Section: Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia)
US/Russia rivalry takes the stage
Recent developments in the US Presidential race should put to rest any lingering doubt that one nation’s information warfare capabilities can fundamentally affect the politics of another. At the third US presidential debate in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton accused the Russian government of aiding her opponent, both directly and indirectly...
Don’t count on the Russians backing down this time
Happily, Russia and the US seem to have pulled back from some of the bitterness, outrage and disappointment that set the tone between them 10 days ago. But the stakes in Syria remain incredibly high. There’s a real danger that both sides, which had appeared to be on the verge of pragmatically composing their differences, could stumble into...
Weekend catch-up: Team Guterres, the Timor Sea dispute, Boris’s protest, and more
This week former Portuguese PM Antonio Guterres was appointed UN secretary-general for a five-year term starting in January. In the first of a two-part series, Sarah Frankel examined the immediate challenges facing Guterres come 2017: It’s now Guterres’ turn to tackle what many have called ‘the most impossible job in the...
Understanding Boris Johnson’s call to protest Russia
On Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made an unusual suggestion during his debut appearance at the House of Commons as a representative of the government. ‘I would certainly like to see demonstrations outside the Russian embassy’, he said, in agreement with a Labour Party MP who had raised the idea in a debate on...
Time to put the foot down on Putin
Matthew Dal Santo’s analysis of diplomatic tensions between the US and Russia over Syria makes the argument that diplomatic talks must resume, but he really hits the mark when he says that ‘a diplomatic solution was from the start a mirage at best and a trick at worst’. Russia cannot be dealt with in the same way liberal...
Syria needs the best of the West’s diplomats; not lawyers
Getting the US and Russia to work together in Syria was always going to be difficult. Now it looks as though a diplomatic solution was from the start a mirage at best and a trick at worst. Almost every day brings news of the further breakdown in US-Russia relations. As the death toll from Russian-Syrian aerial bombardment of Aleppo climbs, US...
Syria needs diplomats, not lawyers
Getting the US and Russia to work together in Syria was always going to be difficult. Now it looks as though a diplomatic solution was from the start a mirage at best and a trick at worst. Almost every day brings news of the further breakdown in US-Russia relations. As the death toll from Russian-Syrian aerial bombardment of Aleppo climbs, US...
High stakes at high-level week for UN secretary-general hopefuls
Nine candidates are still in the running for UN secretary-general (SG) as the UN general debate kicks off this week, the so-called ‘high-level week’ that may be a make or break moment for many of their candidacies. This critical lobbying opportunity comes after several twists in the race over the past couple weeks, setting the stage...
Manafort exit unlikely to end Trump’s Russian fetish
At the start of this strange US presidential election cycle only a hubristic Vladimir Putin might have expected that he and the Russian-influenced world would play such a prominent role, beyond that is the usual Reaganesque invocations of the former Soviet Union’s inherently evil nature. Yet the resignation of Donald Trump’s campaign...
UN secretary-general race: What’s really behind the straw poll results?
Leaked results from last week’s second straw poll for the UN secretary-general (SG) race show António Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister turned UN refugee chief, still in the lead. Guterres garnered an impressive 11 ‘encourage’ votes but has picked up two ‘discourage’ votes since the first poll, leaving the...
