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.

This paper examines the understudied role of international engagement, and of specific international actors, in greening China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative.

The geopolitical implications of solar displacing oil as the world’s major source of energy are enormous. Why has the Middle East been a central arena in the “great game” for the past century? Because countries there have been the major suppliers of the oil and gas that powered 20th-century economies. If, over the next decade, photovoltaic cells that capture energy from the sun were to replace a substantial part of the demand for oil and gas, who will the biggest losers be? And even more consequentially: who will be the biggest winner?

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. 

The economist and HKS professor is passionate about solving what may be humanity's most important and perplexing problem: How to untangle fossil fuels from the global economy.

Ivan Arreguin-Toft argues that non-material considerations like cyber power matter just as much as material ones in debates about U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East.

For many, integrating “decarbonization” into public policy, corporate and financial strategies has become a requirement, not an option — yet, what happens when the critical link between climate stability and decarbonization breaks?

On 9 March, India accidentally fired a BrahMos supersonic cruise missile into Pakistan. On 11 March, an official Indian statement on the incident acknowledged that “in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile.” Pakistan, in a press conference on 10 March, had already declared that a “high-speed flying object” from India had entered Pakistani territory. General commentary has criticized India’s sluggish communications in the immediate aftermath of the accident. This article puts Indian messaging around the misfiring to three tests of communication: language, timeliness, and narrative control.

In late 2017, Mexico made headlines as Italian company Enel bid what was then a world-record low price for renewable energy in the country’s third such energy auction. This development was possible due to the historical and sweeping energy reforms passed with broad support in Mexico in 2013. Then-President Enrique Peña Nieto had succeeded where previous Mexican presidents had failed, reversing decades of resource nationalism and overhauling the energy sector through constitutional reforms that gave the private sector a larger role and advantaged renewable energy in Mexico’s economy. The 2017 auction seemed to indicate Mexico’s bright future not only as a conventional oil producer, but also as a clean energy power.