When I arrived in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, a landlocked, mountainous country in Central Asia and the smallest and poorest in the region, I was prepared for the ubiquity of Russia’s regional influence. Our advisors from the Critical Language Scholarship program in Persian warned us that Tajiki Persian, unlike the Iranian Persian we were accustomed to learning, had been heavily influenced by Russian, even adopting the Cyrillic alphabet after usage of the traditional Arabic script was abolished. Due to Soviet governance in Tajikistan, which only ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, most Tajiks had at least some Russian proficiency, and Russian is still viewed as an important lingua franca. Indeed, upon arriving, I quickly became jealous of my classmates who could speak Russian; when their Persian failed them, they could still easily communicate with most of the locals.

What I was less prepared for was just how much influence China had gained in the country. I knew that China was making significant inroads into Central Asia under a strategy known as the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), but I never expected the pervasiveness of Chinese brands and products, the Chinese characters emblazoning nearly every piece of heavy construction machinery and the Tajik-Chinese Friendship Buses occasionally running up and down Rudaki Avenue, the main street of Dushanbe. Most of all, I had no idea just how many Chinese people and firms were working in Tajikistan, an oft-forgotten part of the world. Indeed, the wide extent of Chinese penetration in Russia’s historical backyard was enough to leave me a little stunned, a true testament to one of the hidden successes of Chinese foreign policy.

“There are a lot of Chinese here,” almost every Chinese person tells me. I found myself swiping pictures of construction projects on a phone, the manager saying, “These are all the projects I’ve worked on in my time here.”

“This is in Dushanbe?” I asked.

“No, this one is near Kulob.”

Kulob is a relatively major city to the south of Tajikistan, four hours away by car from Dushanbe on a good day, nestled in the rolling golden hills of the Khatlon region. The Chinese have projects all around the country, even in the remote and forbiddingly mountainous Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province (GBAO). This is an area noted for recent violence between government forces and rebels in 2012 and for its record of supporting separatism during the Tajik Civil war. It was only after this conversation that I realized just how strong the Chinese presence in Central Asia was.

News outlets covering Tajikistan and Central Asia are few and often riddled with skewed, if not outright erroneous, information. An outbreak of violence in Dushanbe on September 4, 2015 was blamed on Islamic militants by many Western outlets, despite insufficient evidence and reasonable cause to suspect other motivations. Far from the Islamic frenzy many Western pundits were eager to point to, the incident was really a politically-motivated rebel group led by a former minister fighting against the central government.

It should have come as no surprise then why I had initially underestimated China’s presence in Tajikistan and much of Central Asia. Despite relative interest in China’s Silk Road Economic Belt, few Western outlets seem invested in or capable of reporting on China’s expanding ties with the region, and what the One Belt, One Road strategy (OBOR) and SREB means for China’s foreign policy.

The OBOR strategy is a development framework proposed by China, invoking the storied historical Silk Road in order to encourage regional integration and economic development so that Eurasia once again becomes a coherent region with stable and integrated economies. The OBOR strategy encompasses both a land-based SREB and a Maritime Silk Road, which aims to foster positive relations with Indian Ocean states and secure shipping and transportation lines in the Indian Ocean.

For China, this push into Central Asia is a multi-pronged project, attacking many goals at once. For one, it is a ploy to expand elsewhere in light of the American “Pivot to Asia”, which threatens to check Chinese ambitions in the Pacific. Central Asia is also rich in natural resources, in particular natural gas in Turkmenistan and oil in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, making it a region of interest for Chinese energy extraction. Even if Tajikistan is not rich in high-demand natural resources itself (although it does boast large reserves of aluminum and coal), its location makes it a vital lynchpin in China’s Central Asian plans.

The move also has a domestic angle, as China seeks to assuage ethnic tensions between the Uyghurs and the Han Chinese in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China’s expansive desert province in the Northwest. Tensions have resulted in riots and incidents of terrorism, generally stemming from the Uyghur’s frustration with denial of opportunity, as provincial economic growth benefits mostly incoming Han migrants to the province. Through development and expansion of economic opportunity, China seeks to turn the provincial capital Urumqi into an economic hub for the greater Central Asian region. This integration would not only stimulate China’s own economy through healthier trade ties, but also promote region-wide stability that would help bring order to Xinjiang, allowing China to manage its terrorism concerns.  

For Tajikistan, this means expansion of already strong Chinese economic ties, welcome in a country where remittances – money sent home from work abroad – make up over half of the national GDP. Already Tajikistan relies heavily on Chinese manufacturers and capital for everything from basic necessities to road repair and construction; 45% of Tajik imports are from China, and while China is the destination for only 11% of Tajik exports, total trade volume approaches $1.8 billion, making China one of Tajikistan’s largest trading partners.

The Chinese in Tajikistan are predictably praised for their prowess in infrastructure, having become important partners in numerous construction projects. The Shahriston Tunnel is China’s crowning achievement: bypassing hours of dirt one-lane mountain roads linking Dushanbe with the northern Sughd region, including the major city Khujand. It is especially valuable in the winter, when the dirt roads become dangerous and transportation becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

Of the three dominant powers in Central Asia, China is the clear frontrunner in the region’s developmental economic sphere, enjoying “unassailable economic supremacy”. As the Russian economy wanes, Central Asians are becoming all too aware of the dangers of reliance on Russia, especially remittance-dependent Tajikistan, where most Tajik males must go to Russia to find work. The US has found itself in a quagmire in Afghanistan, and shows little attention to the region due to its focus on the Middle East and the Pacific, leading to misinformed decision-makers and a lack of coherent strategy. This leaves China, an active participant in the development and stability of the region for a decade, constructing much needed roads and supplying copious volumes of investment and capital.

