One of the under-the-radar news stories these past several weeks has been mysterious indirect negotiations between American and Iranian officials regarding Tehran’s nuclear program. The Iranian nuclear program is worrisome to most western powers not because it would provide Iran with an alternative power source, but because if Tehran were to convert its civilian-level nuclear […]
Ahead of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s trip to Beijing next week, Brazil announced that China surpassed the United States as the country’s largest trading partner. Trade with China totaled $3.2 billion in April, compared with $2.8 billion in imports and exports with the US. “The US has been Brazil’s principal trading partner for […]
Among residents of the BRIC nations, Brazilians are the happiest, followed by Russians, whereas the Chinese are the least happy, followed by the Indians, according to a recent OECD report.
The temperature in South Asia, often sweltering, has heated up over the last week. Read a selection of news reports below. With the peace deal between the government of Pakistan and the Taliban in tatters and pressure on Pakistani President Zardari from Holbrooke and Co. getting heavy, the Pakistani armed forces launched attacks in recent days on the […]
This weekend Russia unveiled its new missile defense system as part of a military parade to celebrate Victory Day (WWII) in Moscow. Put on show around Red Square was the S-400 missile defense system, which many in Russia consider to be a counterweight to American Patriot missiles. President Dimitry Medvedev spoke at the event, stating: […]
6. Six countries chose not to participate in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s ongoing military exercises in Georgia. Largely to appease Russia, Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Moldova and Serbia withdrew from the “war games.” Stratfor notes that “while most of these countries either hold strong political ties to Russia or are wary of angering Moscow […]
Despite Russian objections to “meddling” in its sphere of influence, the European Union launched an “eastern partnership” with six former Soviet republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – at a summit yesterday in Prague. The plan is designed to extend political and economic ties and promote democratic reforms. Notably, leaders from Britain, […]
So, where does our moralistic support of national self-determination of peoples begin and end? The Abkhaz and South Ossetians? The Chechens? The Basques of Spain and France? The Kosovar Albanians? The Palestinians? The Tibetans and Taiwanese? The Kurds, the Armenians, the Azeris? The Sunni of Iraq? The residents of Darfur and of southern Sudan? Kashmiri Muslims under Indian rule? Tamils in Sri Lanka? German speakers in the Italian Sud Tirol?
The current issue of the Economist highlights the changing balance of economic power in Europe. European powers have been unevenly impacted by the global financial crisis. The article argues that a “new European pecking order has emerged, with statist France on top, corporatist Germany in the middle and poor old liberal Britain floored.” While the […]
Check out this article (thanks to Robert Nolan for sending it along) about Goldman Sachs’ latest report on the shift of global economic power towards the East.
This week saw another confrontation between the US and China over Beijing’s growing naval power and what appears to be Washington’s attempts to retain control of the dominance to which it has grown accustomed in the East and South China Seas. On Sunday 2 Chinese fishing vessels reportedly “harassed” an American surveillance ship in the […]
NATO should focus on what really matters to Western interests over the coming half-century: arresting the proliferation of WMD; stopping Iran from acquiring the above; anchoring the Great and Rising Powers (including Russia and China) into Western institutions in order to more effectively resolve regional conflicts and other global problems; and, gently pushing human development in the direction of Fukuyama’s End of History.
It is legitimate in foreign affairs to employ both the carrot and the stick. Both policies can secure a nation’s interests; the trick (and difficulty) is to employ the strategy a given situation warrants. In spite of partisan name-calling, whereby stick-wielders are called warmongers and carrot-salesmen weak, all Great Powers, all statesmen (and women), must […]
Yesterday I wrote about US Secretary of State Clinton’s statements from last week explaining her concern that China, Russia and Iran are seeking to gain influence in Latin America. One example of Iran’s growing clout in the region was this week’s planned trip by President Ahmadinejad to Brazil and other nations in the region. It […]
Democracies with weak and/or fragmented party systems seem to produce sub-optimal public policies, including heavy government debt burdens. From Israel to India, Italy to Japan, Brazil to Belgium, governing coalitions held together by paying off key constituencies have yielded chronic deficits and high debt. By contrast, countries with a small number of strong political parties […]