About Keith
Keith B. Richburg is a member of the Editorial Board of The Washington Post and a Post Global Opinions columnist, where he writes primarily about foreign policy issues. From 2016 until mid-2023, he was Director of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong and a Professor of Practice, teaching courses on Covering Global Affairs, Feature Writing and on the role of the Journalist in Comics, Film, Fiction and Fact.
Latest Posts
-
Opinion – What’s the biggest threat to an authoritarian? Look around the world.
Leaders in Myanmar, Uganda and the Republic of Congo this year extended their rule through fraudulent elections, with the opposition cowed or eliminated. Kazakhstan’s dictator in March pushed through a constitutional referendum to entrench more power in the presidency, and possibly extend his rule past existing term limits. Opposition leaders remain jailed in Azerbaijan, Turkey…
-
Opinion – Don’t fall for Myanmar’s election of generals
The pattern is familiar. A military man seizes power. Opponents are jailed or forced into exile. A sham election is held, the ruler swaps his military uniform for a suit and tie, and he bestows upon himself the more legitimate-sounding title of “president.”
Recent Articles
-
Opinion – Only a certain type of leader wants his face everywhere
Early in March came the surprising news that North Korea had unveiled the first known statue of its “supreme leader,” Kim Jong Un — surprising because I had assumed North Korea would be strewn with Kim statues. Such is the veneration a dynasty demands. (Image: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, under CC…
-
Opinion – ‘People Power’ is not what ends dictatorships
Forty years ago this month, an estimated 1 million Filipinos took to the streets of Manila to topple an obdurate dictator and added a new term to the lexicon of popular protest: “People Power.” Anger had been building against President Ferdinand Marcos following a “snap” election he tried to steal.…
-
Opinion – What dictators in Africa survive on
As Uganda’s Museveni seeks a seventh term at age 81, his erratic son waits in the wings. He campaigns for president wearing a bulletproof vest and a ballistic helmet. The security forces block him from using major roads and holding rallies in some cities. Over 400 of his party members…
-
Opinion – Which country is the banana republic now?
The roster of former presidents and prime ministers imprisoned or under indictment in 2025 reads like a who’s who of some of this young century’s most powerful, prominent and even popular world leaders. And that’s even before U.S. troops seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and spirited him away to face…
-
Opinion – Why Trump’s ‘peace deals’ keep unraveling
THE WASHINGTON POST December hasn’t been kind to President Donald Trump’s global peacemaking efforts. On Dec. 4, Trump hosted the presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo at his newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, hailing the two leaders for launching “a new year of harmony…
-
Opinion – A youthquake in Africa points down a long, bloody road
They are angry about a collapse of public services. Widespread protest erupted in Morocco in September after the death of eight women during childbirth at an underfunded public hospital. Tens of thousands of demonstrators calling themselves “Gen Z 212” came out to vent their anger at the country’s spending billions…
-
Opinion – Here are the real chances of militants giving up their guns
That’s a key lesson I’ve learned from years of covering violent conflicts and their aftermaths in Asia and Africa. Those reporting experiences came back to me with the recent U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the two-year war between Israel and Hamas — and includes a provision that the Palestinian terrorist…
-
Opinion – South Africa’s ‘Iron Lady’ poses a test for identity politics
Zille has universal name recognition and credentials as a veteran anti-apartheid campaigner. For the past two decades, she has been a senior member of the Democratic Alliance, serving as the party’s national chairperson, similar to a secretary general….