Reliance on soft power requires measured patience. Nations want their own way, and the world has seen a marked resurgence in use of hard power. The United States intervenes in Iraq and Syria; Russia has annexed Crimea and encourages rebels in eastern Ukraine, while China asserts broad territorial claims in the East and South China […]
Nine months before the September 11 attacks—and just days after the Supreme Court halted the Florida recount, handing the presidency to George W. Bush—U.S. intelligence officials published an 85-page prediction for what the world would look like in 2015. It’s a world that seems familiar in some ways, and utterly foreign in others. And it’s […]
China’s economy grew at its slowest pace in 24 years in 2014 as a cooling property market weighed on demand and is expected to lose more momentum this year, keeping pressure on policymakers to head off a sharper downturn. Read Here – Reuters
Tripling mobile Internet access over the next 15 years could make the developing world $22 trillion richer. Such improvement in the lives and earning potential of poor people could indirectly help with the other challenges; after all, more prosperous people tend to be healthier, better fed, and more highly educated. Read Here – Project Syndicate
In history, a hegemon is largely associated with the presence of international economic infrastructure. In the 19th century, the British hegemon underwrote the liberal international order in the form of free trade and gold standard. The liberal order was later re-established by the American hegemon, which has overseen the Bretton Woods system from 1945. By […]
The war in Afghanistan – for America, the longest war in its history – has ended. What now? Read Here – The Diplomat
Governments typically make big bets either when they are overly confident or increasingly worried. Saudi Arabia’s oil strategy doesn’t reflect confidence. With the frail health of King Abdullah, possible succession rivalries, domestic pressures for change, conflict in neighboring Yemen, and the many challenges posed by ISIS, Riyadh may be in for more than it bargained for. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
See the Top 10 Chinese weapons in the year that just went past.. Read Here – People’s Daily
Hopes that China’s reemergence as an energetic great power would be paralleled by a partly natural, partly orchestrated gravitation toward a new and resilient geopolitical order have faded in favor of a search for new and stronger alignments as states seek to insulate themselves from intensifying geopolitical turbulence. Read Here – The National Interest
looking beyond borders 