China is leading the global transition to clean energy, but the government’s rapid advancements within the energy sector—which have been developing for the past two decades—are masking the country’s underlying global ambitions.
All tagged Foreign Policy
The United States urgently needs dispassionate, wholesale reappraisals of its foreign policy to prepare itself for the long-term in an increasingly competitive, multipolar world order.
Trump's recognition of Moroccan control over Western Sahara in exchange for Moroccan recognition of Israel was an unnecessary U.S. concession and a loss for the Sahrawi’s independence movement — but could prove an opportunity for the Biden administration.
The success of 21st-century American statecraft will be defined by its ability to meet transnational challenges with a sustainable playbook that breaches the gap between domestic governance and foreign policy.
Ali Wyne — an expert in the field of geopolitics and a rising voice in U.S. Foreign Policy circles — joined ITS’ Liam Kraft (Director, U.S. Foreign Policy Programme) to discuss U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, rising great power competition, and the U.S. debate over democratic values.
At a time when a polarized American political environment challenges U.S. capacity to construct and follow through on durable strategies for American engagement in the world, old enemies around the globe are empowered with new tools at their disposal. Authoritarian governments have found new ways to more effectively silence critics, harass opponents, control or influence the information at home, and manipulate online content to serve their own interests.
On May 3, a U.S.-led mercenary group sailed to the fishing village of Chuao in Venezuela, only to be immediately apprehended while attempting to land. Even as events were unfolding, it became apparent that the small group was plotting to capture and overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. While this spectacular fiasco might appear an anomalous deviation, it is in fact representative of past American conduct in the Western Hemisphere.
Domestic factors are substantially affecting the way the U.S. engages international affairs and will carry long term implications for the face of American power, values, alliances, and grand strategy abroad. Surveying the U.S. political landscape for ways to restore the foundations of American democracy is as important for the future of U.S. foreign policy as analyzing the global system within which the country operates.
As Asian nations in the Indo-Pacific Rim emerge as potential future powers and enjoy greater global visibility, prestige, and power, great powers in the region have found themselves pressed with the need to pursue more comprehensive foreign policies towards the region. Beijing believes that by merging foreign and economic policy to reshape global infrastructure it can re-shape global trade routes and put China at the epicenter of both Asia and the world economy, making Beijing a global Milliarium Aureum of sorts.
There is a growing tide of opinion in the U.S. that treats China’s Belt and Road Initiative as a grand strategy of epic economic and geopolitical proportions. It holds that China is “methodically assembling a network of client governments in hock to Beijing and advancing its military ambitions.” But China is not a monolith, and neither is the Belt and Road Initiative. BRI, in reality, is a brand — a grab-bag of initiatives and projects that numerous Chinese institutions independently design and advance.
Both Europe and China recognize the potential for economic growth at home and abroad by bringing the two ends of Eurasia closer together. Yet Beijing and Brussels have diverging views for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and are poised to compete for infrastructure investment. Connectivity — and the means to control it — is the new currency of geopolitics.
Terms like strategic autonomy and defense union have become commonplace in the face of wavering American commitments to NATO and the transatlantic alliance. The shift in the discussion hints at a move towards greater European collective action on the world stage. With the resurgence of China, the return of Russia, the retreat of the United States, and the rise of the rest, Europe needs to define its own grand strategy.
As ISIS crumbles in the Levant and the variety of anti-ISIS operations reach their crescendo, the Syrian civil war appears to have acquired yet an additional degree of complexity—Operation Olive Branch, a Turkish military campaign against Syrian Kurdish forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Go, called Weiqi in Mandarin, is a game played in East Asia and considered an oriental equivalent to Chess. Unlike Chess, Go does not focus on seizing parts of the board and successfully eliminating pieces in a tactical manner. Instead, the whole game is built around a strategic effort to encircle and limit the movements of an opponent. That same game was being played in a grander scheme as Donald Trump made his first trip to Asia.
On June 5th, a number of Middle Eastern countries, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, separately announced an end to diplomatic ties with Qatar. Both Qatar and the Saudi-bloc have sought to promote their narrative of the conflict to officials in Washington. While all of this might seem to simply be “politics as usual”, there are a number of reasons to be concerned about the way the Gulf rivalries are playing out in Washington.
Algeria may seem like the best candidate to lead military security efforts, but the country faces a number of daunting obstacles in its bid for supremacy. With rapidly diminishing oil and hydrocarbon resources, competition with its neighbor Morocco, and the threat of economic and political chaos on the horizon, Algeria will have to make some tough choices.
While U.S. analysts have a keen eye on activity in Ukraine and Syria, few have seriously considered the fact that Russia has slowly been expanding its presence in Latin America. Last spring a new Russian compound was erected in the jungles near Nicaragua’s capital city Managua. Nicaraguan officials claim that the compound is used to house the surveillance equipment necessary in the fight against international drug trafficking, but some U.S. analysts suspect that the Russians have ulterior motives.
Amidst an already-tangled web of governance and security problems, the 2017 merger of four terrorist groups presents an ever-growing threat to French, UN, and local forces in Mali, who have struggled since 2013 to extinguish the fire of militant insurgency in the north. Despite considerable foreign military intervention, Mali’s terrorist threat is expanding and its humanitarian crisis grows more desperate every day.
By overplaying its hand in sanctioning Qatar, Saudi Arabia is playing straight into the hands of its longtime regional enemy, Iran. Qatar has necessarily had to turn to Turkey and Iran for day-to-day goods and services it can no longer depend upon in the GCC block. Iran would rather sit back and allow Saudi Arabia to continue its self-defeating policy. The question remains; Is Saudi Arabia losing at its own game?
President Donald Trump wants a better relationship with Russia. Seven months into the Trump administration, however, U.S. - Russian relations remain just as low now as they were under Obama. While there are several points of hostility between the two powers—NATO enlargement, Syria, cyberattacks—it’s easy to forget that the illegal annexation of the relatively unknown Crimea, was the springboard for this current era of animosity.