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I’ve taught Arendt several times, and really enjoyed this PBS documentary on her life and political thought. Streaming at least for awhile more on the website here.

I’ve been working on a book project for several years about how major power competitions affect the internal politics – and often the foreign policy alignments – of “swing” states, focusing on South and Southeast Asia. Some early thought can be found in this 2024 Foreign Affairs article, while the scholarly book version is now under advance contract at Princeton University Press.

Part of the work was being done for a United States Institute of Peace contract that would explore this question in South Asia in a policy-focused way; I like being able to do analytical work that is aimed at a broader audience. The report was mostly finished when Elon Musk’s DOGE bizarrely decided to kill USIP, including my contract.

I took the project to my colleagues in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who were interested in it. USIP then revived itself, and we decided to jointly publish the paper. USIP has now been shut down again literally days ago, but hopefully it will be resuscitated for a second time.

In any case, the report is now out from Carnegie (a link to the full PDF is there too). It offers a new typology of how major power rivalries can manifest themselves in the politics of third-party states (which I hope can be applied beyond South Asia), while also adding thoughts on mechanisms that can pull local and global politics together or push them apart. The piece concludes with some policy implications for American foreign policy. Here are some excerpts:

“there are important differences in whether and how domestic players in third-party states mobilize external major power rivalry in their own internal politics, ranging from making it central to their political strategies to ignoring major power competition in favor of a purely internal focus. To improve our understanding of how geopolitical rivalries intersect with swing states’ politics, this paper outlines a new framework of trajectories that helps us measure and compare the overlap between the contours of a major power international competition and the key lines of division within the domestic politics of third-party states. It then identifies three mechanisms that can increase or undermine this overlap, both across countries and over time within them. . . . .

Table 1 provides a new way to identify how major power competition can align with domestic political competition. These outcomes can be thought of as changeable trajectories because political systems can move along the spectrum over time. For instance, Cambodia in the mid-1950s was much less polarized than it would become by 1970, when the spillover of the Vietnam conflict and the collapse of Norodom Sihanouk’s balancing act into a direct communist-anticommunist showdown turned Cambodia into an open war zone. Major power competitions can also play out differently within the same state or region. For example, in the Sahel, China-India competition is far less relevant than U.S.-Russia competition, but far more important in Nepal. This lets us compare different countries to each other and study changes in one country over time. . . .

The United States should thus cultivate a role as a friendly outsider, being flexible and open to working with a variety of local players. It can carve out a narrow but valuable niche in the region’s smaller states as a provider of expertise, technology, and capital that helps these countries develop economically and achieve political stability. This approach will be most effective when explicitly not framed as simply reactive to China: consistent engagement can limit Chinese influence as a consequence, but it should not be the explicit driving force behind American strategy in the region. Indeed, there may be times when it makes sense to adopt a similar approach to China in order to advance American interests in a particular third-party state.

Such a nuanced, case-by-case approach that invests in deep knowledge of local political coalitions and public opinion can help the United States navigate a new era of rivalry in the region. Yet this goal has been undermined by sweeping cuts to American aid and development initiatives, as well as planned reductions in the U.S. State Department.⁵⁵ Eliminating soft power instruments and regional expertise is a curious way to pursue major power competition. Such tools are obviously not always effective in building political influence for the United States—but it is very difficult to beat something with nothing. China has devoted substantial resources, both diplomatic and financial, in South Asia, while U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration appears to have decided to simply not compete in these countries. For instance, for months it appeared that the United States had cancelled the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) agreement with Nepal, while the elimination of the U.S. Agency for International Development has removed one of the main tools of American engagement in the region.⁵⁶

As Carnegie’s Evan Feigenbaum has warned, the United States risks being seen as the “Hessians of Asia,” primarily useful in the military realm but absent, or even adversarial, in other domains.⁵⁷ The Trump administration has further accelerated this drift in American policy—it is extremely unclear what a positive, forward-looking American policy message in the region could be. Emphasizing military aid and cooperation makes sense with countries locked in rivalries or deep territorial disputes with China, but that does not apply with much force to South Asia’s swing states. They do not want to be dominated by China, but also are not looking for American weapons or military backing. Development, domestic political survival, and governance are vastly more pressing domestic priorities. Without reinvesting in the tools and strategies that can help address these countries’ actual goals, the United States risks sitting on the sidelines.”

