Joshua Foust ← Writer in international affairs ← Page 3

Kazakhstan’s Gilded Cage

Apr

2013

For Foreign Policy, I asked why Kazakhstan, which is in the process of oppressing its civil society in a way it never did in the 90s, is getting such good PR. The international respectability has come, too, if a little more slowly. In 2010, Kazahkstan chairedthe Organization for Stability and Cooperation in Europe — the first post-Soviet state ...

Why Isn’t Sochi Moderating the Kremlin?

Apr

2013

With the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014 approaching, Russia is regressing on human rights. In the last two years, it has increased its rate of harassing human rights activists, declined to prosecute violence against journalists (one of whom recently died from his injuries), and instigated a massive crackdownon NGOs. In contrast, during the lead up to the 2008 ...

The ‘Jihadization’ of Syria’s Resistance

Apr

2013

On Tuesday, the Islamic State of Iraq – an al Qaeda affiliate – officiallyannounced that it had merged with Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian resistance group with several thousand fighters. The new group is called the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria(ISIGS). It is a worrying development for a number of reasons. The U.S. government has been ...

Sky News Arabia Segment on Drones in America

Apr

2013

I was on Sky News Arabia to talk about the issues of drones, privacy, and civil liberties in America. The full segment, in Arabic, is below.

Proportionality and Discrimination: How the Drone Debate Misses the Point

Apr

2013

April is, apparently, to be a month of protest against drones. The protesters, working off the assumption that drones are indiscriminate killing robots, plan to build public opposition to the aircraft through nation-wide protest events at various cities and even a few drone manufacturers. These protesters, however, will run up against two very big problems ...

Must Russia and America Share a Common Destiny?

Mar

2013

This week I attended a trilateral dialogue in Moscow about “New Euro-Atlanticism” and whether Russia can be brought into the fold as a constructive partner. I’ll have some more thoughts in my column this week for PBS, but one thing leapt out at me: the old timers have romantic notions about rapproachment with Russia, and ...

Why Russian Authorities Raided Amnesty International’s Moscow Office

Mar

2013

MOSCOW – On Monday, Russian prosecutors and tax officials demanded the Moscow offices of Amnesty International provide records for a surprise audit. It is part of a larger series of crackdowns on NGOs here that has accelerated after Vladimir Putin resumed the presidency last year. Last year, the Russian government instituted new regulations governing NGOs, with particular ...

America’s Incoherent Petro-Diplomacy

Mar

2013

Pakistan is going ahead with its natural gas pipeline to Iran, part of Islamabad’s larger project of cooperating with Tehran on energy issues. The executives in charge insist that, despite the pipeline going through restive Baluchistan, the project is nevertheless viable. The U.S. feels otherwise, and is arraying a number of hostile responses. None of ...

For PBS: The Islamabad Drone Dance

Mar

2013

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights,Ben Emmerson, conducted a three-day visit to Islamabad, Pakistan last week. Despite his stated purpose to investigate drone strikes, he did not speak with any of the agencies responsible for those strikes, or even visit any strike sites. Instead, Mr. Emmerson met with some government officials, dutifully reported what ...

I Was Horribly, Unforgivably Wrong About Iraq

Mar

2013

Today is the 10th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. And I was wrong. I didn’t do any real damage by being wrong, at least not in an obvious way. I was 21, in college, a part of that 72% of America who supported the invasion, believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass ...