Congress | Geopolitical Intelligence Services

The Trump presidency – will the system keep working?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announces delay on crucial health-care vote

06.07.2017

Donald Trump has complained about a cloud hanging over his presidency. To a considerable degree, it is of his own making. But the relentlessness and intensity of the Trump-hunt in the media has also been without precedent, and has served to disguise the weakness of the Democratic opposition and a growing split within the Republican party. Perhaps the only way the U.S. government can continue to function is for President Trump to reach across the aisle.

Dr. Uwe Nerlich

DEFENSE

Global Outlook 2017: The Trump transition

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures after giving his inaugural speech

06.02.2017

President Donald Trump is the product of powerful undercurrents that laid bare the hollowness of politics as usual. His message has few historical precedents among U.S. presidents. Americans have no shared sense of what the new era will bring, just a feeling that there is no going back.

Dr. Uwe Nerlich

DEFENSE

Next U.S. president must address aging nuclear arsenal

A 61-year-old design, the lumbering B-52 still accounts for the bulk of the U.S. strategic bomber fleet; the airframe is expected to remain in service until 2040 (source: dpa)

30.03.2016

The United States’ nuclear weapons systems are old, and getting older. How – or even whether – the country will take steps to maintain and modernize this force is one of the key unanswered questions for U.S. defense policy going forward. The issue has attracted scant attention from the politicians running for president, but nuclear policy will be a topic that the n...

Dr. James Jay Carafano

POLITICS

Argentina’s new government makes an ambitious start

Buenos Aires, March 1, 2016: Argentine President Mauricio Macri outside Congress shortly before presenting his administration’s plans to address the country’s economic difficulties (source: dpa)

11.03.2016

President Mauricio Macri of Argentina, who was elected last October, has quickly set out to show how much his administration differs from that of his predecessor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Much of the attention has focused on its determination to end the country’s complex set of price controls, subsidies and exchange rate restrictions. But his most significan...

Dr. Joseph S. Tulchin

ECONOMY

Brazil braces for a rough ride, but its strengths remain

Brasilia, Dec. 15, 2015: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff expresses indignation at Congressional proceedings to impeach her (source: dpa)

19.01.2016

The drama of Brazil’s immense political and economic crisis has reached a sort of “ground zero” point, from which it can develop in any direction, leading to a positive or very negative outcome for the country. In early December 2015, Brazil’s Congress unexpectedly and abruptly moved to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. A...

Carlos Eduardo Lins da Silva

POLITICS

Argentina’s new president will find it hard to make a fresh start

Buenos Aires, Dec. 10, 2015: Argentina’s new President Mauricio Macri greets the crowd after taking the oath of office (source: dpa)

15.12.2015

Let’s Change – Cambiemos – led by former Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, won Argentina’s presidential run-off by less than 3 per cent of the popular vote. Headlines in Europe, the United States and Latin America heralded the opposition coalition’s victory as marking a reversal of the ‘pink tide’ – the swing to the left that has dominated South American politics ...

Dr. Joseph S. Tulchin

ECONOMY

Pope Francis, diplomat extraordinaire

Lampedusa island, July 8, 2013: Pope Francis condemned the ‘global indifference’ to the plight of migrants fleeing the horrors of war and conflict (source: dpa)

26.11.2015

Whether navigating the Barque of Peter through the rough waters of international politics – or the even rougher waters of Church politics – Pope Francis is proving to be far more skilful and more adept than many of his detractors anticipated. In part, this is because he knows his own mind and refuses to be manipulated. If Francis has become a diplomat extraordinair...

David Alton, Lord Alton of Liverpool

POLITICS

Commercial revival is the next step as US-Cuba thaw continues

United Nations headquarters, New York, Sept. 29, 2015: US President Barack Obama (R), during a bilateral meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro (source: dpa)

30.10.2015

In 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower officially severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, shuttering the United States embassy in Havana. The move marked the beginning of half a century of diplomatic hibernation, a sleep so deep that it survived the thawing of the Cold War by a full generation. Then, on December 17, 2014, those relations were roused from their slumbe...

Edwina Rogers

POLITICS

Bachelet contends with copper and conservatives to keep Chilean reforms on track

Santiago de Chile, Sept. 19, 2015: President Michelle Bachelet’s ambitious social and political reforms have been hampered by conservative opponents and an economic slump (source: dpa)

29.10.2015

Michelle Bachelet is vowing not to give up on the social overhaul of Chile’s free-market model that won her a second term as the country’s president in 2013. Yet the collapse of global copper prices has largely deprived her of the money to pay for the reforms, while a financial scandal has cost her political clout. President Bachelet’s biggest challenge in 2016 wil...

Dr. Joseph S. Tulchin

ECONOMY

A treatise on onions: Making sense of India’s political economy

India, New Delhi, August 2015: activists shout slogans as they rally against rising staple food prices, especially for pulses and onions (source: dpa)

15.10.2015

‘Incredible India’ is a slogan promoting tourism in India. For many of the country’s citizens, it depicts reality quite accurately. India’s economic life is rich in incredible phenomena – and even some that are cause for incredulity. Is there any other place where elections are decided by the price of onions? In how many ...

Barun S. Mitra

POLITICS