Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
A new security partnership, AUKUS, will deliver nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. This sets a troubling precedent for nuclear nonproliferation policy.
Zapad-2021 was the largest Russian military exercise in the country’s most important strategic theater in recent memory. But the security challenges the country is facing from the Baltic to the Black Sea are even bigger, and no amount of military drills can fix them.
Research shows that fact-checking can reduce the harmful impacts of false information. But beyond that, we know relatively little about the efficacy of counter-influence measures being implemented or considered by platforms, governments, and civil society.
By turning polls into rituals of anticipatory obedience, the Kremlin has disempowered and demotivated citizens
Chinese mining conglomerates sought to adapt to local conditions by forging alliances with the Ecuadorian national government. But these Chinese efforts to leverage local players undercut and divided Indigenous opposition in unsustainable ways that have backfired.
The AUKUS announcement was not a slight to France or Europe—or, for that matter, to Canada, Japan, or South Korea. It strengthens the hand of all democracies in the Indo-Pacific, including the democracies that aren’t part of the arrangement.
Despite increased threats to civil liberties, judicial independence, and civil society over the past decade, efforts to defend and rethink Europe’s democratic practices have also surged. To maintain this momentum and ultimately reverse democratic erosion, a more ambitious agenda of political reform is required.
The U.S.-China trade war hasn’t brought major economic wins to either country. For the United States, it may be time to focus on economic policy at home first.
In a bid to gain political ground at home, Ankara has launched multiple military operations in Syria. These have laid the groundwork for a more aggressive, nationalist foreign policy with profound implications for relations with the United States, Russia, and the EU.
North Korea’s newest cruise missile test shows its nuclear capabilities are growing. Here’s what policymakers from the United States and elsewhere should do now to set up future negotiators for success.
It will likely take more than a strong push from France, Germany, and the Netherlands to ensure that the EU implements a long-term strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
While some policymakers argue that encryption must only be weakened to solve specific problems, most experts agree that there is no technological solution that would weaken encryption for specific law enforcement and national security purposes, while managing to maintain preexisting levels of security and confidentiality for general use.
The rise of dominant political parties contributes to the resurgence of authoritarianism and impedes democracy support. Paying greater attention to party support and talks, elections, and direct activism in countries such as Georgia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Zimbabwe will advance sound governance and democracy.
Efforts are being made to ramp up production of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa to address the continent’s low rate of vaccination. As of September 2021, there are at least twelve COVID-19 production facilities set up or in the pipeline across six African countries.
We must keep a sharp eye on China’s nuclear deployments. But we have a long head start on them and can ensure that they do not surprise us in the nuclear space. If we fail to stay focused, we may find one day that they have achieved strategic superiority with entirely new military systems that we can neither defend against nor match.
The IAEA director general and U.S. secretary of state have recently voiced heightened concerns over the direction of Iran’s nuclear program and frustrations with the lack of diplomatic progress. Yet these developments are entirely predictable for those who closely study the logic behind Iran’s nuclear ambitions and patterns of behavior.
America’s war in Afghanistan exhibits the danger of prolonging a combat mission past the point where its objective can be clearly defined and verifiably achieved, even when a record of success to date makes the cost of continuing into the future appear to be low.
With the Taliban’s return, India faces a real security threat. Rudra Chaudhuri writes how it also has the opportunity to pioneer an approach rooted in humanism.
What was defeated in Afghanistan was not just the most expensive and technologically advanced army in the world, but also two ideas that had deeply influenced the Western world. The first is that democracy can be exported, and the second is that the US military is the best in the world.
Biden is certainly no radical. But after decades of foreign policy radicalism that has created a string of disasters, his approach may at least begin to revitalize the United States’ role in the world.
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