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.
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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.
In today’s world, governments are more readily able to manipulate the public’s perceived reality, just as they would an audience in a play. Separating out the front- and backstage enables actors to give their audience the impression that they are meeting standards expected of them while behaving in an entirely different manner to achieve their underlying interests.
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 political leaders around the world address the COVID-19 crisis, many have seen their approval ratings increase, in some cases dramatically so. What is at the root of this shift in popular support, how long will it last, and what might it mean for the upcoming U.S. presidential election?
Over the past decade, there have been several large cyberattacks alleged to have originated with Russia that targeted the functionality of a state. Some claim that Russia is intentionally acting as a rogue state in cyberspace and that as a rogue cyber actor, Russia’s primary goal is to cause instability in the world.
Zelenskiy’s victory came as a shock to many, but was not entirely unexpected. Although Zelenskiy’s fresh face might be a balm in domestic politics, where corruption is rampant and toxic, but will it be enough to face Russia in the East?
5G technology will allow companies to “slice the network” and sort the signals bandwidth for different uses that require immediate and continuous connection. Nevertheless, 5G technology presents significant risks to cybersecurity. The plethora of suspected and confirmed cases against Chinese actors seeking the theft of trade secrets and extralegal network access has left many Western governments wary of both Huawei and of introducing 5G technology domestically.
In the United States, like much of the Western world, people are losing faith in Democracy. To many people, Democracy is as they have experienced it. What is absent from our societal conceptions of Democracy — and therefore our faith in it — is Democracy as we haven’t experienced it. Yet to the keen observer, the failures of Western democracies are not inherent to Democracy itself, but rather to our implementations of it.
No one expected Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to step down. The 78-year-old is one of the last Soviet-era political leaders who has remained in power for almost 30 years. Despite resigning from the presidency in March, he will remain the power behind the ‘throne,’ with wide-ranging consequences for the region.
On the 14th of February, two conferences took place on the Middle East. One, featuring representatives from over 60 countries, took place in Warsaw under the leadership of the United States, with generous support from Poland. The other one was a trilateral summit at Sochi, featuring the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Turkey, and organized by Russia. These two summits provide a perfect example of the two approaches that major powers currently employ towards the region, as well as the sharp contrasts in the leadership and effectiveness of Russia and America in the region.
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.
The United States has officially announced that it is withdrawing from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Force Treaty in response to what it deems a “material breach” of the Treaty by the Russian Federation. Although the announcement marks the official loss of the Treaty, the unraveling of the INF has been years in the making. Although neither the United States nor Russia are yet able to agree upon who is to blame for the demise of the INF Treaty, there is no doubt that the next move is Moscow’s to make.
In the last decade, we witnessed many stable Western democracies degenerate into populist rancor and anti-establishment upheaval. Yet, it is the capacity of the people to learn and adapt that has always proven Democracy’s ace. Perhaps now more than ever, Democracy needs a course-correct.
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.
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 left Spain scrambling to reassemble a broken economy and combat soaring unemployment. European austerity measures and Catalonian dreams of independence have since occupied all of Madrid’s bandwidth and effectively back-seated Spanish foreign policy for over a decade. With the rise of Pedro Sánchez and the wounds of the financial crisis healing, Madrid has turned its attention back to Brussels, and is ready to assume the role of a leading power in Europe.