Leica offers an annual Oskar Barnack award for a photography series, with photos “of a documentary or conceptual-artistic nature, and deal with the relationship of humanity to the environment.”

This year’s shortlist is up (you can also see past finalists and winners), heavily featuring conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, and the DRC, as well as series on migration and climate change, among others. Incredible work; check it out.

Paul Musgrave has a nice post here talking about his experience in Qatar with Chinese consumer products – cars, smartwatches, etc are increasingly common in global markets, even if we don’t necessarily see them in the US. In an area where we are seeing change in the US, I’ve noticed the rise of quality Chinese camera lenses, moving quickly from fairly simple lenses (often manual focus or with poor build quality) to increasingly sophisticated, high-quality lenses from manufacturers like Viltrox, Sirui, Thypoch, and Laowa, joining more basic options from TTArtisan, Yongnuo, and the like (plus the eccentric but cool Leica homages from Light Lens Lab). We may see something similar in my other area of obscure consumer knowledge, affordable mechanical watches. In both cases, Chinese manufacturers are now starting to take it the Japanese and Europeans on the lower end of the market.

Anyways, key point here:

“I want to be clear, because everyone on the Internet is illiterate: I’m not asserting right now that the Huawei ban as a good or bad thing. I am simply trying to point out that if you live in the United States and assume that you have a good vantage point on global consumer trends because you live in a rich country, you are dead wrong. Americans live in an increasingly walled-off market that is diverging from the trends and market shares of the rest of the world.

In particular, the United States is now insulated from Chinese goods, a gap that’s noticeable in cars and smart devices. (I’m leaving out telecoms infrastructure, the sort of thing that wonks like Neuberger notice, because I’m guessing most of us don’t order telecoms equipment often.)

The gap didn’t used to be so big. In 2015, for instance, China had no carmakers in the global top 10 and only one in the global top 15. In 2023, there were three PRC automakers in the global top 15, but only one in the top 10. Last year, there were four in the top 15 and two in the top 10 (with a third just a few units out of tenth place). In the United States, PRC car makers had a share of … zero percent.

There’s a smaller gap in smartphone makers, where Apple and Samsung dominate globally and in the USA, but once you look at the next manufacturers after the leaders you notice that names like Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, and Huawei together constitute a sizable global share. And, yes, those are all Chinese brands.

Five or especially ten years ago, you used to be able to look at Chinese export statistics and dismiss them as exaggerated. For one thing, global trade statistics didn’t capture that the bulk of value of an iPhone, for instance, went to companies outside of China even though stats attributed the whole value of the phone to China (for a version of this observation that will leave you confused and frustrated, see this CFR explainer). But if you go to not-America, and especially not-Global North, you will really quickly notice that Chinese brands now play a huge role. China isn’t just the workshop of the world: it’s increasingly a home to major brands.”

An excellent article in Frontier Myanmar on the growing battles as the AA moves east:

“The AA offensive into Ayeyarwady followed the group’s capture of Gwa Township in late December. After seizing the southernmost part of Rakhine State, AA forces began pushing over the foothills of the Rakhine Yoma mountain range into the delta, thrusting east into Yegyi Township, and south into Pathein Township. 

The AA has since attacked numerous points along the Pathein-Monywa highway, a 750-kilometre two-lane road that runs north-south between the Rakhine Yoma and the west bank of the Ayeyarwady River. The military has responded by increasing security and restricting traffic flows, as it seeks to retain control of the critically important route. . . .

The highway is integral to the functioning of the military’s defence industries, most of which are on the west bank of the Ayeyarwady River in Bago and Magway, according to a January 2023 report by the Special Advisory Council-Myanmar. . . .

For almost 18 months after the coup, the AA avoided confronting the military, instead focusing on consolidating control in rural areas of Rakhine. Publicly, the group gave the impression that it had little interest in supporting the broader revolutionary movement against the regime. 

Quietly, however, the AA was providing training and weapons to resistance groups that had sprung up on the border of Rakhine. Each April, when the AA marks its anniversary, more and more resistance groups send it messages of appreciation, including several groups from Magway. . . .

While the AA’s resistance partners are effusive in their praise, the same cannot be said for some residents of western Ayeyarwady, Bago and Magway. Until the AA-led offensives, these areas had seen few clashes, largely insulating locals from the worst of the country’s civil war. “Sometimes we would hear reports of PDF groups targeting and assassinating military council officials, such as administrators or Pyusawhti members. But actual fighting only began recently,” said a Padaung resident.”