Perfect sandstorm? High stakes in the Sahel
There is only one region in which Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and ISIS have all emerged as major threats – the Sahel. United Nations secretary-general Ban… Read more »
Category: Analysis
Cubama: a ‘new day’ or a ‘slap in the face’ for U.S.-Cuba relations
Change is coming to Cuba, President Barack Obama told his Cuban counterpart today, after Raul Castro called on the U.S. to lift longstanding trade and other restrictions as part of… Read more »
Democracy in retreat?
Despite the current democratic regression, there are three reasons why democracy advocates should maintain hope for the future, says Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy. The first… Read more »
Russia’s ‘New’ Tools for Confronting the West
In the last two years, Russia has demonstrated its return to an assertive foreign policy by successful military interventions in Ukraine and Syria. The capabilities it employed to do so… Read more »
Democracy in the Arab World: Still a Mirage?
More than five years after the Arab Spring began, the euphoria that accompanied the region’s early uprisings has been replaced by a dogged realism, notes RAND analyst Seth G.Jones. From the indignant graffiti… Read more »
Obama Doctrine – pendulum swung too far?
For any believer in the trans-Atlantic alliance, liberal interventionism and the overall beneficence of American power, President Obama’s long exposition of his foreign policy to Jeffrey Goldberg in The… Read more »
Cubama: what President Obama should say about Cuba
Cuba has released four dissidents and put them on a plane to the U.S. just days before President Barack Obama’s historic trip to the island as part of the rapprochement with President… Read more »
Renewed confrontation in Georgia?
European Union membership “is a historical choice” for Georgia, according to Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze (above). “We are not a country which just decides to join blocs,” he told… Read more »
The Obama Doctrine: from ‘democratic messianism’ to ‘passive progressivism’?
Experience has taught President Barack Obama to temper his idealism with a pragmatic, realist approach to foreign policy, leading him to reject liberal Democratic interventionism. Yet he remains a democratic… Read more »
Growing resistance to China’s political controls
The rise of ‘abusively racist clown’ Donald Trump proves democracy doesn’t work, according to China’s ruling Communist Party, citing his success as latest example of how allowing the masses a say in choosing… Read more »