Contemporary understanding of middle-power diplomacy is tied to a bygone era. Behavioural characteristics like activist diplomacy, coalition building, niche diplomacy and good international citizenship, which underpin norm entrepreneurship, always ultimately relied upon the support of the dominant power. That era may be over, and hopes of a revival rest on the illusion of a middle-power moment. […]
Controlling advanced chip manufacturing in the 21st century may well prove to be like controlling the oil supply in the 20th. The country that controls this manufacturing can throttle the military and economic power of others. The United States recently did this to China by limiting Huawei’s ability to outsource its in-house chip designs for manufacture by […]
You can hate Henry Kissinger and think him evil. What you can’t do is ignore him—especially now.,, Indeed, not only can we not ignore the old statesman, who turned 97 in May, but we need him more than ever. To be precise, we desperately need Kissinger’s ideas and instincts about how to muddle our way […]
While Beijing exhibited some troubling behaviour in the 1990s, it was Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessor, who presided over changes the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) internal system and foreign policy the following decade. Understanding changes in China’s grand strategy requires a close examination of China’s internal politics, now and in the future. Read Here – Foreign […]
China has always said it is not seeking to overthrow the global order. We should listen. Why would China go to the trouble of capsizing the global order when it can simply take it over, whole and intact? … Far from opening up a new battleground, China’s plan is to fight on familiar territory. Its […]
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to go it alone in responding to the coronavirus pandemic is but the latest manifestation of the United States’ waning global leadership. Even before the virus struck, there was broad bipartisan agreement that Washington should reduce its commitments abroad and focus on problems at home. The economic and social toll […]
Kissinger, now approaching his ninety-seventh birthday, no longer inspires such widespread loathing. As former critics crept toward the political center and rose to power themselves, passions cooled. Hillary Clinton, who, as a law student at Yale, vocally opposed Kissinger’s bombing of Cambodia, has described the “astute observations” he shared with her when she was Secretary […]
The United States once built an international order that all but assured its own primacy. Yet of late, it has changed jobs from that of chief architect and builder to chief arsonist. The new U.S. narrative is one of victimisation—at the hands of everybody, but especially the Chinese—and Washington seems to want to burn the […]
The new threat to America’s security is not just from transnational forces like COVID-19 and climate change, but from Americans’ domestic failure to adjust their own attitudes to this new world. That is the painful lesson that COVID-19 is teaching us. Read Here – WarOnTheRocks
The coronavirus has all but halted the world of international diplomacy, derailing major summits and leaving diplomats stranded as governments temporarily ban international travel. The World Trade Organization joined a raft of United Nations agencies, financial institutions, and international organizations that have been forced by the virus’s spread to cancel, suspend, or postpone conferences on […]
looking beyond borders 