WPR Articles July 28, 2014 - Aug. 1, 2014

 

Election Loss by Senegal’s Ruling Party Signals Dissatisfaction With Rate of Change

By: The Editors | Trend Lines

In early July, Senegalese President Macky Sall named his third prime minister after his ruling Alliance for the Republic party lost last month’s local elections. In an email interview, Paul Melly, associate fellow in the Africa Program at Chatham House, discussed Senegalese politics, the party’s future and the effectiveness of Sall’s reform program.

In Need of Investment, Peru Rolls Back Environmental Standards

By: Paul Shortell | Briefing

President Ollanta Humala recently unveiled reforms intended to stabilize Peru’s slowing economy and shore up investor confidence. Controversially, the new laws will roll back pollution standards and fast-track environmental licensing for new energy and mining projects. Such deregulation threatens to reverse positive environmental protections and will not alleviate broader challenges facing Peru’s economy.

New Agenda Reflects Growing Energy Role for Lusophone Bloc

By: Francisco Galamas | Briefing

Last week, the 10th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries, held in East Timor, accepted a new member: Equatorial Guinea, the third-largest oil exporter in sub-Saharan Africa. With Equatorial Guinea, the CPLP is collectively now the fourth-largest oil exporter in the world, demonstrating its shifting focus from political and cultural issues to economic ones.

Indonesia’s Jokowi Must Balance Between Non-Alignment and U.S. Overtures

By: Eric Auner | Trend Lines

Last week, Joko Widodo was declared the winner of Indonesia’s presidential election over Prabowo Subianto, a former general. Although Indonesia is officially a non-aligned country, it has shown a willingness to engage with the United States, which welcomed Widodo’s election. Washington wants to strengthen U.S. ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Indonesia is a key member.

Syria, Ukraine May Force Obama to Learn to Love Coalitions of the Willing

By: Nikolas Gvosdev | Column

Democrats often mocked the George W. Bush administration's invocation of "coalitions of the willing" to legitimize U.S. action abroad. Once back in power, they argued, Democrats would be able to generate genuine multilateral support to back U.S. initiatives. Although the Obama administration initially seemed to fulfill those predictions, two crises now threaten to derail the Obama approach to multilateralism.

More Lacking Security Strategy, EU Counts on Nearby Crises to Absorb Threats By: Richard Gowan | Column The EU’s security may actually benefit from ongoing crises in cases such as Ukraine, Mali and even Syria. The longer these conflicts absorb the efforts of potential foes, the less likely they are to menace the EU directly. EU members have no appetite to get involved in these wars, leading critics to grumble that it refuses to fight for its interests. But it may be in its interests to let others keep fighting. An Integrated Approach to Conflict and the Environment By: Talia Hagerty, Jurgen Brauer | Feature For the better part of their existence, the global anti-war and the environmentalist movements have typically lived side by side, each pursuing noble but separate aims. Today, however, a new trend has become apparent: the mutually reinforcing interaction between human violence and planetary change. No longer can peace and the environment be seen as separate issues. Consequently, no longer can the two movements merely work side by side; they must work as one. Anti-Semitic Violence in France Part of Broader Political Unraveling By: Judah Grunstein | Trend Lines The recent attacks against synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses on the margins of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in France have shocked many, despite being only the latest in a string of anti-Semitic incidents and violence in the country over the past few years. But to focus only on the anti-Semitic nature of the violence is to make the mistake of paying attention only to the tip of the iceberg. Bahrain’s Ongoing Political Impasse Imperils U.S. Interests By: Kristian Coates Ulrichsen | Briefing The fallout from Bahrain’s expulsion of a senior U.S. diplomat illustrates the continuing political impasse in this deeply polarized Persian Gulf ally. While the danger to the ruling Al Khalifa family posed by the 2011 uprising has passed, positions on all sides have hardened, with little prospect of any political settlement to Bahrain’s deep-rooted inequalities. That has three troubling implications for the U.S. China Advances on Missile Defense, With Eye on Dissuading Rivals By: Richard Weitz | Column On July 23, China conducted its third declared ballistic missile defense test in the past four years, with the Ministry of Defense announcing afterward that the test “achieved the desired objectives.” But it would be premature to conclude that Beijing now embraces BMD. Instead, the recent tests are designed primarily to overcome adversary missile defenses as well as to develop China’s anti-satellite systems. Safeguarding Cultural Heritage in Times of War By: Craig Forrest | Feature How far have we come in protecting cultural heritage from the devastating effects of war? Over the past century, surprisingly far, and at the same time not quite far enough. International law to protect cultural heritage has developed reactively, responding to conflict and destruction after the fact in the hope that it will not be repeated. An understanding of this law, its strengths and its shortcomings, requires its contextualization within the conflicts of the past century. The Challenge of Protecting Civilian Health in War By: David P. Fidler | Feature For human health, war is hell. Armed conflicts kill, injure and traumatize people; wreck health infrastructure and services; and expose populations to diseases. Powerful ideas and beliefs inform the responses to health crises spawned by war, but they are challenged by the realities in armed conflict. These challenges do not negate the imperative to protect health during armed conflict, but they reveal complexities in the war-health relationship that deserve exploration. Rethinking War Colleges and the Education of U.S. Military Leaders By: Steven Metz | Column Recent reports that Sen. David Walsh may have committed plagiarism while a student at the U.S. Army War College brought unaccustomed attention to the military's senior schools. Discussion of the issue showed that despite the long history of America's war colleges, they are not widely understood. It also suggested that there is a need for wider debate on how the United States educates its senior military leaders. U.N. Resolution Unlikely to Lead to Better Aid Distribution in Syria By: The Editors | Trend Lines In mid-July, the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted to allow humanitarian aid delivery to Syrians in rebel-held areas without Syrian government consent, through four border crossings from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. In an email interview, Dr. Hannah Vaughan-Lee, a humanitarian practitioner and academic, discussed the challenges ahead for the cross-border aid operation. Cambodia Power-Sharing Deal Could Usher In Wider Democratic Reform By: Kheang Un | Briefing Last week, Cambodia’s ruling and opposition parties agreed to a power-sharing deal, ending a political crisis dating back to last year’s elections. The standoff included an opposition boycott of parliament and mass protests that recently culminated in violent clashes and the arrest of seven opposition lawmakers-elect. Although uncertainty remains, the deal could help move Cambodia toward a more meaningful democracy. EU Carving Out Its Role in Asia: An Interview With Dr. Javier Solana By: Maria Savel | Trend Lines World Politics Review’s Maria Savel had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Javier Solana regarding the European Union’s relations with China, ASEAN and Asia as a whole. Dr. Solana is president of the ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics and previously served as the European Union high representative for the common foreign and security policy, NATO secretary-general and Spanish foreign minister. The following is a condensed version of their conversation. In South Korea, Ferry Disaster Still Claiming Victims By: Frida Ghitis | Column Last week, South Korea marked 100 days since the ferry disaster that left 304 people dead, most of them young high school students. The sinking of the Sewol, as the ship was named, has grown into much more than a heartbreaking tragedy. It has become a landmark event in the country’s history. More than anything, the Sewol has transformed the relationship between South Korean citizens and their government. Mexico’s Scaled-Backed Gendarmerie Force No Security Panacea By: Nathaniel Parish Flannery | Briefing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto entered office promising to introduce a new 40,000-member police force called the Gendarmeria. However, the force has since been downgraded to a less ambitious 5,000-member unit. Instead of working to build a new heavy-duty force, Mexico is now trying to recalibrate its existing security programs and improve security coordination between federal, state and local government.