Abhijit Banerjee on poverty
Jul 21st 2011, 17:42
The professor of economics at MIT shares his radical ideas for fighting global poverty
The New Power Game
Jaswant Singh
Is a new Cold War emerging among Asia’s powers – China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea? Can Pakistan ever be weaned off its support of the Taliban? Is Asia’s role in managing Iran’s nuclear ambitions being neglected?
The world’s balance of power is changing, almost by the day. Western dominance has ended; Asia is demanding a greater say in resolving global issues.
But Asia itself is divided. While China’s economic miracle has ended a half-century of American regional dominance, there is much more to Asia’s rise than China. Indeed, Asia is becoming an arena of balance-of-power politics with no clear leader, as mounting wealth increasingly pits one country against another in a struggle for resources and influence – and as all Asian powers seek to strengthen their positions and maximize their long-term advantages.
Few statesmen have played as great a part in trying to shape order in Asia as Jaswant Singh, the only man ever to serve as India’s Foreign Minister, Finance Minister, and Defense Minister. As foreign minister, Jaswant Singh initiated the most daring diplomatic opening to Pakistan since India’s independence, and also revitalized long-strained relations with the United States. As finance minister, he deepened India’s commitment to economic reform and initiated the first free-trade agreement (with Sri Lanka) in South Asia’s history. As defense minister, Singh reoriented India’s military, abandoning its old Soviet-inspired doctrines and weaponry for closer ties to the West.
Each month in The New Power Game, written exclusively for Project Syndicate, Jaswant Singh charts the implications of Asia’s rivalries and internal dynamics – fueled by robust economic growth, coupled with an awareness of increasing strength – for global politics, including the world’s hot spots.
America in a New World
Christopher Hill
How will the United States adapt to a world in which it faces serious strategic rivals for the first time since the Soviet collapse? Is Iran the line in the sand for America’s efforts to bring about global nuclear disarmament? When should the US negotiate with its enemies? Can an “American” solution be found in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
When it comes to foreign policy, the world often sees two Americas, divided most visibly – and symptomatically – over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The grand certainties of the Bush presidency are giving way to growing confusion about counterterrorism, the rise of China, Russia’s assertiveness, and how to weigh these challenges against America’s many other sources of strategic concern. Moreover, in rethinking its role in the world, the US faces a task even more complicated than the one it confronted in 1945, because there is more rubble to clear: the jerrybuilt international order that arose from communism’s collapse in 1989.
For the rest of the world, knowing how US leaders perceive and shape the process of American strategic reinvention will be imperative. Christopher Hill, one of America’s most acclaimed diplomatic troubleshooters, fills that need. Aformer US Assistant Secretary of State for Asian and Pacific Affairs,Ambassador to Iraq, Macedonia, Poland, and South Korea, and Special Envoy to Kosovo, Christopher Hill has spent his career within the inner circles of US power, propelled there by his intellectual breadth and independence.
Each month in America in a New World, written exclusively for Project Syndicate, Christopher Hill, Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, makes sense of the ferment of US foreign and security policy at a time of creation – if not of order, then of new responses to global disorder.
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