ASPEN: Humans are a tool-making species, but can we control the tools we make? When Robert Oppenheimer and other physicists developed the first nuclear fission weapon in the 1940s, they worried that their invention might destroy humanity. Thus far...
CAMBRIDGE : Avril Haines, the US Director of National Intelligence, recently warned that “Russia’s need for support in the context of Ukraine has forced it to grant some long-sought concessions to China, North Korea, and Iran with the...
CAMBRIDGE: When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently visited Beijing in an effort to stabilise relations with China, many of the issues that he discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping were highly contentious. For example, Blinken...
CAMBRIDGE : The great-power competition between the United States and China is a defining feature of the first part of this century, but there is little agreement on how it should be characterised. Some call it an “enduring rivalry”...
CAMBRIDGE :The first debate between the Republican Party’s candidates for next year’s US presidential election revealed major schisms over foreign policy. While former US Vice President Mike Pence and former US Ambassador to the United...
CAMBRIDGE: As the 2024 US presidential primary campaign season begins, the most likely final contest is a rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Judging by the electoral map in 2020, Biden would be well-placed to win. But American...
CAMBRIDGE: We live in a world where geopolitical stability relies largely on deterrence. But how can we prove that deterrence works? Consider the ongoing war in Europe. Beginning in December 2021, US President Joe Biden warned Russian President...
CAMBRIDGE: Late last year, Morris Chang, the legendary founder of Taiwan’s (and the world’s) leading semiconductor producer, proclaimed that “globalisation is almost dead.” In a world where supply chains have been disrupted...
ASPEN: At this year’s Aspen Security Forum (which I co-chair) in July, China’s ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, appealed for better understanding of his country. But there was considerable debate among the assembled experts...
CAMBRIDGE : As Russian missiles pound Ukrainian cities, and as Ukrainians fight to defend their country, some avowed realists might say, “So much for soft power.” But such a response betrays a shallow analysis. Power is the ability to...
CAMBRIDGE – When China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, recently called for a reset of bilateral relations with the United States, a White House spokesperson replied that the US saw the relationship as one of strong competition that...
