The U.S. killed at least 25 Ktaib Hezbollah fighters on Sunday night in its first counterstrike in a decade against an Iran-aligned Iraqi Shia militia. U.S. F-15E aircraft struck three sites in Iraq and two in Syria in retaliation for Ktaib’s Friday rocket attack, which killed an American contractor and wounded four U.S. service personnel. Read more
In recent years, there has been growing bipartisan concern about the national security and economic risks posed by China. Although both Congress and the White House have taken steps to address these issues, the United States still lacks a clear and comprehensive strategy. Read more
Professor Aaron L. Friedberg testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee at the hearing “Smart Competition: Adapting U.S. Strategy Toward China at 40 Years.” Friedberg is a Counselor for the National Bureau of Asian Research and Co-chair of the NBR Taskforce on Transforming the Economic Dimension of U.S. China Strategy. He is also Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Read Friedberg’s prepared statement below or view the webcast on the House Foreign Affairs Committee website: Hearing on Smart Competition: Adapting U.S. Strategy Toward China at 40 Years.
Will they or won’t they? The gyrations of Theresa May’s discombobulated government have dominated the headlines as British parliamentarians agonise over whether to leave the EU or remain. But the same question also is being asked of trade negotiations between the US and China as the two countries inch their way towards a deal that many believe will determine the trajectory of the most important relationship in the world.
Read more
What are China’s grand ambitions? Did the United States get China “wrong”? And what policies should the United States adopt against a newly assertive China? What Western strategists are on the Chinese Communist Party’s reading list? Professor Aaron Friedberg and Brad Carson discuss these issues and much more in the new episode of “Jaw-Jaw.”
Read more
Donald Trump’s apparent belief that his intelligence community is conspiring against him is one of the most worrying aspects of his mercurial presidency. In last week’s Twitter storm against the Worldwide Threat Assessment presented by his intelligence chiefs to a congressional committee, the US President took issue with several of their key judgments, Read more
The West is slowly losing the contest for pre-eminence in the emerging international order. Brexit is just one manifestation of the crisis of confidence enveloping liberal democracies beset by a rising tide of dissent, self-doubt, identity politics and a loss of trust in the foundational institutions of the post-World War II order. Read more
Welcome to the tech wars. Despite her release on bail, the arrest of senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has ratcheted up simmering tensions between China and the US in a global contest for technological supremacy between the leaders of competing and increasingly incompatible systems of governance. This quest for information dominance is a driver of global cyber conflict, a shadowy undeclared war that is intensifying and becoming a serious security concern for Australia. Read more
In the unceasing competition between the great powers, this century’s dominant economic and foreign policy story has been China’s breathtaking rise from relative obscurity to the threshold of superpower status.
The accompanying narrative, which has become conventional wisdom in Australia and much of the world, is that the US is in decline and soon will be surpassed by an ascendant and economically irresistible China.
Read more
The next act in the immensely consequential decades-long Korean nuclear drama takes place on Friday, when the two Koreas launch their much-anticipated summit in the tiny Potemkin village of Panmunjom that straddles the demarcation line separating the divided nation.
The stakes could not be higher. A successful Korean summit is an essential prerequisite and road map for an even more important summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. Read more