Foreign Affairs

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del periódico incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de noviembre de 2006.

Nota informativa: Foreign Affairs es una publicación del Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) fundada en 1922. En la actualidad es una organización mediática multiplataforma centrada en la política exterior estadounidense y los asuntos mundiales. Tiene implementado un «muro de pago» por lo que es necesario suscribirse para tener acceso a todos sus contenidos. Más información en su página de suscripción.

Iranians protesting Israel in Tehran, October 2024 . Majid Asgaripour / West Asia News Agency / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo,

Over four decades, in an effort to preserve itself, project regional influence, and deter adversaries, the Islamic Republic of Iran has invested in three projects: funding and arming a network of nonstate allies; developing ballistic missiles that can reach its rivals; and launching a nuclear program that can be either dialed down to deliver economic benefits or dialed up to deliver a nuclear weapon. Setbacks to the first, mixed results from the second, and uncertainty over the third have increasingly called this strategy into question.

After Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, groups in the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” quickly mobilized on multiple fronts.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iranians celebrating an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attack on Israel, Tehran, October 2024 Majid Asgaripour / West Asia News Agency / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo,

As Iran and Israel inch ever closer to a full-scale war, the Islamic Republic’s huge ballistic missile attack on Tel Aviv on October 1 may come to be seen as a decisive turning point. After successive setbacks for Tehran, including Israel’s assassination of the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was left with little choice but to respond. Now, the region is staring down an even bigger conflict.

Although some kind of Iranian attack was inevitable, given how closely allied Hezbollah is to the Islamic Republic, Khamenei surprised many observers by taking one of the most extreme options.…  Seguir leyendo »

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro speaking at a rally following his disputed reelection, Caracas, August 2024 Reuters / Fausto Torrealba

MundoAmérica

A little more than two months after Venezuela’s presidential election, the regime of Nicolás Maduro has yet to release any evidence to support its claim to victory. Instead, Caracas has brutally repressed its political opponents and civil society. None of this comes as a surprise. What is surprising is the utter failure of international diplomacy to compel Maduro to negotiate with the opposition, despite credible evidence that he lost by a landslide.

Nine Latin American countries, Canada, the European Union, and the United States have denounced the regime’s electoral fraud and subsequent crackdown, but they have been powerless to compel Maduro to enter talks with the opposition, let alone to accept a peaceful transfer of power.…  Seguir leyendo »

An Israeli armored vehicle in the Gaza Strip, September 2024. Amir Cohen / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo,

The massacre of October 7, 2023, was one of the most horrific atrocities perpetrated since World War II. On that day, Hamas-led militants kidnapped Israeli children, raped Israeli women, beheaded Israeli men, and burned alive entire Israeli families in their homes. But beyond this human and moral calamity, the catastrophe that befell Israel on a bleak Sabbath morning reverberates with historic significance. Because it took place in the immediate vicinity of Gaza—the one place in which Israel had dismantled settlements and withdrawn to the 1967 border—this massacre was an attack on the idea of a Jewish state in any part of the land of Israel.…  Seguir leyendo »

A tribute to Israelis killed and taken captive at a music festival on October 7, 2023, Reim, Israel, August 2024. Florion Goga / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo,

Last October 7, Hamas surprised Israel’s famed military and intelligence agencies. Both had known, for years, about the Palestinian armed group’s preparations to invade Israel and kill and kidnap its soldiers and citizens. But they failed to believe that it would dare or succeed to execute such an unprecedented operation. The Israeli military and intelligence services; Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; and the wider Israeli public all believed that their country’s fortified southern border was so impenetrable, and the balance of power so favorable to Israel, that Hamas would never challenge the status quo.

But Hamas did challenge it. In the days and weeks after it launched its devastating attack, a common refrain among Israelis was that “everything has changed”.…  Seguir leyendo »

Smoke near the Lebanese border with Israel, September 2024. Karamallah Daher / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo

Iran’s ballistic missile strikes on Israel on October 1 have raised fears of an all-out war in the Middle East. The deepening spiral of bloodshed began on September 17 and 18 with the detonation across Lebanon of thousands of pagers and two-way radios used by Hezbollah operatives—one analyst deemed the unprecedented Israeli operation “the most extensive physical supply chain attack in history”. Ongoing airstrikes in Beirut and southern Lebanon have marked the most significant Israeli barrage in 11 months of tit-for-tat escalation. On September 27, Israel dealt Hezbollah a devastating blow by killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on a Beirut suburb.…  Seguir leyendo »

Standing guard on a Chinese destroyer in Qingdao, China, April 2024. Florence Lo / Reuters

MundoAsia

Amid a growing bipartisan consensus that the United States needs to do more to contain China, much of the policy debate in Washington has focused on China’s economic and technological clout. Now, given China’s economic problems—high youth unemployment, a troubled real estate market, increased government debt, an aging society, and lower-than-expected growth—some scholars and policymakers hope that Beijing will be forced to constrain its defense spending. Others go so far as to say the Chinese military is overrated, contending that it will not challenge U.S. dominance anytime soon.