Russia still leads Central Asia in many ways. Teenagers blast Russian music and serenade their hopeful dates in Russian, indicating Russia’s sharp edge in soft power. Russian language is still a necessity, given that most Tajik men are forced to search for work in Russia or Kazakhstan. Russia is also the main security provider of the region; when the Tajik government struggled with the rogue minister in early September, it turned to Russia rather than China for security aid and cooperation.

Yet here I continue to experience China’s ever expanding influence. I often see literal truckloads of Chinese workers, and run across them everywhere, from Rudaki Avenue to villages far off the beaten path. Tajiks say “nihou” (unable to correctly pronounce the sound “ao”) even to non-Chinese people. Nobody casts a second glance at the Chinese characters on their packets, boxes or machinery. Even working for a Chinese firm seem to be a point of pride for some Tajiks eager to tell me about their place of occupation. Passing by the Chinese Embassy on my way back home, I once saw a long list of Tajik students who had been granted full scholarships to study all across China for their undergraduate education.  

All of these examples point to China’s rapid accumulation of influence in a region where it had little, if any presence twenty years ago. In that time, it has not only left its mark on Tajik development, but has also won the hearts of Tajiks, amazed at China’s growth trajectory and its perceived no-strings-attached approach to international development (as opposed to Western methods of intervention and structural adjustment in exchange for aid, epitomized by IMF and World Bank policies). In a fast-paced theater famous for games of spies and intrigue, China stands poised to surge in regional influence if other powers are not able to formulate better regional strategies.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

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Usually when it comes to the G7, what America says, goes. With vehement American opposition to the Chinese proposal of an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the G7 countries, composed of strong American allies and the most influential economies in the world, unanimously decided not to join the organization. However, in a stunning betrayal, on March 12, the UK broke G7 decorum when it announced that it would join the AIIB as a non-regional founding member, immediately opening a window for the organization to join the prestigious alphabet soup of international organizations such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the IMF. The UK’s decision led to a cascade of membership announcements over the following days starting with France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Luxembourg: a complete shattering of the G7’s agreement. The next week, Austria, South Korea and Turkey all applied to be founding members.

America has historically dominated the world of international finance ever since the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which established the IMF and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (part of today’ World Bank). Officially, the Bretton Woods institutions are completely independent entities. But, in reality, America plays such a large role that it is hard to say that these organizations are not influenced by, if not virtual arms of American power. The World Bank focuses on financing projects that alleviate poverty and bring about economic development, and the US is the largest stakeholder with nearly 20% of the voting power. The US also has significant power with 17% of the voting power in the IMF. In the World Bank-inspired Asian Development Bank, the voting breakdown is similar, with the US holding 15% of the voting power. Brazil, Russia, India and China, among other developing countries, rightly clamor for a greater say in international finance, but Congress has repeatedly and unexpectedly delayed the reforms that would expand the voting power of developing countries like China.

The AIIB threatens to shift the current paradigm by creating an organization that has the potential to overturn the current hierarchy of power in international finance. After all, the AIIB will be the first major international financial organization not led by America or an American ally. China’s publically announced intent for the AIIB is simply to further development in East Asia; Asia requires $8 trillion of government and private investment for infrastructure projects by 2020 to maintain current growth rates. But beyond benevolently spurring economic growth in Asia, the AIIB will aggrandize China’s state power. As International Relations and Political Science scholar John Mearsheimer pointed out, international institutions are merely tools for states to influence the global community. By creating an institution of their own efforts, with the backing of many European powers, China will have the opportunity to significantly expand its already sizable portfolio of “soft-power investments.” Such investments will attract developing countries that have had grievances with America and the West, or have limited say in the current financial system.

One example of a potential AIIB project is the New Silk Road initiative, which is a series of land and maritime infrastructure projects across the Asian continent. Combined with the concerted effort to develop trade policies and trade ties, the New Silk Road will further entrench China’s centrality in Asia and the world economy. Investing in maritime and coastal infrastructure along the Pacific and Indian Ocean could also lay the groundwork for China to pursue its “string of pearls” strategy of gaining favorable harbors and/or stations to support overseas commerce and a more offensive and active naval strategy.

The challenge the AIIB poses is symbolic of macro problems regarding American foreign policy toward Asia. Not only does the AIIB look viable, but also a string of European allies joined. To rub salt into the wound, Christine Lagarde, director of the IMF, announced her institution’s support for the organization. America lacks any uniform vision with its allies on how to approach the rise of developing powers, which proves America’s inability to garner the same level of diplomatic clout it had in the past. America’s formula for success has been its strong economic and military might, as well as its successful diplomatic efforts in accruing allies. The AIIB episode suggests that China is using this formula to become more influential and powerful at the expense of American hegemony.

