Tabla de contenidos para Summer 2024 en Foreign Policy

In March, a delegation of around 50 U.S. businesses—among them major players such as Boeing and Meta—traveled to Vietnam to explore investment opportunities. Their visit was overshadowed by the abrupt resignation of Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong on March 20, two days after meetings began. But Ted Osius, who led the delegation and served as the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam from 2014 to 2017, is no stranger to Hanoi’s political landscape, known for its relative consistency but sometimes colored by unpredictability. In recent years, Vietnam has emerged as a preferred alternative to China and successfully wooed foreign investment. It has also walked a fine line between Beijing and Washington on the global stage, securing upgrades in bilateral ties with other global powers. But the sudden resignation of a second president…

The same decision can be smart at the right time or disastrous at the wrong time. The bill that forces Chinese company Byte-Dance to divest from TikTok or face a ban on the video-sharing app in the United States is one such case. One of the main arguments for the bill, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in late April, was based on the long-held worry that ByteDance could use Tik-Tok—especially under the influence or direction of the Chinese Communist Party or the Chinese government—to spread propaganda and influence its American users and maybe even interfere in U.S. elections. At first, it might seem like a good idea to ban TikTok before the November elections to prevent any kind of interference. But the…

When U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer effectively called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ouster on the Senate floor in mid-March, it was a watershed moment for anyone following Israel’s role in U.S. politics. But the Senate leader’s stance is fairly mainstream among Israelis. There’s consensus—even within Netanyahu’s own party—that elections should be held early. It seems like conventional wisdom in Israel that Netanyahu is dragging out the war for his own political survival, since he knows the moment it comes to a halt, Israelis will focus even more resolutely on investigating the failures of Oct. 7 and pushing for early elections to vote him out of office. The focus on Netanyahu is a convenient distraction from the fact that the war in Gaza is not Netanyahu’s war—it is…

No bloc of countries has, for the past 75 years, been as umbilically tied to the United States as Europe. First, its western half and, since the end of the Cold War, much of its eastern half have prospered under the world’s most extensive bonds in trade, finance, and investment. Europe could also depend on the U.S. military’s iron commitment—enshrined in the 75-year-old NATO alliance—to come to its defense. Together with a few other nations, the United States and Europe defined many of the institutions that comprise what we call the Western-led order. The U.S.-European alliance has arguably been the bedrock of the global system as we know it today. But the era in which Europe could count on the United States may be nearing its end. No matter who…

RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE IN FEBRUARY 2022 overturned the strategic calculus behind Brexit. Then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson had promised to raise Britain’s sights beyond Europe—to the sunny uplands of closer trading and political relations with the United States and dynamic emerging markets in Asia. But the return of large-scale war to Europe has proved the adage that geography is destiny, bringing Britain’s strategic focus squarely back to its centurieslong priority of ensuring stability on the European continent. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal war does not merely threaten to erase Ukraine’s independence. Russian success—despite sincere European political commitment, military aid, and financial support to Ukraine—would shred the bonds that unite the European Union’s members. Combined with all the other pressures the EU already faces, this could not only collapse any emerging…

IN DECEMBER 1989, STANDING IN VIENNA’S MAIN RAILWAY TERMINUS and looking at the trains full of people arriving from the collapsing communist states to the east, the British American historian Tony Judt decided that a new history of 20th-century Europe needed to be written. He called his opus Postwar—not simply to show how the European present was still shaped by the memories and legacies of World War II but also to demonstrate that Europe had become a place where, for most people, a major war on their continent had become unthinkable. A book on Europe’s 21st century, unfortunately, will require a different title. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has woken Europeans up to the reality that they are living in a prewar world, not a postwar one. Their long-held assumptions about war…

What should one make of China—of its extraordinary rise, its enormous global ambitions, and its future—now that the breathtaking first phase of its ascendance seems to have ended and forces of gravity linked to its aging population and increasingly outdated economic and political models are taking over? There are few more important questions in today’s world and few, moreover, that are harder to answer. One of the most impressive attempts to address these questions that I’ve come across in years is a slim new book that isn’t the product, as one might expect, of an economist, a historian, or a political scientist. This work, China’s Age of Abundance: Origins, Ascendance, and Aftermath, is of course informed by all of these fields but is written by Wang Feng, a Chinese-born sociologist…

