Tag United States

Energy & Environment, North America, South America

The Pitfalls of All-the-above Environmental Policy: Analyzing the Role of Right-Wing and Left-Wing Populism in Recent Brazil and U.S. Politics

October 30, 2024

Climate change is one of the most defining issues of our century. Changes in overall human behavior are necessary for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. These changes should come from everyone, including individuals, corporations, and governments. Politicians are leading…

Civil Society, Governance & Law, North America

To Defeat Populism, Bring Back the Fireside Chats

October 11, 2024

The world is facing a new generation of challenges that are of a different kind, degree, and dimension than those of the past. Many are borderless, including some that present existential risks to humanity. Many are interrelated, multiplying and magnifying…

Asia Pacific, Economics, Policy & Politics

In Hindsight: Evaluating the Complex Legacy of China’s WTO Accession

March 8, 2024

In the 1980s, a growing amicability in US-China economic relations began to emerge despite ongoing political tensions. Policymakers in both countries concentrated their efforts on formalizing trade relations, with the declaration of China’s Most Favored Nation status in the 1990s…

Asia Pacific, Book Reviews, North America, Security & Conflict

Cold Rivals: The New Era of US-China Strategic Competition edited by Evan S. Medeiros

November 8, 2023

Evan S. Medeiros offers a useful collection of essays that examine US-China relations from the 1970s towards our more recent, turbulent days. The defining characterization of US-China relations throughout the book is one of “strategic competition” among rivals. This is…

Europe, North America, Policy & Politics

How U.S. History Can Save North Macedonia and Defeat Putinism in the Balkans

October 2, 2023

Given the spectacular killing of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the less-than-spectacular Ukrainian counter-offensive, it’s looking a lot tougher to defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fortunately, the United States has a rare opportunity to defeat Putinism in the Balkans. To score this…

Asia Pacific, Europe, Security & Conflict

A World Historical Perspective on the War in Ukraine and the China-Taiwan Standoff

September 10, 2023

As the world faces a protracted war in Ukraine with no clear end in sight and a tense standoff in the Taiwan Strait with potential for catastrophic escalation, the time is ripe for a world historical perspective on these conflicts,…

Asia Pacific, Economics, Governance & Law, North America, Policy & Politics

How China’s Political System Discourages Innovation and Encourages IP Theft

July 31, 2023

U.S. observers have long complained that Chinese firms steal intellectual property (IP) from American companies, universities, and research institutions.¹ Most of these complaints stress that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) directs this theft. Other analysts focus…

Governance & Law, North America, Policy & Politics

Unmoored from the UN: The Struggle to Ratify UNCLOS in the United States

June 26, 2023

On July 9, 1982, after three series of multilateral conferences spanning decades of rigorous negotiations, President Ronald Reagan formally announced that the United States would not sign the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), on the…

Asia Pacific, North America, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

Will Biden’s New Truman Doctrine Offset the Sino-Russian Pact?

June 20, 2022

During his maiden trip to Asia as president in late May 2022, Joe Biden implied that the United States would take stronger military action to defend Taiwan against China than his administration has taken to support Ukraine to fight against…

Book Reviews, Economics, Energy & Environment, North America, Policy & Politics

Review: Robert Vitalis’ Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security that Haunt U.S. Energy Policy

June 13, 2022

Of all the myths and fabrications that exist in political discourse, few are more stubbornly persistent than the scarcity of resources and the policies supposedly needed to control them. Today, that discourse has converged around one definitive commodity: oil. The…

Asia Pacific, North America, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

How to Weaken the China-Russia Axis: Historical Lessons from Great-Power Competition

June 2, 2022

Key Judgments Growing ties between Moscow and Beijing threaten US national security. American strategic planners should consider undermining these ties as a strategic imperative. This goal remains achievable if pursued with vigor because Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine has…

Economics, North America, Policy & Politics

Domestic Policy Is Foreign Policy: Wage Stagnation and Income Inequality Threaten America’s Leadership Abroad

May 13, 2022

The negative economic effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are being felt around the world. Here in the United States, Americans face rising gas and food prices, with more trickle-down consequences on the way. The majority of Americans have been…