By: The Editors | Trend Lines
In an email interview, Sean O’Connor, a contributor to IHS Jane’s
and an expert in air defenses and strategic warfare, discussed Syria’s
missile arsenal.
By: Richard Gowan | Column
Over the past year, the Syrian conflict has become a defining test
of Russia’s claim to be a major power. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov has steadfastly defended the Syrian regime against Western
pressure, using adroit diplomatic tactics to disrupt repeated Western
efforts to resolve the crisis. Despite Lavrov’s skillful maneuvering, he
now faces the prospect of a decisive diplomatic defeat.
By: Iain Mills | Briefing
While China's new leadership seems likely to continue with
domestic policy reforms, in the foreign policy sphere, initial signals
have been less encouraging. The external challenges facing officials in
Beijing involve assuaging the concerns of a far greater range of
constituents than on domestic issues. Here the evidence suggests that
China's foreign policy is becoming more aggressive and overtly
nationalistic.
By: Jonathan Berkshire Miller | Briefing
Japan's newly elected prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has been branded
as a “nationalist” and “hard-liner." However, while Abe’s position on
Japan's territorial disputes with China and South Korea may be less
ambiguous than his predecessor's, he will face the same vexing
challenges in addressing them. As a result, he is likely to adopt a
tempered and strategic approach to regional relations.
By: Richard Weitz | Column
This weekend’s parliamentary elections have returned Japan's
Liberal Democratic Party to power. Though the Democratic Party of Japan
was unable to overcome many of its domestic policy setbacks, it did
reverse its main foreign policy mistake: its early distancing from the
U.S. In some respects, the alliance has never been stronger, and the DJP
has offered the LDP a firm foundation on which to build.
By: Robert O. Freedman | Feature
As the Israeli general election of Jan. 22, 2013 draws near, the
major question in Israeli politics is whether the campaign will be
dominated by foreign policy and security concerns or domestic issues. An
emphasis on security issues would help the incumbent government headed
by Likud leader and prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. On the other
hand, a focus on domestic issues would benefit Netanyahu's many
adversaries.
By: Aaron David Miller | Feature
Of all the prospective outcomes to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, the idea of two independent states living side by side in
peace and security is by far the least-bad outcome. And yet at the
moment it seems the most unlikely. Still, the two-state solution, though
impossible to implement now, is by no means dead and buried. Indeed,
its curious fate is to be suspended in a state of limbo, somewhere
between too hard to implement and far too important to abandon.
By: Robert Blecher | Feature
The endgame of Israel’s recent campaign in Gaza seemed to confirm
many Israelis' worst fears about the Arab uprisings. Since the fighting
ended, however, a re-evaluation has set in. The region’s Islamist
governments demonstrated that they share Israel’s interest in preserving
good relations with the West and maintaining regional stability.
Indeed, Operation Pillar of Defense might even have rekindled optimism
among some in Israel about the emergence of a pragmatic Islamist trio.
By: Catherine Cheney | Trend Lines
The State Department announced on Friday that the U.S. global AIDS
coordinator, Ambassador Eric Goosby, will lead the new Office of Global
Health Diplomacy while continuing to head the President's Emergency
Plan for AIDS Relief.
By: Jon Rosen | Briefing
While the strength of the M23 rebellion in eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo is largely due to its foreign backers, blaming Rwanda
for the conflict ignores another key factor in the crisis: the gaping
leadership void in Kinshasa. Congolese President Joseph Kabila is weak
and vulnerable, unable to control a corrupt army and under fire from
both allies and opponents for his loosening grip on the country.
By: Catherine Cheney | Trend Lines
Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, was
elected president of South Korea on Wednesday, defeating her liberal
opponent, Moon Jae-in, and becoming the first female leader of the
country.
By: The Editors | Trend Lines
In an email interview, Susi Dennison, a policy fellow at the
European Council on Foreign Relations, discussed the EU’s economic
relationship with its southern neighbors.
By: Frida Ghitis | Column
When Venezuelans went to the polls for regional elections last
weekend, they knew the future of the country, as they’ve come to know
it, was hanging on a fraying thread. By his own dramatic, emotional
admission, President Hugo Chávez may not be able to return to power.
That brings up the question that Chavistas had tried to avoid answering
for years: Who will take charge after Chávez is gone?
By: Roberto Tofani | Briefing
U.S. President Barack Obama's trip to Cambodia in mid-November was
portrayed as a success by the media, marking the first time since the
Vietnam War-era bombings in the 1970s that an American president landed
in Phnom Penh. However, Cambodia’s stance within ASEAN on the
territorial disputes in the South China Sea highlights the challenges
facing the new American strategic commitment to the region.
By: Nikolas Gvosdev | Column
Whoever succeeds Hillary Clinton as secretary of state could face
any number of potential international crises, from the continuing
aftershocks of the Arab Spring to the territorial disputes in the South
China Sea. But in addition to these tests, the incoming secretary of
state will face another, perhaps even bigger challenge: how to sell the
value of U.S. diplomacy to an increasingly skeptical Congress.
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