Back to the Future: World Politics Edition

Russia is a throwback to the 19th century. The Islamic State wants to turn the clock back by 1,000 years. And Japan is stuck in the post-WWII order. How much of today's geopolitics are actually from bygone eras?

In 2014, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Russia's seizure of Crimea by saying, "You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext." Never mind that Kerry's comment applied with equal force to the invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush's administration. The comment captured the familiar idea that the world has supposedly moved beyond the "cynical calculus of pure power politics," as Bill Clinton once put it. The problem, at least in Kerry's view, is that leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin haven't gotten the memo about proper 21st-century behavior — either Putin hasn't bothered to read it or doesn't agree with its message....

Continue reading (log in may be required): https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/08/back-to-the-future-world-politics-edition-russia-isis-europe-china/