After three failed efforts last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov tomorrow in perhaps a final attempt to peaceably resolve a military standoff between Russia and Ukraine. The alternatives hazard violence and political upheaval on a scale unseen since the Cold War. In 2014, Ukrainian president and Russian...
This past week, amidst an ongoing humanitarian crisis on the Belarus-Poland border, Russia began massing troops opposite war-torn eastern Ukraine. Over a hundred thousand Russian soldiers have now been deployed to the Ukrainian frontier. Capturing Western anxiety over Russia’s seemingly belligerent intentions, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has cautioned treaty members that they should “prepare...
Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s autocratic leader, is causing a humanitarian crisis on the Belarus-Poland border that appears to be retaliation for sanctions imposed by the European Union on his country this spring. Lukashenko’s regime faced international backlash for forcefully suppressing demonstrations following disputed elections last year. After months of deliberation, the EU imposed sanctions on the...
Fiji, Barbados, and Antigua and Barbuda seldom take the limelight in international politics. Yet, facing potential catastrophe, these island states were center stage at the COP26 summit, imploring the world’s wealthiest nations to address the perils of climate change. With scientific consensus projecting a worldwide increase in heatwaves, water shortages, crop failure, and flooding if...
In a break from tradition, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) denied Myanmar’s military junta representation at its annual summit later this month. ASEAN appears to be pressuring Myanmar’s regime, led by General Min Aung Hlaing, to cooperate with neighbors in resolving its almost year-long political crisis. Hlaing’s came to power via military coup...
Presidential elections next May in the Philippines could prove pivotal to both the country’s democracy and alliance with the United States. By extension, the election could influence President Biden’s foreign policy goals of strengthening human rights and countering China’s great power ambitions. Incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte has decided not to seek the vice presidency, giving...
China’s prodigious economic growth has been a defining feature of the twenty-first century. Troubles inside one of the country’s (and the world’s) largest property developers, however, expose potentially serious weaknesses in the Chinese juggernaut. Last week, China Evergrande Group, a development conglomerate saddled with over $300 billion in debt, failed to make a $83 million...
Last week, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia announced the formation of AUKUS, a trilateral security agreement to bolster allied interests in the Indo-Pacific, a region key to Washington’s grand strategy. AUKUS’s first initiative is to develop nuclear submarines for Australia, to be provided by American and British companies. The deployment of Australian nuclear...
On September 1, President Biden welcomed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to the White House. It was Zelensky’s first visit to the White House since taking office in 2019. Ukraine gained its independence following the Soviet Union’s dissolution, but has struggled to consolidate its democracy and stabilize its economy since then. It has suffered a...
On September 2, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro met with opposition leaders in Mexico City with the aim to ease the nation’s ongoing political and economic crisis. Each side brought its own goals to the negotiating table, with the hope that this set of talks would succeed where others have failed. The opposition hopes to advance...
