Posts By: David A. Andelman

France digs in on CAR

November 26, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Africa, Europe.

French soldiers of the BOALI operation in Central African Republic stand guard at a checkpoint near Bangui Airport on October 10, 2013. The Central African Republic has been shaken by a recent increase in clashes between ex-rebels of the Muslim Seleka coalition that led the coup and local self-defense groups formed by rural Christian residents, the religoin of around 80 percent of the population.

Ostensibly, the French are in the CAR only as a bridge-holding role until a pan-African or U.N. peacekeeping force can be assembled.

Lurching towards capitalism

November 17, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Asia-Pacific.

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China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing, November 13, 2013. (REUTERS/Jason Lee)

The U.S. now has a window of opportunity to cope with the most daunting challenge to the present order in Asia.

U.S. policy on Syria a global corrosive

October 25, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Middle East, U.S..

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US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks about the situation in Syria from the Treaty Room at the State Department in Washington, DC on August 30, 2013. Kerry declared Friday that international failure to take military action against Syria over its chemical weapons attacks would embolden Iran and Hezbollah. "This matter also goes beyond the limits of Syria's borders," he said, in a statement that left little doubt that US military action against Syria was imminent. "It's about whether Iran, which itself has been a victim of chemical weapons attacks, will now feel emboldened in the absence of action to obtain nuclear weapons. It's about Hezbollah and every other terrorist group that might contemplate the use of weapons of mass destruction."

This effect that appears to have been utterly unanticipated by the White House.

U.S. back from the dead? Not quite.

October 18, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Asia-Pacific, U.S..

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The U.S. is no longer the only game in town. Just as Washington was unable to work its will on the U.N. Security Council and bring and gather behind it a global alliance of like-minded people to topple Assad from power in Syria, so now it is no longer the only, or even the totally dominant, player on the world financial stage.

A world held hostage

October 8, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, U.S..

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A lone worker passes by the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, October 8, 2013. A few faint glimmers of hope surfaced in the U.S. fiscal standoff, both in Congress and at the White House, with President Barack Obama saying he would accept a short-term increase in the nation's borrowing authority to avoid a default.

The U.S. Is not alone in its fiscal instability. Other nations are on a cliff’s edge as they face their own fiscal crises, needing barely a nudge from a thoroughly fractured and paralyzed Washington to push them over.

Obama’s domestic woes leave hole in Asia strategy

October 6, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Asia-Pacific, U.S..

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US President Barack Obama walks along the colonnade at the White House to the Oval Office on September 10, 2024 in Washington, DC. President Obama has agreed with his French and British counterparts to probe Russia's plan to defuse the Syria chemical weapons crisis at the United Nations on Tuesday, a US official said. The discussion will test the viability of the plan with a view to enshrining commitments in a Security Council resolution, the official said. The strategy was agreed in separate phone calls between Obama and French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday, the official said.

The United States needs to show its commitment to Asia, demonstrate that the region is deeply a part of its global vision and its future, not simply tell a good story.

Whither Syria

September 15, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Middle East.

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Supporters of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad wave a Syrian flag with Assad's picture on it during a demonstration in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2024 urging US not to attack Syria.

Syria has emerged as a focus of powers far larger and more potent than its own.

Not quite the Cold War

September 5, 2024 by David A. Andelman in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East, U.S..

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Russias President Vladimir Putin (L) welcomes US President Barack Obama at the start of the G20 summit on September 5, 2024 in Saint Petersburg. Russia hosts the G20 summit hoping to push forward an agenda to stimulate growth but with world leaders distracted by divisions on the prospect of US-led military action in Syria.

The geopolitical fight over the Syria crisis is not the Cold War Redux, but that doesn’t make it less scary.

At the feet of greatness: “I have a dream” at fifty

August 28, 2024 by David A. Andelman in U.S..

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FILE- In this Aug. 28, 1963, black-and-white file photo Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addresses marchers during his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. (AP Photo/File)

Fifty years ago today, I stood at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial and at the feet of the man who many believe should be occupying the space within next to the Great Emancipator himself.