Image source. Now that the affair in Doklam has come to a close, analysts of various stripes are trying to make sense of what happened and what lessons can be learned from the episode. One of the smartest of these write ups was written by Oriana Skylar Mastro and Arzan Tarapore for War on the […]
A map of “Khmer Krom,” territory once dominated by Khmer speakers before it was conquered by Vietnam in the 18th and 19th centuries. Image Source: Douc Sokha, “βαα ααααβααααααααααβααΆβααααΎαβα―αααΆαβααΆαβα€α α α βαααααβ ααΆααααβααΉαβααΆαβααΆααβααΉαααΈβααααα»ααΆβαααααβα²ααβαααααΆαββ“, Vod Hot News (15 February 2015) Folks, I have a piece up at Foreign Policy on two of my favorite topics–Cambodian politics and China’s international relations. Most analysts see […]
Earlier this year I wrote that the Chinese do not want our liberal, rules-based order. How America should respond to this rejection was a question I left open. This week, however, in a long two-book review essay published over at Strategy Bridge, I have returned to the question. The two books under review are Lyle […]
This post was originally published as part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to read all of the posts in the roundtable. All the world trembles at the dreaded “Thucydides trap.”Of late this phrase has been all the rage. It was first popularized by Graham Allison in 2012, and has only […]
This will be my final post in the “China Does Not Want Your Rules Based Order” series. You can read the original post that started the conversation here and the first follow up discussion here. In this post I will focus on a comment left back on the original essay by Andrew Chubb. Chubb is […]
Last week’s post “China Does Not Want Your Rules Based Order” created a stir. Many who read it were inspired to write up their own view in response; some of these have been posted in the comments thread to the original post, others on Twitter, and yet others have been sent to me in more […]
While the sun and moon endureLuckβs a chance, but troubleβs sure,Iβd face it as a wise man would,And train for ill and not for good. βA.E. Housman, “Terence This is Stupid Stuff,” (1896) THE WORDS of Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, delivered on the 3rd of June to the assembled […]
Image Source. On the recommendation of Tyler Cowen I picked up Taggart Murphy’s book Japan and the Shackles of the Past. This book has impressed me; there are enough interesting ideas in it to make up several different posts. But today I’ll limit myself to one thought provoking excerpt: By the fall of 1989, all this […]
Yesterday I was delighted to discover that Nibras Kazimi has started blogging in English again. Kazimi has played the part of both activist and analyst over the last decade, working out of Washington DC or Iraq as the occasion required. At the height of the old strategy blogosphere he was running one of the sharpest blogs on […]
. “Hadrian’s wall at Greenhead Lough” by Velella,Image Source: Wikimedia In a recent War on the Rocks piece Iskander Rehman argues that the United States should not favor a foreign policy of retrenchment because United States policy makers are simply too daft and out of touch with the world to play the part of a modern day Castlereigh: […]
