In modeling the foreign policy dynamics depicted in “The Diplomat” on the dynamics of the real world, the popular new Netflix political drama inadvertently ends up doing as much educating as entertaining. That can be a problem for a series that has neither the capacity nor the narrative requirement for nuanced explanations of these issues.
The Biden administration’s proposal for U.N. Security Council reform looks likely to protect the veto power of the council’s five permanent members, signaling a lack of true commitment to meaningful reform and a balanced international system. But Global South countries are not waiting for Washington to strengthen multilateralism.
Who rules the world? In discussions of international politics, the focus is often on states. With the rise of Big Tech, though, some observers have argued that the future of global power will be a story of corporations, not countries. But claims that corporations will dominate the world and surpass states in power are overblown.
In recent years, civilians in South Sudan have been the victims of attacks by both rebels and government forces, and the U.N. mission has a poor record of protecting them from this violence. To change this, the international community needs to hold the mission’s civilian and military leadership accountable for their failures.
In 2005, the U.N. was still reeling from the rifts caused by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and diplomats were furiously debating ideas for reforms to the multilateral system. Fast forward to today, and Russia’s war on Ukraine is dominating U.N. diplomacy. Once again, proposals to reform the institution are also topping the agenda.
A small but growing group of scientists are beginning to draft the blueprints and build the prototypes of “climate time machines,” in the form of carbon removal and geoengineering. These approaches have the potential to unwind decades of delay and avert climate catastrophe, but they are unproven and come with risks.
The U.K. is the latest country in the Global North to prioritize resettlement schemes over accepting asylum-seekers who arrive at the border. In many ways, these approaches seem to criminalize vulnerable people. States can and should deal with the rising number of asylum-seekers making risky voyages in a more humane way.
Of all the doomsday predictions about our planetary future from the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps none was so wrong as the fear about overpopulation. The reality has proven to be just as alarming, if for the opposite reason: In every region of the world except Africa, population levels have begun to level off due to declining birthrates.
This year’s G-7 summit made it clear the group views China and Russia as threats to the international order and offered insights into how the Western powers plan to counter them. It seems the G-7 approach has three facets: ignore Russian intimidation, economically decouple from China and court nations throughout the Global South.
Across developed countries, aging populations and slowing economic growth are rendering today’s retirement institutions unsustainable. As a result, working longer as societies age is both natural and necessary, meaning that what future generations may look back on as the “golden age” of retirement is now coming to an end.