The SAIS Review of International Affairs
Introduction In the weapons world––loaded with the likes of Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs), Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), and SCUDs––an emerging global weapon is Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). The current ESG target is Russia, and the payload is an economic siege designed to isolate and strangle the Russian economy. Driving that siege are global […]
Climate change will likely make it harder for people to find potable water. Over the next 50 years, some parts of the planet may become virtually uninhabitable, which could in turn cause large waves of human migration.[1] Nearly a third of the world’s population lives in water-stressed countries, indicating the risk of significant competition for […]
Introduction The European Union (EU) and the United States are usually seen as key players in democracy promotion around the world. Indeed, the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy engrains the principle of protecting and promoting democracy and human rights.[1] However, in its external relations with Latin America, the EU has long lacked a strategic […]
Kashmir and the Future of South Asia edited by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal examines the Kashmir crisis from a people-centered approach using a framework of state sovereignty and national security. The authors use the Kashmir crisis to illustrate how internal wars of partition continue to haunt South Asia as a result of its colonial […]
ASEAN provides a working framework for Central Asian states to engage in comprehensive regional cooperation to neutralize internal conflicts and survive great power competition. A New Saigon After years of fighting a rural insurgency, a rushed American withdrawal leads to the collapse of a Washington-backed government and the desperate, mass evacuation of former American allies. […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how states worldwide address their domestic issues. China’s prowess is growing in the AI arena, which the United States currently leads. The utility of Chinese AI technology received further validation during the COVID-19 pandemic. On the bright side, its precision and efficiency proved essential to many public health programs funded […]
The United States has set its sights on the Arctic as an emerging region of importance for US national security. In the past two years alone, the Department of Defense,[1] Department of Homeland Security,[2] Army,[3] Air Force,[4] Navy,[5] and Coast Guard[6] have all updated their Arctic strategies. High-level Trump administration officials like former National Security […]
The return of Confucius as a notable figure in the Chinese government’s public presentation has been the subject of substantive scholarly discussion. Unlike much of this work, however, the present paper engages two questions difficult to assess within pure academia: how does the government fare when judged from a traditional perspective it now uses to justify its own actions, and what effects, if any, would closer adherence to that tradition have on modern governance?
The blockchain movement originated as part of a libertarian solution counter to centralized authority. And now, ironically, it is governments that are increasingly interested in the potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). … Indeed, Blockchain technologies are poised to significantly benefit public services by improving governments’ efficiency and transparency. This article argues why and how governments should more boldly pursue the use of blockchain technology as a tool for improved governance outcomes.
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.
