Commentary
Oliver Stuenkel, Adrian Feinberg
Research
Multi-Alignment as Strategy: How Brazil Navigates Between Washington, Beijing, and the Global South
Brazil’s self-image as a “giant by nature” drives its ambitions and a foreign policy rooted in multi‑alignment.
Published on Nov 20, 2025
About the Author
Oliver Stuenkel
Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program
Oliver Stuenkel is an associate professor at the School of International Relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in São Paulo, Brazil. He is also a senior fellow affiliated with the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- Trump Can Play Kingmaker in Latin America. He Can’t Build Lasting Influence.
- The U.S. Plan for Venezuela Has a Precedent. It’s Not Good.Commentary
Oliver Stuenkel, Adrian Feinberg
Recent Work
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
- 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
- Emerging From the “Zombie State” of Trade Agreements: The India-EU FTACommentary
The India–EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is shaping up to be one of the most consequential trade negotiations, both economically and strategically. But, what’s in the agreement, what’s missing, and what will determine its success in the years ahead
Vrinda Sahai, Nicolas Köhler-Suzuki
- India and a Changing Global Order: Foreign Policy in the Trump 2.0 EraResearch
Trump 2.0 has unsettled India’s external environment—but has not overturned its foreign policy strategy, which continues to rely on diversification, hedging, and calibrated partnerships across a fractured order.
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Milan Vaishnav, ed., Sameer Lalwani, Tanvi Madan, …