With all this said, America needs to be more engaged with the world. It needs to be vigilant in reforming the IMF and the World Bank to take into account the shifts in economic power and the changing times. By doing so, it will eliminate incentives for developing countries to flock to untested organizations that promise a greater voice. More importantly, reform of the IMF and the World Bank voting system will further legitimize and strengthen the current system, since developing countries will undoubtedly offer key insight and guidance. After all, developing countries are frequently the recipients of the policies and aid of the aforementioned organizations. America’s dominance in the global financial system is not necessarily rooted in having the most votes. The system itself is an American creation, and thus to maintain American power is to maintain the legitimacy and clout of the institutions that make up that system.

Additionally, America requires a different mentality toward foreign relations. Relying on its “superpower” status to win diplomatic victories and maintain the status quo is no longer a viable strategy. Had the US swallowed its ego and joined the AIIB, it would have diluted Chinese power in the organization and, more importantly, prevented the embarrassing betrayal by its allies. It would have made sure that the AIIB would not become an aggressive and anti-IMF/World Bank organization. Given the vehement criticism of the bank, America has all but eliminated the chance to join the organization without losing face. The world has entered into a new era, and in order to be a true leader, America needs to see the rise of developing countries and their accompanying demands for a greater voice as opportunities to embrace positive change in the current international financial structure. Doing so will not only strengthen economic development, but also ensure that America’s legitimacy and influence lasts through the 21st century.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

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Recent geopolitical events in Africa have shed light on an unfortunate trend in Western media: the neglect of substantial African stories. When stories on Africa do make headlines, they are usually the most sensational pieces. These pieces reveal two unfortunate tendencies by the Western media: one, the portrayal of Africa as one geopolitical bloc; two, the portrayal of Africa as little more than a disaster-ridden continent. To learn more about this harmful pattern and its causes, I spoke with Dr. Cheikh Anta Babou, a professor of African history and the history of Islam in Africa at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Babou, a native of Senegal, joined Penn’s history department in 2002 and now teaches courses entitled Africa Before 1800, Decolonization and Africa, Religion and Colonial Rule in Africa, and Islam and Society in America. His research focuses on mystical Islam in West Africa, as well as the new African diaspora. Dr. Babou’s articles have appeared in African Affairs, Journal of African History, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Journal of Religion in Africa, Africa Today and other scholarly journals in the US and France.

GLIMPSE: It seems that Western news outlets cover only the most sensational stories out of Africa. Boko Haram, Ebola and Somalian pirates make mainstream news in the US, while things such as the Nigerian elections and the Central African Republic crisis aren’t covered. Why does this pattern exist? 

BABOU: The coverage of Africa is crisis-driven. This pattern has roots in the past, specifically in the tradition of Africa’s being perceived by Westerners as the bottom of the ladder. You also have to deal with the problem that always exists with the media, which is that news outlets publish stories that people want to read. There simply isn’t enough demand in the US for African stories. When people think about Africa, they think of crisis, war and disease. That’s what comes to mind when you hear the word “Africa”. There are too many good things happening that you don’t hear about.

GLIMPSE: What are some recent examples?

BABOU: There are two things that come to mind. First, you have the elections that happened two weeks ago [January 20] in Zambia. Michael Sata [the incumbent president]died in office and was replaced via a peaceful and democratic election. The election was tight and the winning candidate [Edgar Lungu] won by a small margin. Power was transferred peacefully. The second example isn’t as recent: in 2007, Senegal also had a successful multi-party election. Again, these events don’t receive wide publication as do elections in European countries.

GLIMPSE: It seems that the success of the democratic process is something we take for granted in the US.

BABOU: It is. In Burkina Faso last year, the president [Blaise Compaoré] tried to manipulate the constitution and run for a third term. The people rose up and protested throughout the country, putting so much pressure on him that he was forced to resign. In the Republic of Congo, the same thing just happened. [President] Joseph Kabila tried to amend the constitution to consolidate his own power, and protests also ensued across the country. These were great moments for Africa, great moments for democracy. Africans took control of their own destiny in these countries and didn’t call on Europeans for help. They took charge and democracy happened the way it’s supposed to. But again, these are stories that you don’t hear about in the US.

GLIMPSE: What about Africa’s growing middle class? That issue seems to be covered in the West.

BABOU: Sometimes you’ll hear from the business world or the academic world that Africa is experiencing economic change or economic progress. There is a theory that Africa is the world’s next great frontier. The growing middle class of economically mobile Africans, the increasing GDP of African nations, the anti-corruption efforts of governments and an occasional economic referendum—these are all things that represent change and movement in Africa. But when an African government bolsters its economy or develops its infrastructure, American news outlets do not find an interesting story. As I said before, people are interested in the unusual parts of Africa—the parts that scream “not us” to the Western world.

GLIMPSE: Some of the improvements that you listed are truly pivotal for African countries. 

BABOU: Yes, and the best thing about it is that these changes are happening not because former colonial powers are willing them, but because the African people are willing them. Even compared to the US, this growth is superior. In the US, we still have the issue of the 1% and the 99%. There’s no movement like there used to be. In Africa, though, there is popular demand for these things. More people are paying attention to how their tax money is used and they’re responding if that money isn’t being used appropriately.

GLIMPSE: What other issues do you think should receive more Western coverage?

BABOU: The World Cup captures the attention of people around the world every four years, but few people outside of Africa follow the continent’s major soccer tournament, the Africa Cup of Nations. The Cup, which is going on right now, is held every two years and has become very popular. The youth are mobilized because of it. Similar to the World Cup, countries that haven’t been able to make economic or political inroads can do well in the tournament. The special thing about this year’s cup is that even countries that were engulfed in the Ebola crisis are participating. Guinea, for example, has been plagued by Ebola – almost 2,000 people have died – but still sent a team to the Cup. The entire continent is mobilized.

