Regional Challenges to Japan’s Next Prime Minister

Shinzo Abe served four terms as PM of Japan and is the longest-serving PM in the country’s history. On August 28, 2020, he announced his resignation for health reasons. While politicians and pundits debate his legacy, others are focusing on the challenges his successor will face. In addition to reigniting the Japanese economy, the new PM will have to cope with threats and challenges from Washington, Beijing, Seoul, and Pyongyang.

The Case of Belarus: Russia’s Fear of Popular Revolutions

Belarus is the last remaining state on Russia’s western border not to have experienced a popular revolution since the 1990s, but revolutionary fervor is growing there. Events in Minsk have great geopolitical import, as one would expect from a state located between Russia and Europe.

Practical Zionism Today

With the door (temporarily?) closed on extending sovereignty to parts of the West Bank, the time has come to return to the logic of what used to be known as “practical Zionism.” Though the modern state of Israel was established as far back as 1948, the controversy between “political” and “practical” Zionism remains as current as it was in the 1930s.

Now Is the Time for the US to Revive the Cypriot Peace Talks

In order to counter Ankara’s aggression in the eastern Mediterranean and disrupt its plans to dominate Cyprus, the US should make a peace deal on the island a top regional priority for 2021.

Israel Needs an Anti-Propaganda Agency

For five years, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy has been trying to combat the large number of international delegitimization and boycott campaigns against the Jewish State. Its options to combat international antisemitism are limited, and it is doubtful whether it has properly prioritized the issues at stake. Israel urgently needs a separate anti-propaganda agency, something the Strategic Affairs Ministry should have recommended long ago.

The Pakistan-Saudi Spat: Hitting the Kingdom Where It Hurts

A rift between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia throws deepening fissures in the Muslim world into sharp relief. Coupled with the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and myriad conflicts in the Middle East, the dispute poses serious challenges to Saudi Arabia’s quest for geopolitical and religious leadership of the Muslim world.

From Tripoli to Tripoli, Turkey’s Real Aim Is Egypt

The recent explosion at Beirut Port highlights both Turkey's growing defense cooperation with Iran and its strategic interest in Lebanon, which facilitates Ankara’s provocative and worrisome agenda in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, Turkey’s unrestrained aggression in that region may be a diversionary tactic from its slow and patient pursuit of a complex strategy to surround Egypt with hostile forces on multiple fronts and undercut its powerful regional role.

Are We on the Brink of a New Dark Ages?

Lev Stesin
September 8, 2020
Paper No. 1735

The foreign policy of a progressive US administration could entail a fanatical pursuit of race-based “intersectionality” policies, similar to the proletarian internationalism of yesteryear. If US foreign policy were in fact composed of such policies, many countries would consider China the lesser of two evils. A world dominated by a progressive US on the one hand and communist China on the other could devolve into a new Dark Ages.

Why the Erasure of History Matters

History and historiography matter. As Winston Churchill astutely said, “Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after it has happened; but only the wise man knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting and memorable.” Today, such sensitivity to the value of history is evaporating from the public consciousness. The willful blindness to the instructional value of the past is manifesting itself in attempts to erase history rather than reckon with it responsibly.

US Foreign Policy on the Verge of the Election

With the US Presidential election rapidly approaching, an assessment of US foreign policy is in order. The Trump administration has undertaken conceptual shifts that see China as an adversary and Russia as a fading power, and it has deprioritized the Middle East and Europe. Without robust diplomatic and military engagement, these new policies risk ceding those regions to Chinese domination. In contrast, evidence suggests a Biden administration would largely return to the policies of the Obama era that accommodated Chinese imperialism.

Perspectives Papers