lebovich Safe haven? Unidentified militants fired at least nine rockets at Pakistan's elite military academy in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Friday, causing damage but no casualties (NYT, AP, BBC, AFP). Abbottabad, the city where Osama bin Laden was found and killed in May, is also the hometown of a senior al-Qaeda operations official, Aslam Awan, who was killed in a suspected U.S. drone strike… -
Daily Brief: Suicide attack targets NATO aid team
26 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amDa brief Deadly blast A suicide attack on Thursday targeting a NATO provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in the capital city of Helmand Province, Lashkar Gah, killed at least four civilians and wounded dozens (AFP, AP). Meanwhile, an Afghan identified only as Mahmood has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for spying on NATO forces on behalf of Iran, after being found with photographs of NATO bases and the telephone numbers of Iranian intelligence agents (AFP). Reuters reports on the improvement in both the capabilities and equipment of Afghanistan's newly formed special forces division,… -
A Taliban ‘Rope-a-Dope’ Strategy?
25 Jan 2012 | 4:15 pmReconciliation in Afghanistan The on-again, off-again effort by the Obama administration to begin preliminary peace talks with the Taliban is still struggling to get off the ground. The first move focuses on a statement by the Taliban against international terrorism and in support of a peace process and the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar. For this the Taliban have called for the release of its prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay. To garner support for this initiative, the administration's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Marc Grossman, has been traveling in the… -
Imran Khan's New Pakistan
25 Jan 2012 | 3:39 pmAn Interview with Imran Khan Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is batting to strike out two major "conventional" political parties -- the leftist Pakistan People's Party and the conservative Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz -- simultaneously. He talks about eradicating corruption, handling the grievances of the Baloch and the tribal areas, "friendliness" as the ultimate foreign policy, and his plans to combat four of Pakistan's biggest "emergencies" in 90 days, should his party, Tehreek-e Insaf, win Pakistan's general elections planned for 2013. Massive public…
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Daniel W. Drezner
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Is American influence really on the wane?
27 Jan 2012 | 8:37 amMy recent post on the overstatement of American decline has probably been my most popular single non-zombie item since moving the blog to Foreign Policy. It has also attracted some useful observations on Michael Beckley's International Security essay in particular -- see Phil Arena and Erik Voeten for some trenchant criticisms. My FP co-blogger Steve Walt has also weighed in, however, arguing that obsessing about the Sino-American comparison misses some larger points about the decline of American influence: The United States remains very powerful -- especially when compared with some… -
Realism, Episode III: Return of the Realist Critics
25 Jan 2012 | 10:23 amFollowing up on my rant against realist whinging and Rosato and Schuessler's non-whinging defense of realism, the following is a response by the managers of the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) surveys. Their basic argument: no matter what realism says as a paradigm, individual realists do not exactly advocate what Rosato and Schuessler say they advocate. Let the fight…continue! Are There Neoconservative Wolves in the Realist Flock? Dan MaliniakRyan Powers, and Michael Tierney Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous… -
Being an ambassador in the 21st century
24 Jan 2012 | 8:35 amOne could argue that the job of ambassador has been made obsolete by macrotrends in technology and politics. Oh, sure, maybe traditional envoys from great powers still play an important role in smaller countries that don't normally capture much attention in major capitals. Among the great powers, however, one could posit that ambassadors are superfluous. In a world in which heads of government and foreign ministers have multiple direct means of communication, in which you can't go a week without some big global summit, and in which leaders are wary of confiding with ambassadors… -
Predictions about the death of American hegemony may have been greatly exaggerated
22 Jan 2012 | 2:02 pmLet's face it, there's a general anxiety about the future of America. There's Tom Friedman's column today, which my doctors have now forbade me from critiquing in order to keep my blood pressure down. Books suggesting the United States is kowtowing to China are forthcoming. The Economist recently observed on the highlights of a sobering survey of Harvard Business School graduates, which contained the following: Fully 71% of the businesspeople polled expected America’s competitiveness to decline over the next three years. (National competitiveness is a slippery concept: countries… -
Why is Russia freaking out more than China?
