The United States will not tolerate any other power establishing “exclusive hegemonic control” over Asia or the Pacific, according to renowned Asia scholar Michael Green. In a magisterial work, Green argues persuasively that this anti-hegemonic impulse has been the central driver of American grand strategy toward the Asia-Pacific for over two centuries.
A struggle between natural science and politics has characterized the history of climate diplomacy from 1991 to the present, as the physical condition of the earth’s atmosphere worsens while the international community continues to try to design policy responses. ... Progress in combating climate change needs more intense, blunt, and candid conversations on a sustained basis between atmospheric physicists and diplomatic negotiators to move forward at a time when global economic and population growth is increasing greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbating climate change.
In Pushkin’s 1822 poem, Prisoner of the Caucasus, the epilogue proclaims, “And the violent cry of war fell silent: All is subject to the Russian sword. Proud sons of the Caucasus, You have fought, you have perished terribly.”[1] The political overtones of the poem’s dénouement are jarring compared to the poem’s earlier verses on romance, natural beauty, and the heroism of the Caucasian people. But the poem’s ending reveals the complicated position of the region in Russian history and culture. The Caucasus is simultaneously a place to be controlled, otherized, and romanticized.
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.
In terms of human development potential, Morocco is a nation of immense promise, where gifted fortunes of nature such as wide-ranging organic agricultural products come together with dynamic social development frameworks. Moroccan development opportunities could launch the country into a haven for community-managed projects and change in Africa and the Near East.
For seven decades, the United States has prided itself in being a reliable and committed NATO partner, willing to protect all allies at all times. Today such assurances no longer appear rock-solid. ... In this context, one is reminded of Czech-born writer Milan Kundera’s insightful words regarding the fate of small countries: “What distinguishes the small nations from the large is not the quantitative criterion of the number of their inhabitants; it is something deeper: for them their existence is not a self-evident certainty but always a question, a wager, a risk.”
Since the pivotal event of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s execution on Christmas Day 1989, and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union, Romania has established itself as a friend to democratic values and to global security and stability. In less than 30 years, Romania has adjusted its economy to support capital markets, strengthened its institutions enough to gain membership into the European Union, and invested in its security and its internal values enough to gain membership into NATO.
At no point in modern European history have the people of Ukraine occupied as important a role in European geopolitical developments as they do today. Although not yet immediately apparent, the 2014 overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych and the political and economic transformation will have greater geopolitical consequences than European policy makers often assume. If Ukraine’s transformation fails, its example will deliver a shattering blow to those calling for increased liberalization in remaining illiberal states across Eastern Europe.
Retired Army Colonel Fitz Fitzpatrick discusses the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and Common Security and Defense Policy and the EU’s efforts to address crises in Libya, Ukraine and Syria. He argues that the EU has struggled to establish foreign and defense policies that are independent from the United States, and only an existential crisis will push the EU to fulfill its potential as an actor on the world stage.
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.
What stance should the European Union take on Catalan secession and membership for separatist regions of member states? SAIS student Emily Ashby explores the legal rationale and precedents for Catalonia’s secession under Spanish national law, European law, and international law. She argues that both the weak legal case and the political nature of the EU membership process constrain the EU’s policy options.
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.
