After the stunning collapse of the Iranian regime in 1979, country risk analysts everywhere became desirous of some method to better calculate the risk of political instability in countries across the world. For many, the holy grail became some type of quantitative index that would rank countries based on their potential for instability.
Western ideas—which many in the West believe are universal—collide with the ideals of Middle Eastern societies in ways that aren’t always obvious.
In his new biography of Henry Kissinger, the historian Niall Ferguson recalls that halfway through what became an eight-year research project, he had an epiphany. Tracing the story of how a young man from Nazi Germany became America’s greatest living statesman, he discovered not only the essence of Kissinger’s statecraft, but the missing gene in modern American diplomacy: an understanding of history.
…On the rise of China, tensions in East Asia and the United States…
From Russian “volunteers” in Syria to Chinese “islands” in the South China Sea, foreign affairs today is full of deception.
The ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine casts a long shadow over areas of shared American and Russian interest, making the Obama administration’s 2009 “reset” in relations appear a distant memory. However perceptions have shifted in the intervening six years, common concerns still exist between Washington and Moscow; chief among them: terrorism. For this reason, U.S. officials can look with (quiet) approval to Russia’s pursuit of a more robust security presence in Central Asia.
Since the onset of the current phase of globalization which more or less coincided with the end of the Cold War, democracy all over the world has registered significant progress. But this has been mainly horizontal in the sense that it has extended to more countries in different regions. In terms of quality, democracy has, in fact, suffered a distinct deterioration, including in Western countries. India is no exception to this general trend.
With the U.K. increasingly moving away from the limited colonial outlook that exemplified its view of India in earlier decades, what explains New Delhi’s indifferent response towards London’s overtures, and the U.K.’s relegation in India’s political, economic, and international calculations?
Given the present global environment, Moscow and Beijing are more likely to cooperate than to compete. The common agenda is both expanding and deepening. It includesenergy and transportation, infrastructure and banking, agriculture and water resources,space and technology, regional security and continental order. In each area, qualitative steps are being taken or envisaged, taking cooperation to a higher level.
The west has lost the power to shape the world in its own image – as recent events, from Ukraine to Iraq, make all too clear. So why does it still preach the pernicious myth that every society must evolve along western lines, asks Pankaj Mishra