But these assessments fail to recognize how much China’s defense industrial base is growing.…  Seguir leyendo »

Dissidents of the FARC, a demobilized leftist guerrilla group, at a base camp in the Pacific jungle, Colombia July 2024. Daniel Becerril / Reuters

MundoAmérica,

On the morning of September 17, soldiers in a remote base in Puerto Jordán, Arauca, along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, were moving through a quiet Thursday routine when a large truck passed by on the highway. Militants from the 6,000-strong leftist guerrilla movement National Liberation Army (ELN) riding inside hurled improvised explosives into the base. Loud explosions collapsed the roof of a building, sending glass shattering and leaving the floor splattered with blood. Seven soldiers were badly wounded, two of whom died.

The attack was the latest in a series of recent ELN assaults on troops, pipelines, and infrastructure—and the last straw that finally broke the ongoing peace talks the group had been conducting with the Colombian government.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Fight for a New Israel

MundoOriente Próximo,

In late July 2024, Israel experienced one of the biggest shocks to law and order in its history. For several hours, dozens of Israeli protesters were able to infiltrate two military compounds largely unimpeded, starting with Sde Teiman, a recently established base in the Negev desert where thousands of Palestinian detainees have been held since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack. For months, journalists and nongovernmental organizations had reported systematic abuses at the base, and on July 29, Israel’s military police detained ten Israeli reservists on suspicion of raping one of the prisoners. But the protesters, among them several far-right elected officials who are members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, were not decrying the mistreatment of Palestinians.…  Seguir leyendo »

Smoke billowing over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, Tyre, Lebanon, September 2024. Aziz Taher / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo, ,

Within 24 hours of Hamas’s October 7 terror attack, Hezbollah followed with an attack of its own, launching projectiles from Lebanon into northern Israel. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, explained that the campaign was intended to strain Israel’s resources and force the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), then preparing its response to Hamas in Gaza, to fight on two fronts. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar hoped that Hezbollah, along with other Iranian-backed groups across the Middle East, would encircle Israel in a “ring of fire”, overwhelm its defenses, and threaten its existence.

Yet Nasrallah instead chose a middle-ground approach of incremental escalation—a pragmatic effort to signal solidarity with Hamas without risking Hezbollah’s survival as the most sophisticated and lethal arm of Iran’s proxy network.…  Seguir leyendo »

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking at a BRICS forum in Saint Petersburg, July 2024. Valeriy Sharifulin / Reuters

InternacionalOrden Mundial

In late October, the group of countries known as the BRICS will convene in the Russian city of Kazan for its annual summit. The meeting is set to be a moment of triumph for its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will preside over this gathering of an increasingly hefty bloc even as he prosecutes his brutal war in Ukraine. The group’s acronym comes from its first five members—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—but it has now grown to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia also participates in the group’s activities, but it has not formally joined.…  Seguir leyendo »

Argentine President Javier Milei at the National Congress in Buenos Aires, September 2024. Agustin Marcarian / Reuters

MundoAmérica

In October 2023, Javier Milei won Argentina’s presidential election. It was a win that signaled the country’s widespread disappointment with its political system and the two coalitions that have previously alternated in power. Milei, an anarcho-liberal economist with little government experience, spent his campaign promising radical solutions to the problems Argentina’s traditional parties had failed to solve for decades before him: inflation and growth. According to the World Bank, GDP per capita in 2023 was 11 percent lower than in 2011. Official statistics show that the country’s annual inflation rate grew from single digits in 2004 to over 200 percent in 2023.…  Seguir leyendo »

Palestinians riding a vehicle in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, September 2024. Mohammed Salem / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo

In July, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the war in Gaza and the future of the Middle East. Afterward, Harris stressed her commitment to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians—in her words, “the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure Jewish and democratic state, and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realize the freedom, security, and prosperity that they rightly deserve”. She is hardly alone in this sentiment. Across the world, leaders continue to pledge support for a two-state solution, arguing that it provides direction and momentum to efforts to end the war and eventually rebuild Gaza.…  Seguir leyendo »

