Diplomacy & Crisis News

Niall Ferguson, the leading historian of empire, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and AI scholar Lisa Klassen offer a novel reframing of the US-China AI race in the history of world empires. The authors argue that AI is inherently imperial in it ambitions and structure, and that, like previous technological empires, China and US have amassed extraordinary global but that it's happening at a much faster pace. Rise and fall cycle will be faster. It will either lead to catastrophe or slow decline.

William McRaven, a retired four-star admiral and a major figure in American military affairs, uses history and his personal experiences to make an authoritative case that American leaders frequently overestimate the potential of military force to achieve political ends—and that new technologies like AI will exacerbate this problem.

Mara Karlin, a defense policy expert who served as senior national-security official in multiple American administrations, makes an authoritative case that war planners tend to be overconfident about their ability to predict how new tools will shape the battlefield—blinding them to the unchanging realities of war. Using examples from Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran, Karlin shows how this "technology trap" leads to false assumptions about the future of war.

In this essay, Niall Ferguson, one of the world’s foremost experts on imperial history, teams up the former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, and the researcher Lisa Klaassen to make the provocative argument that AI is an inherently “imperial technology”—and to reveal what the fate of past empires might say about the future of U.S.-Chinese competition in a world shaped by AI.

Alex Imas, Mohamed El-Erian, and James Manyika, leading voices at the intersection of business and technology, argue that realizing AI’s potential requires giving workers, communities, AI labs, infrastructure developers, and big companies a share of the gains. Using insights from game theory, they argue that increased cooperation can make AI work for all.

In 1971, as the international monetary system was on the brink of collapse, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally told a group of worried European finance ministers that the dollar was “our currency, but your problem.” The dollar had become that system’s official reserve currency in 1944, under the Bretton Woods agreement, making signatories subject to the whims of U.S. monetary policy. Even after Bretton Woods collapsed and many currencies floated freely, the dollar continued to dominate. In the last half century, U.S. currency power has only expanded, as more countries have integrated into the global economy and therefore grown to depend on the dollar. China, reliant on export-driven growth, is foremost among them.

The advent of a new technology invariably comes with strategic implications, raising the question of who will benefit and whether risks can be managed. In 1957, following the Soviet Sputnik launch, U.S. policymakers and analysts recognized that the satellite, as the American physicist and engineer Lloyd Berkner observed in these pages, would bring transformative effects. The United States could not risk losing out, Berkner argued, but nor should governments allow geopolitical tensions to prevent the technology’s broad benefits from emerging.

La condamnation à quatre ans de prison d’un universitaire pour ses propos sur l’industrie extractive fait suite à la rétrogradation d’un ministre en vue en raison de ses propos dénonçant l’envolée des prix de la tomate.

Jing Quan prompted controversy last week when he told reporters that China could "easily win" a war against the Philippines.

Ces attaques sanglantes ont visé des campements appartenant majoritairement à la communauté des Daoussahak, dont est issu le groupe armé Mouvement pour le salut de l’Azawad, proche de la junte au pouvoir à Bamako, d’après des sources interrogées par l’Agence France-Presse.

The photos reportedly show the 81-year-old receiving two books and a sealed diplomatic package from Britain's King Charles III.

More than half a million people joined anti-government protests over the weekend.

The real action starts after polls close and the coalition wrangling begins.

Protest and radicalization are the answer to an authoritarian, centralized state.

By framing coal and gas as essential to jobs, prosperity and national identity, the industry continues to resist the transition to renewable energy.

France and Germany are increasingly willing to flex market share for geopolitical leverage. But they still need reforms to maintain it.

Activists of the Hindu Raksha Dal, an outfit that furthers the Sangh Parivar’s agenda, were caught on camera beating students and youth participating in the Delhi protests.

China is looking to “optimize and enhance” its social security program. People fear that will translate to pressure on gig economy workers and rural migrant workers.

Not only can Rubio avoid the most pressing international crises by jetting off to Central Asia, but he – and the Trump administration more broadly – were guaranteed to receive a warm welcome in the region.

Practical steps, U.S. pressure, and greater Arab involvement are needed to overcome trauma and despair.