Bruna Bosi Moreira

The article aims to assess how the United States has managed the rise of China over the last decade. This is achieved first by addressing the question in a theoretical framework and, second, by making an empirical account on the issue. Therefore, the article contrasts mainly realist and liberal accounts on contention and engagement and applies them to Obama and Trump administration's foreign policies to China. To do that, the paper analyzes the National Security Strategies of both administrations, using the method of content analysis. The research's main result is that the rise of China and the threats to the United States hegemony have been major concerns since the Obama administration. What has changed with Trump in power, though, is the means employed to address the problem, with a shift from engagement rhetoric to an open call for contention. Besides, the paper evidences how this shift is accompanied by a change in the conditions for China’s rise.

The article assesses the relation between Geopolitics and the Caspian region, with emphasis on its energy resources. To that end, the article problematizes the idea of the return of geopolitics, by indicating that, in the region, the approach has always been dominant, both as an analytical lens and a framework for great power politics.

O artigo trata da relação entre a Geopolítica e a região do Cáspio, com enfoque em seus recursos energéticos. Com este fim, o trabalho problematiza a ideia do retorno da geopolítica, buscando evidenciar como, na região, a abordagem sempre imperou, tanto como lente analítica quanto como framework para a política das grandes potências.

Introdução O governo de Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003–2010) inaugurou um período da Política Externa Brasileira (PEB) marcado pela diversificação de parceiros, por maior prioridade aos países em desenvolvimento e pelo aumento expressivo no número de embaixadas abertas em países até então marginalizados pela PEB. Essas medidas estão, por sua vez, inseridas em uma estratégia mais ampla de multilateralização do sistema internacional e de internacionalização da economia brasileira, ambas visando melhor inserção internacional do país. Nesse sentido, importantes avanços foram feitos nas relações do Brasil com as mais variadas regiões, em especial com seus vizinhos, mas também com Caribe, África, Europa e Leste Asiático. Além disso, o Brasil firmou parcerias estratégicas e incentivou a consolidação do BRICS 2 (Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China e África do Sul) como ferramenta para a multipolarização do sistema e como forma de inserção do país, através da convergência de posições nos diversos fóruns internacionais.

“When India and China shake hands, the world takes notice” (BLOOMBERG, 2013). This sentence was said by the Indian Prime-Minister, Manmohan Singh, after signing an agreement with China to resolve the border disputes between the two countries in October 2013. In the same occasion, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying declared the agreement was evidence that the relations between the two countries were becoming more mature and rational (BLOOMBERG, 2013). Nevertheless, despite the agreements and talks, the conflict seems to be still far from an effective solution. Two of the world`s fastest growing powers, China and India relationship is an important indicator of peace and stability in the region. Therefore, the fact that more than fifty years after the Border War of 1962 the deadlock between them still lacks resolution poses the question: what does this dispute mean in terms of Asian security?

Although it is still a relatively new subject, energy security has been gaining centrality both in the strategic planning of countries and among researchers, especially after the Oil Shock, in the 1970s. Since then, the importance of understanding the global energy scenario has become fundamental to the understanding of contemporary international relations itself. In this context, it is highlighted the position of the Russian Federation as a country holding large reserves of oil and natural gas and as a central exporter of these hydrocarbons. Added to this prerogative are other advantages that distinguish Russia from other energy-rich states, such as its military and nuclear capability, the international political position that it exercises through the Security Council of the United Nations, and its strategic geographical location - between Europe and Asia. Hence, Moscow has been perceived by the West as a potential threat to Western energy security, because the country could use its energy resources as a political weapon. So arises the idea of Russia as an energy superpower, ie, as state able to use its energy resources to exert influence worldwide. This possibility is, in turn, perceived with greater intensity in its relationship with the European Union. However, as Russia also depends on the income earned through the European supply, these two actors keep between them a relationship of interdependence, even if it is asymmetrically favorable to the Kremlin. This paper analyzes this Russian position, especially in the context of its relations with the European bloc.

The years of the Cold War were characterized by a clear US strategy: the containment of Soviet power. Once it was over, the United States emerged as the only superpower, with a great military capacity. With the collapse of USSR, though, America was left without a clear enemy and therefore without a clear strategy for its foreign policy. Therefore, if the United States did not want to go back to the isolationism that characterized its first centuries, it needed to find a new rationale for its international engagement. Nevertheless, the world after Cold War had a much wider agenda. New challenges such as the threat of terrorism and the risk of cultural clashes put in danger the stability of the Western order. Besides that, the idea of the democratic peace started to be developed. Without the contradictions of the Cold War, the United States could justify its internationalism by presenting the spread of democracy as its duty as the hegemon in the post-Cold War era. This view of the US role was consolidated during President Clinton`s mandate and is yet dominant in the country`s foreign policy. This essay will argue that the end of the Cold War left the United States with a great military capacity and means to continue its internationalist foreign policy but also without clear objectives. The route chosen by American foreign policy makers was to keep the global stability and the democratic values worldwide. Therefore, its new enemies became every actor – state or not – that defied this new world order, characterized by democracy, free trade and stability.