A civil-military relations crisis in the U.S. is actually the latest in a recent series of similar crises affecting the world’s major powers, including Russia and China. That raises the question: Is this simply a random series of unconnected events that all just happen to center around defense ministers? Or is there a deeper cause?
Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden met with his counterparts from the five states of Central Asia in the first-ever leaders’ summit of the so-called C5+1 format. The meeting is a step in the right direction when it comes to U.S. policy toward an increasingly strategic region, but one that Washington has historically neglected.
For Washington and Brussels, the IMEC trade corridor linking India, the Gulf and Europe is an effort to mold the resulting partnerships in line with Western interests. However, for India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, their participation in the project does not reflect a desire to choose sides amid an era of great power competition.
Earlier this year, the global economy experienced an important milestone that, though it went largely unnoticed, scholars may look back on as a marker of the beginning of a new era, with economic but also geopolitical significance: For the first four months of 2023, Mexico surpassed China as the top trade partner of the United States.
For the current GOP candidates, calls for the U.S. to invade Mexico have the twin benefits of making them look tough while also potentially appealing to Republican voters in the Trump faction. But these calls also betray three sad truths about U.S. foreign policy generally, and Republican foreign policy in particular.
Even as regular climate diplomacy has resumed between the U.S. and China, officials and observers of both countries have become markedly more pessimistic about the feasibility of carving out a separate lane for climate progress amid rising tensions. That may imperil our chances of a timely energy transition.