19 Jan 2012 | 8:02 amLet's consider and contrast American foreign policy towards Russia and China over the past few years. With Russia, the Obama administration announced a much-ballyhooed "reset" with the goal of improving bilateral relations. In an effort to advance that goal, the administration reworked missile defense system plans in eastern Europe, creating political headaches for governments in the region to make Moscow happy. The administration took great pains to endorse a Russian proposal on Iran's nuclear program. The administration signed a fresh new arms control treaty and then…
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Marc Lynch
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Egypt's parliament gets to work
23 Jan 2012 | 8:59 amThe formal seating of Egypt's Parliament today, after a grueling two months of elections and political turmoil, marks the end of one stage of Egypt's transition. The Islamist-dominated Parliament will begin its work without clearly defined powers or responsibilities amidst a fractured, suspicious political environment. We will now see whether this Parliament will be able to deliver on the hopes invested in electoral legitimacy and emerge as an effective check on the power of the SCAF. In many ways, the real struggles start now. The first test of the resilience of this path will come in two… -
Should Embassy Damascus be closed?
21 Jan 2012 | 2:30 pmThe U.S. Embassy in Damascus is reportedly planning to shut down if the Syrian government can not -- or will not -- provide adequate security guarantees. If the safety of Embassy personnel is seriously in danger, then of course they should make the safe call to protect them. But the security rationale masks a deeper question: at what point should Ambassador Robert Ford be recalled on political grounds? I argued long and hard for Ford's confirmation as Ambassador, and for the importance of having someone like him on the ground in Damascus. I believe that his performance has more… -
No military option in Syria
17 Jan 2012 | 9:18 amIt is time to think seriously about intervening militarily in Syria, argues Steven Cook today. He joins a small but growing chorus pushing for such a move. Some parts of the Syrian opposition have moved toward requesting an intervention, albeit with serious reservations and furious internal disagreements, as has the Emir of Qatar and some other Arab officials. And then of course, there are those who have been pushing for hawkish policies toward Syria for years who have seized the moment to push for action, and others who generally support military solutions. This is the kind of temporary… -
Obama's bold move out of Iraq
12 Jan 2012 | 8:01 amThe last American troops officially left Iraq before Christmas, mostly completing an American withdrawal by the end of 2011 which few thought possible when then-candidate Barack Obama promised it or even when then-President George Bush formally committed to it. Critics of the withdrawal have blasted Obama for putting politics over policy, risking the alleged gains of the "surge" in order to meet a campaign promise. Many of those who played a role in the desperate attempt to reverse Iraq's 2006 descent into civil war have entirely legitimate and justifiable fears for Iraq's future. -
Best Books on the Middle East, 2011
26 Dec 2011 | 11:02 amIt's time for the official, Aardvark-certified list of the Best Books on the Middle East for 2011! (See last year's winners here.) Next year's list will undoubtedly be dominated by books addressing this year's uprisings which have transformed the Arab world, but not many significant books on the topic were published in 2011. That'll hopefully change on March 27, when my own book The Arab Uprising comes out -- don't worry, it won't be eligible for the 2012 awards of course! -- and, all joking aside, when a number of great journalists and scholars weigh in with books in the pipeline. In…
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The Best Defense
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Parsing the new promotion list for Army 2 stars: There are some good signs here
