diplomacy
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Mediation helps start a fragile transition in Sudan
The fall of President Omar al-Bashir in Sudan can be seen as the demise of just another African strongman. Yet in a large state divided along complex ethnic, religious and political lines, his personalized tyranny made political stability possible. Now that is gone and an internationally mediated transition agreement is in place. Yet tensions between the civilian opposition, the military and various regional players suggest that the road ahead may not lead to democracy.
Khalifa Haftar overreaches in Libya
Khalifa Haftar, the military leader of one of Libya’s two battling governments, tried to short-circuit a UN-sponsored peace process by launching a lightning offensive against the nation’s capital, Tripoli. Instead of a successful blitzkrieg, however, his overstretched forces found themselves stuck on Tripoli’s outskirts – blocked by a militia cartel ...
The geopolitics of a Kosovo-Serbia deal
Normalizing relations between Serbia and Kosovo has proved surprisingly difficult. After the European Union’s protracted Brussels Dialogue (2012-2019) stalled last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have stepped in with a new effort at mediation. If it fails, the Western Balkans could end up waiting another ...
Trump-Kim summit game squeezes South Korea’s president
Spare a moment to consider the plight of South Korean President Moon Jae-in. In the three-way negotiation between Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul about denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, Mr. Moon has perhaps the most sensible policy and is certainly the most predictable player. Yet he is entirely overshadowed by his mercurial ...
Opinion: What kind of Russian meddling?
Russian “meddling” in other countries is so much a part of our political discourse that it has become fodder for jokes. But what is behind this interference, and who is doing the interfering? Visions of a centralized command center in the Kremlin ignore the freestyle nature of Russian politics in ...
