South Asia

Commercial international port terminals owned and operated by Chinese firms provide dual-use capabilities to the People's Liberation Army during peacetime. They enable China to project power into critical regions worldwide by providing military logistics and intelligence networks.

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.

What sounded so simple during last year’s presidential campaign has turned out, like everything related to Iran, to be quite complicated.

The United States' present dysfunction—and the hyper-securitized physical apparatus in Washington—is the natural outgrowth of its reckless, militaristic conduct abroad, Stephen M. Walt writes.

The geopolitical and geo-economic forces wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, as examined previously in this series, are likely to slow the transition to a more sustainable global energy mix. Fortunately, the pandemic has also resulted in governments gaining vastly greater influence over whether this shift stalls or accelerates.

For most people, there was nothing to celebrate when the International Monetary Fund downgraded its outlook for global economic growth in June, anticipating a contraction of 4.9% for 2020. Yet for others, such as the small but persistent group of economists and others known as the “degrowth movement,” the Covid-induced economic slowdown has a silver lining.

The search for silver linings to the coronavirus pandemic has come up woefully short. But one hopeful — and much talked of — prospect is that the disruption will accelerate the global shift to a more sustainable energy future.

Iran, Russia and other countries often use proxies as a way to fight the United States and its allies while advancing their own influence. Fighting proxy war, however, is often more complicated than confronting traditional aggression.  Sara Plana details a range of responses to proxy war and notes their many limitations.

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.

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.