Image source The escalating crisis in Sino-Australian relations prompts a new piece. Foreign Policy publishes my latest under the title “Biden’s First Foreign Policy Crisis is Already Here.” I approve of the title. Not everything is about America, and I often spend my time trying to show how the moving force behind any given international […]
Category Archives: Bargaining and Balancing
Do Not Choose Susan Rice
Image source There is a grand tradition in American politics of bashing the other side’s nominees. In the spirit of that tradition, I have a new piece out in the American Conservative that questions whether Susan Rice is fit to be the Biden administrationโs nominee for Secretary of State. Rice is a controversial figure for […]
On Sparks Before the Prairie Fire
Photo by Katelynn & Jordan Hewlett (15 August 2020). Source. It inevitably will be asked why advanced industrial America has so violent a history, but this is not, I think, either as difficult or as interesting as another question: How could America have combined such a substantial degree of popular domestic violence with such a high […]
Yes, We Are in an Ideological Competition With China
The Lowy Institute has a published an interactive debate titled “China and the Rules-Based Order.” I participated in the debate and wrote two small essays as a part of it. All participants were asked to describe the nature of Sino-American competition, Chinese intentions for the future of the “world order” and any possibilities for a […]
On Diplomats-in-Chief
Here is a question that has fascinates: how to account for the disastrous foreign policy of George W. Bush, when his foreign policy team returned to office in 2001 as the most credentialed and accomplished group of foreign policy professionals Washington had seen in the modern nat-sec era? How did the men and women who […]
The World That China Wants (III): Taking Chinese Communism Seriously
Image source A few months back I promised I would highlight some of the key passages in Dan Tobin’s testimony to Congress, โHow Xi Jinpingโs โNew Eraโ Should Have Ended U.S. Debate on Beijingโs Ambitions.โ Tobin’s testimony has since been published by CSIS as a full length report, but in my citations below I will […]
Why Banning All Party Members is Stupid
Image source The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is considering proposals to ban all members of the Communist Party of China, and their families, from obtaining a visa to visit the United States.[1] If implemented, would this accomplish what the administration hopes it will? Does the administration even know what it hopes […]
On Days of Disorder
Let us say you are a man inclined towards riot. Perhaps breaking stuff gives you joy. Maybe the chemical cocktail that courses through your blood as you go about burning this and pummeling that provides a high that cannot be beat. Perhaps you feel pent up and pushed down in normal times; perhaps you glory […]
The World That China Wants (II): The Communist Case In Brief
Add caption One month ago I announced a series that would investigate “the world that China wants,” using Dan Tobin’s recent congressional testimony and Nadege Rolland’s recent research brief as the foundation of this discussion. My original plan was to dissect each of these documents at length. However, I put that aspect of the project […]
Japan’s Achilles Heel?
Infographic from the International Gas Union. Two months ago I wrote a post with the title “Losing Taiwan Means Losing Japan.” It described how the loss of Taiwan to the PRC would put Japan in a geopolitically untenable position, as the PLA Navy would then be capable of choking Japan into submission if conflict ever […]