Foreign PolicyJul 23, 20264 min
Soft Power and the Limits of Persuasion
Attraction is real power, but it is not a substitute for the harder kind — and it cannot be manufactured on demand.
The Archive
All Analysis
Reporting and analysis across geopolitics, foreign policy, security and the institutions of the international order.
Jul 22, 20264 min
The Grammar of Deterrence: Nuclear Signalling in a Multipolar Age
Deterrence is a language, and it was built for two speakers. A world of several nuclear powers strains its grammar to the breaking point.
Jul 21, 20263 min
Africa's Nonalignment, Version Two
A new generation of African states is reviving an old instinct — refusing to be anyone's theatre — and updating it for a multipolar economy.
Jul 20, 20264 min
The European Union's Strategic Autonomy Dilemma
Europe wants the capacity to act alone and the reassurance of never having to. Reconciling the two is the defining project of the decade.
Foreign PolicyJul 18, 20264 min
Climate Diplomacy: The Slow Machinery of Consensus
Climate negotiation is diplomacy at its most thankless: universal stakes, deferred rewards and the constant temptation to free-ride.
Jul 17, 20264 min
Middle-Power Diplomacy in an Age of Great-Power Rivalry
The states caught between giants are not passive. Their hedging is a strategy in its own right — and it may shape the century as much as the giants do.
Jul 16, 20264 min
Pipelines, Ports and the Geopolitics of Energy
Infrastructure is destiny. The routes that carry gas, oil and data increasingly carry political influence with them.
Jul 16, 20264 min
Reforming the Security Council: Ambition Meets Arithmetic
Everyone agrees the UN Security Council should change. Almost no one agrees on how — and the veto guards the door.
Jul 15, 20264 min
The Indo-Pacific and the Art of Deterrence Without Encirclement
Managing competition in Asia requires the hardest thing in statecraft: firmness that does not foreclose accommodation.