27 Jan 2012 | 3:51 amBy Douglas A. Ollivant Best Defense department of Army-ology Determining the state of cultural change in the Army is not an exact science. However, if you believe, as I do, that "personnel are policy," then who the Army selects as its next generation of senior leaders is an important -- even critical -- indicator. This is not to say that reading any particular promotion list is a clear lens into the inner workings of the Army -- far from it. I once memorably heard it said that interpreting messages from any one promotion list is akin to the old Sovietology of trying to determine who… -
Obama is on top on foreign policy issues, but unfortunately Americans don’t care
27 Jan 2012 | 3:34 amThis is the first presidential election in many decades, I think, in which the Democrats have the upper hand in foreign policy and national security. I have only dim memories of the 1964 campaign, but I recalls Lyndon Johnson having an advantage over Barry Goldwater in that area. Hard to remember that now, in light of how badly LBJ handled the Vietnam War in the following four years. Ironically, Obama is likely only to get a small boost in votes for this, because -- just a bit more than a decade after 9/11 -- Americans frankly don't give a damn about foreign policy, Scarlett. By a 81 to 9… -
Rebecca’s War Dog of the Week: Memorial for first female handler KIA
27 Jan 2012 | 3:31 amBy Rebecca Frankel Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent On January 12, a bronze plaque was unveiled in front of the kennels at Fort Belvoir bearing the facility's new name: "Sgt. Zainah "Caye" Creamer Military Working Dog Kennels." It was a year ago to the day that Sgt. Creamer succumbed to wounds she sustained in Afghanistan after her unit was attacked by an insurgent's IED. She was the first "female working dog handler to be killed in action during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars." Sgt. Creamer and her detection dog Jofa had deployed to Afghanistan in October… -
The Air Force chief's 2012 reading list: A C+ for book selection, but overall a B+
26 Jan 2012 | 4:14 amBy Lt. Col. Thomas Cooper, USAF Best Defense aviation literature correspondent Earlier this month the Air Force released the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's (CSAF) Reading List (CSAF). One of the non-flying things I've looked forward to in the past 16 years of my Air Force career is the CSAF's list. Ever since the first one from General Ron Fogleman in 1996, the list has presented books about the Air Force and its history that I've never heard of. Sadly, when I opened up this year's list, there were no books that I hadn't already heard of or enough that reached back into Air Force heritage… -
Gingrich: A variant on a drinking game
26 Jan 2012 | 4:10 amEvery time the grandiose one says the word "frankly," slap yourself in the forehead. In my experience, it is a verbal tic that means he probably is stretching the truth -- and knows it. (Another of his tics is the word "fundamental" -- every time he does that, grab your crotch. Before he does.)
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David Rothkopf
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Chicken Little is full of pompous baloney
27 Jan 2012 | 7:35 amThere seems to be a general consensus that the world is in lousy shape. There is also a pretty widespread belief that the U.S. is a mess. Also that Washington is a cesspool of corruption and incompetence. In fact, there is a prevailing view that times are pretty dire here in America. The president and the Republican candidates speak ominously of the threats we face and speak wistfully of the past or inspiringly of better tomorrows. It's no wonder that Midnight in Paris was one of the past year's signature films. Everyone is suffering from golden age-ism, yearning for anything but what we've… -
The State of the Union…and the state of this blog
25 Jan 2012 | 11:17 amFor those of you who missed the president's State of the Union message, let me sum it up for you: Our enemies in the Middle East are dead or on the run. Our new enemies are Wall Street, big oil, and Congressional obstructionism. We can be the America of 1945 again if we restore fairness to our society. Ok, that's a little cynical. But in short strokes, that's it. We want to be good old America, the place where the little guy has a chance and no one wants to mess with Uncle Sam. Oh and we love the military. Oh and Osama bin Laden is still dead. That said, it was a pretty good speech as these… -
How do you do nuanced foreign policy in the 3D, big screen TV era?
