When Germany gave refuge to Russian dissident Alexei Navalny last summer following his Kremlin-ordered poisoning, the act was praised as another chapter in chancellor Angela Merkel’s defense of liberal values, and her defiance of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ruthless power politics. On the question of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic pipeline, however, Merkel and Putin...
While few scholars have narrativized it as such, a few seemingly disconnected events over the past year might be indicators that we are entering an era in which, at least in the geo-economic sphere, nation states will have a set of new and powerful rivals: transnational corporations. These legal entities – from more narrowly-focused social...
On issues from competition with China to the place of tariffs in trade policy, notable affinities exist between the Biden and Trump administration’s foreign policies. In Latin American relations, however, President Biden has sought to distinguish himself from his predecessor, vowing to center his policy on democracy and human rights, with diplomacy as its key...
It’s been a week since a military junta detained State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, ending a decade of quasi-civilian rule and marking Myanmar’s first coup since 1988. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets, demanding a restoration of a government that won a landslide re-election last November, the largest...
Much like Middle East peace, improving U.S.-Russia relations has been an elusive goal of presidential diplomacy for decades. President Bush spoke warmly of the trust between himself and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in 2001, President Obama memorably sought a “reset” with Russia in 2009, and the election of President Trump in 2016 engendered hopes of a...
The long-awaited regulatory approval of Covid-19 vaccines has opened a new debate about their distribution. Fraught politics on the national level are fueling a contentious geopolitics of global health – marked by dramatic inequalities as powerful countries balance between domestic and international needs. The decisions of the nations most engaged in ‘vaccine diplomacy’ have closely...
The new Biden administration argues that only through close cooperation with its transatlantic partners can the United States effectively confront rising geopolitical challenges, such as an increasingly aggressive China and democratic backsliding in the western world. Recent developments, however, show that President Biden’s goodwill is unlikely on its own to rejuvenate transatlantic ties. In late...
