Immigration, asylum and naturalisation policies have always been at the heart of great power competition. It is time for American policymakers to begin thinking about how a more enlightened approach to immigration can help the United States preserve its primacy.
With each new peace treaty, the idea of the nation state slowly materialised. Now, in its parliamentarian form, it reigns supreme but in a post-9/11 world it faces increased competition.
The lack of transparency over NATO expansion can be linked to the Russian leader’s mythologising over his country’s epic struggle.
For the past sixty years, the use of nuclear weapons has become unthinkable. But with every conflict there comes a point where the unthinkable becomes possible.
A generation of former East Germans, hand-picked to go to the then Soviet Union to study and work, could have used their insights to guide current foreign policy and help avert the government’s embarrassing gaffes. Why were they never consulted?
With Nazism, it was proven, if proof was ever needed, that barbarism does not necessarily stand in contradiction to culture and that even the most noble artistic expressions can inspire the most barbaric acts.
Helping India remove itself from its structural dependency on Russia is a delicate task. Decoupling must ultimately progress along two paths: providing an alternative to the deep technical cooperation India has developed with Moscow and assuring the breadth of supply necessary to meet the demands of India’s defence plan.
Scholars of esotericism are often asked to justify their field of research and its place in modern society. However, esotericism provides fertile ground for radical thinking and is a useful means of considering the limitations of standard western thought.
The current reaction against free trade is a result of a blind faith in the market, but retreat into economic isolation is not a solution either. The policies of George Canning, a nineteenth century British Foreign Secretary, can offer a useful lesson in the values of following the middle way.
It is the ultimate irony of the past 20 years of European integration that its very effects are now pushing Germany closer to the position of power which post-war European treaties sought to prevent.
The US cultivated a garden that it grew weary of the burdens of sustaining but, once all other alternatives have been exhausted, the US will be pushed back into defending its liberal world order.
Throughout the ages, oracles, journalists and political scientists have attempted to guess the course fate may take. But should they fail to take the specifics, particularly specific individuals, into account, they are doomed to fail.
Realism at its core is the capacity to look at the world without euphemism. In that spirit, Thucydides is a tonic to wishful thinking.
The idea that ‘real religion’ in ancient Greece is to be found only in the so-called ‘mystery’ cults, that is, cults involving initiatory rituals, dies hard.
There are three principal and often conflicting aims when it comes to energy policy: reducing carbon emissions, consumer protection and the security of supply. When the politics of the day dictates that the system must be tweaked to favour one, it often backfires.
Alfred Thayer Mahan’s writings on naval warfare have overshadowed his contributions to geopolitics. His theories, however, are clearly playing out today.
The West’s Russia problem is going to be protracted; now is the time for a strategic decision as to what ends to pursue.
The era in world history that began with the fall of the Soviet Union is drawing to its close. The post-Cold War Eurasian settlement that the United States and its allies imposed after 1990 has three big challengers – Russia, China and Iran.
The Soviet collapse pointed to the possibility of great reversals and historic surprises. In invading Ukraine Putin may have sealed the demise of his political enterprise.
Geography and politics are closely intertwined, although that no more means that all geography is political than that all politics is geographical.
The atrocities committed against Ukrainians and the fear of further invasions is leading many to call for drastic action to contain Russia. However, should the West put its foot on the first rung of the escalation ladder, it must be willing to climb it.
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