The CSS Blog Network

13 February 2019 Foreign policy

America’s Two Track Asia Policy

By Craig Kafura

Image courtesy of The White House/Flickr

This article was originally published by Pacific Forum on 5 February 2019.

President Trump came into office with strong prior beliefs about the failure of US alliance policy and the need for allies to pay for US defense efforts on their behalf. Some feared that he presaged a rising isolationism among the American public that would support a president seeking to pull back from US commitments overseas. But Trump is failing to lay the groundwork for a new approach to the Indo-Pacific. Instead, the US is pursuing a two-track Asia policy, with Congress and the administration reading from different scripts. And the public is only on board with one of those approaches.

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11 February 2019 Security, Foreign policy

Three Lessons from the History of Foreign-Imposed Regime Change

By Melissa Willard-Foster

Image courtesy of Beatrice Murch/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)

This article was originally published by Political Violence @ a Glance on 1 February 2019.

It took only minutes for the Trump Administration to support Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, when he challenged the nation’s incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, for power last week. Trump may have promised to “stop racing to topple foreign regimes,” but his choice to back Guaidó isn’t surprising. In fact, just about every American president since FDR has attempted foreign-imposed regime change, or FIRC, in one form or another. This history offers some lessons that shed light on the crisis unfolding in Venezuela.

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25 January 2019 Foreign policy

China’s New Policy on the European Union: A Toughening Line on Political Issues

By Jyrki Kallio

Image courtesy of European External Action Service/Flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0)

This article was originally published by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) on 14 January 2019.

China’s recent policy paper on the European Union shows that the country continues to recognize the EU as an important partner in many fields. A new, distressing element is that China has toughened its demands towards the EU to respect its core interests and to refrain from meddling in its internal affairs.

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18 January 2019 Foreign policy, Defense

A European Security Council: Added Value for EU Foreign and Security Policy?

By Markus Kaim and Ronja Kempin

Image courtesy of European Parliament/Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) on 2 January 2018.

A European Security Council (ESC) would – so the German government has suggested – make the European Union (EU) better prepared for making decisions about inter­national politics and thus better able to act. It believes that if the EU and its member states do not manage to take and implement coherent decisions more quickly, their ability to (further) enforce European rules and strengthen multilateral formats will be weakened. The EU-27’s diplomatic, financial and military resources should there­fore be supplemented by a format for more effective intergovernmental cooperation. However, this idea can only take shape if the German government can demonstrate the added value of such a body, and if it shows more willingness itself to shape for­eign policy within the EU framework.

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16 January 2019 Foreign policy

Top Ten Foreign Policy Trends in 2019

By Mark Leonard and Jeremy Shapiro

Image courtesy of European External Action Service/Flickr. (CC BY-NC 2.0)

This article was originally published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on 3 January 2019.

Top ten trends that will occupy European foreign policymakers in 2019

It’s a new year and thus a new opportunity to predict the big events and trends that will shake the world in 2019. We want to get this in early, so you have time to forget what we said by the end of the year.

However, lest you think that we have completely forgotten the recently deceased 2018, we have responded to the demands of the intellectual harpies our trusted ECFR colleagues and graded ourselves on last year’s predictions. With our usual combination of feigned humility and self-delusion, we eked out a score of 7.5 out of 10.

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