Tensions between Japan and China over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) islands are continuing, as indicated by continued obstacles to Japanese businesses in China, a drastic decline in tourism, and Chinese patrols near the islands. This is both a Sino-Japanese issue and a part of a broader confrontation between China on one side and the United […]
Despite the revulsion that Asif Zardari invokes among his detractors, even his most bitter critics are often forced to acknowledge with admiration, if also intense frustration, how Pakistan’s unlikely president has for all intents and purposes outsmarted all his opponents and ridden out all the storms to take the PPP-led coalition to almost the finish […]
The Iraq War might seem a thing of the past. But nearly ten years after combat began, the United States and its allies are using policies to address the Iranian nuclear challenge that are eerily similar to those it pursued in the run-up to Operation Enduring Freedom. Just as they did with Saddam Hussein, concerned […]
Historian Arnold Toynbee likened America to a ”large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over something.” More recent chroniclers have not been as charitable. They ascribe to the United States less innocence, and credit it with a more predatory outlook in its pursuit of global domination […]
How serious is the threat of global warming? One way to figure out is to take your cues from some leading climate scientists: They have moved on. That doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned the issue, but they are looking beyond what all agree is the most obvious solution — decreasing the amount of carbon we spew […]
JUST after the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which starts in Beijing on November 8th, a short line of dark-suited men, and perhaps one woman, will step onto a red carpet in a room in the Great Hall of the People and meet the world’s press. At their head will be Xi […]
The United States and Pakistan are by now a classic example of a dysfunctional nuclear family (with an emphasis on “nuclear”). While the two governments and their peoples become more suspicious and resentful of each other with every passing month, Washington and Islamabad are still locked in an awkward post-9/11 embrace that, at this juncture, neither can afford to […]
Since the 1950s, China has effectively used the doctrine of non-interference to guide its foreign policy agenda in the developing world. In its recent economic and diplomatic engagements in Africa, the policy has come under intense scrutiny and censure as Beijing attempts to strategically navigate the contours of resource acquisition alongside south-south solidarity with its […]
The 2012 farming season may be in its waning days, but the consequences of this year’s drought, the worst of its kind in 25 years, are yet to be known. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the drought will push retail food prices up by between 3% and 4% in 2013. That’s a higher-than-average […]
Throughout the U.S. presidential campaign, Republican and Democratic political operatives have strived to articulate major foreign-policy distinctions between President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney. Several close foreign-policy watchers, however, have struggled to identify any such differences. The final presidential debate on Oct. 22 finally cemented what has been apparent to many over the course of the campaign: […]
