China’s rise does not present inevitable battle between east and west. Global powers can accommodate a changing order and thrive. “Today's Western order, in short, is hard to overturn and easy to join,” writes G. John Ikenberry, professor of politics and international affairs. After World War...
Click here to read the article in Foreign Affairs.
Wal-Mart executives eventually realized that requiring employees to smile at customers or participate in the “morning Wal-Mart chant” at its German stores did not mesh well with either the staid employees or customers. Differences in corporate and national culture, combined with competition from...
Click here for the original article on The New York Times website.
Forced to drop out of school at age 14 because his family could no longer afford tuition, William Kamkwamba of Malawi set out to study energy and build windmills on his own. “Energy poverty” limits development, economies and jobs in the world’s poorest nations, explains Sarah Childress for the Wall...
MASITALA, Malawi – On a continent woefully short of electricity, 20-year-old William Kamkwamba has a dream: to power up his country one windmill at a time.
So far, he has built three windmills in his yard...
Modern-day diplomats in Asia and beyond envision reviving the Silk Road, an ancient network of routes crisscrossing the continent for trade and security. But Valerie Hansen, author and professor of history at Yale University points, out that trade was not the primary purpose of the network. “...
NEW HAVEN: Despite all the talk in diplomatic circles of a new Silk Road and restoring trade in Central Asia, in actuality, these routes were among the least traveled in human history - possibly not worth studying if tonnage, traffic or the number...
The exercise of power is bizarre and tenuous in North Korea. Jang Song Thaek, second in command and uncle to dictator Kim Jong Un, was abruptly purged and executed. “Prospects of continuing purges loom, wiping out any lingering hopes that the Kim regime will follow the Chinese model and embark on...
SEOUL: In a country where purges are as commonplace as polling in democratic countries, the summary execution of North Korea’s number two figure Jang Song Thaek, 67, was breathtaking in its brutality. Extensive tentacles of his power and influence...
In 2004, news of a tiny Kerala church in India holding a Mass to pray for the renowned British soccer player David Beckham fascinated the global media. Although Beckham’s celebrity certainly contributed to the focus, “Mass intentions” – applying a Mass for a specific purpose – had been around long...
Click here for the article on The Telegraph.
In 1990, “Foreign Policy” first analyzed “soft power.” Here, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., author of the original article, returns to correct notions that have since become associated with soft power. The concept, he asserts, is the power of “attraction,” as opposed to the power of “coercion” or “payment...
“Soft Power Is Cultural Power”
Partly. Power is the ability to alter the behavior of others to get what you want. There are basically three ways to do that: coercion (sticks), payments (carrots), and...
The West can no longer hold its tongue on fundamentalist religious sects that emphasize piety to the point of counting a few followers worthy while dismissing everyone else in the world. Such is the case with Wahhabism, or Salafism, the state religion in Saudi Arabia that’s exported to other Muslim...
Ideology of blood and gore: Islamic State terrorists in Libya prepare to behead Coptic Christian civilians by the Mediterranean (top); the founder of the extremist sect, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab
CHICAGO: The West declared a war on terror more...
