Institute for National Security Studies (University of Tel Aviv) | Policy Analysis | Volume 23 | No. 1 | January 2020 | Author: François Heisbourg In historical terms, it is the seventy-year era of alliances that is the exception.
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Tag: Geopolitics
Historical amnesia: Great power behaviour and criticism of China
By Mike Scrafton | Positioning the adversarial relationship with China as one of morally superior western democratic nations in competition with a somehow illegitimate and malevolent China is an exercise in historical amnesia. The democratic United State’s 1890 – 1920 trajectory from western hemisphere state to global power has some economic, military and foreign policy parallels with authoritarian China’s growth in the twenty-first century.
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Eyes wide open, or a blinkered view? The Australia-China relationship in the Antarctic
The recent report ‘Eyes Wide Open: Managing the Australia-China Antarctic Relationship’ contains a lot of information about China’s activities in Antarctica and usefully sets out aspects of the Chinese-Australian relationship.
But are the report’s recommendations a disproportionate reaction to a manufactured crisis regarding China’s presence and activities in Antarctica?
Australia’s strategic quandary: political leadership and the abandonment of strategy
Strategy, the link between policy and the battlefield, is now more important than ever.
If there is another great power war, it will be imperative for the political leadership to be clear and definitive about their strategic goals and about what victory would look like – at a time when the range and technological complexity of the weapons systems involved will provide a major barrier to the level of understanding of civilian leaders.
Australia’s strategic quandary emerges from its status as an ally to a great power. If it abrogates its responsibility to set national policy aims by joining in a coalition in which one great power antagonist determines the goals of the war it cannot claim to have a strategy. It cannot claim to be linking Australia’s national priorities to the military actions. Its fate would be in the hands of its great power ally.
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Jamie Shea: The coronavirus – what could be the strategic implications?
Nearly a quarter of our way through the 21st century we have been fortunately spared thus far the devastating wars that blighted the previous century. Yet we have nonetheless experienced an almost uninterrupted flow of systemic
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SIEPS: Compatible Interests? The EU and China’s Belt and Road Initiative
China’s economic development and global impact are tilting the economic, political and military balances that have shaped the world since the end of the cold war. One step in China’s global outlook is the comprehensive infrastructure project Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), opening a clear set of crossroads for the EU. Has the EU payed enough attention to the geopolitics? Should the EU focus more on European interests, and not only on norms and values?
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Stockholm International Peace Institute: The Geopolitics of a Changing Arctic
SIPRI looks at the geopolitical and security issues in the Arctic region against a backdrop of unprecedented changes in its physical, social, geo-economic and geopolitical realities. The Paper offers a clear account of the challenges facing states bordering the Arctic, as well as others, as global warming causes the sea ice disappear and the polar resources to become available.
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Geopolitics and the re-election of Donald Trump
The biggest question in geopolitics is: will President Trump be re-elected? More than any previous presidential election, the 2020 election could presage a very dangerous era in world politics, making the presidential election the most important geopolitical event this year. However, the American presidential election will be determined by domestic issues that swirl around a collection of policy issues as well as identity and values.
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