Orbis最新文献

As Russia’s invasion in Ukraine enters its second year, how is the global system continuing to evolve and change? How is the balance of power and influence shifting? And what might be some of the unexpected developments? Orbis turned to Michael A. Reynolds, Sharyl Cross, Dov S, Zakheim, Ronald J. Granieri, Almaz Keshavarz, Kiron Skinner, Jeff D. Colgan, Damjan Krnjevic Miskovic, and Rachel Ziemba for their thoughts, with a final reflection by Orbis editor Nikolas Gvosdev.

This article argues that Jordan should advocate for transforming the Abraham Accords’ regional integration initiatives into a regional security architecture that brings prosperity and security to all its members—including the Palestinians. Jordan is well positioned to influence the Accords’ strategic planners given its credibility, diplomatic assets, and strategic location; it will continue to be a lynchpin in regional security and future integration plans.

Both Federalists and Antifederalists agreed on the need to strengthen the Union against threats from without and disunion from within. The Federalists, nonetheless, spent much time defending the Union and attacking their opponents as disunionists. The Federalists won because they succeeded in shifting the issue from the questionable necessity of immediate and unamended ratification of their proposed reforms to the vital security necessity of continuation of the Union, on which their opponents in fact agreed.

Since the mid-1990s, Beijing has relaunched its Africa policy, increasing its development assistant, asking Chinese companies to “go out” and multiply infrastructure projects. Yet, Xi Jinping’s more ambitious foreign policy and his signature project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have deepened China’s footprint in Africa. In other words, the BRI has helped elevate China into a hegemonic power in Africa. Since 2018, for a number of reasons—reduced financial resources at home and recipients’ growing and more and more unsustainable debt—, the BRI has been gradually scaled down. In the same period, to regain influence, other Africa’s external partners such as the United States, the European Union (EU) and India, have invested more in their relationship with the continent. Nonetheless, as this article shows, the BRI will carry on and China is likely to remain a crucial partner of Africa, contributing to giving African countries more options, therefore more agency, despite and even thanks to Sino-Western growing tensions.

Despite China’s assurances that mutually beneficial economic development can overcome political or security challenges, its developmentalist foreign policy has faced a range of difficulties since the early 2000s. Yet since the introduction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, China has doubled down on its foreign policy developmentalism, reproducing and deepening the propensity to overpromise and underdeliver on its claims for development. Even in the face of the Covid pandemic and growing tensions with the United States, China has remained committed to promoting itself as an agent and engine of economic development on the global stage while also recalibrating the focus of development-focused policies to include health, environmental, and digital aims. As the United States seeks to establish a “new Washington Consensus” with appeal to emerging economies that are already deeply economic interdependent with China, it needs to better account for the momentum and even appeal of China’s flawed but adaptable developmentalist foreign policy.

The Great Power Competition requires a new defense posture that adapts to the exigencies of the Russia-Ukraine war and the rise of China. A successful defense posture will necessarily require a reexamination of US defense strategy, and, importantly, the level of resources devoted by the US and its allies to national defense. A defense real growth commitment should be initiated now and sustained for as long as this more competitive and threatening security environment remains in place