This past month, the media cycle in the U.S. and abroad has been fixated on the shake-up in the U.S. presidential election campaign, from President Joe Biden’s surprisingly poor performance in the presidential debate and the assassination attempt on his opponent, former President Donald Trump, to Biden’s subsequent withdrawal from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris’ emergence as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Breathless headlines about such a rapid shift in the electoral terrain of the world’s most powerful democracy are understandable. Yet it is a bit of an overstatement to argue, as Daniel Drezner does, that “for the rest of 2024 the most important international relations story will be the U.S. presidential election.” That may be true in terms of media coverage, but it is not true in empirical terms.
So, what developing global and human security stories that are getting too little attention should discerning readers be watching this summer?