International Security & Defense

Mina Pollmann explains that between China and North Korea, the logic for increased Japan-South Korea cooperation is clear. All that was lacking was political will. 

There seems to exist a general consensus on how to conceptualize cooperation in the field of international relations (IR). The authors argue that this impression is deceptive. In practice, scholars working on the causes of international cooperation have come to implicitly employ various understandings of what cooperation is. Yet, an explicit debate about the discipline's conceptual foundations never materialized, and whatever discussion occurred did so only latently and without much dialog across theoretical traditions. In this article, the authors develop an updated conceptual framework by exploring the nature of these differing understandings and situating them within broader theoretical conversations about the role of cooperation in IR.

If historian Thucydides were asked about what is happening in relations between the United States and China today, what would he say? That was the question posed to me at the Davos World Economic Forum in January. I responded that he would say that this is a classic Thucydidean rivalry in which the two parties are right on script, each competing to show which can best exemplify the typical rising and ruling power – leaving him on the edge of his seat anticipating the grandest collision of all time.

The lessons from our wartime folly are stark, but we should learn them.

The facts about the downing of the U.S. Reaper drone are still emerging, and many relevant specifics are yet to become public, but as we attempt to get our bearings it is worth beginning with applied history. Applied historians ask: have we ever seen anything like this before?

Daniel Sobelman argues that the Middle East is today characterized by a deep geopolitical competition over the region's political order and orientation. This reality is the result of the failure, over the past two and a half decades or so, to establish a Western-oriented regional order on the one hand, and the rise of a regional strategic camp seeking to introduce an anti-Western order, whose core values are "resistance" to U.S. influence and the rejection of Israel's existence, on the other hand.

Steven E. Miller provides an analysis of what the Russian invasion of Ukraine means for the security dynamics of the Arctic and Northern Europe.

Belfer Center experts on the U.S.-China relationship and Middle East issues shared thoughts on the significance of the unexpected Iran-Saudi Arabia agreement brokered by China. 

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. 

Joseph Nye argues that if the Unites States, Japan, and Europe coordinate their policies, they will still represent the largest part of the world economy, and they will retain the capacity to organize a rules-based international order that can help shape Chinese behavior. These longstanding alliances are the key to managing China's rise.