North America

Halla Hrund Logadóttir writes that an online education experiment which had been under development for years — at the speed of a medium-size turtle — became the new norm in an instant because of the COVID-19 disruption. 

Despite the far-reaching effects of the current pandemic,  the essential nature of world politics will not be transformed. The territorial state will remain the basic building-block of international affairs, nationalism will remain a powerful political force, and the major powers will continue to compete for influence in myriad ways. Global institutions, transnational networks, and assorted non-state actors will still play important roles, of course, but the present crisis will not produce a dramatic and enduring increase in global governance or significantly higher levels of international cooperation. In short, the post-COVID-19 world will be less open, less free, less prosperous, and more competitive than the world many people expected to emerge only a few years ago.

Matt Chorley is joined by two experts on Russia — Dr Jonathan Eyal from RUSI and Dr Calder Walton from Harvard — to dissect the Russia report, published by the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee, and look at the country's history of interference abroad.

The administration of President Donald J. Trump has consistently used fear of China to undermine nearly five decades of bipartisan consensus on US–Russian nuclear arms control. The negative consequences of these actions may last far beyond the Trump presidency. If generations of agreement between Democrats and Republicans on bilateral nuclear treaties with Russia erode, it will pose a significant setback to US national security and global stability. Future leaders may ultimately need to consider new approaches to nuclear risk reduction that preserve the benefits of the arms control regime.

When and why do rising states prey upon or support declining powers? A state’s choice of policy toward a declining power depends on two factors: whether that power is useful against challengers to the rising state, and the declining state’s military strength.

As nationalism spreads worldwide, some countries have tried to convince others to adopt their models. But it is time to revisit a classic idea that has gone out of fashion: sovereignty, Stephen M. Walt writes.

Calder Walton explains why the British and U.S. governments should know from their own history the value of secret deals with communication companies—and rigging their hardware—to collect intelligence.

Kelley Kizzier, who served as a top European Union (EU) negotiator in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), expressed her hopes for progress on international climate policy in the latest episode of “Environmental Insights: Discussions on Policy and Practice from the Harvard Environmental Economics Program.”

Stephen Walt unpacks foreign-imposed regime change and concludes that if the United States can't stop COVID-19 transmission at home, there is no reason to think it should ever try running another country.

The attached document contains July 2020 updates to our database on U.S. government investments in energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment (ERD3) through the Department of Energy.