American defense planners therefore need to accept the obvious: budget cuts are here to stay. The time to plan for cutbacks and start reshaping the military was two years ago, when the writing was already on the wall. Since that never happened, the government must catch up fast. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
Due to unprecedented urbanization around the world, future population growth will be overwhelmingly concentrated in lower- and middle-income settings. And this is giving rise to sprawling cities – and slums – some of whom are emerging as geopolitical actors in their own right. Transformations in urban geography are thus precipitating changes in global governance. Read Here – OpenCanada
Since the so-called Visegrad Four—the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia—shook off the Soviet yoke and topped a decade of successful political and economic reform by rejoining the West in its most exclusive clubs, the European Union and NATO, they have begun to pursue their own objectives, and they have distinguished themselves as actors on […]
India’s prosperous future has hardly ever seemed farther away than it does today. The country’s ongoing economic crisis has darkened the atmosphere — and done so in a way tragically familiar to most Indians. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
Singapore is at a turning point, and the major policy shifts in housing, healthcare and education all aim to facilitate the country’s entry into a new phase of development and nation-building.
On both sides of the border between Sudan and South Sudan, rebels and minority groups insist that the demarcation is in the wrong place. Mediators have insisted that the new line become a soft border, one that gives freedom of movement, trade, residence, farming, and grazing to all. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
Nepal‘s only billionaire made his name selling instant noodles. Now he’s got an eye on running the young Himalayan republic. Read Here – Reuters
The day Asian leaders have long dreaded is here: The era of rapid growth is over. It has taken five years, but the fallout from what Asians call the “Lehman shock” is finally hitting gross domestic product and living standards, writes William Pesak Read Here – Bloomberg
Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever […]
Italy is in the middle of another existential political crisis — and somehow, against all expectations, Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, is at the center of it yet again. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
looking beyond borders 