Aidan Yao, SCMP
Giorgio Leali, Politico EU
Wednesday marks the German composer's 250th birthday (he was baptized on December 17, 1770, but probably born a day earlier) and the European Parliament will pay tribute before moving on to less tuneful topics such as the EU budget and rule of law. Parliament President David Sassoli will give a short speech on Beethoven's legacy and
Robert Shrimsley, Financial Times
The UK prime minister puts himself top of his creditors, but forgets his debt to voters
David Goldman, Asia Times
Soaring 565 meters over the Beipan River in Yunnan Province, China's Beipanjiang Bridge is the world's highest, and dizzying to cross. President Xi Jinping must have felt like a tightrope walker on its deck when he called the Chinese Communist Party's Politbureau to order last Friday to set the country's economic trajectory.
Salvatore Babones, 1945
Last month, China released details of its 14th five-year plan, the outline for how it will double its GDP by 2035, rebalance its economy, attain technological
Becca Wasser & Aaron Stein, WOTR
The recent assassination of Iranian physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may not have been an American-led operation, but it nonetheless raised the risk of reprisal attacks, quite possibly targeting U.S. bases. The vulnerability of American military bases in the Middle East to missile attack is not new, but growing Iranian capabilities make U.S. assets deployed in the region more vulnerable. In recognition of this threat, a rethink of...
Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic
Aaron David Miller & Richard Sokolsky, Foreign Policy
What it takes to make a truly great secretary of state—and why the United States may not need one now.
NED
As globalization deepens integration between democracies and autocracies, the compromising effects of sharp power—which impairs free expression, neutralizes independent institutions, and distorts the political environment—have grown apparent across crucial sectors of open societies. The Sharp Power and Democratic Resilience series is an effort to systematically analyze the ways in which leading authoritarian regimes seek to manipulate the political landscape and censor independent...
Stewart Patrick, World Politics Review
President-elect Joe Biden is a down-to-earth guy, but the fate of the heavens may end up being one of his main foreign policy challenges. The United States has long sought to maintain outer space as an open, stable and rules-bound domain. Unfortunately, this cooperative vision is under stress. The emergence of new space-faring nations, an explosion of private commercial activity and a brewing arms race, among other issues, are all leaving outdated international institutions in the space dust. Читать дальше...
Henning Hoff, Internationale Politik Quarterly
On the face of it, the process is simple. Three contenders vie for the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party, and thus eventually for the chancellery after the next election, and one of them will win it.
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Joel Wuthnow, East Asia Forum
China's military modernisation began long before Xi Jinping became chairman of the Central Military Commission in November 2012. But the pace and scope of that effort has greatly accelerated under him. Key changes include the introduction of advanced weapons and equipment, structural reforms to make the People's Liberation Army (PLA) a more effective force and a campaign to
Robert Bociaga, The Diplomat
Longstanding tensions between East Malaysia and Peninsular Malaysia have some seeking autonomy - or even secession.
Rachel Ellehuus et al, CSIS
Even the world's most powerful military cannot be everywhere, all the time. With a limited pool of capabilities and forces, the United States must continually make decisions on how and where to deploy its resources. In an effort to maximize the strategic impact of the existing U.S. force structure, the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS)...
Nick Tyrone, Spectator
The UK-EU trade negotiations have heated up again, albeit from a very cold state. Boris seems to have conceded ground on the 'evolution clause' to the European Union, making a path to an agreement on the level playing field issues at least plausible. The UK has accepted that divergence should come at some cost — although the details of how that cost should be managed appear to still be a live issue. With that comes the last hurdle:...
Economist
To have any chance in next year's presidential election, the opposition must unite now
Michael Kofman, Russia Matters
On Nov. 9, an armistice was signed to end the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The conflict was relatively short lived, lasting from Sept. 27 to Nov. 9, but it proved to be an intense inter-state conflict fought by two heavily armed opponents. Both sides employed advanced military technology, with Azerbaijan proving the decisive victor in the war. The implications of the conflict continue to reverberate well outside the region given... Читать дальше...
Robert Wright, Washington Post
That's a lovely flight of rhetoric. Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the claim that America doesn't muscle small countries into compliance with its will would be greeted by laughter in small countries near and far. And even when U.S. muscle is about economic leverage and not American or proxy military forces, the amount of suffering can be considerable — as with our sanctions against such countries as Cuba, Syria, Iran and Venezuela.
George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures
Last week, Morocco established diplomatic relations with Israel, joining three other Arab countries - the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan - that normalized ties this year. In Morocco's case, part of the deal was U.S. recognition of Morocco's claim to Western Sahara, just as it had agreed to remove Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
