Asia & the Pacific

Douglas Dillon Professor of Government Graham Allison took the stage at TED World Theater in New York in September to discuss the question: How will the U.S. respond to the rise of China? Allison's TED Talk was part of TED's "We the Future" event that explored some of the world's most daunting challenges along with possible solutions. 

"One overlooked feature in this ongoing tragedy is that Trump isn't wrong about everything. Some of his critics won't admit it, but several of the themes he sounded during the 2016 campaign — such as the need to rebuild America's deteriorating infrastructure — were correct (if far from original), and some of his foreign-policy instincts were sound even if his command of details was not. A minimally competent president could have made substantial progress on most if not all of these fronts, thereby leaving the country better off and enhancing his prospects for a second term."

For a century, the geopolitics of energy has been synonymous with the
geopolitics of oil and gas. However, geopolitics and the global energy economy
are both changing. The international order predominant since the
end of World War II faces mounting challenges. At the same time, renewable
energy is growing rapidly. Nevertheless, the geopolitics of renewable
energy has received relatively little attention, especially when considering
the far-reaching consequences of a global shift to renewable energy.

The paper starts with a discussion of seven renewable energy scenarios
for the coming decades: the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2016, the EIA’s
International Energy Outlook 2016, IRENA’s REmap 2016, Bloomberg’s
New Energy Outlook 2016, BP’s Energy Outlook 2016, Exxon-Mobil’s Outlook
for Energy 2016 and the joint IEA and IRENA G20 de-carbonization
scenario.

"As I argued several years ago, the days when the United States could create security and maintain order in nearly every part of the world are behind it, and U.S. leaders must do a better job of deciding which places matter most and which can be left to run themselves. To a large extent, Obama never made that choice."

In this piece, Professor Burns presents one simple idea--President Obama has a second chance with Indian Prime Minister Modi's visit to the White House this week to get India right--to make it a priority in the Asia Pivot strategy and for the future. There is a clear Washington consensus among Republicans and Democrats that India will be one of our most important 21st century global partners.

On the other hand, Obama has every reason to push Modi to adopt more responsible Indian policies on global trade, climate change, Russia and Iran.

"The USA TODAY/Pew Research Center poll published a few days ago showed that a 52%-37% majority of Americans felt the United States had mostly failed to achieve its goals in Iraq, which is a reversal of the 56%-33% majority that had said in November 2011, as the U.S. was leaving that smashed country, that the U.S. had mostly succeeded in Iraq. A nearly identical 52%-37% majority of Americans felt that the U.S. had mostly failed to achieve its goals in Afghanistan, where the Taliban today are resurgent and the Afghan government is rather shaky. The American public in 2003 had thought by a 3-1 ratio that the Afghanistan war was the right decision, but today, by 52%-38%, Americans say it was the wrong decision."