Commentary
How is AI reshaping space security, creating governance challenges, and where does international diplomacy stand today?
Tejas Bharadwaj, Almudena Azcárate Ortega
{
"authors": [
"Richard Sokolsky",
"Aaron David Miller"
],
"type": "legacyinthemedia",
"centerAffiliationAll": "",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
],
"collections": [],
"englishNewsletterAll": "",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"programAffiliation": "",
"programs": [],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"North America",
"United States"
],
"topics": [
"Political Reform",
"Foreign Policy"
]
}
Source: Getty
In The Media
The Incredible Shrinking Rex Tillerson: Can the Secretary of State Reclaim His Job?
Without a reasonably close relationship with the president and authority conferred by the White House, it matters little or not at all how talented the nation’s chief diplomat may be. He or she cannot succeed.
Published on Jun 30, 2017
Source: USA Today
Defending his boss recently against charges that he’s heading up an incredible shrinking State Department, strategic adviser R.C. Hammond opined that the Secretary Rex Tillerson is thinking like a cowboy. Comparing words to bullets, he said “You carry a revolver with only six shots, and you don’t waste your bullets.”
Fair enough. Successful secretaries of State husband their resources and invest in issues that are strategic and strike at the right time. But five months in, and based on our long tenures at the State Department under both Republican and Democratic administrations, it seems pretty clear that at least in five cases, Tillerson’s gun jammed or the rounds he fired went wide of their mark. Presumably he has yet to use the sixth bullet — a frank conversation with the president about his presumed aspirations to be a consequential secretary of State. Will he?
Tillerson reportedly is at the boiling point over everything from leaks to personnel. When it comes to his core diplomatic mission, he is struggling for leverage or even a role on several key foreign policy issues confronting the nation....
About the Authors
Richard Sokolsky
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program
Richard Sokolsky is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program. His work focuses on U.S. policy toward Russia in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
Aaron David Miller
Senior Fellow, American Statecraft Program
Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy.
Carnegie India does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Carnegie India
- AI in Outer Space: Opportunities, Risks, and the Governance Gap
- Threading the Needle: India’s Path Forward with ChinaPaper
After the chill in ties between 2020 and 2024 that brought India–China relations to their lowest point in several decades, the two countries have engaged each other afresh. This paper argues that there are predominantly four imperatives guiding India’s approach to China, and they exist in an order of priority.
Saheb Singh Chadha
- Managing Divergence: India’s BRICS Presidency in 2026Article
This piece argues that India’s central challenge is not managing a single flashpoint but resolving the underlying tension between expansion and institutional coherency of the BRICS grouping.
Vrinda Sahai
- India–Africa Strategic Partnership: Challenges, Potential, and Possible PathwaysArticle
A partnership between India, a country of subcontinental size, and Africa, a continent of fifty-four countries, may seem asymmetric until one notes that both are home to nearly the same number of people—1.4 billion. This essay spells out the existing challenges to the partnership, its optimal potential, and the possible pathways to realize it over the next quarter-century.
Rajiv Bhatia
- The Unresolved Challenges in U.S.–India Semiconductor CooperationCommentary
The U.S.–India semiconductor cooperation story is well-stocked with top-level strategic intent. What remains unresolved, however, are some underlying challenges that will determine whether the cooperation actually functions. Three such friction points stand out.
Shruti Mittal