GLIMPSE: What can we as journalists do to increase news coverage of Africa in the US?

BABOU: That’s a tough change to bring about. You can’t forget that news making is a business; it’s about making money. One thing I’d like to see more news outlets do is bring on more African correspondents. I was just reading an editorial piece in the New York Times responding to many people’s concerns about coverage of Boko Haram. When this year’s unfortunate events in France took place, the Western media responded with a huge amount of coverage. Around the same time, Boko Haram killed an estimated 2,000 people in Nigeria and the Western media gave it minimal coverage. Many readers expressed their frustration with this inequality, and the editor responded by explaining that the Times has only one correspondent for all of West Africa. If you have only one person trying to cover that large a region, where so much is happening, how can you expect to cover important issues?

GLIMPSE: What sources of news do you follow for coverage of important African issues?

BABOU: Unfortunately, to receive good news about Africa, you have to go through former colonial outlets. Radio France Internationale and BBC do a good job. BBC in particular has reporters on the ground, people from Africa, who report almost every day. It’s contextual news. Al Jazeera also does a good job, much better than CNN, whose coverage of Africa is superficial. I don’t even think that CNN has a correspondent physically in Africa—this person might fly from Europe and spend 48 hours in Africa when something “newsworthy” happens. Former colonial powers still have a stake through European expats living in Africa. These people are highly interested in what’s going on and often contribute to good coverage like BBC’s.

GLIMPSE: It probably doesn’t surprise you that CNN still hasn’t published a major story about the ceasefire in South Sudan, even though it’s been over 24 hours [February 2]. 

BABOU: You will rarely find an African piece of news among the first stories of any major news outlet in the US.

GLIMPSE: Unless it’s Ebola.

BABOU: Exactly. Ebola does have to be part of the story, though. When it was incubating in Guinea, it wasn’t covered. But when an American aid worker got infected, it became an American story and people talked about it and worked themselves into a frenzy. All the while, people in Guinea were dying. Entire villages were being wiped out but no one was talking about it. Once the aid worker was cured and the scare on US soil died down, the coverage stopped entirely.

GLIMPSE: Liberia just got the figure for new confirmed cases per week under 100, but the American media didn’t circulate that story either.

BABOU: Mali, Nigeria and Senegal have also been successful in stopping the spread of the disease. They contained it, but you don’t hear about those successful stories. You only hear about the cases where it’s running amok. That’s just what people in the West too often associate with Africa – things going wrong. That’s the heart of the problem. When there’s good news in Africa, it’s just not interesting to people.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

The post Africa and the Western Media: An Interview with the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Cheikh Babou appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Nathaniel Haas

President Obama’s address to the nation on Tuesday night was a timely and timeless reminder that not only is the state of the union strong, but so too is Obama’s resolve to leave a legacy and craft a vision for the future of the Democratic party. On a host of domestic issues from the economy to education, the president smartly balanced his (perhaps too populist) calls for higher taxes on the wealthy with welcome reminders that the economy is recovering and gas prices are at record lows. He laid the groundwork for what will be a powerful case for Democrats to retain the White House in 2016.

Critics will undoubtedly attack the president for the partisan nature of the speech during a time when Democrats have complained about Republican standoffishness and political gridlock. Despite outlining a wish list of proposals upon which to work with Congress, Obama unleashed a record number of veto threats (four–the most any president has ever outlined in one speech to Congress). He also landed several jabs to Republicans on climate change and the Keystone pipeline, in addition to the ad-libbed “I won both of them” remark in reference to his two presidential campaigns, all of which turned Boehner a deeper shade of orange. Was the president being partisan? Undoubtedly. But the Obama camp has realized that motivating the base is perhaps more important than appeasing a Republican party that Democrats have appropriately given up on working with. The president’s tactic is smart, and reflects the correct belief that the next two years of Democrat policymaking will not be legislative in nature, but rather executive. For that, the Democrats need strong public opinion–not Republicans in Congress. 

Luodanni Chen

Economy, economy of the world, who is the most competitive of them all?

Paul Krugman’s 1994 paper “Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession” pointed out the common trend for great economists and world leaders to forget about the concept of comparative advantage, and instead fixate on events like how China’s has overtaken the American economy. Comparative advantage is an economic law that proves international trade would only increase the size of the whole pie, and the world economy is not a zero-sum game. Trade is beneficial for both countries involved when they are trading goods and services for which they have the respective comparative advantage. For example, the US has the comparative advantage in manufacturing planes, and China in apparels. When these two countries trade, they are helping each other by avoiding the high opportunity cost of producing goods for which they do not have the comparative advantage. Through this process, each country gains access to more varieties of goods at fairer prices because of the exposure to international competition, among other benefits. Simple, good economics. However, Obama’s call for the “in-sourcing” of jobs excites the American people. Rhetorical hostility and hypercompetitiveness towards China is often both useful and necessary in US domestic politics. Nevertheless, Americans should see past the president’s political grandstanding and recognize the benefits of comparative advantage economics.

