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 military utility of unmanned aerial vehicles is still a work in progress, and the saturation of conflict zones with these systems will require changes in tactics and doctrine. To dive into these issues and their ramifications for both military planners and policymakers, Trend Lines is joined by Ulrike Franke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, where she specializes in military technology, including unmanned aerial vehicles and artificial intelligence. Relevant articles on World Politics Review:  The Future of the Global Drone Market Will Not Be ‘Made in Europe’  Anti-Drone Advocacy Just Took a Major Leap Forward  The Campaign to Ban ‘Killer Robots’ Just Got a Boost  Behind the Growth Market in Counter-Drone Technology  Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.   To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 domestic politics and especially its long-running economic crisis and the upcoming general elections in 2023 that could challenge President Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian grip on power. Steven A. Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations joins Trend Lines from Washington to discuss Turkish foreign policy and domestic politics, and the relationship between the two. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected].   Relevant articles on World Politics Review: Erdogan Is Giving Turkey’s ‘Zero Problems’ Strategy Another Try  Sweden and Finland’s NATO Bids Hit a Roadblock Named Erdogan  Can Turkey’s Erdogan Rebuild the Bridges He Has Burned?  Erdogan’s Engagement Finds Willing Partners in Africa  Erdogan Has a Lot Riding on the Russia-Ukraine Crisis  Erdogan’s Obsession With Low Interest Rates Could Be His Downfall Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected]

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 passed the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitive and Entrepreneurship Act, better known as the SPACE Act, which expanded the rights to explore and exploit space to private citizens in the U.S.  During that same time, an internet entrepreneur named Elon Musk founded the aerospace company SpaceX with the goal of developing cheaper and more reliable access to space and, ultimately, to build a colony on Mars. Today, SpaceX has developed and launched its partially reusable rocket, Falcon 9, more than 150 times. The company is on the cusp of introducing a fully reusable launch system, Starship, with a lift capacity of more than 100 tons to low-Earth Orbit. SpaceX and other private companies have also developed vehicles that can put humans into space, as well as “mega-constellations” of satellites that promise to provide high quality and affordable internet access independent of terrestrial infrastructure. At the same time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought an end to decades of cooperation between Washington and Moscow in space, putting even the future of the International Space Station into question. Meanwhile, China is aggressively pushing its space program, as are India and other nations. Arguably, the world is already in the age of a new Space Race. And this time, it is multipolar, with everyone from superpowers to startups participating.  Joining Trend Lines to discuss all this and more is Eric Berger, a senior space editor at Ars Technica and author of “Liftoff,” a book on the rise of SpaceX. Relevant articles on World Politics Review: As New Space Powers Emerge, NASA More Unreliable as Partner  Colonizing Space Is Not the Solution to Our Problems on Earth  Small States Can Play a Big Role in Space  The U.S. Space Program Is Back, but It Can’t Go It Alone  China’s Space Ambitions Have Washington on Edge    Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.   To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected]

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 the conflict, which has shattered Ethiopia’s image as an economic and political powerhouse in the region, is far from resolved. On this week’s episode of Trend Lines, William Davison, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Ethiopia, joins Peter Dörrie to unpack the background of the conflict and the latest developments in Ethiopia. Relevant articles on World Politics Review: How Abiy’s Effort to Redefine Ethiopia Led to War in Tigray  Tigray Is Being Deliberately Starved to Death  The U.S. Needs Sharper Tools to Stop the War in Ethiopia  Getting to a Sustainable Endgame in Ethiopia Will Be an Uphill Climb  Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.   To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected]

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 the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe, joins Peter Dörrie to discuss how foreign policy is intersecting with electoral politics in France’s presidential election, and what a possible second term for Macron—or a first term for Le Pen—might look like. Relevant articles: Monsieur Fixit The Making of Macron’s Worldview For Macron, Being Right on European Strategic Autonomy Isn’t Enough France’s Security Law Debacle Shows the Dangers of Macron’s ‘Le Pen-Lite’ Agenda Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.   To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected] .

Across Latin America, countries have come a long way in building democratic institutions. Most hold competitive and inclusive elections, for example. But the pervasive presence of organized crime and corruption has made progress in other areas, like the rule of law, difficult, leaving trust in the state almost nonexistent in many parts of Latin American.  Kevin Casas-Zamora, secretary-general of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, joins Peter Dörrie to discuss these issues, as well as the region’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, given Moscow’s attempts over the past two decades to strengthen its ties to Latin America. Relevant articles on WPR:   Venezuela’s Crisis Could Be Another Casualty of Russia’s Ukraine Invasion  War Returns to Colombia’s Countryside  Costa Rica’s Fragmented Politics Is Failing to Deliver Results  Castro Will Have Her Hands Full Cleaning Up Honduras’ Mafia State  Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.

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 articles on WPR:   Cuts to Waste Imports in East Asia Put Pressure on World’s Producers  Toxic Waste Spill in Ivory Coast Exposes 'Dark Underbelly' of Globalization  E-Waste Is Taking Over the World. 5G Will Make It Even Worse  Can the World Win the War on Plastic?  Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie

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 Policy  Give Young Changemakers the Funding They Need  There Will Be No Pandemic Recovery Without Tackling Youth Unemployment 

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 issues and more, Miles Pomper, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, joins Peter Dörrie on Trend Lines. Relevant articles on WPR: NATO’s Nuclear Deterrent Gets a Reprieve—for Now  The U.S. Should Rethink Its Approach to Reviving the Iran Nuclear Deal  China’s Nuclear Build-Up Could Make for a More Dangerous Future  How the U.S. and Russia Can Go Beyond New START 

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, joins Peter Dörrie on Trend Lines to discuss the implications and unintended consequences of China’s military modernization. Relevant Articles on WPR: The U.S.-China Rivalry According to China  The U.S. Faces Hard Choices on Strategic Ambiguity in Europe and Asia  The U.S. Should Compete With China and Russia—but Wisely  South Korea Has Quietly Taken Sides in the U.S.-China Rivalry 

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 opposite direction. WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein joins Peter Dörrie to discuss the trends that will shape international politics in 2022.  Relevant Articles on WPR: Making Sense of a Year of Contradictions  The West’s Border Closure Reflex Comes With a Cost  A Youth Activist Wish List to Make 2022 a Year of Breakthroughs  Putin Wants to Rewrite the End of the Cold War  Globalization’s Perverse Convergence  Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie.

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 transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR:    Competition With China Shouldn’t Dictate U.S. Foreign Policy China’s Economic Slowdown Is the Price of Tackling Long-Term Risk The U.S. and China Are Both Failing the Global Leadership Test The AUKUS Deal Is a Clarifying Moment for Biden’s Foreign Policy Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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, executive director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the past, present and potential future of the right to asylum, and what it might take to revive this critical component of the international legal system. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. 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: Has the World Learned the Lessons of the 2015 Refugee Crisis? African Migration to Europe Is a Lifeline, not a Threat Biden’s Immigration Imperatives Refugees Are Being Ignored Amid the COVID-19 Crisis Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 a Women’s Uprising To Save the Economy From COVID-19, Protect Informal Workers Another Victim of COVID-19: Sustainable Development Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 traditional metrics of power. She joins WPR’s Elliot on the Trend Lines podcast this week. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR:  Putin’s Big Plans for Russia’s Far East Aren’t Panning Out Afghanistan Will Put Russia’s Regional Ambitions to the Test Like It or Not, Biden Will Have to Live With Russia’s Energy Exports For the U.S. and Russia, ‘Stable and Predictable’ Would Be a Good Start   Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 positioning itself amid rising tensions between China on one hand, and the U.S. and its allies on the other. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR:  Australia Can’t Get By on Nuclear Subs Alone Looming Over the AUKUS Deal Is the Shadow of War China’s Growing Influence in Cambodia and Laos Has Vietnam on Edge The AUKUS Deal Is a Clarifying Moment for Biden’s Foreign Policy   Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 [email protected]. 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 Green Deal Just Raised the Bar on Climate Policy   Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 U.K.-based Institute of Development Studies and the International Center for Tax and Development, where he leads the international tax program. He’s the author of “Imposing Standards: The North-South Dimension to Global Tax Politics.” If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR:  Africa’s Pandora Papers Revelations Are About More Than ‘Legality’ Rather Than Retaliate, Biden Should Work With France Over Its ‘Tech Tax’ The G-20 Was Made for Moments Like This Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR:    Competition With China Shouldn’t Dictate U.S. Foreign Policy China’s Economic Slowdown Is the Price of Tackling Long-Term Risk The U.S. and China Are Both Failing the Global Leadership Test The AUKUS Deal Is a Clarifying Moment for Biden’s Foreign Policy Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 Elliot Waldman to discuss the unique role that Qatar plays in the Middle East and in the broader Islamic world, as well as the complicated dynamics in the region that it must navigate as it does so. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR:  Long-Delayed Elections Will Be a Key Test for Qatar—and the Gulf   After the Qatar Boycott, Can the GCC Come Together?   As Qatar Readies for the 2022 World Cup, Migrant Workers Continue to Die   Saudi Arabia’s Economic Ambitions Could Fuel Gulf Rivalries Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 United States’ place in it. Nexon is a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. With Alexander Cooley, he is the co-author of “Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order.” If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR: The U.S. Still Makes for a Tough Competitor Against China   The U.S. and China Are Both Failing the Global Leadership Test   America’s ‘Return’ Might Not Be Enough to Revive the West The Liberal World Order Is Dying. What Comes Next? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

