To achieve its goal of deepened integration with ASEAN, India has established and continuously emphasized opportunities for economic and security partnership. All the while, it has simultaneously appealed to socio-cultural ties. Closer integration with ASEAN, India hopes, will allow the two to jointly balance China’s growing regional influence.
North Korea recent attempts to change its image in the world should be viewed with caution, according to SAIS student Jaeeun Lee. She identifies several recent examples of North Korea’s use of the “beauty tactic.” By placing beautiful women such as Ri Sol-ju and beauty cheerleader squads at the center stage of their recent diplomatic efforts, she argues that the country is employing a diplomatic façade meant to obscure the reality of the regime.
How can China’s ideas of development assistance to Africa be regarded within the context of a wider struggle among global powers? In contrast to the dominant public understanding that Chinese aid has “no strings attached,” authors Salvador Regilme and Henrik Hartmann from the University of Leiden show that US and Chinese governments’ aid strategies champion their own geostrategic national interests in the African continent.
Despite the increasing centralization of China under Xi Jinping, SAIS student Yujin Zhang uses the example of China’s Coal-to-Gas program to show that principal-agent problems and competing interests between Beijing and local governments still negatively affect environmental policy implementation. Effective environmental policies require long-term institutional reforms, not short term campaign-style enforcement.
Early childhood education (ECE) should be an integral part of Kazakhastan’s Strategy 2050, argues SAIS student Brynn Koeppen. ECE would help prepare students for university and productive careers and allow more mothers to return to the workforce sooner, growing the economy. It would also help close the gap in opportunity between rural and urban areas of the country and contribute to a more cohesive society.
At a time when China is increasing its power on the world stage, Dr. Shahid Yusuf, the Chief Economist of The Growth Dialogue at the George Washington University School of Business in Washington DC, attempts to investigate the effects of China's Belt Initiative. In doing so, he discovered that the project will certainly increase China's influence and economic power in Central Asia but it will also place the Chinese economy under heavy strain as Chinese growth begins to slow.
In this article, Dr. Michael F. Duggan traces the roots of the present conflict on the Korean Peninsula to its origins during the Korean War. After a discussion on the causes and the course of the war, he then discusses the implications of a North Korea with nuclear weapons as well. He then discusses the reasons why North Korea would seek to develop a nuclear bomb in the first place. Dr. Duggan then closes by proposing ways that the US and China could work together to avert a potential nuclear war on the peninsula.
In this article, Mohsin Amin and Elnaz Hassanpour Adeh from Oregon State University tackle the issue of water scarcity in Afghanistan and its implications for the stability of the country. After discussing the recent myriad problems facing the water infrastructure system in Kabul, they propose several engineering and policy solutions such as the construction of the Shah-Arus Dam and the creation of the Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) that will ameliorate the situation.
In this two-part series, authors Seth Clare and Samer Mosis explore how low oil prices spurred energy reforms in Mexico and Saudi Arabia, and provided them with an incidental vaccine to the populist contagion infecting more diversified, developed economies. While such reforms will likely be painful for many in the short-term, they concede that the long-term economic growth these changes will support are well worth their costs.
In this two-part series, authors Seth Clare and Samer Mosis explore how low oil prices spurred energy reforms in Mexico and Saudi Arabia, and provided them with an incidental vaccine to the populist contagion infecting more diversified, developed economies. While such reforms will likely be painful for many in the short-term, they concede that the long-term economic growth these changes will support are well worth their costs.
Authors Simi Mehta and Mohsin Amin provide a snapshot of India’s energy demand and import scenario and discuss relevant government schemes for fuel efficiency. In addition to offering policy prescriptions, they conclude that due to geopolitical uncertainties and fuel price volatility, India urgently needs to integrate growth in the energy sector with its overall economic growth strategy, and simultaneously ensure the sustainability of the environment.
Author Mishaal Al Gergawi illustrates a broad overview of the political challenges facing the Middle East, asserting that the domestic drivers of such challenges are accentuated by sectarianism. He argues that a resolution to Saudi-Iranian geopolitical competition would greatly mitigate conflicts throughout the region, and describes the contours of a potential settlement between these powers.
