As NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary approaches, the alliance finds itself confronted by Russian revanchism and invasions in Eastern Europe, growing anti-Western alliances in Asia, and tenuous and uncertain political trends in many member nations. Yet to NATO, this is familiar territory – much of the same dynamics are occurring now as during the Cold War (1947-91), Read More…
If you read “China” in Chinese, it actually means “Middle Kingdom.” It epitomizes why, politically and culturally, a significant proportion of the Chinese population believes that China is a superlative civilization that must restore itself to its “former glory.” Chinese emperors have fought for control of one of the longest-lasting empires on earth, from the mythical Read More…
A common trope in Russia’s discourse about NATO is the charge that the organization has not dealt with Moscow in good faith. Many Russians, of which Putin is a particularly vocal example, allege that Western officials assured their Soviet counterparts during the Two Plus Four negotiations (West Germany and East Germany plus the US, USSR, France, and the UK) on German reunification in Read More…
How do stories shape domestic articulations of foreign policy? In this special report, Jack Burnham discusses how the narratives surrounding the rise of China and Japan shaped American foreign policy debates.
In accepting the role as Governor General, Simon brings new representation to Indigenous peoples’ extraordinary, yet often unacknowledged, centuries-old history of fighting for and defending Canada.
In this special report, Junior Research Fellow Andrew Erskine explores how NATO-Japanese relations are key for upholding a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. In particular, Andrew identifies how Japan, back with NATO’s diplomatic experience, can bring together Indo-Pacific nations that do not desire a bipolar order dominated by Sino-US great power competition.
Completed in 2018, the new NATO headquarters is meant to resemble interlocking fingers, evoking the unity and cooperation of the Alliance. Since its completion, artifacts and memorials have continually been added to the outside of the structure, including a piece of the Twin Towers, a replica of a Trabant, and sections of the Berlin Wall, Read More…
Emily Mullin analyzes the state of the world’s nuclear security seventy-five years after the detonation of the first atomic bomb
In this film analysis, Justin Dell looks at the alternative history flick, “Red Dawn” (1984), and teases out some of the details of the movie that speak to the apocalyptic mood that existed in the early 1980s, when relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were at their nadir. The film’s principal themes of readiness and sacrifice are as relevant to today’s world as they were 35 years ago.
The collapse of communism, signalled by the breakup of the USSR in 1991, was a welcome development for the democratic world. However, it did not have the potential to change the relationship between NATO and Russia as much as might have been hoped, as Justin Dell explains in this special report.