The government of Lithuania caused a stir this summer when it announced that it would allow Taiwan to open a de facto embassy in the capital, Vilnius, with plans to open a reciprocal Lithuanian representative office in Taipei. China responded by withdrawing its ambassador to Vilnius and demanding that Lithuania do the same. And in May, the Lithuanian parliament passed a resolution labeling China's treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang as a “genocide.” China is not the only authoritarian power that Lithuania is facing off with. Vilnius hosts the Belarusian opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who fled her home country last year after running against the dictator Alexander Lukashenko in a rigged election. This week on Trend Lines, Edward Lucas, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and a former senior editor at The Economist, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the roots of these recent moves by Lithuania, and how the country always finds itself leading the charge against powerful authoritarian states. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR: Lithuania’s Conservatives Return to Power by Ditching Austerity Are China’s Inroads Into Central and Eastern Europe a Trojan Horse? How Lithuania Is Doubling Down on NATO to Counter Russia Threat NATO Is Focusing on the Wrong Russian Threat in Eastern Europe Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

According to a report released last week, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for environmental and land rights activists around the world. The human rights organization Global Witness recorded 227 killings of such activists a tally which it said was almost certainly an undercount.  As the report makes clear, the victims were most often killed while resisting the activities of extractive industries on their land: logging, mining, the clearing of forests for agribusiness and other environmentally destructive activities that fuel the climate crisis. Of the confirmed lethal attacks, the highest number was recorded in Colombia, and nearly three-fourths of the incidents documented in the report took place in Latin America. Today on Trend Lines, Gimena Sánchez, director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about what’s driving this violence and what can be done about it. For more on the struggles of environmental and Indigenous rights activists and the challenges they face in Colombia, check out WOLA’s podcast, “With Leaders There Are Peace.” If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR: Colombia’s Shaky Peace Deal Needs Biden’s Support   Underlying Colombia’s Protests, ‘an Astonishing Level of Inequality’   ‘In Many Ways, the Conflict Never Ended.’ Ongoing Violence Threatens Colombia’s Peace   Colombia’s Duque is Presiding Over a ‘Massive Backpedaling’ on Indigenous Rights Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

According to a report released last week, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for environmental and land rights activists around the world. The human rights organization Global Witness recorded 227 killings of such activists a tally which it said was almost certainly an undercount.  As the report makes clear, the victims were most often killed while resisting the activities of extractive industries on their land: logging, mining, the clearing of forests for agribusiness and other environmentally destructive activities that fuel the climate crisis. Of the confirmed lethal attacks, the highest number was recorded in Colombia, and nearly three-fourths of the incidents documented in the report took place in Latin America. Today on Trend Lines, Gimena Sánchez, director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about what’s driving this violence and what can be done about it. For more on the struggles of environmental and Indigenous rights activists and the challenges they face in Colombia, check out WOLA’s podcast, “With Leaders There Are Peace.” If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR: Colombia’s Shaky Peace Deal Needs Biden’s Support   Underlying Colombia’s Protests, ‘an Astonishing Level of Inequality’   ‘In Many Ways, the Conflict Never Ended.’ Ongoing Violence Threatens Colombia’s Peace   Colombia’s Duque is Presiding Over a ‘Massive Backpedaling’ on Indigenous Rights Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

The history of Europe’s Age of Exploration and Empire usually follows a familiar narrative. Starting in the late 15th century, European explorers set out to find maritime trade routes to the lucrative spice and textile markets of Asia. Happening by chance upon the “New World” of the Americas, they quickly established colonies whose wealth, mainly in the form of gold and silver, combined with advances in military technology, propelled what would become known as the West to centuries of global dominance that has only begun to wane today. In this narrative, Africa and Africans are all but invisible, except as a tragic footnote when it comes to the history and legacy of slavery. WPR columnist Howard French’s fifth and latest book, “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War,” convincingly argues that almost everything about this familiar narrative is wrong. Far from being peripheral to the Age of Exploration, Africa was in fact the central focus of its early period. And far from being anecdotal to the wealth and power generated by Europe’s colonies in the Americas, Africans were the irreplaceable producers of it. This week on Trend Lines, Howard French joins WPR’s Judah Grunstein to discuss “Born in Blackness,” which will be released on Oct.12 and is already available for pre-order. Howard is a career foreign correspondent and global affairs writer. From 1990 to 2008, he reported overseas for The New York Times, serving as bureau chief for Central America and the Caribbean, West and Central Africa, Japan and the Koreas, and China. He is a member of the board of the Columbia Journalism Review and a professor at the Columbia Journalism School. His website is HowardWFrench.com, his Twitter handle is @hofrench, and his weekly WPR column appears every Wednesday. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. Relevant Articles on WPR: African Urbanization Is a Matter of Global Importance   Haiti’s Crisis Is Familiar. Its History, Less So   Africa’s ‘Big States Crisis’ Has Deep Historical Roots   Africa’s ‘Demographic Dividend’ Won’t Pay Off Without Purpose and Policy  Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

The 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly will kick off next week in New York, and over the course of the following week, the assembly will host speeches from leaders and representatives of U.N. member states. The highlight will be U.S. President Joe Biden’s first address to the U.N. since taking office in January, but as with previous years’ diplomatic confabs, there will be plenty of developments to keep an eye on. This week on Trend Lines, Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group and a former WPR columnist, joins Elliot Waldman to preview Biden’s speech, as well as other elements of the UNGA’s packed agenda. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. 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: Biden’s Honeymoon at the U.N. and the Conflict That Ended It The Four Contending Approaches to Multilateralism Under Biden An Insider’s Guide to U.N. Security Council Diplomacy in 2021 Four Ways Biden Can Reinvigorate the U.N. Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Most African countries have fared relatively well in their responses to the coronavirus pandemic, reporting rates of infection and mortality that are far below those seen across much of Europe and the Americas. Yet Africa is expected to take a huge economic hit from the pandemic and its associated containment measures, with the African Development Bank forecasting that an additional 50 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty across the continent. Vaccination drives and economic relief packages will certainly be important to contain the damage. But according to author and researcher Efosa Ojomo, emerging-market nations should be aiming to build societies that are more resilient to economic shocks like the pandemic.  This week on Trend Lines, Ojomo joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss how the concept of “market-creating innovations” can foster broad-based solutions to poverty and other social problems in the wake of the pandemic. Ojomo is the head of the Global Prosperity research group at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and a co-author of “The Prosperity Paradox: How innovation can lift nations out of poverty.” Relevant Articles on WPR: Africa Is a Coronavirus Success Story So Far, If Only the World Would Notice How Africa’s Surging Technology Sector Can Reach Its Full Potential Tech Giants Are Engaged in a New Scramble for Africa The Continued Relevance of Informal Finance in Development Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Relief efforts are continuing in Haiti following the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit the country on Aug. 14, causing widespread destruction in the southern peninsula, near the quake’s epicenter. The death toll has surpassed 2,200, with 344 people still missing, according to the Haitian Civil Protection Agency. More than 12,000 people have been injured and nearly 53,000 houses destroyed.  The disaster occurred during a period of deep political crisis in Haiti, which took a tragic and unexpected turn when President Jovenel Moise was assassinated on July 7. Before that, Moise had been governing mainly through executive orders due to his failure to organize legislative elections, and he had been facing widespread demands for his resignation due to rampant corruption and mismanagement of the economy under his administration. The current acting president and prime minister, Ariel Henry, had been in office for less than a month when the earthquake occurred. Given Haiti’s recent history, it is perhaps understandable that headlines about the country in recent years have focused on its cascading crises, now compounded by yet another major natural disaster. Yet too often overlooked in this coverage is the work being done by the country’s vibrant civil society, to put an end to corruption and poor governance and bring about a more just and equitable future for Haiti. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman discusses these efforts with Monique Clesca, a Haitian writer, pro-democracy advocate and former United Nations official who is part of a recently formed group called the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis.   If you would like to support earthquake recovery efforts in Haiti, please consider donating to the relief fund organized by FOKAL, a local NGO. To request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. 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:   China’s Demographic Dividend Is Tapering Off Japan Says ‘Yes’ to Foreign Workers, but ‘No’ to Immigration Africa’s ‘Demographic Dividend’ Won’t Pay Off Without Purpose and Policy Women and the Demography-Security Nexus Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

