Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Geopoliticus

A nation must think before it acts.

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Geopoliticus
December 13, 2018

Why China’s Belt and Road is Off Track

Xinjiang, in northwest China, seems in many ways like the far edge of the modern world. Spanning a vast desert ringed by high mountains, the region was remote enough to have been chosen as the site of China’s nuclear testing in the 1960s. But in ancient times, Xinjiang marked a key stage of the overland trade routes linking the Eastern and Western worlds, and the contemporary visitor will find giant superhighways snaking across the steppe—one of the more dramatic symbols of China’s intention to resurrect the ancient Silk Road.

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Geopoliticus
December 11, 2018

2018 FPRI NatSec Holidays Bingeathon List!

We are currently living in a golden age of scripted television series. Prestige television and the multitude of outlets have allowed for niche productions with more specific audiences in mind to bloom. While outlets like War on the Rocks have compiled another (excellent) list of books to read over the holidays, I thought it would be interesting to ask scholars of the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute to offer their recommendations on what shows or movies to watch over the holidays that have a national security bent. The reasons for this are simple: (1) while reading is great, sometimes you need to take a break from it, and the winter chill in the Northeast, at least, makes this an opportune time to do so, especially with additional days off for the holidays, and (2) fiction offers a useful way to examine or reexamine issues. We hope that you find this list useful.

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Geopoliticus
December 4, 2018

Maritime Scuffle: Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov

On November 25, Russian border service patrol boats opened fire on two Ukrainian navy gunboats and rammed a Ukrainian tugboat as they attempted to transit through the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov, a body of water sandwiched between Russia, Ukraine, and the disputed territory of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to explain that Russian border guards fired on the Ukrainian vessels after they illegally entered Russia’s territorial waters and ignored orders to stop. Six Ukrainian sailors were wounded. Ultimately, Russia seized all three boats and captured two dozen Ukrainian sailors. At this writing, those sailors remain in detention after being moved to Moscow. While Russian and Ukrainian forces have faced off before, the incident marked the first time they openly clashed.

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Geopoliticus
November 20, 2018

Holding the Global Center

These familiar words were penned at the conclusion of World War I and captured the sense of foreboding and despair that shadowed Europe. As it happens, November 11 was the centenary of the Armistice that ended that cataclysm. But Yeats captures a new foreboding that shadows our own time. Once again, there is fear that the center may not hold; that things are falling apart.

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(Source: gloucester2gaza/Flickr)
Geopoliticus
November 13, 2018

Another Gaza War?

Israel and Hamas are on the brink of war again. There were sustained conflicts between Israel and Hamas in 2008/9, 2012, and 2014. The most recent spasm of violence may burn out as fast as it has erupted; however, growing political pressure on both sides may lead to a confrontation that both Benjamin Netanyahu and Yahya Sinwar have tried to avoid in recent months.

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Geopoliticus
November 12, 2018

Why the Khashoggi Scandal Won’t Change Much

Analysts have heralded the Khashoggi scandal—the mysterious killing of Saudi-born Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October—as the biggest rift in U.S.-Saudi relations since the September 11 attacks. The truth is, as repugnant as this crime was, it was simply the latest play in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MbS) aggressive domestic and foreign policy.

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Geopoliticus
November 9, 2018

Rhetoric, Violence, and Civil War: The Balkanization of America?

I study civil wars. While I don’t believe a civil war is yet likely in the United States, I do see some unnerving parallels between the current American political environment and those in the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The combination of constitutional crises, nationalist demagoguery, and weak institutions proved fatal to national unity in those cases, spawning wars that tore countries apart and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

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Geopoliticus
October 30, 2018

Voter Apathy in Georgia’s Presidential Election

On October 28, Georgia held a presidential election that is now set to have a runoff. The Georgian Dream (GD), the governing party, supported independent candidate Salome Zurabishvili, who received 38.63% of the vote, while the United National Movement’s (UNM) Grigol Vashadze received 37.74%. With the 15,000 vote difference, the battle looks to be very tight, something that the GD was not hoping for.

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Geopoliticus
October 23, 2018

Blood and Soil in the Balkans: Nationalist Narratives Ascendant?

Western Balkans countries’ hopeful integration into European institutions and the greater transatlantic community is reaching a pivotal juncture. The comparative neglect Washington, London, and Brussels has displayed over the past several years has left the region’s gradual transition in jeopardy. Russia and China are effectively filling voids where existent and cost-effective. Their destabilizing in-roads are paved in good part by local ethno-nationalist forces whose preference for authoritarianism conflicts with the democratic institutions required by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). Accordingly, ultranationalists’ relative rise proportionately diminishes the prospects for regional stability. For the sake of greater European security, they need to be sidelined.

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Geopoliticus
October 22, 2018

Withdrawing from the INF Treaty is a Mistake

President Donald Trump has announced that his administration plans to withdraw the United States from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, which prohibits Washington and Moscow from testing and deploying all ground-based cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500km. While the United States believes Russia to be in violation of the treaty through its deployment of the 9M729 cruise missile, U.S. withdrawal now will damage American diplomacy without delivering significant military advantages.

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