A night market in Taipei, Taiwan, May 2024. Ann Wang

InternacionalEconomía

Widespread disaffection with the current capitalist systems has led many countries, rich and poor, to look for new economic models. Defenders of the status quo continue to hold up the United States as a shining star, its economy outpacing Europe and Japan, its financial markets as dominant as ever. Yet its citizens are as pessimistic as any in the West. Barely more than a third of Americans believe that they will ever be richer than their parents. The share that trusts the government keeps trending downward, even as the state builds an ever more generous safety net. Seventy percent of Americans now say that the system “needs major changes or to be torn down entirely”, and the younger generations are the most frustrated.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hezbollah members at the funeral of a Hezbollah fighter killed in an Israeli strike, in southern Beirut, August 2024. Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

MundoOriente Próximo

In the weeks since late July, when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran and Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr was killed in Beirut, there has been much speculation about the eruption of a wider conflict in the Middle East. According to this view, if Iran and Hezbollah choose to retaliate through major direct attacks on Israel, they could transform Israel’s current campaign in Gaza into a regional war. In this scenario, Israeli forces would then be engaged in high-intensity fighting on multiple fronts against multiple armed groups, terrorist militias, and a nuclear-threshold state's military equipped with a huge arsenal of long-range missiles and drones.…  Seguir leyendo »

An electronic board showing stock indexes in Shanghai, China, March 2023. Aly Song / Reuters

MundoAsia, ,

After Chinese President Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012, his government launched a sweeping anticorruption campaign that attracted worldwide attention for its scope and determination. Powerful figures, long considered untouchable, were found guilty of bribery or of misusing funds and jailed. These punishments initially encouraged the impression among some commentators that Xi might be using the initiative to sideline or persecute his political opponents. But the effort to root out corruption has gone well beyond personal power politics. Conducted by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, an organ of the Chinese Communist Party, it has been the largest anticorruption campaign in history anywhere in the world.…  Seguir leyendo »

A government soldier in Duran, Ecuador, July 2024. Santiago Arcos / Reuters

MundoAmérica

Now more than ever, Latin America needs help with its security. In 2023, more than 40 of the world’s 50 most murderous cities were in Latin America and the Caribbean. A lethal mix of readily available firearms; illicit commodities such as drugs, weapons, and illegally mined precious metals; and growing government corruption has dramatically strengthened the region’s transnational gangs, cartels, and Mafias. In Ecuador, drug gangs are using extortion and wanton violence to make the country one of the world’s most violent, contributing to an unprecedented exodus of ordinary citizens.

From the beginning, the Biden administration has elevated the importance of the Western Hemisphere, not least in its 2022 National Security Strategy, which asserts that the region’s pressing problems of democratic erosion, mass migration, environmental degradation, and transnational crime are now matters of U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

French far-right leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella in Paris, July 2024. Yara Nardi / Reuters

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate,

In the European parliamentary elections in June, far-right political parties did better than ever before. Two far-right alliances are now the third- and fourth-largest groupings in the parliament, ahead of the centrist Renew Europe group. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally emerged as the largest party by far in the European polls, which prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve his country’s National Assembly and call snap elections. The RN did not win an absolute majority in those votes, but it became the biggest single party in the domestic legislative body for the first time.

These recent electoral gains of the far right in France—as well as successes in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe—have caused no small amount of consternation.…  Seguir leyendo »

To Lam, the new general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, in Hanoi, June 2024. Minh Hoang / Reuters

MundoAsia

Last month, To Lam, who has served as president of Vietnam since May, became the general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party after the death of his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong. Lam’s ascent marks a potential watershed in the country’s governance. The Southeast Asian state is one of a handful of countries overseen by an autocracy dominated by a communist party. But unlike China, the region’s most powerful country, Vietnam is not run by a single leader. Instead, its so-called Four Pillars—the general secretary, the president, the prime minister and the chair of the National Assembly—make up its leadership. Lam, the former head of public security, is believed to still informally control the police and intelligence force despite officially relinquishing that authority earlier this year.…  Seguir leyendo »

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. President Donald Trump in Watford, United Kingdom, December 2019. Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

MundoAméricaInternacionalOTAN,

Europe may soon find itself in a tight spot. By the end of January 2025, the continent’s most important partner, the United States, could be led by former President Donald Trump, who has said that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell it wanted” to European countries that did not do what he wanted: spend more on defense. The previous Trump administration strained the transatlantic relationship, and the next iteration would almost certainly be worse. Freed from the influence of the traditional Atlanticist Republicans who staffed his cabinet in his first term, a second-term Trump would face fewer obstacles to making good on his threats.…  Seguir leyendo »