Sanctions, particularly economic sanctions, have long been a tool of U.S. foreign policy, and few presidents have leaned on them as much as Barack Obama or been as successful at rallying others to do the same. To thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the U.S. has cajoled and bullied much of the world to slash imports of […]
This week, Michael Sheridan of the Sunday Times revealed that China’s Communist Party is internally circulating an anti-Western screed, “Minutes of the 2013 National Conference of Propaganda Chiefs: Briefing on the Ideological Situation at the Present Time.” Among other things, the document tells officials they must “completely understand the harm of viewpoints and theories propagated by the West.” […]
For decades, long-range forecasters have been predicting that water – and a lack of it – loomed as the biggest threat to regional security. Booming populations, food security, the occasional drought and competition among neighboring countries for dwindling resources made for a pessimistic outlook. Read Here – The Diplomat
Iran has long characterised its domestic struggle as being between the revolutionaries of 1979 and those who opposed the revolution, the “agents of the West”. But what the nation has proved time and again is that its internal struggle is now between the revolutionaries themselves. Read Here – Gulf News
A ground breaking study on economic relations between the United States and China looks at how the ties have developed in the past three decades and what the next 10 years hold for them. Read More Here
This past two weeks, North Africa has been in an uproar. In Egypt, two million citizens demand that their democratically elected government step down. In Libya, Parliament passes a law prohibiting officials who served under Qaddafi from holding senior offices. If the law passes legal challenges, it will mean that the president, prime minister, much […]
Nobody ever accused John Kerry of lacking in self-belief. Nor are they ever likely to. This week, for the fourth time since taking over from Hillary Clinton in February, Kerry arrives for talks in Israel and Palestine, where he hopes to twitch the corpse of two-state peace talks back to life. His chances are not […]
The Chinese navy’s surface forces are on the march. Destroyers, frigates, corvettes, fast-attack craft, and, most recently, the newly commissioned aircraft carrier comprise the surface fleet. Over the past two decades, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) has put to sea four Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyers procured from Russia, along with ten new classes of indigenously […]
Concomitant with its growing power, India is expanding its influence, both within the region and in global arena. While Indian diplomacy has been struggling to bridge the gap between what the country believes is its rightful place in the international community, on the one hand, and the actual status, on the other, its status and […]
Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in the U.K. and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger views of political developments in the non-West. Read […]
looking beyond borders 