The first ‘First Glance’

Posted on June 9, 2018 by Alan Alexandroff

You’d have to be in Antarctica, maybe not even there, not to see the growing chaos in the liberal international order (LIO) since Donald Trump’s election as the 45th President of the United States. And, it is evident that the election of the ‘Great Dismantler’ does not nearly explain the growing turbulence in international relations. Rising great power rivalry, the rise of populist leadership in liberal democrat countries and the growing authoritarian swath of global leadership – all this, and more. impact and undermine the LIO.

So, it is fitting, I think, to announce the ‘First Glance’ series at the RisingBRICSAM blog. On the weekend of the G7 in Charlevoix, Quebec with Trump anger and accusations at full tilt targeting his G7 allies, and Trump’s early departure to fly to Singapore for his summit encounter with the DPRK’s Kim Jong Un, it is the right time to rev-up the blog.

The ‘First Glance’ posts will, I hope be relatively frequent. They likely will be shorter than the traditional RisingBRICSAM posts – more from the hip, but with a desire to inform closer in ‘real time’. The LIO is under stress and from the country most responsible for its building. What is happening, and the course of international relations and the LIO demand greater attention.

Here’s to ‘First Glance’.

Alan S Alexandroff

Describing the ‘Great Dismantler’ at Work

Posted on December 2, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

The ‘Shaking the Global Order’ series continues with a podcast interview with Kori Schake. Schake has been involved with national security and diplomacy over a number of years. She has worked at the Department of Defense on NATO issues and for the Assistant Secretary of Defense on strategy and requirements. She has worked at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush first term and in 2007-8 she served as Deputy Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department. Schake published, with the now Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military and has just released Safe Passage:The Transformation from British to American Hegemony. She is currently a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. In this wide ranging Global Summitry podcast Schake discusses how she sees the Trump administration’s policies on the Korean Peninsula and with Iran. She describes this Administration’s handling of foreign policy and nuclear strategy. She examines United States treatment of its allies and its adversaries in the international system and assesses Trump policy and what it is doing to the Liberal Order that the United States has been a leader in building over the last 70 years. Schake is insightful and deeply knowledgeable about an Order she has seen from the inside.

(You can download the podcast at iTunes and at Soundcloud.)

The ‘Great Dismantler’ – Can A Liberal Order Be Rebuilt after the ‘Age of Trump’

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

It has become clear where Trump’s policies are taking us – or as clear as one can be when it comes to interpreting Trump policy. Trump is breaking the structures and policy frameworks of America’s existing domestic and foreign policies. The question is less whether he can accomplish some measure of this, then what will it take future US leaders, assuming they are willing, to rebuild the institutions and policies that have been constructed over the past seven decades. As Tom Friedman of the NYT recently declared:

Moreover, when you break big systems, which, albeit imperfectly, have stabilized regions, environments or industries for decades, it can be very difficult to restore them.

The litany of destruction by this President is now all too familiar. In his first day in office after his inaugurated, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He now appears to be targeting for destruction the NAFTA before the rather hapless Mexican and Canadian leaders. And the South Korea-US free trade agreement appears to be next for the chopping bloc, notwithstanding the need it would seem to maintain close alliance support in the face of the North Korea’s nuclear and missile ambitions and US efforts to force DPRK denuclearization.

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The Liberal Order Under Trump at the Hamburg G20

Posted on July 28, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

The recent Hamburg G20 Summit was yet another setting where all eyes were on Trump. And in contrast to recent Summits, journalists, especially American journalists, had all eyes focused laser-like on the German Summit and in particular on the first public meeting of President Trump and Russia’s President Putin. It was all great spectacle!

Fortunately, I had the good luck to have the opportunity to sit down with with Janice Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs to assess the liberal international order following the Hamburg G20 Summit. Janice and I had the chance to examine Trump’s actions: to evaluate the impact on allies and adversaries, Trump policy in the Middle East, North Korea and of course Trump’s behavior with Putin.

Come and listen to this Global Summitry podcast with Janice Stein, Episode 13, in the continuing series on ‘Shaking the Global Order: American Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump.’

An Addendum to the Hamburg G20

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

So, I was struck almost immediately by the headline in the Atlantic blog on the Hamburg G20. It turns out that the post was by my good friend Tom Wright from Brookings. The headline – “The G20 is Obsolete”. Just as I thought but so soon after Hamburg!