18 Jan 2012 | 6:27 amNewt Gingrich called the U.S.-Israeli decision to put off joint military exercises scheduled for the Negev Desert "the greatest act of presidential weakness he has seen in his lifetime." He was implying that it was done to appease Iran. As it happens, according to the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, the exercises were put off not by the U.S. but at the request of the Israelis. Facts aside, as they often are, the only true weakness revealed by the statement is Gingrich's own. He's desperate. If current polls are to be believed, the remaining shelf-life of his campaign can be measured in… -
Goodbye Commerce Department, you won’t be missed
13 Jan 2012 | 6:55 amFifteen years ago, Susan Levine, then Senior Vice President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and I, recently having departed my not entirely un-senior post at the Commerce Department, circulated a memo to those who would read it that suggested the elimination of the Commerce Department and the consolidation of many of the important trade negotiating and financing agencies into a single department focused on trade issues. Today, President Barack Obama asked Congress for the authority to make this long-sought, common sense streamlining of the U.S. government a reality. Obama has… -
There's no such thing as free enterprise
11 Jan 2012 | 8:45 amMy younger daughter was in Edinburgh earlier this week and visited the grave of Adam Smith. That's a little weird, right? For a 20-year-old? Anyway, I learned more from this experience than just that my daughter is a little weird, which, to be honest, I already knew. I also learned that Adam Smith is still dead -- which wouldn't be noteworthy except that here in the United States we seem to be on the verge of having a national referendum on the future of capitalism. The Republican's presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, last night offered a victory speech following the New Hampshire primary in…
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Stephen M. Walt
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Whether or not the U.S. is declining is the wrong question
26 Jan 2012 | 5:46 amAs co-chair of the editorial board of the journal International Security, I couldn't be more delighted by the attention that Michael Beckley's article questioning China's rise (and America's supposed decline) is getting. See here, here, and here. But I fear that people who are seizing on Beckley's article to pooh-pooh fears of U.S. decline -- including our own Daniel Drezner -- are mostly asking the wrong question. As I've noted elsewhere, the issue isn't whether the United States is about to fall the from the ranks of the great powers, or even be equaled (let alone surpassed) by a rising… -
Yes, you can be a neoconservative, and still be wrong
24 Jan 2012 | 11:31 amOne of the nice things about writing for Foreign Policy is the energy and creativity of its leadership, as exemplified by their relentless quest for new publishing innovations. Just yesterday, for example, FP launched a new fiction section, clearly intended to highlight writing on international affairs that doesn't have much basis in reality. I refer, of course, to Elliot Abrams' brief essay entitled "A Forward Strategy of Freedom," where he argues that neoconservative ideas and policies are responsible for the "Arab Spring." It's been apparent for a long time that being a… -
Where have all the public policy stars gone?
23 Jan 2012 | 4:16 amImagine that you were the dean of a public policy school, and of course you wanted to boost your school's reputation and attract lots of outstanding applicants for admission. There are several ways to do this, but one familiar strategy would be to hire some really famous, world-class faculty: people with truly global reputations who would raise the visibility of your school and make more prospective students want to attend and rub shoulders with them. I can think of lots of high-profile academics to go after in economics, political science, history, and a few other fields. For example, an… -
The Israel lobby's role in American politics
20 Jan 2012 | 10:31 amWhile I was away, a friend sent me a link to an article from the online magazine Tablet, and asked me what I thought about it. The piece is by Adam Kirsch, and it's basically a critical summary of the impact of my book (with John Mearsheimer) on the Israel lobby. Kirsch was clearly moved to write the piece by Robert Kaplan's laudatory profile of John in the Atlantic Monthly, which undoubtedly drove Kirsch and a number of our other critics crazy. So what do I think? On the one hand, I could be somewhat gratified by the piece, insofar as he describes the book as an "intellectual… -
How to get the world's elites to encourage democracy
