President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
The intertwining of economics and geopolitics means it is imperative that the United States strengthen its economic strategy for the Indo-Pacific to avoid ceding further influence to China. Specifically, the United States. should consider joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) successor, for the economic and strategic benefits it provides.
When the U.S. Coast Guard’s unique capabilities, authorities, and less threatening white hulls are considered in totality, novel solutions that mesh with the service’s strengths emerge. Cooperation on mutually beneficial Coast Guard missions serves as an opportunity to develop confidence-building measures and knit a resilient architecture that will inoculate two superpowers from conflict.
Terms that endure tend to grow more capacious over time; if they do not adapt to evolving political realities, social norms, and technological forces, after all, they risk fading into obsolescence. To the extent that they become part of a widely shared vocabulary, they can facilitate communication. Unfortunately, though, they can also become victims of their own success: a term can become sufficiently elastic that its usage comes to obscure more than clarify; worse, it can be consciously misappropriated.