The results of China’s once-a-decade census, released in May after a one-month delay, showed that the population of mainland China grew at an average rate of 0.53 percent each year between 2010 and 2020. The official results contradicted an earlier report by the Financial Times, which indicated the census figures would actually show a population decline. What is certain, though, is that the combination of higher life expectancies and lower fertility rates poses a huge challenge for East Asia’s largest economy, and for other major economies in the region as well. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore all have population growth rates that are in negative territory or will be in the coming years. It’s an issue with global implications, given the important role that these countries play in the world economy. This week on Trend Lines, Ronald D. Lee, a demographer and economist at the University of California, Berkeley, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about how East Asia is coping with its major demographic changes. 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:   China’s Demographic Dividend Is Tapering Off Japan Says ‘Yes’ to Foreign Workers, but ‘No’ to Immigration Africa’s ‘Demographic Dividend’ Won’t Pay Off Without Purpose and Policy Women and the Demography-Security Nexus Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

2020 will forever be known as the plague year, but it was also a year of increased hunger around the world. That’s according to a multiagency United Nations report released last month, which found that the number of undernourished people in the world rose by 118 million, to a total of about 768 million—nearly one-tenth of the global population. Much of that increase was due to COVID-19, a crisis that “continues to expose weaknesses in our food systems,” the report warned. Today on Trend Lines, Julie Howard, a senior adviser to the global food security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss why and how our food systems have become so vulnerable, and what will it take to reverse the trend of increasing hunger. 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: The Geography of COVID-19 and a Vulnerable Global Food System Latin America’s ‘Double Burden’ of Malnutrition: Rising Obesity and Hunger Africa’s Crippling Drought Shows the Importance of Climate Change Adaptation Zimbabwe Was Already on the Verge of Famine. Then the Coronavirus Hit Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

In recent decades, scientists have identified dozens of new, potentially deadly pathogens that originated among other animal species but have the capacity to infect humans. SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is one such zoonotic virus, and humankind’s vulnerability to them is increasing as a result of population growth, globalization, climate change and other processes. A recently launched project called STOP Spillover aims to anticipate and address the threats posed by zoonotic pathogens. This week on Trend Lines, the director of STOP Spillover, Deborah Kochevar, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss some of the latest interventions that are being devised to prevent animal-borne illnesses from spreading among human populations. Kochevar is also dean emerita of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. She has a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Texas. 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: To Prevent Future Pandemics, Start by Protecting Nature Now More Than Ever, New Strategies Are Needed to Protect Animal Health Earth Day’s New Urgency in the Era of COVID-19 Four Lessons From a Painful Pandemic Year Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

During his campaign for the presidency last year, Joe Biden pledged to reverse what he called “the failed Trump policies” toward Cuba. But now, Biden’s White House is signaling that it is in no hurry to lift the severe sanctions and other measures imposed on Cuba by former President Donald Trump, much less return to the historic detente with Cuba that was pioneered by Biden’s old boss, former President Barack Obama.  As the Biden administration bides its time, Cuba’s aging leaders have passed the baton to a new generation. At the Communist Party’s eighth congress last month, Raul Castro stepped down as party chief, marking a transition of power to a new generation of leaders born after the 1959 revolution.  But that new generation was careful to telegraph that it does not plan to change Cuba’s political system or alter the government’s heavy-handed approach to dissent.  This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Michael Bustamante, an assistant professor of Latin American History at Florida International University, to discuss the outlook for U.S.-Cuba ties and what the Biden administration’s cautious approach might means for the island. Bustamante’s latest book, just published in March, is “Cuban Memory Wars: Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile.” 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:   A Simple Reset Won’t Make U.S.-Cuba Ties More Sustainable Cuba’s Post-Castro Leaders Must Deliver the Goods Cuba’s Economic Crisis Is Spurring Much-Needed Action on Reforms How Biden Would Change U.S. Policy in Latin America Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Over the course of his 12 uninterrupted years as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu left a profound mark on Israel’s foreign policy. Since taking the reins from him last month, his successor, Naftali Bennett, has tried to capitalize on some of Netanyahu’s accomplishments—such as the diplomatic normalization agreements with Arab states that are known as the Abraham Accords— while also charting a new course when it comes to relations with traditional partners like the United States and Jordan. This week on Trend Lines, Michael Koplow, a WPR contributor who serves as policy director at the Israel Policy Forum, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the trajectory of Israeli foreign policy in the post-Netanyahu era. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected].  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:   Will Israel’s New Coalition Be a True ‘Government of Change’? Israel Tries Its Hand at ‘Maximum Pressure’ on Iran Is the Cold Peace Between Jordan and Israel at Risk? Israel’s New Coalition Changes Nothing for Palestinians Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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, executive director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the past, present and potential future of the right to asylum, and what it might take to revive this critical component of the international legal system. If you would like to request a full transcript of the episode, please send an email to [email protected]. 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: Has the World Learned the Lessons of the 2015 Refugee Crisis? African Migration to Europe Is a Lifeline, not a Threat Biden’s Immigration Imperatives Refugees Are Being Ignored Amid the COVID-19 Crisis Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

After Colombians took to the streets on April 28 to protest a tax reform plan, President Ivan Duque quickly rescinded the unpopular proposal. But that didn’t stop the demonstrators, who continued to march in support of more fundamental economic changes to address persistent inequality and poverty, which has been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Colombian security forces responded to the unrest with a typically heavy-handed approach, and at least 60 people have died so far, many at the hands of the police. Protest leaders have paused their activities for now, but are planning more strikes and demonstrations for later in the month. Today on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman discusses the situation in Colombia with Elizabeth Dickinson, the Bogota-based senior analyst for Colombia at the International Crisis Group. For more on the protests, check out the recently released Crisis Group report, “The Pandemic Strikes: Responding to Colombia’s Mass Protests.” 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:   Protests in Colombia Could Foreshadow a Regional Wave of Unrest Colombia’s Shaky Peace Deal Needs Biden’s Support In Colombia, Police Brutality Fuels Deadly Unrest as Protesters Demand Reform Another Intelligence Scandal in Colombia Highlights the Need for Lasting Reform Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

When the late Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe was ousted in 2017, celebrations broke out across the country as people cheered the end of his 37-year grip on power. Among them was Evan Mawarire, a pastor and pro-democracy activist who has been imprisoned and tortured for demanding political reforms and an end to rampant corruption and poverty. But the hopes of Mawarire and his fellow Zimbabweans were quickly dashed, as the country’s crisis only deepened under Mugabe’s successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa. His government has brutally suppressed popular demonstrations, while subjecting dissidents and journalists to the threat of harassment, arbitrary detention and torture. The economic situation is also dire, with the World Bank recently reporting that half of Zimbabweans have fallen into extreme poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic. 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: Why China’s ‘Wolf Warriors’ Won’t Back Down   More ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy, Please   China’s Double Standard for Diplomatic Speech Online Sparks a Global Backlash Europe Is Souring on China Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Like their counterparts from around the world, Chinese diplomats tend to be well-credentialed, sophisticated, multilingual and knowledgeable about their host countries and institutions. Yet an increasing number of Chinese envoys and officials are adopting a stridently nationalistic, even belligerent tone in their official statements. Some of these “wolf warrior” diplomats, have even shown a willingness to spread conspiracy theories or use doctored images in order to score points. While this aggressive behavior often plays well back home, it tends to undermine the traditional goals of diplomacy by hardening foreign attitudes toward China. Peter Martin, a Bloomberg reporter who was previously posted in Beijing, examines this phenomenon in a new book, “China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy.” He joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to discuss the historical development of China’s diplomatic apparatus from the early days of the Communist Revolution to the present. 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: Why China’s ‘Wolf Warriors’ Won’t Back Down   More ‘Wolf Warrior’ Diplomacy, Please   China’s Double Standard for Diplomatic Speech Online Sparks a Global Backlash Europe Is Souring on China Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

