Trend Lines

The U.S. military has played a prominent role in Donald Trump’s presidency, at times serving as a prop to flatter his ego, at others as a tool for political gain, but also often as a punching bag to deflect blame. In the early days of his administration, Trump filled his Cabinet and White House staff with retired generals, only to successively fire them or watch them resign over policy differences. Later, his repeated pardons of U.S. soldiers convicted by military courts of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan drove a wedge between himself and a military leadership committed to upholding discipline and the international laws of war. Most recently, his attempt to deploy the military to quell protests against racism and police brutality in cities across the U.S. ultimately led to the firing of his third defense secretary, Mark Esper.  It is perhaps no surprise that Trump’s disregard for norms and the rule of law would extend to his approach to the military, with serious implications for the relationship between t

Earlier this month, Timnit Gebru, the co-leader of a team of researchers at Google specializing in the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, was unceremoniously ousted from her position. Some of the circumstances that led to her departure are disputed, but Gebru—a Black woman in a field that is overwhelmingly white and male—claims she was forced out for drawing unwelcome attention to the lack of diversity in Google’s workforce. She also claims she was “silenced” for her refusal to retract a paper that she had co-authored on ethical problems associated with certain types of AI models that are central to Google’s business. The episode has sparked a fierce backlash across Silicon Valley and beyond, including among current and former Google employees. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Karen Hao, the senior AI reporter for MIT Technology Review, to discuss the reaction to Gebru’s dismissal and the troubling issues she has raised around the ethical implications of recent advan

In addition to its human toll, the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked economic havoc around the world. Entire economies ground to a virtual standstill as governments implemented strict lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus. The impact on individual countries has only been exacerbated by the disruptions to global trade caused by the pandemic, and uncertainty still surrounds the shape of the economic recovery that will come in its aftermath.  But even before the pandemic, the developed economies of Western democracies faced structural obstacles to growth that have called into question their models of governance, even as China’s high-growth development path offers a competitive alternative.  For this week’s big picture Trend Lines interview, Dr. Dambisa Moyo joins WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein for a look at the challenges facing the developed economies, and how the pandemic will affect them and the global economy more broadly. Dr. Moyo holds a Ph.D. in economics from Oxford University and a master’s d

During his four years in office, President Donald Trump has worked methodically to tear up just about any foreign policy initiative or multilateral treaty that had Barack Obama’s fingerprints on it, from the Paris climate accord to the Iran nuclear deal to the policy of so-called “Strategic Patience” with North Korea. While President-elect Joe Biden is understandably promising a completely different approach in some areas, there are some aspects of his presidency that are worth preserving and building on.  This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Emma Ashford for a conversation about what to keep and what to throw out from Trump’s foreign policy. Ashford is a senior fellow with the New American Engagement Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, as well as a columnist for Foreign Policy. Relevant Articles on WPR:   What to Keep From Trump’s Foreign Policy After He’s Gone Can Biden Really Bring America ‘Back’ After Trump? Why Trump’s Trade Agenda Is

In contrast with Donald Trump’s single-minded focus on immigration, President-elect Joe Biden has promised a return to a more conventional, multidimensional approach to the United States’ relations with Mexico. But if President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s reluctance to congratulate Biden on his victory is any indication, a return to normalcy may not be what Mexico wants.   This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Duncan Wood, the director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, to discuss the challenges ahead for U.S.-Mexico ties and how Biden might be able to use some of Trump’s aggressive tactics to steer the relationship in a beneficial direction. Relevant Articles on WPR: Mexico’s Water Dispute With the U.S. Is a Symptom of Its Governance Crisis In Mexico, Corruption Scandals Leave No Politician Untouched—Not Even AMLO How Biden Would Change U.S. Policy in Latin America Will AMLO’s Popularity in Mexico Survive COVID-19? Trend Lines is produ

The usually warm relationship between the United States and Jordan has come under strain during President Donald Trump’s time in office. Jordanian leaders have criticized many of Trump’s policies in the region, especially his support for Israeli settlements in the West Bank, his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his one-sided proposal for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. It was no surprise, then, that Jordan’s King Abdullah II was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his victory over Trump in last month’s presidential election. And in a phone conversation with Abdullah last week, his first with an Arab leader, Biden told the king that he hopes to cooperate on pursuing “a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” It remains unclear, though, just how much of a priority that will be for Biden as he enters office with a herculean to-do list. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman was joined by Marwan Muasher, a former fore

The U.S. military has played a prominent role in Donald Trump’s presidency, at times serving as a prop to flatter his ego, at others as a tool for political gain, but also often as a punching bag to deflect blame. In the early days of his administration, Trump filled his Cabinet and White House staff with retired generals, only to successively fire them or watch them resign over policy differences. Later, his repeated pardons of U.S. soldiers convicted by military courts of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan drove a wedge between himself and a military leadership committed to upholding discipline and the international laws of war. Most recently, his attempt to deploy the military to quell protests against racism and police brutality in cities across the U.S. ultimately led to the firing of his third defense secretary, Mark Esper.  It is perhaps no surprise that Trump’s disregard for norms and the rule of law would extend to his approach to the military, with serious implications for the relationship between t

