Emmanuel Macron’s election to the French presidency provides the European Union with an opportunity to move past the internal conflicts that have hastened its disintegration. Rather than standing exclusively with the old elites or the new populists, Macron has promised to rally broad political support under the banner of European reform.
Trump — angry, unhinged, petulant, impulsive — ventures overseas tomorrow on a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Vatican, followed by meetings in Belgium and Italy (with the Group of 7). Trump reportedly is “dreading” his trip. No wonder. This is a man who retreats to one of his resorts virtually every weekend and who had to fly home for the night during the presidential campaign. He clings to the familiar, where his ego will not be bruised, where sycophants surround him and where he feels like the big man on campus.
During key events in history, maps created by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have helped US presidents and their advisors make critical decisions. These maps, usually top secret, were produced by the CIA’s own Cartography Center, which was set up in 1941 to provide maps, geographic analysis and research to support the work of the Agency, the White House, senior policy-makers and the intelligence community at large.
Relations between China and India have become strained of late. India complains China is preventing it from bringing to book Pakistan-sheltered terrorists, blocking its entry into an elite group of nuclear suppliers and pushing ahead with infrastructure projects in Pakistan that threaten its security interests.
The United Nations is at an inflection point, with a new Secretary General, growing disbelief in multilateral institutions among members of the international community, and wavering U.S. support for the organization under the new Trump administration.
Invisible foreign policy doesn’t appeal to a president who cares about showmanship and flashy successes. Although Trump’s initial storm of activity seems to have calmed in recent days, there is no evidence that he has turned to the kind of quiet, routine actions that make U.S. foreign policy run smoothly. Such efforts are not dramatic, but they are essential, and their absence could severely undermine U.S. interests.
Though relations between Russia and Pakistan remained turbulent over the years, they have been warming up over the last decade, with top political and diplomatic meetings. Moscow is reaffirming its role in its immediate domain and beyond, whereas Islamabad is seeking new avenues of opportunity, lessening its reliance on the United States in particular and the West in general.
But Iran isn’t the only reason why we might be at the beginning stages of an Arab arms race. The Saudis don’t want to be “one-upped” by the Emiratis, so they too have embarked on a very ambitious nuclear plan (especially with oil prices at around $50 a barrel), involving 16 nuclear reactors to be built by 2032.
Donald Trump is so singular a figure in background and temperament, so large a personality, and so seemingly immune to the usual pressures and incentives, that it is tempting to imagine that foreign policy under him will be simply the projection of his will. Think again.
India is poised to sell its sophisticated Akash missile defense system to Vietnam, the latest development in a broad strategic relationship that has grown rapidly in recent years and added a new twist to the spiralling power contest in the South China Sea.