17 Jan 2012 | 4:39 amSuppose you were a member of Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. You don't really want to run the country openly anymore, and turning it over to some sort of civilian rule would be ok with you. But you've gotten pretty rich over the past couple of decades and you're worried the secularists or Islamists might create a genuine democracy, strip you of your power, and then take away all your money and leave you and your family destitute. Or worse. Similarly, what if you were a member of the Alawite ruling elite in Syria, closely tied to the Assad regime? You're now facing the prospect of…
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The Cable
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Egypt gets dumped by its Washington lobbyists
28 Jan 2012 | 3:04 amAll three of the lobbying firms representing the Egyptian government in Washington, D.C., dropped Egypt as a client late Friday amid widespread criticism of the ruling military council's raid of U.S. NGOs in Cairo and its refusal to let American NGO workers leave the country. The Livingston Group, run by former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), the Moffett Group, run by former Rep. Toby Moffett (D-CT), and the Podesta Group, run by Tony Podesta, unanimously severed their combined $90,000 per month contract with the Egyptian government, Politico reported late Friday, quoting Livingston directly.The… -
New U.N. draft resolution gives Syria 15 days to comply
27 Jan 2012 | 10:56 amThe Cable has obtained a copy of the draft resolution on Syria currently being discussed inside the U.N. Security Council. It calls on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to his deputy and says additional measures would be taken if he doesn't comply within 15 days. U.N. Security Council diplomats are meeting behind closed doors on Friday to discuss what's being called the Arab-European draft resolution on Syria. The Moroccan ambassador is presenting the draft resolution, which is designed to implement the recommendations of the Arab League transition plan laid out on Jan. 22. -
Obama administration using loophole to quietly sell arms package to Bahrain
27 Jan 2012 | 10:41 amPresident Barack Obama's administration has been delaying its planned $53 million arms sale to Bahrain due to human rights concerns and congressional opposition, but this week administration officials told several congressional offices that they will move forward with a new and different package of arms sales -- without any formal notification to the public. The congressional offices that led the charge to oppose the original Bahrain arms sales package are upset that the State Department has decided to move forward with the new package. The opposition to Bahrain arms sales is led by Sen. Ron… -
Solomon stepping down as president of USIP
27 Jan 2012 | 10:01 amAfter 19 years as head of the United States Institute of Peace, President Richard Solomon is preparing to hand over the reins of the organization, he announced Friday. "Dick Solomon has transformed the Institute into an active and dynamic international problem solving organization. It is a model for how to deal with conflicts abroad," said USIP Board Chairman J. Robinson West in a Friday press release. Solomon will step down on Sept. 13, when his current terms as president ends, and the search for a new president is just beginning. "With your support and hard work, USIP has… -
Senators open to lifting sanctions on Myanmar
27 Jan 2012 | 8:35 amOver the winter break, several senators from both parties went to Myanmar. They all came back cautiously optimistic about reforms there, and ready to consider lifting some of the sanctions on the country. Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) visited Myanmar earlier this month as part of their whirlwind tour around Southeast Asia, which included stops in the Philippines, Thailand, and the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam, the POW camp where McCain was held during the Vietnam War. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Rep. Joe…
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Shadow Government
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Ecuador’s authoritarian creep -- and Washington’s silence
25 Jan 2012 | 6:05 amYou have to hand it to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa. He has a plan and he is working it relentlessly. Unfortunately, for those concerned about democracy in the hemisphere, his plan calls for the gutting of democratic institutions in Ecuador and concentrating all power in his person. It may be that the Ecuadorean populist doesn't generate the international headlines like his amigo in Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, but that doesn't make him any less of a threat to democracy in the region. Recently, Correa has generated some attention in the U.S. for the campaign of intimidation he is waging… -
Fine words -- and then what?
25 Jan 2012 | 5:59 amThe president did not surprise. He is a powerful speaker, and he showed it yet again in his State of the Union address. His voice was at its most resonant when he wrapped himself in the flag and milked the Bin Laden operation for all it was worth. But there really wasn't very much behind the high flown rhetoric. President Obama bashed the Chinese on trade, but said nary a word about their military buildup. He claimed that America's commitment to Israel's security was "ironclad" -- he repeated the term -- but made no reference to how his less-than-amicable relationship with Israel's… -
SOTU: Much mercantilism
25 Jan 2012 | 4:45 amIn his 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama jumped from issue to issue. At times, in all this leaping, he found himself on the opposite side of a stance he had taken minutes before. Early on, he claimed success on his bailout of the auto industry (continuing a policy launched by Pres. Bush) and claimed it was a model that could be replicated: "On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen...We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And… -
Maybe it is not so bleak on the academy-policy gap front
24 Jan 2012 | 4:21 amA favorite topic for FP bloggers is the so-called gap between practicing academics and practicing policymakers. I have weighed in, but see also contributions from Dan Drezner (here or here and Steve Walt). It is an important topic (at least to "yakademics" like me -- I don't sense it has quite the burning appeal for my non-academic Shadow Government teammates) and well worth the focused attention it has received. There are several excellent programs designed to help bridge it, including one run by Eliot Cohen and Tom Keaney at SAIS, another by my Duke colleague Bruce Jentleson and… -
India and the next U.S. president
24 Jan 2012 | 4:05 amI just returned from my third trip to India in four years. Every time I am struck by its confidence facing an ever more integrated world. Retaining relatively high growth rates, India has been relatively unscathed by the financial crisis. India's confidence about its future comes from a number of factors, including the success of the India diaspora across the globe and its definitive break with failed Indian- style socialism in the early 1990s. They have signed on to a model of development that requires increasing openness and they see the U.S.as a key partner. The United States and India…
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The Call
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Venezuela: A lose-lose election
27 Jan 2012 | 4:58 amToday, we turn to the last in our series of posts on Eurasia Group's Top Risks for 2012 and answer the most common questions we've gotten about it. Here's a summary: Venezuela -- A lose-lose election. No matter who wins the October 7 presidential election, Venezuela's political and economic conditions are likely to worsen. President Hugo Chavez would maintain the same distorting economic policies, and the economy would struggle to overcome the effects of a large pre-election increase in spending and debt issuance. An opposition win would likely lead to an eventual improvement in economic… -
A tale of two gift baskets
26 Jan 2012 | 11:21 amWhen I got to my Davos hotel room, I was greeted by two gifts. One was to be expected: greetings from the CEO of Nestle along with boxed chocolates. Thoroughly Swiss and thoroughly appreciated. The second? The most politically controversial gift I have ever received. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation, run by Azerbaijan's First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva, supplied guests with a CD set, dubbed the Voices of Garabagh. It wasn't until I opened up the package and read on that I saw what it was driving at. It was a statement regarding the Garabagh region between Azerbaijan and Armenia, delivered from a… -
Quick Wednesday recap - debating democracy
26 Jan 2012 | 7:26 amLast night, I had the privilege of moderating a World Economic Forum dinner panel entitled, "The Future of Democracy," asking the following broad question that left ample room for debate: "How are established and nascent democracies being reformed and shaped to meet the challenges of the 21st century?" The topic and a great group of panelists -- including Professor Timothy Garton Ash (U.K.), Archbishop Thabo Cecil Makgoba (South Africa), Kenneth Roth (U.S.), Amira Yahyaoui (Tunisia), and Jean-Francois Copé (France) -- made it easy for me to facilitate a spirited… -
Leadership: Less global, more regional
26 Jan 2012 | 4:35 amWe've talked about the need for new models of global governance as we explore this transition period at a forward-looking Davos summit. Let's delve deeper and unpack the trend toward regionalism that we're already seeing, as highlighted in the WEF's Global Agenda Council report. As I've discussed, old institutions are increasingly ineffectual when it comes to supplying global leadership. We have institutions that are relics from the post-WWII era -- including the IMF and the U.N. -- that haven't kept up with the evolving threats they are tasked with addressing. More recently, G20… -
Transformation the great
25 Jan 2012 | 8:05 amAs this summit is shaping up as a debate about the future rather than a reaction to crises of the past decade, there is a fundamental area of tension for Davos. For more than 40 years, the World Economic Forum has reflected a world order dominated by elites of the developed world, championing a system of globalization -- a system that has been driven and informed by their values and priorities and their economic and political frameworks. That global system no longer functions. It has been crumbling slowly, and the events of 9/11 and the financial crisis distracted us from this overarching…
