Source The Atlantic Council
This week’s edition brought to you by
Mary Kate Aylward, Publications Editor
Media www.rajawalisiber.com – The week in world affairs began with the attack on democracy in Brazil, included a lively semantic debate about tanks in the context of US and European support for Ukraine, and ended with a rethink of Japan’s postwar pacifism as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited the White House. Whether the United States can still play a role across such a span of issues and continents—whether it should try to be “the indispensable nation,” in Madeleine Albright’s famous phrase—has been the subject of some controversy over the past few years. Our experts—who hold a variety of positions on the question—are here to debate with vigor and enliven your inbox with analysis.
Russia as we know it might not survive the coming decade: That’s the finding from our just-released Global Foresight project that caused the biggest stir this week. I had the pleasure of working on this with the Council’s managing editor, Uri Friedman, and foresight team led by Peter Engelke. We surveyed leading geostrategists and foresight experts about what the world will look like a decade hence, and the fact that nearly half of these respondents anticipate the collapse in some form of the world’s biggest nuclear-weapons power jumped out at us from the data. But there are quite a few other startling findings to check out. (Let’s just say there was heavy use of the surprised-face emoji in the course of editing this project.) Explore the world in 2033.Russia as we know it might not survive the coming decade: That’s the finding from our just-released Global Foresight project that caused the biggest stir this week. I had the pleasure of working on this with the Council’s managing editor, Uri Friedman, and foresight team led by Peter Engelke. We surveyed leading geostrategists and foresight experts about what the world will look like a decade hence, and the fact that nearly half of these respondents anticipate the collapse in some form of the world’s biggest nuclear-weapons power jumped out at us from the data. But there are quite a few other startling findings to check out. (Let’s just say there was heavy use of the surprised-face emoji in the course of editing this project.) Explore the world in 2033.
“It’s not in the United States’ interest to turn away from Europe as it asserts itself in Asia—and the country is rich and powerful enough to secure its interests in both theaters.” In the course of defending this bold proposition—and refuting the arguments that the US has a choice to make between supporting Ukraine and competing effectively with China—scholar Andrew Michta brings to the surface some assumptions that underlie much of Washington’s foreign-policy conversation. This is more than just another entry in the long-running restraint versus primacy debate. It’s a shaking and tilting of the board on which that game has played out. Everything looks a little different with the pieces moved around. Dive into the argument for going big.
Swift Boat veteran, career naval officer, and strategist Harlan Ullman raises the specter of the exhausted post-Vietnam military—which has long haunted Pentagon planners—to prompt some new thinking about the ways, means, and ends of US defense. He points to a guiding strategy with “unachievable” aims, a shrinking pool of recruits, and “unaffordable” costs for everything—the litany of problems that usually precedes a call for a bigger defense budget. But while giving the Pentagon more money is one of the few things Congress can agree on, Harlan observes, this is not a problem that can be solved with cash. It’s about strategy: “Without a major course correction, the US military will become hollow and unable to carry out its missions with any confidence.” Read more about the proposed strategy shift.
War criminals will have a harder time finding refuge in the United States now, but don’t expect a flood of trials. US President Joe Biden just signed a new law— passed unanimously after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to Congress—to expand US courts’ jurisdiction over war crimes, and Atlantic Council staff lawyer Elise Baker explains the significance in Just Security. Human-rights advocates, the US State Department, and the Department of Defense have long sought this change, which allows the US to meet an important Geneva Convention obligation. But Elise says this is just the first of several legal updates that would be needed for US courts to play the international role currently held by European courts, which have tried suspects accused of atrocities in Syria, Rwanda, and elsewhere. Read what’s next for war-crimes law.
“Never let a good crisis go to waste” is the Churchillian wisdom with which Atlantic Council President Fred Kempe opens the 2023 Global Energy Agenda. The crisis is Russia’s war in Ukraine and what it drove home about the degree to which geopolitics and energy security are intertwined; the opportunity is the transition away from fossil fuels. How to get from here to there is the business of this comprehensive look ahead at the coming year in energy—which “[takes] the pulse of the global energy policy community, including contributions from leaders in governments, the private sector, and expert communities.” You can follow this discussion among leading policymakers and experts all weekend at the Council’s Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi. Get smart on energy in 2023.
Author
Mary Kate Aylward is a publications editor for the Atlantic Council’s editorial team, where she coordinates publication of long-form work and provides editorial guidance to programs and centers. She also crafts editorial strategies to boost the reach and impact of the Council’s policy expertise.
Aylward came to the Atlantic Council from War on the Rocks, where she edited long-form writing on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. Before that, she wrote and edited print and video content for US military publications; hit the streets (and the phones) as a political campaign staffer; and was a junior fellow in communications at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
She graduated magna cum laude from the College of William & Mary with a degree in international relations. She speaks French (when given sufficient warm-up time).