Asia & the Pacific

Stephen Walt argues that if the world is entering a period of defense dominance—and if the resolve of most states is greatest in their immediate surroundings—then the ability of any country to wield vast and unchallenged global influence will decline. In such a world, the United States will have to pick its battles more carefully than it has in the past.

In this deeply personal book, Joseph Nye shares his own journey living through the American century.

In the Henty Mance interview, Joseph Nye, who coined term 'soft power,' says that the turmoil facing the United States and Harvard was worse in the 1960s.

Anatol Klass recounts how Uyghur chieftain Yolbars Khan came to be buried in a Chinese Nationalist grave in Taipei. It reveals much about China's violent relationship with its most western province.

Episode 92 examines conflict delegations and the roles of intermediary actors within proxy conflict. Our guests introduce the idea of intermediaries and pull from academic and practical experience to set the stage.  Along with other historical examples, they examine the role Pakistan played as a key go-between from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan through the American withdrawal in 2021. They offer lessons for working through intermediaries in ongoing conflicts and highlight pitfalls found within these complex geopolitical relationships. 

Stephen Walt argues that in a multipolar world, the United States will be in an ideal situation to play the other major powers off against each other, and it can let its partners in Eurasia bear more of the burden of their own security. 

A new theory of war duration suggests that strategic narratives explain why the U.S. war in Afghanistan endured and ended. A robust anti-terrorism narrative generated audience costs for presidential inaction. As the narrative weakened, these costs declined, and the war ended.

William L. d'Ambruoso writes that ruthlessness does not guarantee success, but it usually proves necessary — a difficult truth that should sit uneasily with democratic counterinsurgents who are supposed to care about human rights. 

 As the junta continues to target the population with violence, including torture and sexual assault, Myanmar's opposition movement has also begun to question the effectiveness of its largely peaceful protests, especially in the absence of international support for the pro-democracy struggle. Charli Carpenter writes that this is precisely the type of situation where the United Nations can be the most effective if it were to act early, but it is also where it is the least likely to do so.

The Russian/Chinese-led bloc is expected to approve Iran's accession this week amid uncertainty over President Raisi's foreign posture and ongoing turmoil in Afghanistan.