Asia & the Pacific

Stephen Walt writes that the differences in foreign policy will be less significant than one may think. Consider how Trump and Biden would each likely deal with the three most important items on the current foreign-policy agenda: Ukraine, China, and the Middle East.

Stephen Walt elaborates on what he is expecting for 2024:  the Israel-Gaza conflict widening, the 75th anniversary of NATO, the possible re-election of Donald Trump, and the election results from other populous democracies, to name a few.

Stephen Walt argues that Henry Kissinger's concerns about the destabilizing impact of ideas made him hypersensitive to the smallest perturbations in strategically marginal countries and inclined him to overreact to them in ways that other realists opposed.

Calder Walton recounts how Russia and China are using their intelligence agencies to reverse the outcome of the Cold War

Stephen Walt outlines how Washington and Beijing could stop the war in Ukraine.

Joseph S. Nye argues that history shows that globalization is largely driven by technological changes that reduce the importance of distance, and that will not change.

 Stephen Walt decided to look back to see if 2022 had gone according to his expectations. In his last column of 2021, he had described "Biden’s 2022 Foreign-Policy To-Do List." What did he get right, what did he get wrong, and how well did the Biden administration perform?

Stephen Walt provides A realist POV on the war in Ukraine, competition with China, COVID, and more in the second part of an interview with Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal.

The authors propose a simple, four-part framework to guide relations among major powers. This framework presupposes only minimal agreement on core principles—at least at first—and acknowledges that there will be enduring disagreements about how many issues should be addressed. Rather than imposing a detailed set of prescriptive rules (as the World Trade Organization and other international regimes do), this framework would function as a "meta-regime": a device for guiding a process through which rival states or even adversaries could seek agreement or accommodation on a host of issues. When they do not agree, as will often be the case, adopting the framework can still enhance communication among them, clarify why they disagree, and offer them incentives to avoid inflicting harm on others, even as they seek to protect their own interests.

Stephen Walt writes that the world has returned to a state that realism explains best, one where great powers compete for power and influence and others adapt as best they can.