Search

Begin New Search Topic Geopolitics Political Geography United States of America

101. Overcoming American Hegemony: The Central Paradox of Chinese and Russian Revisionism

Author:
Adam P. MacDonald
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
China and Russia are adopting increasingly assertive dispositions to reconstitute local geopolitical environments to their strategic advantage, requiring the erosion of American anchored hegemonic networks in their respective home regions. Despite growing material power bases, these pursuits are and will most likely continue to be unsuccessful. First, they are seen as threatening to other regional powers who are increasingly working together to counteract them. Second, these counterbalancing efforts reinforce the importance of the United States, given its still preponderant capabilities and networked centrality, in facilitating the coordination of existing and new political, economic and security arrangements which are increasingly oriented against China and Russia. A central paradox lies at the heart of these powers’ revisionist approaches: their actions inhibit desired new geopolitical realities, principally defined by alignment patterns, from emerging by reinforcing rather than displacing American hegemonic regional networks. Despite the negative strategic results being produced, it is expected both powers will double down on their current approaches to try to impose favorable regional realities before their power capacity wanes as domestic challenges grow. China and Russia are not existential challenges to but rather re-invigorate American hegemonic networks and its leading role within them. The greatest threat to American hegemony is not external but internal in terms of domestic alienation against the hegemonic project itself.
Topic:
Hegemony, Geopolitics, Rivalry, Multipolarity, and Revisionism
Political Geography:
Russia, China, and United States of America

102. Inter-Korean Reconciliation and the Role of the U.S.: Facilitator or Spoiler?

Author:
Gabriela Bernal
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
Although the Korean Peninsula has been divided for over 70 years, North and South have not been able to make lasting progress in terms of reconciliation. While there are multiple factors directly influencing the extent to which inter-Korean relations can progress, this paper focuses on the role of the United States. When it comes to inter-Korean reconciliation efforts, is the U.S. more of a facilitator or a spoiler? By looking at three case studies spanning three South Korean administrations—Roh Tae-woo, Roh Moo-hyun and Moon Jae-in—this paper attempts to find patterns and lessons related to Washington’s role in the complex inter-Korean reconciliation process. The cases reveal that the U.S. has played the role of both facilitator and spoiler in each case, and that whatever role the U.S. plays depends on its own relationship with North Korea at that time. The U.S. is most likely to play a facilitating role when the administrations in Washington and Seoul are both willing to engage diplomatically with Pyongyang, when progress is being made in denuclearization talks, when the geopolitical environment is conducive towards diplomacy and engagement with North Korea, and when the U.S. adopts a reciprocal negotiating strategy. The paper concludes by considering the conditions necessary to achieve inter-Korean reconciliation and to establish long-term peace on the peninsula. Key factors include the need for trust-building and reciprocity between the U.S. and North Korea, and adopting a more holistic approach that goes beyond the nuclear problem and aims to establish a lasting relationship between Washington and Pyongyang.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Geopolitics, and Reconciliation
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North Korea, and United States of America

103. China, the West, and the Future Global Order By Julian Lindley-French and Franco Algieri

Author:
Julian Lindley-French and Franco Algieri
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The primary purpose of this article is to respectfully communicate to a Chinese audience a Western view of the future world order. China needs the West as much as the West needs China. However, the West has awakened geopolitically to the toxic power politics that Russia is imposing on Ukraine and China’s support for it. China is thus faced with a profound choice: alliance with a declining and weak Russia or cooperation with a powerful bloc of global democracies that Russia’s incompetent and illegal aggression is helping to forge. The West is steadily morphing into a new global Community of Democracies with states such as those in the G7, Quads, and Quints taking on increasing importance as centers of decisionmaking.2 All three groupings reflect an emerging implicit structure with the United States at their core, European democracies on one American geopolitical flank, with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and other democracies in the Indo-Pacific region on the other American geopolitical flank. The force that is forging such a community is China as it morphs into a superpower. Specifically, China is choosing to be an aggressive putative superpower. President Xi Jinping’s aggressive worldview is of a China defined by its opposition to the United States and, by extension, America’s democratic allies and partners. A new world is being forged from within the increasingly hot cauldron of U.S.-Chinese strategic competition. However, does that mean this new world is inevitably now set on a crash course to conflict, something akin to a re-run of the collapse of pre–World War I Europe into systemic war? Or is it not too late for both sides to forge a pragmatic peace—a peace forged from respect, rather than destructive and disrespectful confrontation? On the face of it, President Xi seems to have made his choice, but in some very important respects siding with Russia in geopolitical conflict with the community of democracies seems counterintuitive when we look at China from a Western perspective (as this article does). This perspective also implies China’s “choice” might not be as firm as some would have it—a profound but essentially simple choice between siding with Vladimir Putin and confrontation with the West or continued growth, wealth, and power through collaboration with the West? The facts speak for themselves. Using the most favorable economic statistics for the combined Chinese and Russian economies—purchasing power parity—their combined economies are worth some $27 trillion in 2022. Using the same data for G7 countries, the core of the emerging Community, the total is $39 trillion.3 Add Australia and South Korea to the aggregate and the figure is $42 trillion. If nominal gross domestic product (GPD) is compared, the contrast is even more striking with the combined GDPs of China and Russia in 2022 totaling $20.2 trillion, while the combined GDPs of the G7 countries amount to $45.2 trillion, which when Australia and South Korea are added increases to $48.8 trillion.4 Critically, China’s trade with the democracies is over 10 times greater than that with Russia,5 while in 2020, China’s merchandise trade surplus with the rest of the world totaled $535 billion, with much of that figure due to surpluses with both the United States and Europe.6
Topic:
Security, Geopolitics, Strategic Competition, International Order, and Superpower
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Europe, and United States of America