In late September, the frozen conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh rapidly heated up. The six weeks of full-scale war that followed left thousands dead and tens of thousands more displaced. Unlike previous rounds of fighting that resulted in little exchange of territory, however, Azerbaijan’s well-armed and well-prepared military was able to make substantial gains on the battlefield, with significant support from neighboring Turkey. Just as Azerbaijani forces looked poised to advance deep into Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia brokered a deal between the two sides to bring the fighting to an end last week, under terms that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called “unbelievably painful.” The agreement requires Armenia to relinquish much of the territory it controlled in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, and for Moscow to dispatch 2,000 peacekeepers to the region. According to Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow and the chair of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at th

Many aspects of our response to the coronavirus pandemic have relied on digital technology. Schools and workplaces are moving online, holding classes and meetings using virtual tools. Public health experts are using data analytics and contact tracing apps to slow the contagion. And in some cases, authoritarian governments are using the pandemic as an excuse to impose sweeping restrictions on their citizens that limit their scope for protests and other forms of criticism. According to researchers at the watchdog group Freedom House, the implications of the pandemic for digital rights worldwide are bleak. The organization released a new report last month as part of an annual series looking at online freedoms, to document what it calls, “The Pandemic’s Digital Shadow.” This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by one of the report’s co-authors, Adrian Shahbaz, to discuss COVID-19’s indelible impacts on our online lives. Shahbaz is the director for technology and democracy at Freedom House. Releva

For nearly five months, Thailand has been in the throes of a historic pro-democracy uprising. Demonstrators have braved water cannons and arbitrary arrests to challenge the current government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the leader of a 2014 coup who then headed the military junta that ruled Thailand until last year. The protest movement has also broken a longstanding taboo by demanding reforms of Thailand’s monarchy, which is protected by one of the world’s harshest lèse-majesté laws. Thailand’s king addressed the protests for the first time in rare public comments over the weekend, suggesting he may be open to compromise with the demonstrators. Meanwhile, as with all political unrest in Thailand, the ever-present possibility that the military will step in hangs over the protest movement. Today on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman discusses the latest developments from the Thai protests with Tyrell Haberkorn, a professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a 2020 Gu

Over the past four years, American politics have been consumed and subsumed by one man: Donald Trump. Since his election in 2016, Trump’s disregard for convention has upended the norms of the U.S. presidency and undermined the separation of powers on which America’s constitutional system depends. His iconoclastic approach to foreign policy has further frayed the global order the U.S. has historically used to advance its interests, while raising questions about America’s commitment and dependability as an ally. Long-standing political partisanship and divisions within the U.S. have become particularly acute in the runup to next week’s election, amid heightened anxiety over the potential for tampering and manipulation of the outcome. In today’s big picture Trend Lines interview, Edward Luce joins WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, to discuss the impact of Trump’s four years in office, the atmosphere surrounding next week’s election and what’s at stake for America and the world. Luce is a columnist and the

This year’s election season in the U.S. has been unusual in many ways, unfolding against the backdrop of a raging global pandemic, a historic economic recession and an incumbent president who is willing to discard America’s democratic norms. But there is one thing that has become predictable about recent U.S. elections, and sadly, other polls around the world: the torrent of misinformation that inevitably seems to accompany them. At the same time, the modalities of how misinformation spreads aren’t necessarily consistent across elections. According to Shelby Grossman, a political scientist and research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory, foreign influence operations are becoming more sophisticated, and the unintentional spread of misinformation can be just as pernicious. She joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to break down the latest trends in online misinformation and some of the things voters should watch out for on Election Day and thereafter. Relevant Articles on WP

Despite President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to project the image that Russia is a productive and internationally engaged great power, recent developments on the country’s periphery suggest, if anything, a decline in the Kremlin’s influence. In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko is clinging to power despite the regular chants from thousands of protesters demanding he resign. Intense fighting has erupted again between Armenia and Azerbaijan, over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. And Kyrgyzstan is in chaos after protests forced the country’s Russia-friendly leader, Sooronbai Jeenbekov, to resign last week. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Matthew Rojansky, director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, to discuss Putin’s response to the rapidly unfolding crises in Russia’s “near abroad.” Relevant Articles on WPR: Can Russia Steer the Endgame in Nagorno-Karabakh to Its Advantage? How Russia’s Putin Could Respond to the Protest

