New York Times – For Greece’s Economy, Geography Was Destiny

Robert D. Kaplan looks at the geography of the Greek economic crisis.

New York Times – The Geography of Chinese Power

Robert D. Kaplan writes that China’s blessed geography is so obvious a point that it tends to get overlooked in discussions of the country’s economic dynamism and national assertiveness. Yet it is essential: It means that China will stand at the hub of geopolitics even if the country’s path toward global power is not necessarily linear.

Economist – New Silk Roads

Since the Silk Road fell into disuse six centuries ago, Asian commerce has been carried not by land but by sea along coasts and island chains, first on monsoon winds and now in the holds of diesel ships. The story of Asia’s post-war miracle is above all a maritime one…The miracle is inconceivable without the ship-borne container…The broad lines of Asian security mirror this watery theme. Since the Pacific War of 1941-45, the United States has enforced a Pax Americana through naval strength and a perimeter of island allies, from Australia to Japan. If American dominance is challenged, it will be at sea. The rise of China and India as military powers has been marked by a large increase in their navies…But Anthony Bubalo and Malcolm Cook of the Lowy Institute in Sydney argue in The American Interest that such a perspective is bumping up against the limits of usefulness.

US Naval War College Review – Engaging Oceania

The fourteen island nations of Oceania are weak by any traditional measure of state power. They are mostly small and poor, with zero military muscle and little diplomatic clout. On a map of the Pacific these microstates appear almost like tossed sand, widely dispersed and hardly noticeable in the great blue expanse between the Western Hemisphere, Asia, and Australia. But the small size and gross domestic products of these states conceal a disproportionate economic, political, and military potential.

Los Angeles Times – America, the fragile empire

Niall Ferguson asks what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arrhythmic — at times almost stationary but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night?

Wall Street Journal – U.K. and Argentina Spar Over Claim to Falkland Islands

Britain said it “firmly rejects” a new Argentine law that defines the Falkland Islands, over which the countries fought a war in 1982, as part of its territory.

The Diplomat – The Next Arms Race

…will be undersea, say Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, and will have big political repercussions for the entire Asia-Pacific region.

StrategyPage – Violence Continues To Decline

StrategyPage’s yearly review of the current status of conflict in the world today.

Financial Times – The decade the world tilted east

Niall Ferguson sums up the last decade for us…

US Naval War College Review – The New Security Drama in East Asia: The Responses of US Allies and Security Partners to China’s Rise

In the theater of East Asia, a geopolitical drama is unfolding. The growing presence of China in regional economic and security affairs—generically referred to as the “rise of China”—is changing interstate relations. While the major powers in East Asia are the protagonists, there are no bit players in this drama. Think King Lear, not Macbeth. China’s rise is affecting the perceptions, interests, and policies of all nations throughout East Asia. For the United States, the responses of its allies and security partners are uniquely consequential. These countries are the foundation of American presence in the region as well as the edifice of a regional security architecture that has produced decades of relative stability and prosperity.

The Atlantic – The Bear Still Has Teeth

Robert D. Kaplan writes that as the Obama administration’s recent scrapping of plans for an Eastern European missile defense system makes clear, while Poland and the Czech Republic may be our allies, it is mighty Russia to whom we are wise to defer.

The Atlantic – What Obama’s Nobel Really Means

Robert D. Kaplan writes that a growing contingent wants Obama to lead a post-nationalist global society. If he does things right, the U.S. could become history’s first truly international nation.

Newsweek – An Empire at Risk

We won the cold war and weathered 9/11. But now, Niall Ferguson says, economic weakness is endangering our global power.

The Atlantic – The Fall of the Wall

Robert D. Kaplan says we may have gained victory in the Cold War, but lost Europe to apathy and decadence in the process.

Los Angeles Times – A new frontier opens in the Arctic

The melting polar ice cap is opening the forbidding waters at the top of the world to shipping — and intensifying concerns about regulating maritime operations and protecting the fragile environment.

New York Times – Beijing’s Afghan Gamble

Robert D. Kaplan on China’s role in stabilizing Afghanistan.

World Politics Review – The New Rules: The Evolution of the U.S. Military

Thomas P.M. Barnett on the new basing reality for the US military.

Newsweek – ‘Chimerica’ is Headed for Divorce

Niall Ferguson on the souring relationship between the US and China.

New York Times – A Fearless Activist in a Land of Thugs

C.J Chivers remembers a fearless human rights investigator in Chechnya, Natalie Estemirova.

Esquire – Obama’s New Map of the World

Thomas P.M. Barnett writes that as he assumes leadership of this freaked-out world, the success of our new president’s foreign policy — and presidency — will depend on the thinking he does inside the box.

US Naval Institute Proceedings – Arctic Melt: Reopening a Naval Frontier

Changes in the Arctic environment – no matter the cause – are a great national security concern.

Foreign Policy – The Revenge of Geography

Robert D. Kaplan writes that people and ideas influence events, but geography largely determines them, now more than ever. To understand the coming struggles, it’s time to dust off the Victorian thinkers who knew the physical world best. A journalist who has covered the ends of the Earth offers a guide to the relief map—and a primer on the next phase of conflict.

The Atlantic – Pakistan’s Fatal Shore

Robert D. Kaplan writes that with its “Islamic” nuclear bomb, Taliban- and al-Qaeda-infested borderlands, dysfunctional cities, and feuding ethnic groups, Pakistan may well be the world’s most dangerous country, a nuclear Yugoslavia-in-the-making. One key to its fate is the future of Gwadar, a strategic port whose development will either unlock the riches of Central Asia, or plunge Pakistan into a savage, and potentially terminal, civil war.

Esquire – Despite Rhetoric, Obama Still Following Cheney’s Lead in Dictatorial Justice

Thomas P.M. Barnett writes it seems like the former vice-president is the one piggybacking on the new president’s detainee policy spotlight, but a top foreign-policy analyst argues that, when it comes to tribunals, it’s the other way around: the Obama administration is maintaining the practice of inventing justice as America sees fit.