Great Power Competition in International Security
Vol. 9 No. 1 | 2022 Edition
Before Ireland assumed its seat as an elected member of the United Nations Security Council in January last year, I, together with colleagues and advisors, reflected on what our priorities would be. As a Minister with two portfolios, for Foreign Affairs and for Defence, it was clear that global security in this century cannot be contemplated without a climate lens.
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Simon Coveney is the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence of Ireland.
How can the U.S. military best support the achievement of national strategic objectives in Africa? While much of the foreign policy discourse since President Biden’s inauguration has focused on China’s growing military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific, curbing the effects of climate change, and the implications of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, scant attention has been paid to U.S. engagement in Africa. It is noteworthy that the Biden administration’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance (INSSG) mentions a continent of more than 1.3 billion people — whose population is expected to double by 2050 — in one paragraph out of 23 substantive pages...
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Colonel John Griswold is U.S. Army Strategist serving as a Military Fellow at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
United States dollar dominance has underpinned American economic and geopolitical leadership since the Second World War. The tremendous structural and geopolitical advantages the United States derives from the hegemony of the dollar have contributed substantially to Washington’s military power, alliances, and strong hand in trade relations with other states. However, the convergence of a shifting international balance of power and the accelerated digitalization of the world economy will have major implications for this pillar of American strength.
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Michael Greenwald recently joined Amazon in a Senior Executive role with Amazon Web Services. Previously, he was Director at Tiedemann Advisors and Director for Digital Asset Education. He was the first U.S. Treasury attaché to Qatar and Kuwait, acting as the principal liaison to the banking sector in those nations, while serving in two presidential administrations and under three treasury secretaries from 2010-2017. He is a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council Geoeconomics Center, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at Center for New American Security.
This article is supported by research advisors Logan Weber and Benjamin Curley. Weber is a graduate of Harvard University and graduate student at Texas A&M University studying International Affairs. Curley is an MBA candidate at Columbia Business School. Previously, he was a Vice President at Barclay’s Investment Bank.
The Indian Ocean is becoming an area of competition between India and China later than Robert Kaplan foresaw in his seminal 2009 article in Foreign Affairs, but sooner than its resident powers might have predicted. So far, the competition has rung high decibel alarm bells in India (and the United States), without having reached the inflection point of actual military “power plays” that Kaplan implied. India and China witnessed military clashes on land in 2020 and currently face an impasse over their disputed border.
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Deepa M. Ollapally is Research Professor of International Affairs and the Director of the Rising Powers Initiative at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. She is a specialist on Indian foreign policy, Asian regional and maritime security, and comparative foreign policy outlooks of rising powers. Ollapally has published widely on rising powers including the edited book, Worldviews of Aspiring Powers: Domestic Foreign Policy Debates in China, India, Iran, Japan and Russia (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Her most recent books are two volumes, Energy Security in Asia and Eurasia (Routledge, 2017) and Nuclear Debates in Asia: The Role of Geopolitics and Domestic Processes (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). She is currently working on a funded book, Big Power Competition for Influence in the Indian Ocean Region, which assesses the shifting patterns of geopolitical influence by major powers in the region since 2005 and the drivers of these changes.
Dr. Ollapally has received major grants from MacArthur, Rockefeller and Carnegie Corporation for projects related to India and Asia. She serves as an Advisory Council Member for Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace, Delhi.
She is a frequent commentator in the media, including appearances on CNN, BBC, CBS, PBS, and Reuters TV. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.
Kleptocracies seem to enjoy powerful coherence between their domestic and foreign policies, given that they wield power at home and abroad through the same corrupt assemblage of actors, networks, tactics, and resources. By prioritizing the fight against corruption and kleptocracy, the United States can similarly pursue the most internally coherent grand strategy since it combined the containment of communism with neoliberal deregulation to win the Cold War. Doing so will require deeply reorienting foreign and domestic policy priorities by featuring the opposite side of the U.S. economic model, with less cowboy and more sheriff: well-regulated clean capitalism under the rule of law.
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Josh Rudolph is Fellow for Malign Finance at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund. He is an expert in the financial channels that enable autocratic efforts to undermine and interfere in democratic institutions. Rudolph has researched and authored leading work on authoritarian malign finance, strategic corruption, and kleptocracy, as well as public policies to deter, detect, defund, and defend against these threats. He regularly gives private briefings and public testimonies to governmental bodies, including the U.S. Congress to the European Parliament. Josh Rudolph frequently appears on national
and international television, radio, and podcast programs, and has published work in The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, Dallas Morning News, Just Security, and The Hill. Before joining ASD, he served in a range of U.S. Government positions at the intersection of finance and national security. Josh is currently serving a full-time assignment as Senior Policy Fellow on USAID’s Anti-Corruption Task Force under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act.
Standing by one of the India-Nepal border pillars near Jogbani, Bihar State, one gets a ground view of the paradox of geographic proximity and lack of connectivity in South Asia. Through treaty and tradition between the two neighbors, this is an open border. In practice, however, the terrain and lack of infrastructure poses a formidable barrier to the rising demands of modern-day mobility. Whether it is trade, tourism, or transportation, this border still separates more than it connects.
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Constantino Xavier is Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), in New Delhi, and a Non- resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. At CSEP, he leads the Sambandh Initiative on Regional Connectivity, which examines India’s political, security and economic relations with the South Asian and Indo-Pacific neighborhood. His research has been published in various journals and books, including Asian Policy, the Oxford Handbook on Indian Foreign Policy, and the Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations. He frequently teaches and lectures at different international universities, as well as at Indian training institutions, including the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, the Foreign Service Institute, and the National Defence College. Dr. Xavier received research awards from the United States Fulbright program and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and holds a Ph.D. in South Asian studies from the Johns Hopkins University, and postgraduate degrees from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Dr. Ollapally has received major grants from MacArthur, Rockefeller and Carnegie Corporation for projects related to India and Asia. She serves as an Advisory Council Member for Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace, Delhi.
She is a frequent commentator in the media, including appearances on CNN, BBC, CBS, PBS, and Reuters TV. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.