104. SOUTHCOM Commander ADM Faller on U.S.-China Strategic Competition in the Western Hemisphere

Author:
Craig S. Faller
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Project 2049 Institute
Abstract:
The Project 2049 Institute is pleased to announce the publication of remarks made by Admiral Craig Faller at our recent event, “Near and Present Danger: SOUTHCOM Commander ADM Faller on U.S.-China Strategic Competition in the Western Hemisphere.” In his remarks, Admiral Faller addresses the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambitions in Latin America and the Caribbean, from both an economic and strategic perspective, which support its pursuit of global dominance and the imposition of authoritarian values on international institutions. In addition, Admiral Faller highlights SOUTHCOM’s recent activities in the Western Hemisphere and suggests a practical framework to develop and sustain trusted partnerships in the region that will promote democratic values in the face of CCP coercion.
Topic:
Bilateral Relations, Authoritarianism, Geopolitics, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

105. China: Rise or Demise?

Author:
John Mueller
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
China, even if it rises, does not present much of a security threat to the United States. Policymakers increasingly view China’s rapidly growing wealth as a threat. China currently ranks second, or perhaps even first, in the world in gross domestic product (although 78th in per capita GDP), and the fear is that China will acquire military prowess commensurate with its wealth and feel impelled to carry out undesirable military adventures. However, even if it continues to rise, China does not present much of a security threat to the United States. China does not harbor Hitler‐​style ambitions of extensive conquest, and the Chinese government depends on the world economy for development and the consequent acquiescence of the Chinese people. Armed conflict would be extremely—even overwhelmingly—costly to the country and, in particular, to the regime in charge. Indeed, there is a danger of making China into a threat by treating it as such and by engaging in so‐​called balancing efforts against it. Rather than rising to anything that could be conceived to be “dominance,” China could decline into substantial economic stagnation. It faces many problems, including endemic (and perhaps intractable) corruption, environmental devastation, slowing growth, a rapidly aging population, enormous overproduction, increasing debt, and restive minorities in its west and in Hong Kong. At a time when it should be liberalizing its economy, Xi Jinping’s China increasingly restricts speech and privileges control by the antiquated and kleptocratic Communist Party over economic growth. And entrenched elites are well placed to block reform. That said, China’s standard of living is now the highest in its history, and it’s very easy to envision conditions that are a great deal worse than life under a stable, if increasingly authoritarian, kleptocracy. As a result, the Chinese people may be willing to ride with, and ride out, economic stagnation should that come about—although this might be accompanied by increasing dismay and disgruntlement. In either case—rise or demise—there is little the United States or other countries can or should do to affect China’s economically foolish authoritarian drive except to issue declarations of disapproval and to deal more warily. As former ambassador Chas Freeman puts it, “There is no military answer to a grand strategy built on a non‐​violent expansion of commerce and navigation.” And Chinese leaders have plenty of problems to consume their attention. They scarcely need war or foreign military adventurism to enhance the mix. The problem is not so much that China is a threat but that it is deeply insecure. Policies of threat, balance, sanction, boycott, and critique are more likely to reinforce that condition than change it. The alternative is to wait, and to profit from China’s economic size to the degree possible, until someday China feels secure enough to reform itself.
Topic:
Government, GDP, Geopolitics, and Economic Growth
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and United States of America