How do you say “Winter is coming” in Japanese? It’s hardly a criticism to say FX’s new series Shogun, available on Hulu in the United States and Disney+ elsewhere, may remind audiences of Game of Thrones. The HBO spectacle based on George R.R. Martin’s novels was one of the more transformative television events of our age, inspiring several closebut-no-scimitar imitators. Netflix has The Witcher, Amazon has the preposterously expensive The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and HBO has the Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, all of which have their charms, but none have quite caught the wildfire-in-a-bottle of the original. It is with great joy, however, that I can report an heir is finally here. The wannabes prove it wasn’t the wizards and winged beasts…

Construction industry leader Progreso has a proud 125-year history of driving Guatemala’s social and economic development. Now, CEO José Raúl González is positive about what promises to be the start of a new era of opportunities for the country to advance much-needed infrastructure programs. When Carlos F. Novella returned to Guatemala after studying civil engineering at Louvain in Belgium, he brought with him knowledge of more advanced building techniques and a heartfelt desire to help develop the nation with this science. In 1899 “Don Carlos” founded the company that would eventually become Progreso, starting to produce cement for construction in 1901. The business found itself frequently flirting with bankruptcy until the great 1917-18 series of earthquakes, when Don Carlos’s modern constructions proved resilient. José Raúl González, who leads the fourth…

While Guatemala’s well-known volcanoes and Mayan archeological treasures will continue to pull in the crowds, the country’s tourism authorities say it is time to modernize the approach to attracting tourists to boost visitor numbers and “change the narrative” in a positive way as the country embarks on a new era. “Technology is going to be our secret weapon,” said Harris Whitbeck, the new director general of INGUAT, Guatemala’s tourism institute, revealing plans to use big data in the push for a bigger share of the international tourism market. “Having access to big data and artificial intelligence will be absolutely key in order to make more informed decisions about how to use the digital realm to communicate better.” Whitbeck, a journalist by profession, is confident that he has a spectacular product…

1. Zimbabwe introduced a new currency in April. The ZiG is backed up by what? a. The euro b. Diamonds c. Gold d. The U.S. dollar 2. Approximately how many missiles and drones did Iran launch at Israel in mid-April? a. 100 b. 320 c. 570 d. 680 3. Which party won the most seats in South Korea’s April legislative elections? a. The progressive Rebuilding Korea Party b. The centrist New Reform Party c. The conservative ruling People Power Party d. The center-left Democratic Party 4. German authorities said in late April that they had arrested three German citizens suspected of spying for which country? a. China b. Russia c. Iran d. Cuba 5. Who was elected as the Solomon Islands’ prime minister in May? a. Opposition leader Matthew Wale…

It’s a little startling when a senior civil servant begins to casually ruminate about the inevitability of the end for any nation and political order and, in the longue durée, the finite lifespan of the one that they serve. If this were the Second French Empire as Prussians besieged Paris and the Commune ran the streets or Myanmar today, one could understand. But what does Singapore have to worry about? On April 15, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the son of Singapore’s revered first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, announced that he would be stepping down. The succession is proceeding with a smoothness that is near-soporific. Lawrence Wong, a deputy prime minister and finance minister, succeeded him on May 15. He is now Singapore’s fourth prime minister from the People’s…

“I am opposed to war, unless in self-defense.” This was the most liked comment on Douyin—the Chinese counterpart to TikTok—in reaction to a speech delivered by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Jan. 9. In his address, Wang previewed China’s top diplomatic goals for 2024 and emphasized “the unwavering resolve of all 1.4 billion Chinese citizens to achieve reunification with Taiwan,” a statement made just days prior to the island’s general elections. The broader reaction to Wang’s remarks likely wasn’t what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had hoped for: Tens of thousands of Chinese social media users responded, many of them with grievances, sarcasm, and defiance, widely questioning the costs of a potential war. One man from Shanghai complained, “Who is going to fight the war? If I die, who is…

