How to Defeat the New Axis of Evil
Two blocs emerged after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Iran-backed terror in the Middle East: The Free World and the New Axis of Evil. By supporting each other, the countries of the New Axis of Evil are more dangerous together than they are separately. The Free World countries must design new policies to […]
No End to National Security Surprises
The surprise was total and horrific—Israeli men, women and children brutally killed or taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Israel’s vaunted intelligence services failed to provide adequate warning, its military—the Israeli Defense Forces—failed to provide adequate security, and Israeli political leadership remained cocooned in their comfortable assumptions about risks to Israeli security posed by Palestinians in […]
What Might Deter Xi Jinping?
The past two years have witnessed several failures of deterrence – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023. The invasion of Ukraine heightened global awareness that military force by a state actor is not a relic of the past and could occur in other flashpoints around the […]
Southeast Asia’s Growing Importance to Global Trade
The world is in the initial stages of an evolution in the structure of global trade. While popular narratives about the era of globalization described a wide dispersion of trade flows and supply chains to all corners of the world, the reality was different. Global trade remained very concentrated. For example, close to 40 percent […]
The Gaza War and East Asia
What can be said about the impact of current developments in the Middle East on East Asia? The most compelling current development is obviously the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which has dominated the headlines for two months and will do so for many more months to come. War arouses strong emotions. […]
China’s Turn Toward Antisemitism
“The United States as a nation has been severely kidnapped by political and other forces derived from Jewish capital,” thus said Dong Manyuan, the former Vice president of CIIS, the Chinese foreign ministry’s think tank, in a TV interview on November 1, in response to the interviewer claim that Jews “manipulate and control” 70% of […]
Recent African Coups: <br>End of <i>Françafrique</i>, Need for US Leadership
Since 2020, six African countries have experienced a total of eight coups d’état. With the exception of Gabon, all occurred in the Sahel, the semi-arid band stretching across the continent between the Sahara Desert to the north and the tropical savannah to the south. The conventional narrative of “Africa Rising,” which had only recently replaced […]
What China Wants in Africa
Africa struggles to climb American policymakers’ priority list, but it has no such problem with China. For three decades, the Chinese government has expended immense energy courting African countries. With only two exceptions over the last thirty years, the Chinese foreign minister has made Africa his first overseas destination every year. Other senior Chinese officials […]
China’s Influence in the Middle East and the Strategic Considerations Underlying it
The difficulty in comparing America’s and China’s influence in the Middle East is that the two operate on entirely different planes. [Note: The Chinese use the term Western Asia, rather than the Middle East, to refer to a region that includes the Levant, Iraq, the Gulf, Turkey and Iran.] Despite China’s impressive naval construction program, China […]
Growing Asian Ties to the Gulf and Potential for Strategic Cooperation
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Indian Prime Minister Modi each made a trip recently to Arab countries of the Gulf. In July, Kishida visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar while Modi was in the UAE. Yoon visited the UAE in January. These three trips received far […]