106. Geo-tech politics: Why technology shapes European power

Author:
Ulrike Franke and José I. Torreblanca
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
New technologies are a major redistributor of power among states and a significant force shaping international relations. The European Union has for too long seen technology primarily through an economic lens, disregarding its implications for its partnerships and for its own geopolitical influence. If the EU wants to be more than a mediator between the two real technological powers, the United States and China, it will need to change its mindset. For the EU and its partners, the vulnerabilities created by battles over technology divide into two types: new dependencies and openness to foreign interference. The EU and its member states need deeper engagement with the geopolitical implications and geopolitical power elements of technology. This engagement has an external element of reaching out to partners and an internal element of ensuring close cooperation between the EU and its member states.
Topic:
Science and Technology, European Union, and Geopolitics
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and United States of America

107. Network effects: Europe’s digital sovereignty in the Mediterranean

Author:
Matteo Colombo, Federico Solfrini, and Arturo Varvelli
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)
Abstract:
Undersea internet cables are critical infrastructure as important as gas and oil pipelines, and are becoming a focus of growing geopolitical competition. Throughout the EU’s wider neighbourhood, geopolitics influences states’ decisions about who is allowed to build internet infrastructure and where they can do so. China and the US differ in their approaches, but both are racing ahead of the EU in their influence over internet infrastructure and the states that depend on it. The EU has the ambition and potential to become a sovereign digital power, but it lacks an all-encompassing strategy for the sector, in which individual governments are still the key players. The EU should set industry standards, help European telecommunications companies win business abroad, and protect internet infrastructure against hostile powers.
Topic:
Infrastructure, European Union, Geopolitics, Internet, and Digital Sovereignty
Political Geography:
China, Europe, United States of America, and Mediterranean

108. China vs. US: The Green Energy Race

Author:
Katharine Klačanský
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Europeum Institute for European Policy
Abstract:
In her policy paper, Katharine Klačanský, Research Fellow at EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy, discusses the role of climate in geopolitics and provides an overview of the Chinese and American green investment plan and its implications for the future of fossil fuels.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, Geopolitics, Green Technology, and Fossil Fuels
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

109. Inserting India into U.S.-Israel Defence Technology Cooperation

Author:
Gateway House
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations
Abstract:
Over the last decade and a half, Israel and the U.S. have become India’s top arms suppliers, and a robust defence partnership is underway. Beyond pure defence trade, Israeli and U.S. defence companies have participated in the ‘Make in India’ initiative, focusing on technology transfers and the co-development and co-production of technologies. This is the moment for India to capitalise on these two critical, bilateral defence partners, and particularly the start-up innovation hubs of Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv. How can India insert itself into the U.S.-Israel defence technology cooperation corridor, and participate in the development of emerging technologies like quantum computing and artificial intelligence in defence? What benefit will the U.S. and Israel gain from a partnership with India? This paper studies the U.S.-Israel defence technology corridor, and suggests potential collaborations for India. It will necessitate the three innovation hubs of Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv and Bengaluru coming together to capitalise on their respective strengths and declared national technology priorities. Bringing a like-minded, tech-savvy democracy like India into the arc of the U.S.-Israel partnership will offer a trinity of benefits: a robust and tested edge in emerging technologies to the three militaries over their adversaries, develop interoperability, and reinforce their access to the Indian market. The greatest benefit will be for India, which has been set back by lengthy defence acquisition procedures, and will do better with a modern defence base at home. India will have to overcome the geopolitical hurdles of its defence relationship with Russia, and of Israel’s reported defence ties with China and Pakistan, to build a sturdy trilateral cooperation.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Science and Technology, Geopolitics, Arms Trade, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Russia, China, South Asia, India, Israel, and United States of America

110. How to Think About the China-Russia Partnership

Author:
James Sherr and Frank Jüris
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Centre for Defence and Security - ICDS
Abstract:
Since the conclusion of the Treaty on Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation in 2001, the balance of power between China and Russia has appreciably shifted in favour of the former, but their common definition of the enemy and the complementarity of their core interests remains as strong as it ever was. If the China-Russia relationship is not an alliance, then what is it, and what are its limits? In the Xi-Putin era, apprehension and ambition have transformed the ‘axis of convenience’ into an axis of necessity. But will ‘strategic partnership’ prove important or irrelevant to potential conflicts in Taiwan, Belarus or Ukraine? How much should be made of divergences of approach in Central Asia and the Arctic, where China’s rise leaves no stone unturned? To what extent will Russia continue to welcome the growth of China’s power — to the point of nuclear parity with the United States and, by extension with Russia itself?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Treaties and Agreements, Bilateral Relations, Partnerships, Geopolitics, Alliance, and Emerging Powers
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Eurasia, Taiwan, Asia, Arctic, and United States of America