Pulse: Politics


Wishing our world for a peaceful 2024

While I studied at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, our founding dean and senior diplomat Professor Kishore Mahbubani optimistically told us, “War, after centuries of being a scourge for humanity, is now becoming a sunset industry.” Unfortunately, nowadays that “sunset industry” is reviving, from the Russia-Ukraine war to the Israel-Hamas war.

The Economics of Violence - What's wrong with Chicago?

I live in Chicago so my out-of-town friends assume that I must be well-acquainted with violence. Luckily that is not the case. Despite Chicago’s reputation, our city’s travails are hardly unique in urban America. Our particular crisis in leadership predates Covid, and it does not look like real change is coming anytime soon.

On Friday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot left City Hall for the last time. It was not a fond farewell.

The China Report February 6, 2023 #3 - High Anxiety

This weekend I expected to be writing about the results of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s trip to China and prospects for the reopening of China’s post-Covid economy. Instead, Americans have been mesmerized by the week-long journey of a Chinese balloon, and I have been bombarded with questions about what it means. A symbol of both China’s rise and presence in the US, a white balloon galvanized the media in a way that a diplomatic visit would never have equaled.

Toward a Strategy for Responding to the PRC in Latin America

The work argues that the problem is not the “lack of a strategy,” but ensuring that the strategies that we apply are appropriate, adequately resourced and coordinated, and the tools we use are up to the task. In addition to concisely stating the nature of the risks to the US and the region arising from some dimensions of PRC engagement, the recommendations advanced by the work include: (1) holding the line for Western corporations, strategic technologies and liberal institutions, (2) helping our partners to strengthen their institutions to get a better deal from their work with the PRC and other actors; (3) fixing, rightsizing and better coordinating our institutional tools for competing, (4) improving our data supported messaging, and (5) advancing clear new strategic concepts for the military as part of a whole of government response, coordinate with our likeminded allies.

Latin America's Perfect Storm

Originally published by Global Americans.

Nicaragua: Dictatorship and Collaboration with Extra-Hemispheric U.S. Rivals

This work looks at how the Sandinista regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in Nicaragua has further clamped down on dissent and consolidated power since the rigged November 2021 Presidential elections, and how it is increasingly serving as an entry-point for expanded activity in the region by Russia, Iran, and the PRC.

The Evolution of Peru’s Multidimensional Challenges, Part II: Transnational Organized Crime

Peru’s crisis of politics and governability has reinforced economic and fiscal pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic and increased in food and fuel prices due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, to greatly complicate grave challenges from transnational organized crime and terrorism in the country. Those crises have also undermined the resources available to the country to effectively respond through investing in the modernization, adaptation, and strengthening of its security institutions, and other parts of its whole-of-government response.

The Caribbean in the Crossfire: Between Covid-19, Narcotics, China, and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

My newest work on how the combination of Covid-19, Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, PRC engagement in the Caribbean, and transnational organized crime dynamics, are gravely stressing and transforming the Caribbean.

The Struggle for the Soul of the Latin American Left

This report argues that the struggle between democratic elements and authoritarian populist elements of the increasingly dominant but diverse Latin American left will define the future of the region, with significant implications for the US.

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