Luke Phillips

I have to hand it to him; President Obama delivered an excellent piece of oratory at his State of the Union address. Most pundits have been right to compare this speech with the president’s earlier campaign speeches–inspiring, uniting and supportive of the timeless American ideal of equal opportunity for all, and sheerly riveting in its rhetorical power. It was a beautiful thing to watch.

Unfortunately, the parallels with the president’s earlier campaign speeches go a step beyond mere beauty, and into purpose. And for all intents and purposes, this was a partisan speech. The president hasn’t exactly been an exemplar of bipartisanship in recent years (though, to be fair, neither has the Republican Party.) This speech merely repackaged the partisan policies of the last couple years to make it appear that the economic growth we see today is entirely thanks to the wisdom of St. Barack. There was no thoughtful discussion of the actual policies in question, nor was there much inspiring talk about long-term planning for the future (though the quip about staying on Mars makes up for the whole thing.)

Ultimately, I’m disappointed with the president. I’m glad he touched the right nerves in the body politic’s decaying corpse. I’m also glad he got the rhetorical strengths and values of the US correct. But, I didn’t see an honest discussion of actual policies and hard decisions; I saw a self-congratulatory orgy of back-pats and snipes. Although my belief in our president as a speaker has been rekindled, my belief in him as a statesman has been dampened.

The only thing worse than President Obama’s speech was Senator Joni Ernst’s Republican rebuttal. If President Obama was insincere, Senator Ernst was seemingly insane. If President Obama tried to cloak his partisanship with a silver tongue, Ernst made no such attempt and instead appealed to the partisan passions of half of the US. We have a lot of work to do to fix the political dysfunction of our ruling class. My fellow Americans, let’s get to work.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

The post The Correspondents Weigh-In: The State of the Union appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

There really ought to be a roaring chorus of foreign policy experts and grand strategists continually screaming to the world: “I DON’T KNOW WHICH GRAND STRATEGY AMERICA SHOULD TAKE!” because, judging by the relative silence on questions of grand strategy (aside from notable exceptions like Barry Posen’s recent book, Restraint), it would appear that most of the foreign policy establishment is just as befuddled by the current global geopolitical situation as the American population at large.

Nothing, foreign policy establishment? Okay then, I’ll start.

I don’t know which grand strategy America should take. I’m not sure where our country is headed in world affairs, or which way it should be headed. I couldn’t define “American national interest” for you in any fewer than eight incoherent sentences. I couldn’t rank the strategic theaters in order of their importance, nor could I provide you with any worthwhile and specific doctrines for creating the sort of world America wants to build. On that note, I couldn’t even tell you what kind of world America wants to build, or if America even wants to build a world anymore.

And I’m not alone. I’m sure you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in DC or elsewhere with a solid vision for the world of the future, combined with policy experience and the expertise necessary to get there. We have our experts but we have yet to find our Kennan.

Here, in 2014, just as in 2001 and in 1991, our country is faced by a shock. In our case, that shock is the rapid disintegration of world order and international norms symbolized by the ascent of IS, the Russian annexation of Crimea, the tension in the East and South China Seas, and the nuclear uncertainty of Tehran. Perhaps this is less cinematic a shock than the collapse of the Soviet Union or the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, but in questions of strategy the effect is similar. We are faced with a nebulous new world, far different from the comfortable, if formidable, world of the Cold War, and we do not know what to do.

The strategists of the early American republic were masters of power politics, since that was the only way they were able to keep their small, developing empire of liberty sovereign at home and abroad in the midst of the ravenous ‘scourgings’ of European imperial powers. The early presidents learned from such humiliations as the XYZ Affair and the Burning of Washington. They succeeded in this endeavor, and soon were able to inflict ‘scourgings’ of their own against the Mexicans, Canadians and Native Americans. They also managed to pay off or drive out the remaining European powers in the Americas, and were thus able to pursue a strategy of hemispheric domination and relative great power status among the powers of Europe.

After the Civil War and subsequent rapid industrialization, the American encounter with the world, from the beginning a massive and complicated affair, expanded rapidly. It was mere decades from the reuniting of the Union that that Union was able to extend sustained imperial power far beyond the confines of its home hemisphere. In these decades the United States inhabited what might almost be described as a concert system: great powers interacted and competed, but acknowledged each other as relative equals, if competitors, in a series of gentlemen’s agreements and other informal checks. The British empire was the bulwark of this system – an umpire of sorts – and the global trade and finance system it maintained lifted all boats.

But as the British empire declined as the bulwark of international order in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, so the informal concert system decayed, and so the empires of Europe, Russia, Japan and America grew more hostile and less understanding of each other’s similarly cynical (and quite Realist) interests. The gentlemen’s agreements gave way to purer power politics, power politics soon fueled by nationalism and ideological zealotry. The First World War shocked the civilized world and sounded the death knell for the British empire. From 1918 to 1939, uneasy power politics glossed by international agreements formed the primary interactions within the international system. When Europe was plunged again into war, the dynamic of hyper-Realist great power competition fueled by ideology and nationalism reached its zenith. The concert system gave way to a balance of power system, and the balance of power system gave way to great power war.

Through all this, America participated as brutally as did any other power. But when the peace was pulled from the ashes of Dresden and Hiroshima, the great empires of the last few decades were no more. Only the USA and the USSR remained. And so the American strategists of the day found themselves in a terribly unprecedented situation: two great powers, hegemonic over their realms, each professing a contrasting ideology and neither trusting the other in any way at all. It was not only a cold war, but also a frozen one. Not an era of great power understanding. Not one of great power war. And much more tense than an era of great power participation. This was the strangest arrangement the statesmen in Washington had ever seen.