“America is back at the table,” President Joe Biden said at a press conference Sunday in Cornwall following his first G-7 summit. That statement perhaps best encapsulated Biden’s message during his maiden voyage overseas. While he didn’t mention his predecessor by name, the contrast with Donald Trump couldn’t have been clearer. And it certainly came as a relief to the other G-7 leaders, as the summit was mercifully free of temper tantrums and Twitter tirades. The displays of comity and unity continued in Brussels this week, where Biden participated in a NATO summit Monday and a U.S.-EU summit Tuesday. But of course, hanging over all of these engagements were a set of thorny challenges facing the trans-Atlantic relationship: recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, responding to the rise of China and adapting to the emergence of nontraditional security threats like climate change, to name just a few. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman talks about the key takeaways from Biden’s tour of Europe with Lauren Speranza, director of trans-Atlantic defense and security at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. 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: Leave Infrastructure to China and Compete Where the West Is Stronger ‘America Is Back’ Gets a European Road Test Biden Should Think Big on the U.S.-EU Trade Agenda America’s ‘Return’ Might Not Be Enough to Revive the West Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

During his first few months in office, President Joe Biden has largely followed through on his pledges to restore a more multilateralist U.S. foreign policy, rejoining a number of key international organizations and agreements that had been abandoned by his predecessor, Donald Trump. This new approach has come as a relief to many senior officials at the United Nations, particularly Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who was nominated for a second term by the U.N. Security Council this week and is expected to cruise to reelection. This week on Trend Lines, Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group and former weekly columnist for WPR, joins Elliot Waldman to discuss expectations for Guterres’ second term and the notable aspects of Biden’s approach to the U.N. thus far. 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: Four Ways Biden Can Reinvigorate the U.N. The Four Contending Approaches to Multilateralism Under Biden How Biden Can Prove That ‘America Is Back’ at the United Nations 2021 Will Be a Make-or-Break Year for Multilateralism Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Over the past decade or so, a school of thought known as “restraint” has been steadily gaining currency in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. While the idea encompasses a wide range of views and assumptions, proponents of restraint generally argue that in the wake of the Cold War, America overcommitted to its global responsibilities and stretched itself too thin, undertaking ill-conceived and costly military adventures while underwriting the security of allies in Europe and East Asia at a time when the strategic rationale of those alliances was hard to justify. The so-called restrainers have been increasingly visible lately in media outlets and on Twitter. And in 2019, they got an institutional home in Washington, a new think tank called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, set up with funding from a diverse array of foundations and philanthropists from across the political spectrum, including both Charles Koch and George Soros. The restrainers’ most prominent talking points concern the follies of U.S. military adventurism in the Middle East and Afghanistan. But how well do their views and assumptions hold up elsewhere in the world? This week on Trend Lines, Thomas Wright joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman for a critical look at what a U.S. grand strategy of restraint would mean in practice. Wright is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, where he is also a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy. He is the author of “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” which was published in 2017. His second book, co-authored with Colin Kahl, “Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order,” will be published in August. 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: Getting to Restraint, Responsibly The Rise of Restraint Is Shaking Up Washington Engaged Restraint: A Framework for U.S. Foreign Policy After Trump What Would ‘Restraint’ Really Mean for U.S. Foreign Policy? What Would a U.S. Grand Strategy of Restraint Look Like? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

In 2015, a report from the McKinsey Global Institute found that up to $28 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 if women were allowed to achieve their full economic potential. Yet according to the World Economic Forum, there are more than 70 countries where women are not allowed to open bank accounts or obtain credit. The gender gap in financial account penetration tends to be widest in certain emerging markets, like South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Middle East. Even when financial services are available to them, women often face bias and discrimination at various stages of the lending process. But the emergence of new financial technology companies and mobile credit platforms, accessible with just a few taps on a mobile phone, could change that, offering loans even to women with little or no credit history. The nonprofit Women’s World Banking recently released a report finding that, “For women, who have historically been the victims of unconscious bias in lending decisions, algorithm-enabled credit decisions could create a level playing field.” However, tapping into that potential will require addressing the myriad forms of bias that can creep into artificial intelligence algorithms. This week on Trend Lines, Mary Ellen Iskendarian, president and CEO of Women’s World Banking, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the promise and perils of financial technology for women’s economic empowerment. 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: How to Make COVID-19 Recoveries Gender Inclusive The Importance of Gender Inclusion in COVID-19 Responses Protecting Our Mental Autonomy From New Technologies What Google’s Firing of Researcher Timnit Gebru Means for AI Ethics Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

In April 2018, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, said in an interview with The Atlantic that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “makes Hitler look good.” MBS, as the crown prince is widely known, also dismissed the possibility of any talks between the two regional rivals. Just three years later, MBS has changed his tune, saying in a recent television interview that he hopes to “build a good and positive relationship with Iran.” His remarks came amid reports that the two sides were in the early stages of negotiations to deescalate tensions, which both Riyadh and Tehran subsequently confirmed. It was the latest hopeful sign that some of the region’s most lasting and damaging conflicts like as the war in Yemen, could be brought to an end, even as intense fighting has flared up again between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants based in Gaza.   This week on Trend Lines, Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the latest developments in the Middle East.  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: Iraq Is a Good Place to Start for an Iran-Saudi Dialogue Israeli-Palestinian Clashes Resonate Across the Middle East Turkey and Egypt Take a Step Closer to Repairing Ties Robert Malley on the ‘Lack of Change Propelling Change’ in the Middle East Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Voters in Germany will go to the polls in September for elections that will be unusually consequential for the country’s foreign and defense policy. Chancellor Angela Merkel is retiring after almost 16 years in the position, and three major parties recently announced their candidates to replace her. Much attention has focused on one of the candidates in particular: Annalena Baerbock of the Green party, which is surging in popularity and is likely to enter government as part of a coalition in the fall. This could allow the Greens to exercise influence over decision-making in Berlin. What would that mean for Germany’s approach to foreign policy and defense issues in the post-Merkel era? This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman digs into this question and more with Claudia Major, head of the international security research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.   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: Germany’s Greens Are On the Rise. Can They Stay True to Their Roots? Can Armin Laschet Lead Germany’s CDU Into the Post-Merkel Era? A Generation of Germans Considers Life After Merkel How Germany Can Work With Biden to Rebuild Trans-Atlantic Ties Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

During his campaign for the presidency last year, Joe Biden pledged to reverse what he called “the failed Trump policies” toward Cuba. But now, Biden’s White House is signaling that it is in no hurry to lift the severe sanctions and other measures imposed on Cuba by former President Donald Trump, much less return to the historic detente with Cuba that was pioneered by Biden’s old boss, former President Barack Obama.  As the Biden administration bides its time, Cuba’s aging leaders have passed the baton to a new generation. At the Communist Party’s eighth congress last month, Raul Castro stepped down as party chief, marking a transition of power to a new generation of leaders born after the 1959 revolution.  But that new generation was careful to telegraph that it does not plan to change Cuba’s political system or alter the government’s heavy-handed approach to dissent.  This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Michael Bustamante, an assistant professor of Latin American History at Florida International University, to discuss the outlook for U.S.-Cuba ties and what the Biden administration’s cautious approach might means for the island. Bustamante’s latest book, just published in March, is “Cuban Memory Wars: Retrospective Politics in Revolution and Exile.” 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:   A Simple Reset Won’t Make U.S.-Cuba Ties More Sustainable Cuba’s Post-Castro Leaders Must Deliver the Goods Cuba’s Economic Crisis Is Spurring Much-Needed Action on Reforms How Biden Would Change U.S. Policy in Latin America Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Since last year, authorities in China have been conducting pilot programs for the country’s new digital currency. The project, which Beijing has been researching since 2014, is an example of what’s known as a central bank digital currency, which a number of other countries are experimenting with, but few of them are at as advanced a stage as China. A top official at China’s central bank recently expressed hope that the digital yuan would be ready for testing with foreign visitors and athletes during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Beijing’s progress on its digital currency has led some commentators to fret that it could erode the primacy of the U.S. dollar in the global financial system. Those concerns are exaggerated, says Yaya Fanusie, an adjunct senior fellow in the Energy, Economics and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. But as he and his co-author, Emily Jin, explain in a recent report, that doesn’t mean the digital yuan isn’t worth keeping an eye on for other reasons. This week on Trend Lines, Fanusie joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman for a conversation about what China’s digital currency is—and what it’s not. 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: Is Beijing About to Make an Example Out of Jack Ma? China’s Road to ‘Cyber Superpower’ Status Dollar Doomsayers Are Wrong—Again What the U.S. Can Learn From China’s Economic Recovery Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

When U.S. President Joe Biden announced his decision last week to fully withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, he justified it in part by pointing to an agreement signed by the Trump administration committing the U.S. to withdrawing by May 1. But he spent more time highlighting the disconnect between the original reasons the U.S. deployed its military to Afghanistan and the reasons now being used to justify its continued presence. “War in Afghanistan,” he said, “was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking.” And yet, as Biden acknowledged in his speech, that is just what the “Forever War” has become, with U.S. soldiers now serving in Afghanistan who had not been born at the time of the attacks of 9/11. What impact has this long and in many ways forgotten war had on the U.S. military? And what has it meant for the role of the military in American society? In today’s Trend Lines interview, Andrew Exum joins WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein to discuss those questions and more. Exum is a partner at Hakluyt & Company, a global advisory firm. From 2015 to 2017, he served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy. He began his career as an officer in the U.S. Army, leading platoons of both light infantry and Army Rangers in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2009, he returned to Afghanistan to serve as a civilian adviser. He was also a long-time WPR contributor and weekly columnist. 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: The ‘Forever War’ Is Over. Let the Reckoning Begin The U.S. Must Prepare for the Worst in Afghanistan Biden Must Make Hard Choices Quickly on Afghanistan Can the Taliban Be Part of a Lasting Peace in Afghanistan? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

One of President Joe Biden’s first actions after taking office in January was to agree with Russian President Vladimir Putin on extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Better known as New START, it is the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between Washington and Moscow, verifiably limiting each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems. The renewal of New START was widely welcomed by experts, given its important role in limiting the number of deployed nuclear weapons in the world. In a phone call this week, Biden and Putin discussed their intent to pursue further arms control talks, “building on the extension of the New START Treaty,” according to the White House’s readout. But it remains unclear how much further progress is possible, given the broader tensions in the U.S.-Russia relationship.  This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Sarah Bidgood, the director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. They discuss how the U.S. and Russia might be able to draw on the experiences of Cold War-era policymakers and negotiators to make progress on nuclear arms reduction, as well as Biden’s arms control and nonproliferation agenda 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: Can Biden Restore the Arms Control Treaties That Trump Tore Up? The New Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty Will Be an Early Trial for Biden Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine: Don’t Mess With Us—But Let’s Talk Trump’s Withdrawal From the Open Skies Treaty Is Reckless and Self-Defeating Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, a recurring theme among the Washington foreign policy establishment was how to repair the damage he was doing to America’s global standing. For many, particularly the centrist current of the Democratic party, that meant restoring the traditional approach to American foreign policy that Trump consistently undermined during his four years in office.  But some figures on the party’s more progressive left wing saw returning to the status quo ante as insufficient. People like Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ro Khanna, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, began expanding the range of policy discussions and debates, in an attempt to advance a progressive foreign policy agenda. When Joe Biden won the presidential election last November, there was some question over whether this progressive agenda would be reflected in his foreign policy appointments. For now, it seems the Biden administration has opted for a centrist establishment team. But the push for a progressive U.S. foreign policy agenda isn’t going anywhere. If anything, it’s gathering strength. This week on Trend Lines, Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, joins WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein to discuss his vision for a progressive U.S. foreign policy. 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: Biden’s ‘Foreign Policy for the Middle Class’ Takes Shape Biden Has a Long Way to Go to Restore America’s Human Rights Reputation Globalization’s Perverse Convergence Competition With China Shouldn’t Dictate U.S. Foreign Policy Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

This week on Trend Lines, Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, joins WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein to discuss the nature of the challenge China poses to the West, the implications of Xi Jinping’s rule, and the future prospects of both China’s rise and America’s global leadership role. 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: When It Comes to Soft Power, China Is Already Outpacing the U.S. Beijing Will Come to Regret the End of Hong Kong’s Autonomy As China Rises and U.S. Influence Wanes, Australia Aims for Self-Reliance China’s Coronavirus Outbreak Exposes the Limits of Xi’s Centralized Power Is China’s Repressive Turn Under Xi a Sign of Strength—or Weakness? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

“Where the state is absent or weak, non-state actors, such as religious movements and institutions, traditional ethnic polities, militant organizations, or combinations of all three, take its place, some for better, some for worse.” Those are the words of former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell, in his new book, “Nigeria and the Nation-State: Rethinking Diplomacy with the Post-Colonial World.” In it, he argues that U.S. diplomats should focus on working more with traditional, religious and local leaders—where real power often rests—and less with foreign ministries and weak heads of state. Campbell is currently Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman on Trend Lines this week to discuss the ideas he lays out in his book, and what the U.S. needs to do to implement them. Relevant Articles on WPR: The U.S. Can Still Promote Democracy in Africa Why the U.S. Needs a Different Approach in Mali Why Africa’s Future Will Determine the Rest of the World’s America’s Downsized Relationship With Africa Is About to Go Totally Adrift Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Pope Francis traveled to Iraq earlier this month, his first trip overseas since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and the first-ever papal visit to the war-torn country. Francis said he wrestled with concerns that the three-day visit could facilitate the spread of COVID-19, but ultimately deemed it a worthwhile opportunity to encourage and show solidarity with Iraq’s dwindling Christian minority. During his travels, the pontiff also highlighted a number of issues that he has devoted considerable attention to throughout his papacy, including poverty, interfaith dialogue and conflict resolution.  Joshua McElwee, the Vatican correspondent and international news editor for the National Catholic Reporter, had a front-row seat to this historic occasion as part of the press pool that traveled with Francis to Iraq. He joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to discuss the significance and symbolism of the trip.  Relevant Articles on WPR: The Pope’s Visit Exposed Iraq’s Lack of Reconstruction Under Pope Francis, Vatican Flexes Its Global Political Muscle In Northern Iraq, Ethnic Minorities Are Key to Rebuilding After ISIS Are Iraq and the U.S. Ready to Win the Peace After the Liberation of Mosul? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

On its first day in office, the Biden administration quietly placed temporary limits on counterterrorism drone strikes outside of active battlefields. According to the New York Times, which first broke the news last week, the new restrictions are intended as a stopgap while Biden’s national security team conducts a broader review of U.S. counterterrorism operations overseas—including whether to reverse policies put in place by the Trump administration that expanded the use of drone strikes. In light of the Biden administration’s more cautious stance on drone strikes and its renewed focus on multilateralism, some analysts have argued the U.S. should be part of a broader, international effort to limit the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in certain contexts. But what would such an effort look like in practice? How workable is it? And what other pressing international legal questions would need to be addressed? This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman digs into these questions with Charli Carpenter, a professor of political science and legal studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a guest researcher at the Peace Research Institute in Frankfurt. Relevant Articles on WPR: Can the Laws of War Adapt to a World of Drone Warfare? Behind the Growth Market in Counter-Drone Technology Why It’s So Hard to Defend Against Drones Are Drones the ‘Perfect Assassination Weapon,’ or an Overblown Threat? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Last month, after months of jockeying for influence, member states of the International Criminal Court held a secret ballot to determine the court’s next chief prosecutor. The winner was Karim Khan, a British lawyer with extensive experience on both the prosecutorial and defense side of international criminal cases. Khan will be only the third person to hold the job.  He will take over from the current chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, at a time when the ICC faces some difficult questions about what kind of institution it will be. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Kyle Rapp, a doctoral candidate specializing in international law at the University of Southern California, to discuss Khan’s vision for the ICC and the difficult balancing act he will be faced with in his new role.   Relevant Articles on WPR: An ICC Investigation Into War Crimes Is Key to Securing Peace in Afghanistan The International Criminal Court Is in Danger of Being Bullied Into Irrelevance The ICC Is Flawed. Is It Still Africa’s Best Hope for Justice? Can International Justice Survive in an Age of Renewed Nationalist Fervor? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Most African countries have fared relatively well in their responses to the coronavirus pandemic, reporting rates of infection and mortality that are far below those seen across much of Europe and the Americas. Yet Africa is expected to take a huge economic hit from the pandemic and its associated containment measures, with the African Development Bank forecasting that an additional 50 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty across the continent. Vaccination drives and economic relief packages will certainly be important to contain the damage. But according to author and researcher Efosa Ojomo, emerging-market nations should be aiming to build societies that are more resilient to economic shocks like the pandemic.  This week on Trend Lines, Ojomo joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss how the concept of “market-creating innovations” can foster broad-based solutions to poverty and other social problems in the wake of the pandemic. Ojomo is the head of the Global Prosperity research group at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and a co-author of “The Prosperity Paradox: How innovation can lift nations out of poverty.” Relevant Articles on WPR: Africa Is a Coronavirus Success Story So Far, If Only the World Would Notice How Africa’s Surging Technology Sector Can Reach Its Full Potential Tech Giants Are Engaged in a New Scramble for Africa The Continued Relevance of Informal Finance in Development Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Just over six months ago, Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus, was declared the winner of a presidential election. Like others before it, the outcome of the Aug. 9 vote was not in question—official results showed Lukashenko winning just over 80 percent of the ballots despite widespread reports of voter fraud and the violent suppression of opposition supporters. What happened next, though, was unprecedented. In the weeks and months after the rigged election, huge masses of people took to the streets of Minsk and other cities across Belarus to demand Lukashenko’s resignation, as well as the release of all political prisoners. The scale of the rallies has ebbed in recent months, but a core group of protesters has braved Lukashenko’s brutal security apparatus, as well as the bitter winter cold, to continue regular demonstrations.  This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Dan Peleschuk, a freelance journalist and WPR contributor based in Kyiv, Ukraine, to discuss what might be next for Belarus’ protesters. Peleschuk was imprisoned for two days while trying to cover the protests last summer in Minsk, and wrote about that experience for BuzzFeed News. Relevant Articles on WPR: How Russia’s Putin Could Respond to the Protests in Belarus ‘It’s Not Normal for Belarus.’ Lukashenko Faces Growing Pre-Election Protests Making Sense of the Arrest of Russian Mercenaries in Belarus Is Russia’s Pressure on Belarus Putting It in Play for the West? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Since he took office last month, President Joe Biden has moved quickly to overhaul Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Among other measures, the new administration has moved to rebuild the U.S. refugee resettlement program, which had been gutted under Trump; ended the “safe third country” agreements that aimed to force asylum-seekers to first register their claims in other nations before traveling to the United States; stopped construction of the wall along parts of the U.S. border with Mexico; and issued a 100-day pause on deportations, although that order has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge. Adam Isacson, a longtime WPR contributor who is currently the director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, has been tracking the detrimental impacts of Trump’s immigration policies and their ripple effects in Central America. He joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to discuss Biden’s early moves on immigration.  Relevant Articles on WPR: America Needs More Open Immigration Biden’s New Approach to Central America Is Welcome, but It Won’t Be Easy Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Crackdown Is Creating New Coronavirus Hotspots Trump’s Threats Won’t Make Mexico and Guatemala ‘Safe Third Countries’ Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 this week 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 a Women’s Uprising To Save the Economy From COVID-19, Protect Informal Workers Another Victim of COVID-19: Sustainable Development Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party has had a busy start to the year. Earlier this month, the Eighth Party Congress was held in the capital, Pyongyang: Eight days of meetings, including a 9-hour work report read out by leader Kim Jong Un himself. Just a couple days after those sessions wrapped up, Kim oversaw a celebratory military parade, the second one since October, featuring a new missile described by state media as the “world’s most powerful weapon.” New analysis of satellite imagery by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute suggests Pyongyang could be preparing for a new test of a submarine-launched missile. According to Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow with the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, these showy events, filled with pomp and fanfare, are designed to project strength at a time when North Korea’s economy is reeling from a “triple whammy” of sanctions, COVID-19 and consecutive natural disasters. She joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to break down the multilayered messaging from the recent party congress and what to expect from North Korea in the coming year. Relevant Articles on WPR: Will Biden Go Big or Go Backward on North Korea Diplomacy? At a Huge Military Parade, North Korea’s Kim Speaks Softly and Flaunts a Big Missile As North Korea’s Economy Reels, Kim Looks to Tighten Control Why North Korea Blew Up Its Détente With the South Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

The storming of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., by pro-Trump insurrectionists earlier this month was both shocking and utterly unsurprising. After all, for anyone paying attention to the rioters’ social media posts in the days and weeks leading up to the event, they made their intentions clear. A subset of the participants appeared to have technical training, and had laid meticulous plans well in advance of Jan. 6.  The attack on the Capitol, then, was a culmination—not just of the insurrectionists’ efforts to train and arm themselves for a violent revolt, but also of years of recruitment and radicalization by right-wing militias and other violent groups in the United States, all too often egged on by Donald Trump and his supporters.  But Jan. 6 was also the beginning of a dangerous new era in which attacks by violent extremists could become commonplace, says Colin Clarke, a specialist on domestic and transnational terrorism at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consultancy. This week on Trend Lines, Clarke joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the rising threat of far-right extremism in the United States, and what the future of this movement could look like after Trump leaves office. Relevant Articles on WPR: Deplatforming Pro-Trump Extremists Could Drive Them Underground Will America’s Fever Break After the Pro-Trump Siege of the Capitol? Jihadism May Be Waning, but New Forms of Violent Extremism Are Emerging How to Tackle the Urgent Threat of Transnational Right-Wing Extremism Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Flights between Saudi Arabia and Qatar are resuming this week and the land border has reopened between the two countries—signs of a thaw in relations after three and half years of acrimony. Last week, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt agreed to end a travel and trade blockade they had imposed on Qatar in 2017. Those four countries, calling themselves the “anti-terror quartet,” had accused Qatar of supporting radical Islamist groups, among other charges. The crisis had divided the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, and the United States had lobbied extensively for an end to the blockade. But according to Sanam Vakil, the deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House in London, there remains a lot of work to do for the GCC to rebuild trust and address the disputes that caused relations to break down in the first place. This week on Trend Lines, Vakil joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the lingering divisions and mistrust among Gulf countries Relevant Articles on WPR: Are Saudi Arabia and Its Gulf Neighbors Close to Ending the Qatar Boycott? What Does Disarray in the Gulf Mean for the GCC? Qatar’s Exit From OPEC Could Exacerbate a Rift Among Its Members Turkey Rolls the Dice by Supporting Qatar in Its Feud With Saudi Arabia Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

If the European Union were a country, it would have the second-largest GDP in the world, ahead of China and just behind the United States. But it has consistently struggled to leverage its economic heft into geopolitical clout, at times due to internal divisions among member states over strategic priorities, but also because of their reluctance to relinquish control over sensitive questions of foreign and defense policy to Brussels. The debate over whether the EU should embrace a global role, how it can do so and what role it should play if it does has taken on greater urgency in the context of an international landscape increasingly characterized by strategic competition, particularly between the U.S. and China, but also on Europe’s periphery—in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Northern Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.   In today’s big picture Trend Lines interview, Dr. Nathalie Tocci joins WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein to discuss Europe’s role in an increasingly multipolar world. Dr. Tocci is the director of the Rome-based Institute of International Affairs and an honorary professor at the University of Tubingen in Germany. She is special adviser to the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell. While serving in the same role under Borrell’s predecessor, Federica Mogherini, Dr. Tocci wrote the EU Global Strategy and worked on its implementation. Relevant Articles on WPR: For Macron, Being Right on European Strategic Autonomy Isn’t Enough In a Multipolar World, Will the EU Be Seated at the Table—or Served on It? Europe Wants ‘Strategic Autonomy,’ but That’s Much Easier Said Than Done From Naive to Realist? The EU’s Struggles With China Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Nigeria’s ongoing battle with the violent extremist group Boko Haram took a worrying turn last month, when more than 300 young schoolboys were abducted from their boarding school in Katsina state, in northwestern Nigeria. Thankfully, the students were freed and reunited with their families a week later. But the attack carried chilling echoes of another mass abduction from 2014, when 276 female students were kidnapped from their school in the northeastern town of Chibok. More than 100 of those girls are still missing. While Boko Haram has taken credit for last month’s raid, experts and Nigerian officials say the true culprits were local “bandits” that have formed alliances with Boko Haram, which appears to be partnering with criminal gangs to expand its reach beyond its traditional base in the country’s northeast. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman discusses the resurgence of Boko Haram with Bulama Bukarti, an analyst at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @bulamabukarti. Relevant Articles on WPR: Another Mass Abduction in Nigeria Raises Fears of a Resurgent Boko Haram ‘Year of the Debacle’: How Nigeria Lost Its Way in the War Against Boko Haram In Partnering With Nigeria’s Abusive Military, the U.S. Is Giving Boko Haram a Lifeline How Counterinsurgency Campaigns Are Fueling Human Rights Abuses in the Sahel Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 the military and the civilian leadership at the top of the chain of command. This week on Trend Lines, Risa Brooks joins WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein for a discussion on the damage Trump’s presidency has done to civil-military relations and what it will take to repair them. Dr. Brooks is the Allis Chalmers associate professor of political science at Marquette University, a nonresident senior associate in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an adjunct scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute. Relevant Articles on WPR: The Many Questions Trump’s Pardons Raise About Civil-Military Relations Could America’s Senior Military Leaders Ever Revolt Against Trump? America’s Political Turmoil Is Threatening the Norms of Civil-Military Relations Is There Trouble Brewing for Civil-Military Relations in the U.S.? U.S. Civil-Military Relations’ Neglected Component: Congress Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 advances in AI. To learn more about this topic, check out Karen’s weekly newsletter, The Algorithm, and the podcast she co-produces, In Machines We Trust. Relevant Articles on WPR:   It Will Take More Than an Antitrust Case to Fix the Problems of Big Tech The Troubling Rise of Facial Recognition Technology in Democracies Are Governments Sacrificing Privacy to Fight the Coronavirus Pandemic? Can New Norms of Behavior Extend the Rules-Based Order Into Cyberspace? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 degree from Harvard University. She worked at the World Bank and Goldman Sachs for nearly a decade, and she is the author of four New York Times bestselling books, most recently, “Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth—and How to Fix It,” published in 2018. Her upcoming book, “How Boards Work—and How They Can Work Better in a Chaotic World,” is scheduled to be published in the spring of 2021.   Relevant Articles on WPR: Governments Acted Fast to Save the Economy. Now Too Many Have Pandemic Fatigue How the Pandemic Is Accelerating a ‘Splintering of the Internet’ Zambia’s Looming Default Is Only the Start of a Global Reckoning With Debt Trump’s Trade Wars, and Now COVID-19, Are Unraveling Trade as We Know It Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 Here to Stay How Biden Should Approach U.S.-Mexico Relations Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan who’s now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. They discussed the implications of Biden’s presidency for Jordan, for the Israelis and Palestinians, and for U.S. policy toward the Middle East writ large.  Relevant Articles on WPR: Israel-Gulf Normalization Sends Palestinians Back to the Drawing Board Is Jordan on the Verge of an Economic Reckoning? ‘The Path of Negotiations Has Failed.’ Where Annexation Leaves Palestinians Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’ Will Doom Peace Between Israelis and Palestinians Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 the military and the civilian leadership at the top of the chain of command. This week on Trend Lines, Risa Brooks joins WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein for a discussion on the damage Trump’s presidency has done to civil-military relations and what it will take to repair them. Dr. Brooks is the Allis Chalmers associate professor of political science at Marquette University, a nonresident senior associate in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an adjunct scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute. Relevant Articles on WPR: The Many Questions Trump’s Pardons Raise About Civil-Military Relations Could America’s Senior Military Leaders Ever Revolt Against Trump? America’s Political Turmoil Is Threatening the Norms of Civil-Military Relations Is There Trouble Brewing for Civil-Military Relations in the U.S.? U.S. Civil-Military Relations’ Neglected Component: Congress Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 the Carnegie Moscow Center, the deal is a win for the Kremlin, which has successfully reasserted its influence in the South Caucasus, independent of Western powers. But will the peace hold? Gabuev joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to discuss the aftermath of the recent fighting and the outlook for Nagorno-Karabakh. Relevant Articles on WPR: Can Russia Steer the Endgame in Nagorno-Karabakh to Its Advantage? How Russia’s Putin Is Viewing the Crises in His Backyard Why the Long Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh Could Heat Up Again Despite High-Level Diplomacy, Old Obstacles Still Block Peace in Nagorno-Karabakh Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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. Relevant Articles on WPR: Are Governments Sacrificing Privacy to Fight the Coronavirus Pandemic? Across Central Asia, Police States Expand Under the Cover of COVID-19 Tech Giants Aren’t Doing Enough to Combat Misinformation About COVID-19 Amid China’s Coronavirus Lockdown, ‘People Don’t Believe in Government Anymore’ Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 Guggenheim fellow. Relevant Articles on WPR: Why Thailand’s Protesters Are Up in Arms Against the Monarchy Why Thailand’s Leaderless Protests May Have Already Succeeded Why the Thai King’s Power Grab Could Backfire Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 U.S. national editor for the Financial Times, and has long been a highly regarded observer of American politics, which he has been covering for FT since 2006. Relevant Articles on WPR: Trump Is a Bad Joke That America Has Played on Itself—and the World What to Keep From Trump’s Foreign Policy After He’s Gone Even If Biden Wins, America May Still Be Crippled by Trump What a Biden Win Would Mean for the Future of Multilateralism Biden’s Blind Spots on Foreign Policy Would Cripple America After Trump Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 WPR: There’s No Denying Russia’s Election Interference, Unless You’re Trump Tech Giants Aren’t Doing Enough to Combat Misinformation About COVID-19 The Sorry State of U.S. Election Security Makes Foreign Interference Inevitable Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 Protests in Belarus Making Sense of the Arrest of Russian Mercenaries in Belarus Russia Is Getting More Than It Bargained For in Libya and Syria Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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-air analyst and commentator on several radio and television outlets, including CNN and CNN en Espanol. She has been a WPR contributor since 2006, and her weekly column appears every Thursday. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter, Insight by Frida Ghitis. Relevant Articles on WPR: How Biden Would Change U.S. Policy in Latin America Latin America’s Anti-Corruption Drive Has Stalled at the Worst Possible Time The Crisis in Bolivia Roils a Rapidly Changing Latin America If Chile Can Erupt Over Inequality, Anywhere Can South America Is at a Turning Point, but the ‘Pink Tide’ Isn’t Coming Back Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Meredith Owen, interim director of policy and advocacy in the Immigration and Refugee Program at Church World Service, to discuss the Trump administration’s campaign to undermine the U.S. refugee program and what it will take to rebuild it. Relevant Articles on WPR: Trump’s Latest Immigration Restrictions Are Ill-Advised—and Un-American Has the World Learned the Lessons of the 2015 Refugee Crisis? The World Has Lost the Will to Deal With the Worst Refugee Crisis Since World War II The Failed Assumptions Behind Central America’s Refugee Crisis Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 as the obstacles to its efforts to become a more assertive actor, both in its neighborhood and beyond. Mr. Bildt is a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden. During his career as an international diplomat, he also served as the EU’s special envoy to the former Yugoslavia and high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the U.N. special envoy for the Balkans, and the co-chair of the Dayton Peace Conference. He is currently co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.   Relevant Articles on WPR: In a Multipolar World, Will the EU Be Seated at the Table—or Served on It? Europe Wants ‘Strategic Autonomy,’ but That’s Much Easier Said Than Done NATO at 70: Toward European Strategic Responsibility From Naive to Realist? The EU’s Struggles With China Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance jo urnalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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, Trying to Build Its Way to an Economic Boom, Could Be Sunk by Debt Mahathir Positions Malaysia as a Check on China’s Ambitions in Southeast Asia Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance jo urnalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 Dörrie, a freelance jo urnalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 in the Gulf Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance jo urnalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

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 and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

This week on Trend Lines, Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, joins WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein to discuss the nature of the challenge China poses to the West, the implications of Xi Jinping’s rule, and the future prospects of both China’s rise and America’s global leadership role. 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: When It Comes to Soft Power, China Is Already Outpacing the U.S. Beijing Will Come to Regret the End of Hong Kong’s Autonomy As China Rises and U.S. Influence Wanes, Australia Aims for Self-Reliance China’s Coronavirus Outbreak Exposes the Limits of Xi’s Centralized Power Is China’s Repressive Turn Under Xi a Sign of Strength—or Weakness? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Rebecca Winthrop for a conversation about the changing face of education in the era of COVID-19. She argues that now is the time to “chart a vision for how education can emerge stronger from this global crisis than ever before.” 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: Kenya’s Decision to Cancel Its School Year Will Reverberate Across Africa A New ‘Lockdown Generation’ Is Raising the Risk of Global Upheaval What the Pandemic Looks Like in the World’s ‘Ungoverned Spaces’ Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

“When life is at its worst,” journalist Dan Gardner argues, “we are at our best.” For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, Gardner joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the resilience of human societies and how our penchant for prosocial behavior will help us overcome the coronavirus pandemic. 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: Building Trust, Confidence and Collective Action in the Age of COVID-19 A Rough Guide to Getting a COVID-19 Lockdown Right Planning for the World After the Coronavirus Pandemic Will the Model of an Interconnected World Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

This week on Trend Lines, political theorist Adom Getachew joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about the history of anti-colonial nationalist movements that tried to remake the world in an egalitarian mold, eschewing old concepts of empire and subjugation—and the resonance of their vision today. 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: As BLM Goes Global, It’s Building on Centuries of Black Internationalist Struggle Legacies of Colonialism Are Holding Back Racial Justice in Britain and France How Third-Worldism Can Be Reimagined Today Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is facing the greatest challenge yet to his rule as pro-democracy demonstrations rock the country. This week on Trend Lines, Candace Rondeaux joins Elliot Waldman to discuss the competition for influence in Belarus, and what the protests mean for its future. 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: ‘It’s Not Normal for Belarus.’ Lukashenko Faces Growing Pre-Election Protests Making Sense of the Arrest of Russian Mercenaries in Belarus Is Russia’s Pressure on Belarus Putting It in Play for the West? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

The explosive growth of cities worldwide has produced economic gains, but also entails significant risks to health, as we’re seeing now with the coronavirus pandemic. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Ronak B. Patel to discuss how cities are changing in the era of COVID-19. 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: What the Pandemic Looks Like in the World’s ‘Ungoverned Spaces’ To Save the Economy From COVID-19, Protect Informal Workers Can an Open World Exist After COVID-19? A New ‘Lockdown Generation’ Is Raising the Risk of Global Upheaval Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Over the past few months, the wildly popular video-sharing app TikTok and its Chinese parent company have faced rising suspicions over their alleged ties with the Chinese Communist Party. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman discusses the debate over TikTok with Samantha Hoffman and Fergus Ryan. 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: Banning TikTok Would Let China Off the Hook on Tech Reciprocity Overshadowed by a Pandemic, the U.S.-China Tech War Is Heating Up China’s Protectionism Online Is Driving Its Own Decoupling With the U.S. Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

President Idriss Deby of Chad announced a Cabinet reshuffle earlier this month in preparation to run for president yet again in 2021. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, Michael Shurkin joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss Deby’s three-decade reign and Chad’s outsized security role in the Sahel. 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: Will Chad’s Deby Suffer the Same Fate as Bashir in Sudan? Al-Qaida and ISIS Turn On Each Other in the Sahel, With Civilians in the Crossfire How Counterinsurgency Campaigns Are Fueling Human Rights Abuses in the Sahel Deby Set to Keep Power in Chad Election, but Discontent Is Growing Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Elliot Waldman and Prachi Vidwans talk about the implications of the European Union’s new budget and coronavirus recovery fund, as well as the Trump administration’s sudden decision to shut down China’s consulate in Houston. 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: Is the EU’s COVID-19 Response Losing Central and Eastern Europe to China? The U.S. Can No Longer Ignore or Contain China. What Now? How China Is Quietly Expanding Its Economic Influence in the Gulf In Sri Lanka’s Elections, a Rajapaksa Win Would Seal Democracy’s Fate Don’t Rush to Judge the CIA’s Covert Cyber Offensive Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Judges, prosecutors, investigators and other members of Guatemala’s anti-corruption community are facing a concerning rise in verbal attacks and death threats. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, Adriana Beltran joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the backlash to Guatemala’s anti-corruption efforts. 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: Guatemala’s Assault on an Anti-Corruption Commission Evokes the Country’s Dark Past Can Guatemala’s Next President Stem the Flow of Migration Out of the Country? Taking Stock of Progress, and Setbacks, in Central America’s Fight Against Corruption El Salvador’s Attorney General Pays a Steep Price for His Anti-Corruption Fight Why Tackling Corruption Is Crucial to the Global Coronavirus Response Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

This week, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Freddy Deknatel and Prachi Vidwans talk about the mysterious series of explosions that have rattled Iran. They also discuss reports that the Trump administration granted the CIA sweeping authorization to conduct offensive cyber operations against U.S. adversaries. 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: RIP JCPOA: Why the Iran Nuclear Deal Won’t Be Revived Can New Norms of Behavior Extend the Rules-Based Order Into Cyberspace? A COVID-19 Vaccine Is Still Far Off, but Questions of Fair Distribution Can’t Wait To Save the Economy From COVID-19, Protect Informal Workers Trump Has Exposed the Hollow Vision of an Integrated North America   Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Sam Roggeveen, director of the International Security program at the Lowy Institute in Australia, for a conversation about the emerging challenges that are shaping Australia’s military and national security posture. 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: How Shared Distrust of China Is Fueling Closer India-Australia Relations Why Is China Pressing Indonesia Again Over Its Maritime Claims? Can Morrison Patch Up Australia’s Troubled Ties With China? How Australia’s Constant Leadership Churn Undermines Its Foreign Policy   Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Freddy Deknatel and Prachi Vidwans talk about the new national security law that China imposed on Hong Kong, and a new proposal for a one-state solution for Israel and Palestine based on equal citizenship rights for all. 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: Why China’s Xi Opted for the ‘Nuclear Option’ in Hong Kong ‘The Best Hope We Have.’ The Promise of Protest Movements Going Global Xi’s Boldest Critic Is the Latest Target of China’s Crackdown on Dissent ‘The Path of Negotiations Has Failed.’ Where Annexation Leaves Palestinians What Would a U.S. Response to Russian Bounties in Afghanistan Look Like? The Sharing Economy Will Survive the Pandemic. Is That a Good Thing? AMLO Promised a ‘Transformation.’ It’s Been a Disaster for Mexico’s Economy Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

The coronavirus pandemic has created a vexing challenge for democratic societies, as well as for independent election observers. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, David Carroll joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss how elections and election observers are adapting to a changed world. 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:   How to Protect Democratic Institutions During the Coronavirus Pandemic Democracy Will Survive the Coronavirus Pandemic, but Not Without a Fight Amid Repression and Scrutiny of the OAS, Bolivia Staggers Toward an Election Rerun As COVID-19 Hits Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi and the Military Seek an Electoral Edge With the U.S. Backsliding, Who Will Defend Democracy in the World? Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

President Donald Trump’s new CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media is making sweeping changes at Voice of America and other government-funded news outlets under his control. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, David Ensor joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss concerns about the politicization of VOA. 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: With the U.S. Backsliding, Who Will Defend Democracy in the World? Under Trump, the U.S. Has Become an Irresponsible Stakeholder The World Is Getting Messier. It’s Not All Trump’s Fault Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

In this week’s editors’ discussion, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Elliot Waldman and Prachi Vidwans talk about the Russian constitutional referendum that could clear the way for President Vladimir Putin to hold on to power until 2036, as well as the nature of Putin’s rule and the regime he has consolidated. 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: Why Putin’s Bid to Become President for Life Is No Sure Thing Russia Is Weathering COVID-19, No Thanks to Putin Can the Young Activists of ‘Generation Putin’ Build on a Summer of Protests? COVID-19 Threatens to Derail an Unsteady Democratic Transition in Sudan ‘The Path of Negotiations Has Failed.’ Where Annexation Leaves Palestinians America’s Overdue Reckoning With Racism Inspires Others Around the World Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

Depression, extreme stress and trauma are just a few of the secondary maladies that can flare up during a multi-dimensional crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. For today’s interview on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Susan Borja to discuss the potential mental health impacts of COVID-19. 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: The Importance of Gender Inclusion in COVID-19 Responses Learning the Value of Solidarity in Coronavirus-Stricken Spain Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Crackdown Is Creating New Coronavirus Hotspots History Foretold the Halting Global Response to COVID-19 Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].

In this week’s editors’ discussion on Trend Lines, WPR’s Judah Grunstein, Freddy Deknatel and Prachi Vidwans talk about the deadly border clash between Indian and Chinese troops in a remote Himalayan mountain pass, and the tension between competition and cooperation in relations between the two Asian giants. 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: Can India and China Stand Down After Their Worst Border Clash in 45 Years? Xi and Modi Trade Confrontation for Comity at Another Informal Summit Why Modi and Xi Made Nice at Asia’s Other Landmark Summit For the U.K. and Ireland, Brexit and COVID-19 Are a Perfect Storm How COVID-19 Could Increase the Risk of War American ‘Battlespace’: The Military’s Reckoning With Racism and Politicization Trend Lines is produced and edited by Peter Dörrie, a freelance journalist and analyst focusing on security and resource politics in Africa. You can follow him on Twitter at @peterdoerrie. To send feedback or questions, email us at [email protected].