For the first time since the demise of the Qajar dynasty in the early 20th century, Iran is extending its political and military reach to what it considers its rightful sphere of influence: Mesopotamia and the areas of the eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Peninsula with sizeable Shiite communities. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
China sees an America squandering its most precious global asset — soft power. The party propagandists, so often the target of scorn on the Chinese internet, can hardly believe their good fortune. Read Here – The Wall Street Journal
We may not appreciate his front-foot statements and awful tweets, his name-calling and his orange hair or even lack of political and diplomatic etiquettes. What, however, we do need to remember is the world will have to deal with President Trump at least for the next four years. Read Here – This Day And That
There are major foreign-policy issues about which Trump has generated huge uncertainty by flatly contradicting his own policy promises. He has mused that it might be good for U.S. allies to acquire nuclear weapons, and then sworn he never said that; he has promised to ban Muslim immigrants from the U.S., and then walked it back. But that’s […]
By bringing its position on Tibet into alignment with China’s claim, India has not won Chinese gratitude; rather, it has boosted Beijing’s clout and encouraged Chinese re-engineering of transboundary river flows, on which India is critically dependent. Read Here – Nikkei Asian Review
However, perhaps the most important question to ask as Trump enters office is not what the President wants to do, but what exactly he can do. In the execution of national security and foreign policy initiatives, this question becomes particularly important. Since the end of World War II, U.S. presidents have progressively expanded the reach […]
That socioeconomic despair was profitably channeled to elect a president who—beyond his politics—represents a threat to most of the values the technocracy holds dear: transparency; multiculturalism; expertise; social progress. And, in the greatest of ironies, he used the tools and language of the technocracy to do it. Read Here – Wired
The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed. Just days before he is sworn into office, President-elect Donald J. Trump has again focused his penchant for unpredictable disruption on the rest of the world. Read Here – The New York […]
The world needs India’s sustained rise, as much as India needs the world. Our desire to change our country has an indivisible link with the external world. It is, therefore, only natural that India’s choices at home and our international priorities form part of a seamless continuum. Firmly anchored in India’s transformational goals, Modi says […]
Covert intelligence operations, propaganda, fake news stories, dirty tricks—all were used in a foreign government’s audacious attempt to influence U.S. elections. It wasn’t 2016; it was 1940, and the operations were employed not by a hostile adversary, but by America’s closest ally, the United Kingdom. Read Here – Politico
looking beyond borders 