China’s recent live-fire naval exercises in the Tasman Sea have alerted Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island states of Beijing’s growing military power and its ability to deploy military force outside of the South China Sea. This projection of hard power has been augmented by a series of China-PacificContinue Reading
The U.S. administration of Donald Trump has openly admitted that one of the reasons for its attempts to re-engage and then rebuild good relations with Russia is to gain leverage over China (the so-called reverse Kissinger or reverse Nixon). Beijing’s calm or even indifferent reactions to Trump’s signals of reconciliationContinue Reading
Australia’s alliance with the United States, as former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who is now Canberra’s ambassador in Washington, once remarked, is the “bedrock” of the country’s foreign and defense policy. Since the end of World War II, Australia’s security and prosperity have been predicated not only on the primacyContinue Reading
On February 27, authorities in Thailand forcibly returned 40 Uyghurs to China. The United States didn’t want to see them sent back. Congressional offices had issued statements of concern in the weeks leading up to the deportation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested in his January confirmation hearing that aContinue Reading
In a recent commentary, Zongyuan Zoe Liu of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations recalled what might be termed the “good old days” of China-U.S. relations – just over a decade ago in time, but seemingly far removed in sentiment. As Liu wrote: Not long ago, American and Chinese peopleContinue Reading
The EU is struggling to find some wiggle room between an increasingly hostile United States and an increasingly assertive China. A flurry of bilateral meetings and summits in Europe is a clear sign of feverish diplomacy, if not panic, mostly as a response to the whirlwind of developments triggered byContinue Reading
On February 28, just over three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington to negotiate and sign a mineral deal with the U.S. government. He hoped the pact would exchange Ukrainian resources for U.S. security guarantees, an essential step toward a long-lasting ceasefireContinue Reading
The original Italian strategic consultant Niccolo Machiavelli, on the question of whether it is better to be feared rather than loved, famously argued that “since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.” The Trump administration’sContinue Reading
Continuing policy initiatives and the resulting turmoil in Washington in the early weeks of the new Trump administration substantially add to deep uncertainty and angst in the Indo-Pacific about the status and likely outlook for international relations and the regional order. Unfortunately, the initiatives provide few clear paths forward forContinue Reading
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump has raised eyebrows in Islamabad. In the joint statement issued during Modi’s trip, the two leaders “called on Pakistan to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai, and Pathankot attacks andContinue Reading