Over the last year, the world’s most influential organizations, leaders, and publications have characterized Sudan’s ongoing war as catastrophic and beyond a point of no return. On paper, these terms seem reasonable in describing the dire circumstances on the ground. More than 15,000 people have been killed in war-related violence, over 8 million people have been displaced, and widespread hunger is increasing. Though this language is attention-grabbing—and quotable—it has restricted the international community’s response to the conflict. This style of language, which effectively dismisses many conflict zones as lost causes, is a constant in humanitarian crises. It is often used to suggest the international community’s supposed inability to alleviate suffering. However, in the case of Sudan, as in many wars before—including Syria and now Gaza—this fatalistic rhetoric perpetuates harmful myths,…

Mexico elected its first female president on June 2. Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, won a resounding victory with nearly 60 percent of votes. She represents outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party and is set to assume office in October. In March, Sheinbaum presented her economic agenda before Mexico’s business leadership in the city of Monterrey, where Tesla plans to build an electric vehicle plant. Sheinbaum hopes to take advantage of the opportunities offered by U.S. nearshoring efforts; Mexico has emerged as an attractive destination for U.S. companies seeking to relocate their supply chains closer to home. She has also proposed creating 10 so-called development poles throughout Mexico, which would see regions specialize in sectors such as tourism, technological innovation, and renewable energy while also…

THE U.S. CONGRESS GAVE UKRAINE AND ITS EUROPEAN ALLIES crucial breathing room when it finally passed a $61 billion aid package in late April. But what happens after the U.S. presidential election in November is anyone’s guess. In the long run—no matter who wins—U.S. engagement in Europe is likely to have peaked. The upshot is that everything will soon hinge on whether Europe can step up to the plate as a geopolitical actor amid U.S. retrenchment. Europe had many false starts since the end of the Cold War. During the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, the European Union confronted its own impotence in the face of war for the first time. For a while, it looked as if it might build up the institutions and capabilities necessary to transform itself…

IF UKRAINE AND ITS WESTERN SUPPORTERS LOSE RESOLVE, Europe may face a scenario where Russia subjugates the rest of Ukraine, installs a puppet regime, and gradually integrates most or all of the country into a new Russian empire. In the long term, it would be a Pyrrhic victory for Moscow. The repressive empire would struggle to digest its occupied lands, subdue a restive population, and bear the burden of very high military expenditures in a new era of confrontation. Moscow would trade its medieval Mongol yoke for a 21st-century Chinese one—and be seriously left behind as the rest of the world enters a new green and digital age. Sooner or later, Russia would face its third state collapse in little more than a century. A Russian victory and collapse of…

THE CHALLENGE OF A MORE GEOPOLITICALLY TURBULENT WORLD comes as Europe’s economic model is showing signs of stress. GDP growth has lagged that of the United States since the 2010 European debt crisis. Within the EU, markets fragmented along national lines, the lack of a well-functioning financial system, inadequate macroeconomic policies, and an underdeveloped high-tech industry have all meant subpar growth. Externally, the decoupling from Russian energy supplies and uncertain prospects for trade with China weigh on the highly globalized European economy as well. China’s economic model, with its high subsidies for the manufacturing industry—which then exports its growing overcapacity abroad—represents a particular challenge for many European economies, especially those, such as Germany’s, that compete with China in the same industries. A more America First president in the White House…

Which is the real Europe? The mostly peaceful, democratic, and united continent of the past few decades? Or the fragmented, volatile, and conflict-ridden Europe that existed for centuries before that? If Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November, we may soon find out. Trump flirted with pulling the United States out of NATO during his first term as president. Some of his former aides believe he might really do it if he gets a second. And it’s not just Trump talking this way: As U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, one of the leading America First acolytes, has argued, “[The] time has come for Europe to stand on its own feet.” Even among those who don’t explicitly subscribe to the America First ethos, the pull of competing priorities—particularly in Asia—is…

The year is 2077. Resources are scarce, and global inequality is at an all-time high. Long-simmering tensions between the United States and China erupt into active warfare when Chinese paratroopers land in Alaska to seize its oil reserves and the United States, in return, launches a counteroffensive into the Chinese mainland. Under the looming threat of nuclear escalation, a few lucky citizens enter underground shelters, bracing for the fallout. There’s a flash on the horizon, as what was once just a war spirals into the Great War—a nuclear apocalypse. This is the premise of Fallout, one of the most popular video game series of the past 30 years. Set in a post-apocalyptic United States, the Fallout universe is equal parts absurd, philosophical, and alarmingly realistic. Players are just as likely…

After coming through the deepest institutional crisis of its history, Guatemala is preparing a strategy in order to start living up to its promise as Central America’s largest economy by reasserting its democratic principles and encouraging investment flows to unlock its full potential. Despite boasting macroeco-nomic stability, a strategic location, and a plethora of investment opportunities, the country has historically grappled with a lack of foreign direct investment (FDI). However, recent developments signal a shift in this narrative, with Guatemala readying itself to emerge as a beacon of economic opportunity in the region. In January Bernardo Arévalo was sworn in as Guatemala’s president with the backing of the international community after overcoming concerted efforts to derail the transfer of power and prevent his inauguration. Now, Arévalo’s administration is focused on…

Guatemala’s sugar agroindustry, Latin America’s third-largest producer, generates almost $700 million in foreign exchange annually and provides more than 55,000 direct jobs and 278,000 indirect jobs in the country. The sector is served by 6,000 small, medium-sized and large enterprises, in turn generating more employment. Although only 2.97% of the cultivable land in Guatemala is used for sugarcane production, the industry has the capacity to be transformative for the developing nation. Asazgua, the Association of Sugar Producers of Guatemala, is committed to generating opportunities and prosperity as part of the country’s sustainable development. Created in 1957, Asazgua includes 10 sugar mills and five technical organizations specialized in research, climate change, innovation, sugar exportation and social responsibility. In 2022 it created its own Innovation Hub to develop a program of innovative…

In September 2022, I was working as a fixer in Taipei for a U.S. news segment about cross-strait tensions, handling local logistics for a visiting producer and cameraman. Fixers are freelance staff whose role is somewhere between journalist and tour guide—they can end up doing almost anything, from arranging interviews to translation to booking hotels. One night, we arrived at an amateur radio meetup in a park, ready to shoot, and found an eccentric crew of local radio fans. One man hunched over a tangled web of equipment at the back of his truck, tapping away in Morse code; another fidgeted with an antenna, trying to get a signal. The producer told me that the group was learning how to operate radios in case of war with China. “Why do…

In early March, global investors turned their eyes toward Beijing, where 2,977 delegates from across China had gathered for the annual session of the National People’s Congress. Here, Chinese Premier Li Qiang would deliver the annual “Report on the Work of the Government.” Here, the priorities that must guide the activities of the Chinese state over the coming year would be proclaimed. Here—or so financiers at home and abroad badly hoped—the Chinese government would declare its plan to rescue China’s economy. But there were few comforting signs. The 2023 report had placed “expanding domestic demand” as the top priority for that year, responding to the damage done by zero-COVID policies, a bureaucracy paralyzed by purges and confused by an unfavorable economic environment, and a property bubble too large to pop.…

March’s local election results in Turkey delivered a harsh blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Just under a year since the presidential election, in which Erdogan won another five years in power, Turkey’s main opposition party—the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—won big victories in a majority of the country’s largest cities, including Istanbul, the economic powerhouse of Turkey. Thirty-five provincial capitals (out of a total of 81) now have a CHP mayor, while the AKP-led People’s Alliance has just 24. The CHP also scraped past Erdogan’s party in the country overall, garnering 37.8 percent of the votes compared with 35.5 percent for the AKP. The CHP’s victory is a hopeful signal of the resilience of Turkish democracy and its electoral system. After the…

When German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited China in April, the deep and enduring divisions between Europe and the United States over how best to handle the country were on full display. Although new communication channels between Washington and Beijing have stabilized a superpower relationship that only last year seemed in danger of spinning out of control, the U.S. approach remains basically competitive. Scholz’s approach was markedly different—and not in a good way. This was obvious from the moment that details of his delegation emerged. There are senior figures in Germany with a hard-headed, strategic view of China, not least Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. But neither was in Beijing. Instead, Scholz took ministers in areas such as agriculture, who favor close cooperation with Beijing, along with…

In April 2018, I was invited by the U.S. ambassador to a meeting at the embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. The ambassador had assembled a group of NGO leaders in the field of disinformation to meet with a senior Trump administration official from the State Department. He asked us to describe the main narratives of Kremlin disinformation. As the director of a large international democracy organization, I highlighted Russia’s manipulation of gender and LGBTQ issues to sway Georgians away from the perceived “cultural decadence” of the European Union. The official’s frustration was palpable. His response, tinged with irritation, was telling: “Is that all you people can talk about? The gays?” A year before, several international organizations partnered with Georgian parliamentarians on a gender equality assessment, supported by several government donors. This…

