South Asia

Joseph Nye considers lessons from his own work on preventing the spread of nuclear technology in the 1970s.

Stephen Walt critiques Henry Kissinger's professional life by dividing it into three parts: as an academic at Harvard; as national security advisor and secretary of state; and as an author, pundit, and sage, much of it conducted as the head of Kissinger Associates, the consulting firm he founded after leaving government.

Nathaniel L. Moir writes of historical cases in which a U.S. tendency to over-rely on military capabilities and American economic strength proved unwise and how such power eventually proved to be irrelevant. In addition to the Vietnam War as an example, the rapid collapse of the Republic of China and its large military forces in late 1948 and 1949 offers some parallels with the collapse of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Government, despite the United States investment of trillions of U.S. dollars.

In order to fully appreciate the global climate-change challenge that the Biden administration will face, Robert Stavins reflects on the history of international negotiations that brought us to this point.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has published a document from the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs concerning nuclear problems and tensions in the time of COVID-19. The document has been co-signed by a large number of Pugwash colleagues and personalities.

Stephen Walt writes that several important events occurred in 2019, but few did anything to significantly alter global trends.

The competition between the United States and China will decide the continent's fate—and one of them has a head start.

Stephen Walt elaborates on five important lessons from the Cold War,  which should be guiding contemporary U.S. foreign policy. He also explains how President Donald Trump has been ignoring or violating every one of them.