President Obama has been called the “first social-media president.” It’s both a true and a misleading characterisation. On the one hand, the Obama White House was indeed the first presidency to make use of services like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. But on the other hand, these services either didn’t exist or weren’t used by […]
The Chinese geopolitical reality is that it is an isolated country that is also deeply divided internally. Its strategic priority, therefore, is internal stability. Isolation amidst internal disorder has been China’s worst case scenario. The government of President Jinping Xi is working aggressively to avert this instability, and this issue defines everything else China does. […]
This year marks the most volatile political risk environment in the postwar period, at least as important to global markets as the economic recession of 2008. It needn’t develop into a geopolitical depression that triggers major interstate military conflict and/or the breakdown of major central government institutions. But such an outcome is now thinkable, a tail […]
His command of the issues was solid, his delivery even better. His body language signaled confidence, even though he was the youngest and least experienced person in the room. He had charisma. But most important of all, he made a more powerful case for his country than any Saudi official had done before. Read Here […]
Today’s professional economists, by contrast, have studied almost nothing but economics. They don’t even read the classics of their own discipline. Economic history comes, if at all, from data sets. Philosophy, which could teach them about the limits of the economic method, is a closed book. Mathematics, demanding and seductive, has monopolized their mental horizons. […]
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Macedonian teens looking to get paid for ad-clicks, Russian cyber sophisticates apparently looking to tilt the outcome, and some homegrown mood manipulators broadcast outrageous and false stories packaged to look like real news. Their counterfeit posts were nearly indistinguishable from authentic coin and remain so, even in the face […]
Between the social, political, and economic upheavals affecting our lives, and the violence and forced displacement making headlines, you’d be forgiven for feeling gloomy about 2016. A look at the data reveals some of the challenges we face but also the progress we’ve made toward a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future. Here are 12 […]
Had there been no financial crisis in 2007/08 with all the consequences that came with it, the economic outcomes—and, therefore, political history—of the last eight years would have been markedly different. We can talk about globalisation and income inequality until we are blue in the face, but these issues alone don’t explain what’s happening, and […]
Although Central Asia holds many strategic advantages for India, not much has been done to take this forward. But recent developments in our neighbourhood could serve as the much-needed wake up call to New Delhi to pursue its regional policy plans. Read Here – The Wire
The rise of a more politically and militarily assertive Russia and an economically and institutionally ascendant China may be characterised as the two principal forces challenging the United States in global policymaking. Read Here – The Diplomat
