Trend Lines

The war in Ukraine has led to a fundamental shift in public perceptions of the military utility of drones. Until now, most people saw drones either as a more or less harmless toy with certain implications for privacy on one hand, and as a complex military system that roams the skies searching for terrorists on the other. The proliferation of drones and the accompanying high-resolution videos of their exploits in Ukraine has blurred these borders. Modified commercial drones easily available in most electronics store across the world are dropping grenades on tanks and dismounted troops, while acting as accurate spotters for pinpoint artillery strikes. Their larger military counterparts are wreaking havoc on supply convoys and armored columns, and they allegedly even contributed to the sinking of the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, which sported one of the more capable air defense systems in Moscow’s Black Sea fleet.  That has made apparent what military planners and researchers have said for a while now: The mi

Turkey is nominally a close military and political ally of the United States and other NATO countries, as well as an important economic partner to the European Union. But reading headlines in recent months and years, one wonders how close the Turkish government really feels to its western partners. Under President Erdogan, Turkey has waged war against Kurdish allies of the United States in Syria and Iraq, and supported militias associated with al-Qaida, Hamas and other Islamic extremists. It has also developed a somewhat close relationship with Russia, even buying a Russian air defense system despite strident opposition from the United States—a decision which got it kicked out of the U.S.-led F-35 fighter jet program. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has, largely succesfully, tried to maintain good relations with both sides and act as a mediator, delivering weapons to Ukraine and refraining from sanctions on Russia. None of this can be understood without taking a close look at Turkey's d

The first space race, between the United States and the Soviet Union, was a geopolitical and ideological struggle between superpowers. Now five decades in the past, it pushed the limits of technology to extremes and realized some long-held dreams of humanity, like putting a human on the moon. But after the enormous gains of the 1950s and 60s, space exploration advanced more gradually. More countries developed space programs, but between 1961 and 2000, only the Soviet Union, the United States and China put humans into space. After the U.S.’s Apollo program came to an end, humans never returned to the moon, and ambitious plans to expand human exploration to other planets were shelved. And with the end of NASA’s Space Shuttle program, the U.S. seemed to become disinterested in the final frontier, even contracting human launches out to Russia. Over the past decade, something changed. In 2004, U.S. Congress required NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration to legalize private spaceflight. Then, in 2015, it pas

In 2019, Ethiopia’s young and dynamic prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to resolve the longstanding tensions between his country and Eritrea. His announcement of domestic political reforms were received well both abroad and at home, many Ethiopians had felt excluded by a political system seen as having been captured by the country’s Tigrayan ethnic minority. Today, none of this enthusiasm is left. In late 2020, long-running tensions between the central government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, once the dominant ethnic party in the ruling coalition, escalated into a full-blown civil war. The conflict has been characterized by shocking atrocities and abuses on all sides. More than 2 million people have been forced to flee their homes, and political repression has increased in the wake of the war. On March 24, Abiy’s government and Tigrayan forces declared an indefinite humanitarian truce in Tigray, and some humanitarian aid has since reached the area. But t

French President Emmanuel Macron is comfortably ahead in the polls for the first round of France’s presidential election, which takes place Sunday. With far-right candidate Marine Le Pen likely to finish second, the second-round runoff is shaping up to be a repeat of 2017. But while Macron won in a landslide in 2017 with more than 60 percent of the vote, this time the gap is much narrower, with less than 10 percent separating Macron and Le Pen in opinion polls and the momentum clearly in Le Pen’s favor. Macron came into office on an ambitious and popular foreign policy agenda that portrayed the European Union not as a problem, but as a solution, particularly to the pressures the country faces as a result of globalization. But Macron has often struggled to communicate his vision to the French electorate, even as he suffers from his image of being detached from the population’s everyday problems, especially the spiraling cost of living. On this week’s episode of Trend Lines, Célia Belin, a visiting fellow in th

Plastics, e-waste and other hazardous waste are routinely traded across borders in what amounts to an “out of sight, out of mind” approach for the rich countries that produce them. The story is more complicated for the communities that receive and dispose of the waste.  Hazardous waste poses risks to the health of local communities and the environment, spurring attempts to ban its movement across borders. But in countries like Turkey, Vietnam and Ghana, waste is often processed to extract its residual value. The important source of income it provides explains why those efforts have been of limited success and questionable usefulness. To discuss the risks but also the complexity of the international trade of hazardous wastes, Kate O’Neill joins Peter Dörrie on Trend Lines. O’Neill is a professor at the University of California Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, where she specializes in researching waste, the circular economy and global environmental governance.  Relevant art

