Foregin Policy Digest: War and Peace

Interview with Stefan Aust: Author of Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F.

The Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Mainhof Gang, was postwar Germany’s most violent left-wing terrorist group. Most active in the 1970s, the group has been held responsible for 34 deaths over its nearly 30 years of activity (ca. 1968-1998). German journalist Stefan Aust is author of “Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F.,” an authoritative book on the subject. The film “The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Germany, 2008), based on his book, opens in US theaters August 21. Foreign Policy Digest sat down with journalist Stefan Aust to discuss the film, its complex subject matter, and the political landscape of Germany today.

August 18, 2009

Annie Verderosa

War and Peace - August 2009

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War Within Families: How Child Custody Battles Impact Foreign Affairs

Cases of international parental child abduction have recently garnered significant media and Congressional attention. A particular case with Brazil has received wide press coverage, from CNN to Oprah, detailing the long, painful journey for the young boy’s father and his supporters. Secretary Clinton raised the case with the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the matter has been the subject of numerous high-level meetings between U.S. officials and the Brazilian government. Sadly, this incident is not alone. In a recent joint press conference involving Secretary Clinton and Egypt's foreign minister, a reporter asked about a longstanding parental abduction of an American girl to Egypt. Cases with Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico, and with South Korea have also drawn international attention lately. In fact, records kept by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues show more than 1,600 children wrongfully taken or kept abroad by a parent during 2008 – a sharp increase from previous years. Additionally, records indicate nearly 500 children abducted to the United States from other countries during the last year.

August 18, 2009

Ryan Palsrock

War and Peace - August 2009

Western Sahara: Looking for Hope in the Desert

Western Sahara is never front-page news, but it deserves more attention. Its political status is the subject of one of Africa’s longest territorial disputes, a puzzle of realpolitik and rule of law that has lasted 34 years. Morocco contends that it should have sovereignty over Western Sahara while granting the region some measure of political and cultural autonomy. The Polisario Front, the government-in-exile of Western Saharan ethnic groups, holds that the territory’s final status should be decided in a referendum, with the option of independence. The protracted lack of a solution has fostered terrorism, and resulted in human rights abuses and lost economic opportunities.

August 18, 2009

Katherine Southwick

War and Peace - August 2009

The Price of Success: Obama’s Efforts to Reform Military Spending in the Midst of Two U.S. Wars

Speaking before a national Veterans of Foreign Wars convention Monday in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. President Barack Obama had sharp words for members of Congress. “If Congress sends me a defense bill loaded with a bunch of pork, I will veto it.” Obama’s warning comes after the House approved in late July by a vote of 400-30 a $636 billion Pentagon spending bill, as the Pentagon executes an obstacle-laden withdrawal from Iraq while shifting U.S. military might to Afghanistan.

August 18, 2009

John Lyman

War and Peace - August 2009

The Nato Effort in Afghanistan

Recent months have seen key changes in the leadership of NATO and a renewed public focus on its operation in Afghanistan. Former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen took over as secretary-general of NATO earlier this month and named Afghanistan as his number one priority, noting his commitment to preventing Afghanistan “from becoming again the Grand Central Station of international terrorism.” At the military level, U.S. General Stanley A. McChrystal assumed command of both the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and of U.S. Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A) in June 2009 and has shifted the emphasis of the mission towards protecting the Afghan civilian population.

August 18, 2009

Jesse Daniels

War and Peace - August 2009

Fool Me Once: Making Sense of North Korea’s Mixed Signals

On March 17, 2009, Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, accompanied by another Current TV employee and an unnamed local guide, allegedly traversed the frozen Tumen River from the Chinese side and crossed into North Korean territory. Border guards snatched Ling and Lee, but the cameraman and guide managed to escape. After a 3-day trial in the highest North Korean court, the women were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in a work camp for “illegal entry” and “hostility to the North Korean nation.”

August 18, 2009

Jung Hwa Song

War and Peace - August 2009