Infrastructure Archive

Earlier this month, Australia hosted its first special summit with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the 10-member regional bloc known as ASEAN. While it is not a member, Australia has developed a close working relationship with the group. Amid discussions in Sydney focused on regional security and trade issues, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hailed ASEAN as a “strategic convener.” The two sides also unveiled a joint infrastructure initiative that looks to provide a potential alternative to China’s huge Belt and Road Initiative. In an email interview, Evan Laksmana, a senior researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International […]

On March 11, India and France co-hosted some 40 heads of state in New Delhi at the inaugural meeting of the International Solar Alliance, a treaty-based, intergovernmental organization facilitating solar energy advancement in developing countries in the tropics. The alliance, which was established at the Paris climate summit in November 2015, is aiming to raise $1 trillion in solar investments by 2030. France pledged roughly $860 million at the meeting in New Delhi. As part of the Paris climate pact, India has set its own ambitious green energy target of generating 40 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030. […]

It is revealing of current American political obsessions that a recent book about the Marshall Plan’s relationship to the Cold War might be seen first and foremost as having lessons for today’s troubled ties between the United States and Russia. In that book, Benn Steil, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that with the Marshall Plan’s launch in 1947, the U.S. and the Soviet Union “became irrevocably committed to securing their respective spheres of influence.” Yet despite widespread concern about Russia, the most consequential great power struggle today is the one between the U.S. and China. […]

The arrival of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Cairo this week brought with it a flurry of diplomatic and economic announcements, including a $10 billion joint fund for the development of a megacity stretching from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, and possibly even Jordan. While the dollar amount is eye-popping, skepticism is warranted given the number of announced megaprojects in the region that have come to naught. But that doesn’t mean that the crown prince’s decision to stop in Egypt, on a tour that includes London and Washington, is not without importance. For the past two years, Egypt’s relations […]