In many countries, COVID-19 has robbed an entire generation of at least a year of education and child care, not to speak of many social connections. Climate change is already threatening the wellbeing of young people around the world and will negatively impact them and future generations for decades to come. And the impacts of many social problems like unemployment and the rising cost of housing are especially severe for younger people. What would the world look like if policymakers gave priority in their decision-making to long-term consequences over short-term political expediency? U.N. Next Generation Fellow and WPR columnist Aishwarya Machani joins Peter Dörrie on Trend Lines to discuss what the world looks like from the perspective of a young activist today and how to make young people’s voices heard in finding solutions to the crises that disproportionately affect them. Relevant articles on WPR: A Youth Activist Wish List to Make 2022 a Year of Breakthroughs  Young People Should Have a Say on COVID-19

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s 10th Review Conference has been postponed repeatedly due to the coronavirus pandemic, perhaps a symbol of the degree to which global efforts to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons and reduce global stockpiles have stalled in recent years. North Korea continues to expand its nuclear capabilities, and the U.S., China and Russia are all investing heavily in modernizing their arsenals. And efforts to bring Iran back into compliance with the nonproliferation regime have been set back by the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the multilateral deal known as the JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that contained Tehran’s nuclear program. But while the NPT Review Conference is sorely needed to resolve these and a host of other outstanding problems regarding the treaty and its implementation, some observers welcomed the postponement, as it gives state parties more time to bridge some of their stark disagreements over the best way forward.  To discuss these issu

Mock amphibious assaults, regular intrusions into Taiwan’s air defense zone and the militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea are just some of the headlines that China’s military buildup has generated in recent years. Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has combined advances in electronic warfare with state-of-the-art military hardware like ballistic anti-ship missiles, stealth aircraft and aircraft carriers, with the ambitious goal of militarily dominating the South and East China Seas. This strategy is squarely aimed at undermining the U.S. military’s preeminence in the region, which until now has served as a counterweight to China’s claims of sovereignty over large swathes of ocean in its immediate neighborhood, containing both valuable natural resources and some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. And hovering over it all is the threat that China’s military ambitions pose to Taiwan. Timothy Heath, senior defense researcher at the RAND corporation in Washington, jo

Around the world in recent years, the enthusiastic embrace of globalization has given way to a backlash against liberalized trade. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, that shift toward a generalized closure, both between and within nations, has become almost a default setting, on display in everything from governments’ rush to close borders in response to new variants to hyperpartisan politics that turns policy debates into trench warfare.  Meanwhile, the pandemic, combined with climate change, has only created added urgency among younger generations to ensure that questions of intergenerational equity are made central to how we address both crises. And all of this is unfolding against the backdrop of an international order in which the taboo against interstate conflict is increasingly fraying. If there is one reason for hope, it lies in humankind’s resilience and the tendency of all historical developments to set in motion countervailing forces that cause the pendulum once again to swing back in the

Earlier this month, senior U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators held a virtual round of talks to discuss concerns over the state of bilateral commercial ties. The meeting came after U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in public remarks that she would seek “frank conversations” with her Chinese counterpart “that will include discussion over China’s performance under the phase-one agreement,” which was negotiated under former President Donald Trump. The Chinese said they pressed Tai to cancel the tariffs that were imposed by Trump and which so far remain in effect under President Joe Biden. The dynamic around these talks says a lot about the current state of relations between Washington and Beijing. This week on the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s Elliot Waldman digs into these issues with Ali Wyne, a senior analyst with the Global Macro practice at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. He writes frequently about the U.S.-China relationship, including for WPR. If you would like to request a full

According to article 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” But that promise, which was enshrined three years later in the 1951 Refugee Convention, has never been completely honored. In fact, it has been progressively eroded in recent years across the Global North, even as the numbers of refugees and asylum-seekers around the world have swelled.  Just last month, the Parliament of Denmark passed a law allowing it to relocate asylum-seekers outside Europe while their claims are being processed. A similar measure is under consideration in the United Kingdom, while Australia has long maintained such a policy. Here in the United States, former President Donald Trump’s administration enacted a policy known as “Remain in Mexico,” under which asylum-seekers were forced to wait across the border in Mexico, often in unsafe environments, while their claims were processed.  Today on Trend Lines, Khalid Koser, exec

Around the world, the coronavirus pandemic has taken an especially high toll on women and girls. From public health to education to jobs and livelihoods, studies have revealed a gender disparity in the impact of COVID-19 that is particularly wide in lower- and middle-income countries. Yet for all the work that’s been done, experts say there’s still a lot they don’t know about how these impacts are being felt across different communities. To help address this problem, the Center for Global Development recently launched a new initiative to analyze the gendered impacts of the pandemic and study policy responses around the world with the aim of addressing the long-term causes of gender inequality. The leader of the initiative, Megan O’Donnell, discussed her work with WPR’s Elliot Waldman in this episode that originally ran on February 3, 2021 on the Trend Lines podcast.  Relevant Articles on WPR: The Importance of Gender Inclusion in COVID-19 Responses ‘Don’t We Deserve More?’ Mexico’s Spike in Femicides Sparks

Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has reestablished itself as a force to be reckoned with on the global stage, intervening forcefully not only in former Soviet republics on its periphery, but also in global hotspots like Syria and Libya. Despite Russia’s resurgence, some Western leaders have a noticeable tendency to dismiss it as an overrated, overhyped power. John McCain, the late U.S. senator, famously quipped that Russia is a “gas station masquerading as a country.” U.S. President Joe Biden may have been channeling McCain when he said in July that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “sitting on top of an economy that has nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing else.” In a recently published book entitled “Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order,” Kathryn Stoner, a specialist on Russia at Stanford University, challenges the conventional view of Moscow as a weak and declining power, arguing that assessing Russian capabilities requires looking beyond trad

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne is finishing up a four-nation tour of Southeast Asia this week, having begun her trip in Malaysia before moving on to Cambodia, Vietnam and finally Indonesia. A main goal of the visit is to conduct follow-up talks after Canberra agreed in late October on a new “comprehensive strategic partnership” with the main regional bloc, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Another prominent item on Payne’s agenda is to seek understanding from ASEAN members for Australia’s three-way defense partnership with the U.S. and the U.K., which was just announced in September. Known as AUKUS, the pact calls for Australia to deploy nuclear-propelled attack submarines with British and American assistance. This week on the Trend Lines podcast, Susannah Patton, a research fellow in the Foreign Policy and Defense Program at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Center, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the mixed reception of AUKUS in Southeast Asia and how ASEAN is posit

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, known this year as COP26, is underway in Glasgow, Scotland. High-profile figures from the private sector and philanthropic organizations, as well as national political leaders, have all gathered to discuss ways to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases—all while the scientific community warns that the window to avert a global catastrophe is rapidly closing. Today on Trend Lines, Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a weekly columnist for WPR, joins Elliot Waldman to discuss the latest developments from Glasgow and the sticking points that are preventing more ambitious global action to curb emissions. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to podcast@worldpoliticsreview.com. Relevant Articles on WPR:  The Long-Awaited Climate Emergency Is Now The COP26 Summit Won’t Be Effective If It Isn’t Inclusive The Climate Crisis Is Also a Global Health Crisis The EU Gree

A new agreement negotiated under the auspices of the G-20 and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development aims to crack down on tax havens by subjecting the world’s largest and most profitable multinational corporations to a minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent. The deal has been agreed by 136 countries and jurisdictions, collectively representing more than 90 percent of the global economy. The OECD is hoping it will become effective by 2023. Many economists and commentators argue that such a deal is long overdue, given the ability of many gigantic corporations to avoid paying taxes on all or most of their profits by locating their operations in low-tax jurisdictions. But as with all things tax-related, critics contend that the devil is in the details, and that the agreement in practice does little to aid lower-income countries. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman digs into the substance of the agreement with Martin Hearson, [https://martinhearson.net/] a research fellow at the

Earlier this month, senior U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators held a virtual round of talks to discuss concerns over the state of bilateral commercial ties. The meeting came after U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in public remarks that she would seek “frank conversations” with her Chinese counterpart “that will include discussion over China’s performance under the phase-one agreement,” which was negotiated under former President Donald Trump. The Chinese said they pressed Tai to cancel the tariffs that were imposed by Trump and which so far remain in effect under President Joe Biden. The dynamic around these talks says a lot about the current state of relations between Washington and Beijing. This week on the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s Elliot Waldman digs into these issues with Ali Wyne, a senior analyst with the Global Macro practice at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. He writes frequently about the U.S.-China relationship, including for WPR. If you would like to request a full

With its rich natural gas reserves and strategic location, the Gulf monarchy of Qatar has long played an important role in regional and global diplomacy that belies its small size. It has mediated or facilitated a number of sensitive negotiations, including the talks that led to the peace agreement the United States signed in February 2020 with the Taliban. Since then, and even after the Taliban overthrew the internationally backed government in Kabul this summer, officials in Doha have continued to exercise influence in Afghanistan. Qatar’s diplomatic efforts have not always been smooth sailing, however. For more than three years, it had to weather a blockade that was imposed on the country by a group of countries led by neighboring Saudi Arabia and the UAE, fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. That embargo was only lifted in January of this year. Today on Trend Lines, Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, joins WPR’s El

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the United States and its allies enjoyed a near monopoly on economic, military and ideological power in a suddenly unipolar world. Over the decade and a half that followed, the U.S. emerged as the dominant power atop a liberal international order in large part shaped by its preferences.  But the rise of China and resurgence of Russia as great power competitors has challenged Washington’s global leadership role, while offering new options to countries seeking alternatives to the U.S.-led order. That coincides with the emergence within the U.S. and other Western democracies of movements questioning the foundations of that order. Combined, these trends have significantly weakened the United States’ ability to maintain its hegemonic position in a rapidly transforming international landscape. This week on a special edition of Trend Lines, Daniel Nexon joins WPR weekly columnist Howard French to discuss the rapidly changing global order and the Uni