Best of the week - 19 March 2021

Each week BISA Director, Juliet Dryden, scours the internet for IR-related content that might interest you. Here she brings you this week's best readings and podcasts to keep you up to date with what's happening around the world.

Getting ready for COP26

• The geopolitical fight that is to come over green energy. Are China, the US and Europe on a geopolitical collision course? Read Helen Thompson in Engelsberg Ideas
• The graybeards running the world’s climate talks. Arl Mathiesen, Zack Colman, Kalina Oroschakoff and Ryan Heath for Politico
• Podcast: Is Covid good or bad for the climate? Have we changed our behaviour in ways that might be good for climate change? Listen to Climate Solutions
• Podcast: The tragic choices of climate change. Listen to Helen Thompson and Adam Tooze discuss the choices facing the world in addressing climate change. From TALKING POLITICS
• Podcast: The new climate war with Michael Mann and Clover Hogan. From Intelligence Squared.

Covid-related

• Pathogens have the world’s attention. Nathan Levine and Chris Li in Foreign Affairs.

UK and Europe

• The populist delusion. Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar for Prospect Magazine
• There are no winners in the UK government's cuts to international aid. Sarah Champion in Open Democracy
• UK trade and security review: pivoting to the East will draw Britain into tensions between China and US. Graeme Davies in The Conversation
• The system cannot hold. Having left the EU, the UK must embark on a national programme of self-renewal. Read Roberto Mangabeira Unger in the New Statesman
• Charlemagne: how the British became the new Turks. The Economist
• The European ripples in the Dutch election. Jeremy Cliffe in the New Statesman.

Global affairs

• As the world’s attention and money are absorbed by the covid pandemic, peacebuilding suffers. Eleanor Gordon in The Conversation
• The greatest debt crisis in history is upon us. The debt burden crushing poor countries will not be alleviated until creditors in rich countries are made to give up some of their wealth. John Smith for Open Democracy
• Weaponizing the web. Sue Halpern for the New York Review of Books.

US foreign policy

• Turning away from the Middle East. Steven Simon for the New York Review of Books
• The Saudi test case. How to put values into Biden’s foreign policy. Martin Indyk in Foreign Affairs
• The can-do power: America’s advantage and Biden’s chance. Samantha Power in Foreign Affairs
• Podcast: The Accidental President: how the hell did Donald Trump win? Listen to James Fletcher and Mark Mardell from  Intelligence Squared.

China

• US-China rivalry is a battle over values. Great power competition can’t be won on interests alone. Hal Brands and Zack Cooper in Foreign Affairs
• How to draft a durable China strategy. Evan Medeiros in Foreign Affairs
• Boris Johnson faces both ways on China. Stuart Lau, Christina Gallardo and Annabelle Dickson for Politico
• How to deal with China. The Economist.

The best of the rest of the world

• Tanzania’s John Magufuli: a brilliant start but an ignorminious end. Read Aikande Clement Kwayu in The Conversation
• Senegal’s political crisis. A country seen as a bulwark of stability faces crisis. Lynsey Chutel in Foreign Policy
• The Arab world: time for a reset? The need for a wide reaching conversation about an urgent overhaul of national governance and regional relations. Mohamed El-Baradei for Al Jazeera
• Me too in Egypt and Morocco. Ursula Lindsey in the New York Review of Books
• Power is up for grabs in Israel – but does anyone except Netanyahu want it? Shir Hever in Open Democracy
• The case for a more inclusive and more effective peacemaking in Yemen. Read this report by the International Crisis Group
• Syria: a decade of impunity. Read David Miliband’s opinion in Newsweek
• The decay of Indian democracy. Why India is no longer the land of the free. Milan Vaishnav in Foreign Affairs.

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