Tom’s defense – when I caught him – he didn’t write the headline, which I suspect is perfectly true – but really. At least a protest!

My only immediate reposte -“you had better hope not” that is at least with respect to the conclusion. Now, Tom generally edges to the realist side when examining the liberal internationalist order, but I was surprised by the vehemence. Take this line:

But the divisions in the G20 run far deeper than frustration with Trump: The body itself is a vestige of a world that no long exists.

Whoa. That’s strong!

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Paris, Fossil Fuel Prices and Innovation and their Impact on Climate Change: Global Summitry Podcast – An Interview with UCSD’s David Victor

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

At Oxford’s, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance, I was lucky enough to sit down with David Victor to talk about climate change. David is a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the director of the School’s Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. He has been a contributor to the UNFCCC’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is one of the leading political scientists examining the consequences of climate change on global politics.

This interview with David examines the complicated requirements for the transition to a low carbon economy. David discusses questions of fossil fuel pricing, the role of coal and carbon capture and storage (CCS), and the impact of innovation on the road to deep decarbonization, the adequacy of today’s electric grids and the consequences of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord.

The Global Summitry’s podcast is Episode 12 in the podcast series: “Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord”. It can be found at Oxford’s, Global Summitry and also at iTunes and Soundcloud.

Image Credit: un.

The G20 – It’s Relevant But Different it Appears in the ‘Age of Trump’

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

I suspect we’ll hear, once the dust settles a little on the chaos of the G20 Hamburg Summit, a litany of allegations that the Hamburg Summit reveals the irrelevance of the G20 in the Age of Trump. Au contraire my ‘ill-observant friends’.That is certainly not the conclusion one should draw from this most recent G20 Summit, even in the ‘Age of Trump’.

There is likely to be varying views of the progress arising from the Hamburg Summit. Our colleague Jonathan Luckhurst at Rising Powers in Global Governance posted a blog titled, “Hamburg G20 Summit Reaffirms Decentralizing Global Authority”.

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Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord. An Interview with Thomas Hale at Global Summitry Podcasts

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

So at Oxford’s Global Summitry podcasts, we’ve begun a new series – this on the Paris climate change accord. The podcast series ‘Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord’ begins with an interview with Thomas Hale, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. Tom has been at the forefront of efforts to understand climate change policy and indeed other critical transnational policy challenges. The podcast interview explores the nature of the Accord, why this negotiation succeeded after so many years of fruitless effort to reach a climate change agreement. Tom also reflects on the decision of President Trump to withdraw the United States from the Agreement.

Give it a listen. There will be others soon. And let us know what you think.

Image Credit: carbonbrief.org

Description and Evaluation of It All: Launching a Global Summitry Archive

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

Here at Rising BRICSAM for some time now we’ve been concerned with Global Summitry, and summitry more generally. While Rising BRICSAM was born some years ago concerned with the emergence of new energetic emerging market actors – the BRICs, then the BRICS, and more – Rising BRICSAM has remained focused on all the ‘Influentials’ in global governance. As part of that focus we have sought to describe, examine and evaluate the effectiveness of the variety of states, institutions and now non-state actors (NSAs) that form the architecture of global order governance.

Under the umbrella of the Global Summitry Project (GSP) we have over the years launched a number of initiatives: the Global Summitry Reports (GSRs), Spotlight, China Perspectives and our most ambitious project the Oxford University Press journal, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance.

The Global Summitry Archive

And it is with great pleasure now that GSP announces the launch of the Global Summitry Archive (the Archive). This Archive aims to collect, preserve and make publicly available all information and the websites related to global summits.

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So Many Lose-Lose Propositions – ‘Shaking the Global Order’

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Alan Alexandroff

We are beginning to understand the consequences of an ‘America First’ leadership of the Global Order. And to just about any observer of it, it isn’t pretty. As we wait here today for President Trump’s announcement on the Paris Accord – and whether he pulls the United States officially out or not –the US is surely out at least for the next four years.

The retreat of US leadership from the Liberal international order continues. Maybe the most startling recent statement actually comes from two Trump officials. In an opinion piece in WSJ assessing the success of Trump’s first overseas trip to the Middle East, to NATO and to the G7 in Italy, H.R. McMaster, the White House national security advisor and D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, described the America First view of the Global Order:

The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a “global community” but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage. We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.

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