Over the past two decades, perhaps no region of the world has seen such a dramatic reversal of fortune as South America. Beginning in 1999, a political shift to the left combined with an economic boom allowed governments across the continent to make dramatic inroads in the fight against poverty. The region’s transformation was held up as a model of what governments can achieve when they make addressing inequality a central priority. But beginning in 2013, the end of the commodities boom led to slowed growth and, in some cases, political instability, calling into question the sustainability of the previous decade’s gains. In today’s big picture Trend Lines interview, Frida Ghitis joins WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, to discuss the changes the past two decades have brought to South America, and where they leave the region today as it faces long-standing challenges exacerbated by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. Frida is a contributing columnist at The Washington Post, as well as a frequent on

Late last month, President Donald Trump told Congress that his administration plans to further slash the ceiling for refugee admissions during the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, to 15,000 from an already historically low 18,000. The new limit is less than one-seventh the 110,000 slots that former President Barack Obama approved in 2016. As The New York Times put it, Trump has “virtually sealed off a pathway for the persecuted into the country and obliterated the once-robust American reputation as a sanctuary for the oppressed.” This comes as the number of refugees worldwide continues to grow. According to the United Nations, there are currently around 80 million forcibly displaced people around the world, including 26 million refugees and more than 4 million asylum-seekers. Trump’s opponent in next month’s presidential election, Joe Biden, has said he will raise the cap on refugees to 125,000. But should he win, he will have his work cut out for him in repairing the U.S. refugee program. Today on Trend Li

Strategic autonomy has long been a recurring refrain for advocates of a more forceful European Union on the global stage. Upon taking office in December 2019, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that hers would be a “geopolitical commission.” The sense of urgency has only grown since then. Ongoing tensions with Russia over its role in Eastern Europe and new ones with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean have called attention to the threats the EU faces in its own neighborhood. Managing strained ties with the United States and defining the new terms of relations with the post-Brexit United Kingdom have called into question long-standing partnerships. And a fast-emerging reassessment of the challenge posed by China has underscored the importance of the EU becoming a rule-maker, not a rule-taker in the shifting world order. In today’s big picture Trend Lines interview, WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein is joined by Carl Bildt to discuss these and other challenges facing the EU, as well

With every major religion in the world represented, and political systems that range from relatively open democracies to authoritarian one-party states, Southeast Asia is one of the most spectacularly diverse regions in the world. It stretches from the highlands of northern Myanmar to the beaches of southern Thailand and the Philippines, and includes low-income economies like Laos and Cambodia, as well as Singapore, one of the wealthiest places in the world on a per capita basis.  Each of the 11 countries in this multifarious region, though, face a common foreign policy challenge: how to deal with the political and economic juggernaut to their north, China. Today on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by journalist Sebastian Strangio to discuss his new book, “In the Dragon’s Shadow: Southeast Asia in the Chinese Century.” Relevant Articles on WPR: Vietnam, Under Increasing Pressure From China, Mulls a Shift Into America’s Orbit Why Is China Pressing Indonesia Again Over Its Maritime Claims? Laos, T

The U.K. this week recorded its highest single-day increase in new coronavirus cases so far, and its biggest one-day death toll since July. Today on Trend Lines, The Atlantic’s Tom McTague joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the structural failures that undermined Britain’s COVID-19 response. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the week, plus three more complimentary articles in our weekly roundup every Friday. Sign up here. Then subscribe. Relevant Articles on WPR: For the U.K. and Ireland, Brexit and COVID-19 Are a Perfect Storm Will Ireland and the U.K.’s Divided Responses to COVID-19 Fuel Irish Unification? ‘It Was Always Going to Be Horrible.’ Britain’s Former Top Emergency Planner on COVID-19 Boris Johnson Is Hurtling the U.K. Toward Another Brexit Cliff Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dö

In today’s big picture Trend Lines interview, WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein is joined by Robert Malley, president and CEO of International Crisis Group, to discuss the drivers of recent developments in the Middle East, as well as the global trends shaping conflict and crisis more broadly. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the week, plus three more complimentary articles in our weekly roundup every Friday. Sign up here. Then subscribe. Relevant Articles on WPR: No More ‘-Isms’: A Non-Ideological Generation Takes to the Streets in the Middle East This New, Narrow Vision for the Middle East Isn’t Really About Peace Why Hitting the Pause Button Is the Best the U.S. and Iran Can Hope For Russia Is Getting More Than It Bargained For in Libya and Syria How China Is Quietly Expanding Its Economic Influence

Earlier this month, Europe’s largest refugee camp, on the Greek island of Lesbos, burned down, leaving most of its 13,000 residents homeless. Today on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman discusses the refugee crisis with Matthew Cassel, a Vice News correspondent who reported on the aftermath of the fire. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article every day of the week, plus three more complimentary articles in our weekly roundup every Friday. Sign up here. Then subscribe. Relevant Articles on WPR: For Migrants and Refugees, Greece Has Become Hostile Territory Has the World Learned the Lessons of the 2015 Refugee Crisis? Refugees Are Being Ignored Amid the COVID-19 Crisis As the Migration Crisis Evolves, the Wealthiest Countries Still Aren’t Doing Enough Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist an