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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The late John McCain famously called Russia a “gas station masquerading as a country.” In her recently published book, Kathryn Stoner challenges such dismissive takes, arguing that assessing Russian capabilities requires looking beyond traditional metrics of power. She joins Elliot Waldman on Trend Lines this week.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne is wrapping up a four-nation tour of Southeast Asia this week, which is partly aimed at allaying some ASEAN states’ concerns about the AUKUS security partnership. On Trend Lines, Susannah Patton joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to discuss the defense pact’s mixed reception in the region.

The annual U.N. Climate Change Conference, known this year as COP26, is underway in Glasgow, Scotland. This week on Trend Lines, WPR columnist Stewart Patrick joins Elliot Waldman to discuss the latest developments from Glasgow and the sticking points that are preventing more ambitious global action to curb emissions.

Economists and commentators are extolling the recently announced deal on a global corporate minimum tax, but as with many things tax-related, the devil may be in the details. This week on Trend Lines, WPR’s Elliot Waldman digs into the substance of the agreement with taxation and development expert Martin Hearson.

The tense dynamic around the recent round of trade talks between U.S. and Chinese negotiators says a lot about the current state of the overall relationship between Washington and Beijing. WPR’s Elliot Waldman digs into these issues on the Trend Lines podcast this week with the Eurasia Group’s Ali Wyne.

Qatar has long been an important go-between in regional and global diplomacy, including in the talks that led to the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement in February 2020. Today on Trend Lines, Annelle Sheline joins Elliot Waldman to discuss the unique role Qatar plays in the Middle East and in the broader Islamic world.

The rise of China and resurgence of Russia, combined with other trends, have significantly weakened U.S. hegemony in a rapidly transforming international landscape. This week on Trend Lines, Daniel Nexon joins WPR weekly columnist Howard French to discuss the changing global order and the United States’ place in it.

When Lithuania announced this summer that it would allow Taiwan to open a de facto embassy in the capital, Vilnius, it provoked a fierce rebuke from China. This week on Trend Lines, Edward Lucas joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about why Lithuania isn’t backing down against China and other authoritarian powers.

According to a new report from the human rights group Global Witness, 227 environmental activists were killed worldwide in 2020, nearly three-fourths of them in Latin America. This week on Trend Lines, Gimena Sánchez joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to talk about what’s driving this violence and what can be done about it.

This week on Trend Lines, Howard French joins WPR’s Judah Grunstein to discuss his fifth and latest book, “Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War,” which argues that almost everything about the familiar narrative of Europe’s Age of Exploration and Empire is wrong.

The highlight of the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly that kicks off next week will be President Joe Biden’s first address to the U.N. since taking office. This week on Trend Lines, Richard Gowan joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman to preview Biden’s speech, as well as other elements of the UNGA’s packed agenda.