China’s rise over the past twenty years is the most consequential foreign policy challenge Washington has faced this century. Trade wars, diplomatic standoffs, and aggressive military posturing in the Indo-Pacific all point to intensifying economic and ideological conflict not seen since the Cold War. Naturally, it is tempting to look to that period of geopolitical...
As Russia menaced Ukraine last year, I was learning about a time when Moscow was much more powerful than it is now. Taking a course on the Soviet Union was my attempt to understand the country Winston Churchill once called “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” [1] The seminar spanned the Second...
“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” [1] Thucydides’ famous observation on great power conflict over two millennia ago remains true today. The spectacular rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) alarms the United States – and thereby Western society as whole –...
1957 was a year of panic. Upon hearing the news that the Soviet Union had successfully launched both Sputnik and the R-7 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, American citizens, military planners, and policymakers looked to the sky with fear. Both launches were the first of their kind, the heavens had become a battleground, and Americans felt exposed...
The decades following the collapse of the Berlin Wall have been described as a “holiday from history,” in which the recurring perils of world war, social crisis, and ideological extremes were mastered by bonds of peaceful progress. [1] In recent years, however, history has returned with almost biblical vengeance in the form of wars, plagues,...
Once at the forefront of global attention, the Syrian civil war now rarely registers comment. What more is there to observe, beyond dashed dreams, widespread desolation, and the ruthless will of despots? Yet Syria today is an expanding crisis, pitting the United States and its partners against Russia, Iran, and the Assad regime, with consequences...
On Monday, China’s Health Minister Ma Xiaowei announced “the strictest, most thorough, most resolute and decisive” measures in combating a Covid surge, thereby doubling down on China’s “Zero-Covid” policy. The policy restricts foreign and domestic travel, shutters nonessential businesses, reduces public services, and metes out massive quarantines when cases are detected. China’s “Zero-Covid” policy has operated for...
Monday saw opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif become the prime minister of Pakistan. This followed a tumultuous week in which ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan attempted to remain in power by unconstitutionally dissolving parliament. To the north, Pakistan’s neighbor Afghanistan continues its painful adjustment to Taliban rule, with the extremist group inflaming popular opposition and humanitarian...
Russian artillery rocket launchers said to be abandoned in Ukraine as Russia stalls its advance. Photo from the Ukrainian General Staff’s Twitter. Low morale has historically plagued the Russian military. Yet, during the current invasion of Ukraine, Russian resolve is especially weak. [1] When faced with resistance, Russians have abandoned their expensive equipment, fled to...
In October 1935, Italian armies descended on Ethiopia. Over the next two years of war, Ethiopian courage and international condemnation upset Mussolini’s folie de grandeur. Eventually, though, the fascists’ industrialized brutality would crush Ethiopian resistance. Italy’s aggression not only cost Ethiopia its freedom but undermined the international order and emboldened Nazi Germany. In June 1950, North...