Fortunately George Kennan, legendary diplomat and Sovietologist, and other such lights as Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles, rose to the occasion and, devising the doctrine of containment, led the United States through an era of bipolar power balancing. As with every era, the strategies shifted with each administration. Truman and Eisenhower stayed true to containment and world order building. Nixon practiced concert-like détente that resembled retrenchment. And Reagan employed aggressive rollback. However, the broader theme disciplining the foreign policy of each Cold War president was the great challenge of an attrition-based balance of power, a battle between a Communist scorpion and a democratic scorpion in an eight-ounce bottle. Though strategy changed incrementally, the goal was clear, and the broader grand strategy of the Cold War generally remained the same.

But with the end of the Cold War, the demise of our only enemy destroyed whatever discipline there was in American foreign policy in general. George H.W. Bush, Cold War gladiator and prudent statesman as he was, held the fort for a few more years. Indeed, had he held two terms, the 1990s might have been a better time for world order. But when America returned to politics as usual with Clinton, the discipline that had held sway over American foreign affairs since Franklin Roosevelt was set aside.

The policy of the Clinton administration, fazed by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, made a point of expanding and entrenching the liberal world order through multilateralism, free trade, the promotion of human rights and America taking the role of a global parent, lecturing and helping but not attacking. What military interventions occurred were undertaken primarily in the service of humanitarianism rather than strategy. This was possible due to the relatively peaceful nature of that decade, and though the Clinton foreign policy didn’t backfire, it certainly was not effective at expanding the Roosevelt-Eisenhower-Bush world order still in effect in the Cold War’s aftermath.

The shock of 9/11 under the Bush Presidency terrified the nation and awoke its deep Jacksonian passions. The Bush years, when America became something of a global principal, the world’s police officer and vindicator of every people’s rights, slayer of monsters, and flamethrower of liberty, was in effect a revitalization to an extreme of the classic Reagan foreign policy: unabashed nationalism, emphasis on force and universal humanism mixed with American ideals. The one aspect of the Reagan foreign policy it lacked was a true geopolitical imperative, and the war on terrorists hiding in caves was nowhere near sufficient for a global grand strategy. Everyone who lived through it knows how far it overreached, and the prospect of an America exhausted and tied down in the Middle East awakened the ambitions of regional powers the world over.

When President Obama came to office, the underpinnings of the chaos we see around us now were then in their natal stages, including Russian aggression in Georgia, worrisome Chinese militarism, continued Iranian nuclear intransigence and anarchic violence in Iraq. Striving to repudiate his predecessor’s legacy, Obama adopted a strategy of near-total restraint with a blush of Wilsonian idealism, which was more an abandonment of strategy than a strategy in itself. The new acquiescence to regional powers resembled an extreme overreach of Nixonian détente, not quite bordering appeasement but not at all displaying the prudence and cunning of actual détente. This visionless, aimless wandering about the international stage continues forth and the threats to world order continue to grow. I foresee that sometime after the Obama presidency, a statesman with the cunning of a Kennan or Kissinger will have to formulate a new grand strategy for a changing world if American power is to survive and flourish. The critical question, after two and a half decades of failed iterations of old foreign policies, is this: what is that strategy? What are our options? What are our imperatives? What do we want?

It is clear, from the above survey of American strategic history, that America has employed various grand strategies throughout its existence as a nation as the global situation changed, but that its general interests stayed the same throughout and thus ensured that its grand strategy has remained active in the world. Which grand strategy, however, was a contentious question in 1789, in 1812, in 1845, in 1898, in 1914, 1941, 1945, and again in 1991 and 2001 and now 2014. There has never been a moment when the paths of history were clear to history’s makers, and the same holds true today. A brief survey of some of the strategies we’ve tried as a nation might help to clarify things.

Isolationism is clearly out. It’s not clear that America pursued a hands-off strategy at any point in her history, and even if it were and isolationism had been a successful strategy, it cannot work now since there is too much danger in the establishment of a Eurasian hegemon to allow one to arise and potentially threaten the American homeland and the American way of life. Our interests reach every corner of the Earth; so must our power.

Offshore Balancing, most famously promoted by John Mearsheimer, is a tempting option, for it ensures American control of the seas and allows America to be involved in other regions without expending serious blood and treasure fighting various proxy wars. It is not clear, however, that sea power, while strategically critical, is able to do all the necessary work in preserving the balance of power and keeping potential hegemons from emerging. Sea power is a blunt instrument; power politics is a precise art. Offshore Balancing is not enough.

The Balance of Power seems to be at the core of every nation’s foreign policy, and that includes America’s. At a certain level, we must prevent the emergence of any power in Eurasia, Africa, or Latin America that is capable of dominating its region and threatening American sea power in the regional seas. Yet, we must expend as little blood and treasure in such balancing and containment as possible so that we play one nation against another to ensure that neither can dominate its region. This would be the obvious candidate for a future American strategy; however, it must be remembered that Balance of Power systems are typically beset by terrible systemic wars.