GERMANY’S DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE CHIEF, Thomas Haldenwang, likes to say Russia’s war against Ukraine is the storm whereas China’s quest for global dominance is climate change. What Europe is facing today is nothing less than a geostrategic firestorm. Russia is not only on the offensive in Ukraine but also waging a hybrid war on Europe through weaponized corruption, assassinations, cyberattacks, espionage, disinformation, election interference, communications jamming, and sabotage of critical infrastructure. China, too, sees Europe as a strategic prize: It is buying up physical and digital infrastructure, preparing to conduct economic warfare by flooding European markets with electric vehicles, and maintaining quasi-police stations on European soil to surveil and coerce dissidents. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s choice of France, Serbia, and Hungary for his European trip in May was the clearest signal…

“WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO PAY FOR THE MILITARY PROTECTION OF EUROPE while the NATO states are not paying their fair share,” U.S. President John F. Kennedy said to the U.S. National Security Council in 1963. Since then, similar calls from both Republican and Democratic administrations for Europe to take responsibility for its own defense too often have been ignored, especially since the end of the Cold War. For far too long, Western Europeans believed that war on the continent was no longer possible. Even today, some European politicians still seem convinced that the destructive forces ravaging Ukraine will never reach their territories. This year, at least 20 out of 32 NATO members will spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense—a move in the right direction at a…

It is hard to convey to people outside Germany the extraordinary role Jürgen Habermas has played in the country. To be sure, his name inevitably appears on the more or less silly lists of world’s most influential philosophers. But there are no other instances of a public intellectual having been important in every major debate—in fact, often having started such debates—over six decades. A new book by Berlin-based cultural historian Philipp Felsch, translated from German simply as The Philosopher with the clever subtitle Habermas and Us, argues that Habermas has always been perfectly in sync with different eras of postwar German political culture. This is a remarkable achievement for someone of his longevity: Habermas turns 95 this year. As Felsch observes, had Michel Foucault lived that long, he could have…

At Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture, about 125 miles west of Dar es Salaam, there is a small memorial to Magawa, an awardee of the PDSA Gold Medal, known as the “animals’ George Cross,” for “life-saving devotion to duty.” Magawa was a rat who worked for the Tanzania-based demining charity Apopo and was responsible for sniffing out more than 100 land mines in Cambodia. The NGO’s “HeroRATs” are now expanding their remit, detecting cases of tuberculosis in samples sent from across Tanzania to Sokoine’s laboratories. Magawa and his fellow African giant pouched rats clearly confound humanity’s aversion to the rodents. Journalist Joe Shute uses Magawa’s story to show that people who just want to eradicate rats have got it wrong. His new book, Stowaway: The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat,…

Guatemala is moving forward through plans for high-impact infrastructure in which collaboration between the private sector and the country’s administrations is key to developing projects that will boost competitiveness and employment. Two stand-out projects are set to transform mobility and spur economic and social development in Guatemala City. AeroMetro is an urban cable car system aimed at revolutionizing transportation in Guatemala’s capital, while the Belice 2 Bridge is a road and rail project that will improve traffic distribution and boost connections with a light railway system between the southern and northern parts of the city. AeroMetro, a public-private partnership project, comprises two sections covering nine kilometers that will allow commuters to transfer onto existing and future Transmetro lines, as well as the planned MetroRiel light railway. The $225m Belice 2…

On April 25, 1974, a left-leaning military coup overthrew Portugal’s 48-year dictatorship. The uprising, known as the Carnation Revolution, represented the country’s pivot to democracy after decades under António Salazar’s oppressive rule and a boost for women’s rights. In 1976, a new constitution afforded equal rights to men and women. More recently, in 2011, Portugal signed the Istanbul Convention, a treaty addressing violence against women and domestic violence; it was ratified in 2013. But as is often the case with gender, Portugal’s laws and norms do not sync up. “Some things are the same as they were before the 25th of April,” journalist Fernanda Câncio said. “Machismo is one of them.” As a Portuguese American woman, I’ve rubbed against that machismo for as long as I can remember. During a…