10 Conflicts to Watch in 2020

Image courtesy of Adrian Weale/DVIDS.

This article was originally published by the International Crisis Group on 27 December 2019.

Friends and foes alike no longer know where the United States stands. As Washington overpromises and underdelivers, regional powers are seeking solutions on their own – both through violence and diplomacy.

The Belt, the Road, and Latin America

Image courtesy of Cancillería del Ecuador/Flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0)

This article was originally published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in January 2019. 

China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) project was late in coming to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). First announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, OBOR, later renamed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), did not arrive in the LAC until 2018, when, at a meeting of the China-CELAC (Community of Latin America and the Caribbean) Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed that BRI would “inject new energy into the China-CELAC comprehensive cooperative partnership and open up new prospects.” Given the impressive rise of the People’s Republic of China to the world’s second largest economy—first, by some measures—and the difficulties that many LAC countries were experiencing, it is hardly surprising that Wang’s offer was greeted with enthusiasm. If brought to completion, the integration of the LAC region into BRI would comprise 65 percent of the world’s population and 40 percent of global GDP.

Three Lessons from the History of Foreign-Imposed Regime Change

Image courtesy of Beatrice Murch/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)

This article was originally published by Political Violence @ a Glance on 1 February 2019.

It took only minutes for the Trump Administration to support Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, when he challenged the nation’s incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, for power last week. Trump may have promised to “stop racing to topple foreign regimes,” but his choice to back Guaidó isn’t surprising. In fact, just about every American president since FDR has attempted foreign-imposed regime change, or FIRC, in one form or another. This history offers some lessons that shed light on the crisis unfolding in Venezuela.

10 Conflicts to Watch in 2019

Image courtesy of DVIDS/Christian Simmons.

This article was published by the International Crisis Group on 28 December 2018.

As U.S. leadership of the international order fades, more countries are seeking to bolster their influence by meddling in foreign conflicts. In this new era of limit testing, Crisis Group’s President Robert Malley lists the Ten Conflicts to Watch in 2019.

Democracy in Peril: Ten Elections to Watch in 2018

Image courtesy of David Drexler/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)

This article was originally published by Political Violence @ a Glance on 11 January 2018.

Democracy’s resilience into the 21st century is rightly questioned. In 2017, a host of countries worldwide saw threats to civil and political liberties, popular participation, and fundamental human rights.  Corruption and state capture by predatory political elites led the news in old and new democracies alike. Verbal and physical attacks on civil society, the press, and minorities were reported in virtually all world regions.  And new virulent, nationalist ideologies threaten human rights and the carefully crafted post-World War II international liberal order.