Similar to the Balance of Power, the Concert of Powers presupposes that competition in the international system is a tragic and constant game, which no nation can escape. But unlike the balance of power, a concert system places a premium on a phenomenon I have called Power Pluralism, the sustained commitment of various powerful states to respect each others’ sovereignty while pursuing their own interests. This results in a network of informal networks and gentlemen’s agreements, and wars and other competitions tend to be regarded more as business as usual than as aberrations from the norm. Typically, a Concert system affords each significant power its own sphere of influence. From a humanitarian perspective, this system has the potential to validate terrible violations of human rights.

Another significant strategy, arguably the basic reality the United States has known since 1991, is hegemony: an informal domination of the international system by a single power. That power maintains a network of alliances and makes willing allies dependent upon it, while cowing potential rivals well before they become strong enough to truly threaten. Unfortunately, as the Romans discovered, hegemony is prohibitively expensive, and also has the tendency to allow the hegemonic power to become decadent, thus setting the stage for its decay and the return of violence and competition by upstart powers and ambitious players.

Finally there is domination. Domination could also be called formal hegemony. It is an effective grand strategy because it assures the complete security of the state; however, it is prohibitively expensive and, in the absence of threats opens the door to decadence. States exert dominance over their own territory, and only imperfectly at that. Can they really be expected to exert dominance over their entire region, or the entire globe?

I would guess, right now, that the right idea for a new grand strategy lies somewhere between the Balance of Power and the Concert of Powers. The United States must ensure that no power that can threaten the American way of life arises, while simultaneously maintaining cordial relations with all legitimate powers around it. I have argued something to this degree here and here; I will likely continue writing on the subject, with greater specifics and case studies as time goes on.

Truth be told, I have no idea WHAT America’s grand strategy is going to be in the incoming years. But that is no excuse not to talk about it. If the American nation is to see brighter days in this darkening world, then our statecraft is going to have to do a better job than it has done these last couple of decades. Further discussion of the fundamentals of America’s role in the world is a critical first step.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

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Putin has been pushing for an energy deal with China for nearly ten years, and rightfully so. China, and Asia more broadly, has a vast market for oil and natural gas with its megacities and booming economy. The deal between Gazprom and CNPC gives Russia a foot in the door of this profitable energy market. Providing up to 20% of China’s natural gas needs, the deal finally solidifies the Sino-Russian alliance that Putin has been advertising. What’s more, the two countries will be paying with their own currencies, the ruble and yuan, completely bypassing the American dollar, which is traditionally used in energy transactions. Although the dollar has long been the international reserve currency of choice, Russia’s VTB and the Bank of China’s decision to trade in domestic currencies stresses the exclusivity of the Eurasian trade deal; the US is not welcome. Although this alone does not significantly destabilize the petrodollar, it certainly undermines American relevance in the deal and indicates Putin’s increasing focus on relations with Asia.

Putin’s meeting with Xi Jinping also comes on the heels of Obama’s four-country Asia tour in April. After a canceled trip to Asia during the October government shutdown, Obama’s tour demonstrates the president’s desire to make good on his foreign policy goal to “pivot to Asia.” In his visit to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines, Obama focused on strengthening economic and military relationships. The trip resulted in increased numbers of American military personnel and equipment stationed in the region; yet, thus far, Obama’s plans for future economic partnerships have not been realized.

Neither the Malaysian nor Japanese leadership approved Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to increase connectivity between the Asian and American economies. Despite domestic backlash from Democratic Senators and Congressmen, Obama has continually pushed for more economic cooperation across the Pacific. Obama, like Putin, hopes to benefit from the expanding Asian markets; the TPP would eliminate tariffs between the US and several Latin American and Asian states. According to Don Emmerson, a political scientist at Stanford, “Americans cannot afford to deny themselves…the opportunities for trade and investment” present in Asia, but Asian leaders, however, seem less enthusiastic. In Japan, Abe refused to join the partnership due to the protected five sacred areas of Japanese agriculture. In Malaysia, political “sensitivities” and economic concerns also halted progress. The TPP has major implications for American and Asian economies (Japan is America’s biggest trading partner in Asia aside from China). Thus, although no agreement was reached during the tour, the American, Japanese and Malaysian leaders promised to continue negotiations. These promises give President Obama a glimmer of hope that soon the Asian governments will be more receptive to the partnership. It should be Obama’s mission, then, to adjust the TPP to be more beneficial for all states involved, especially those with heavily protected domestic industries.

TPP negotiations were also designed to reestablish American’s military presence in East Asia. The US military will continue to maintain operational control of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. This agreement gives the US command of South Korean troops in the event of war with North Korea. In Japan, Obama reassured Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the Senkaku Islands (or the Diaoyu Islands, as they are known in China) would fall under American protection in the case of a threat. These uninhabited islands have long been disputed by Japan and China, who both claim ownership of them. Obama’s declaration of support for Japan’s sovereignty in the maritime dispute is a signal of disapproval to China, whose military actions in the East and South China Seas concern many Asian states. As expected, China was not pleased by Obama’s remarks.

These figures make China impossible to ignore. Combine the country’s military expansion with its rapidly growing GNP and it becomes one of the greatest forces in the world today. China’s enormity and consequent impact on its neighbors, from Japan to the Philippines to Russia, have forced other world powers to readjust. Putin and Obama have played their hands, each trying to get ahead in the Asia-Pacific. Putin’s natural gas deal has created a buffer for conflicts in Europe and Obama’s efforts to increase economic cooperation and American military presence in Asia also indicate increased interest in Asia. It remains to be seen how other world leaders will react to the growing relevance of East Asia in global issues.

