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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3 October 2018 Foreign policy

Going Legit? The Foreign Policy of Vladimir Putin

By Bobo Lo

Image courtesy of Kremlin.ru. (CC BY 4.0)

This article was originally published by the Lowy Institute on 17 September 2018.

Key Findings

  • There will be broad continuity in Russian foreign policy over the course of Vladimir Putin’s current presidential term. Any policy changes will be stylistic, not transformative.
  • The Kremlin is committed to asserting Russia as a global power, although it will be tactically flexible in pursuing this ambition.
  • Putin will present different faces to the West: sometimes accommodating, at other times assertive and even confrontational. But there will be no compromise on core principles.

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26 September 2018 International Relations, Economy

The US-Chinese Trade War Begins

By Börje Ljunggren

Image courtesy of The White House/Flickr.

This article was originally published by YaleGlobal Online on 19 September 2018.

In his book Fear, journalist Bob Woodward suggests that Donald Trump’s protectionist instincts may be stronger than previously thought, preventing him from making commercial peace with traditional allies or trade partners. Recent actions against China leave no doubt. Yet, this is not simply the Trump administration directing “protectionist firepower” against China, to quote James Politi of the Financial Times. A geopolitical fight is also emerging about global technological leadership and US ambitions to contain China on this crucial frontier.

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5 September 2018 Foreign policy

Inexorable Changes in US Foreign Policy?

By Nikolas Gvosdev

Image courtesy of Luke Michael/Unsplash

This article was originally published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) on 14 August 2018.

It seems to be an article of faith among many members of the U.S. foreign policy community that, whenever Donald Trump—and his administration—leaves office, a subsequent president (whether a Democrat or a non-Trumpist Republican) will push a reset button that will return the United States to its position in world affairs that it occupied in 2008 or 2016. They take reassurance in the assumption, however, that Trump’s presidency can only represent a brief aberration and that, as Lawrence Freedman notes, “When Trump ceases to be President, things should return to normal.”

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18 June 2018 International Relations

Merkel and Macron: Edging towards Change?

By Josef Janning

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

This article was originally published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on 7 June 2018.

Angela Merkel finally responds to Emmanuel Macron’s Europe reform plans – but through the pages of a newspaper, and in only the most guarded of terms.
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