In early May, European Union (EU) leaders met with Shinzo Abe to reaffirm their positive relationship. At the meeting, the leaders discussed further economic and political ties, although no specific agreements were signed. The leaders of the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will also hold a summit in October. Will Europe, like Russia, turn to China, Asia’s largest power, or invest in ties with other East Asian nations alongside President Obama? Regardless, it is clear that the “turn to Asia” is a legitimate and global phenomenon.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff and editorial board.

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Mousa: “This is Afghanistan…Alexander the Great try to conquer this country… then Genghis Khan, then the British. Now Russia. But Afghan people fight hard, they never be defeated. Ancient enemy make prayer about these people… you wish to hear?

Rambo: “Um-hum.”

Mousa: “Very good. It says, ‘May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.’”

-Rambo III, 1988

American engagement began with airstrikes in October 2001. By May 2003, President Bush declared the end of major combat and NATO assumed the responsibility of managing the transition to a civilian Afghan government. In 2004, for the first time, Afghanistan democratically elected Hamid Karzai, who subsequently announced a partnership with President Bush on the War on Terror. He opened bases in Afghanistan to US soldiers in exchange for training the Afghan national army.

In 2006, violence erupted again. In December 2009, Obama announced a troop surge, which sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and officially stamped his application to the graveyard of empires club.

13,000 Afghan soldiers, 3,440 coalition soldiers and almost 20,000 civilians have died to date in Afghanistan. Accounting for the future cost of medical care and fighting, a Harvard Kennedy School of Government study estimated the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan combined at $4-6 trillion.

Less quantifiable in terms of dollars and body counts, but equally as significant is the cost of the war on the United States’ image in the world. The Karzai regime’s refusal to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement, which would allow continued US presence in the country after 2014, speaks to the lack of credibility in the American war machine, namely due to the use of drones and night raids that have a dismal history of civilian casualties. These problems make it not only impossible to negotiate with Afghanistan, but will also directly hamper allied cooperation in the future.

The United States should also commit to end the indefinite detention of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and abroad, which was established during the first months of the War in Afghanistan. Guantanamo Bay and covert rendition programs have come to be seen by Americans and our allies as the most egregious manifestation of America’s post-9/11 foreign policy. The Germans may have raised a diplomatic fuss over the tapping of Chancellor Merkel’s cell phone, but I would bet her data plan that they took much more seriously the unlawful detention and alleged torture of Turkish citizen Murat Kurnaz, a German resident who was captured in Kabul by US forces.

The kicker is that for all of the aforementioned costs, we have gained almost nothing.

As the Taliban launches its spring offensive and begins to control larger territories, the thousands of Afghani citizens who have been displaced over the past ten years say little progress has been made. Gaetan Drossart, the chief of the Kabul branch of Medecins sans Frontieres, has treated such refugees for years and observed the violence that has gripped the country. “The truth is there is no such success story at all,” Drossart told RT. “The international forces are leaving the country so they need a reason and they need also a rationale to explain to their population why now they can leave.”

Beyond the Taliban, Afghanistan will continue to suffer from the potent attacks of the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network. In a book out this year, Anand Gopal, who covered the war for the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote in her book, No Good Men Among the Living: America the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, that the War in Afghanistan was misguided from the start. Though almost no insurgencies existed in mid-2002, the war, through faulty alliances with Afghani drug lords and power brokers, created the very enemies it sought to eradicate. Haqqani and his network were two of them. “By classifying certain groups as terrorists, and then acting upon those classifications, the U.S. had inadvertently brought about the very conditions it had set out to fight,” Gopal commented.

When this counter-terrorism evolved into a full-fledged counterinsurgency and nation building, the war efforts in Afghanistan fell prey to the concept known as mission creep – the phenomenon where a mission of limited scope morphs into one much more complex. Though the most tangible accomplishment of the war is the establishment of the Afghan National Security Forces and the success of a democratic election that will be completed by the end of the year, proponents of the war should ask themselves: couldn’t we have done that in the first 6 months of conflict? Did it really take 12 years (the longest war in American history), a few trillion dollars and over 2,000 soldier lives to train 350,000 Afghani soldiers and hold an election? We aren’t even out of the woods – the instability and accusations of corruption in the election to select President Karzai’s successor demonstrates it has come at too high a price.

Three-star Army lieutenant general Daniel Bolger, whose 35 years of experience culminated in extensive work in Afghanistan and Iraq, is publishing the first after-action report on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the book, aptly titled “Why We Lost,” Bolger argues that the mission creep described above sacrificed the key gains made within the first six months of each war. Like the Gulf War, Bolger argues that after the removal of the hostile government (in Afghanistan’s case, the Taliban), the United States should have packed up and gone home. Instead, perpetual war and nation building that will take decades longer than the US (and the public) is willing to commit to have created more enemies than friends.

The failure in Afghanistan certainly won’t kill the American empire, but like Rambo, America hasn’t escaped Afghanistan unscathed. Afghanistan, like Vietnam, has exposed the limitations of the US war machine for all to see, and made the leaders and nation behind it less credible in the process. That doesn’t bode well going forward—just ask Colonel Trautman, Rambo’s mentee: “You expect sympathy? You started this damn war, now you’ll have to deal with it.”

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff and editorial board.

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