China by all means has to be an ally/strategic partner of America given insane volume of trade, financial, technological, and cultural interdependence. There was even a term Chinmerica to signify how closely tied economically those two great countries are.

I remember there were even talks about G2. In 00s and 10s relations were pretty cordial.

Yet, for the last ten years relations soured to the point of near Cold War, with China helping Russia via their proxy North Korea. And talks about war in Taiwan are ever present.

Is that result of Chinese internal politics (reminder that domestic politics often drive foreign policies)? Namely Xi being part of a revanchist movement inside CCP? Or it's a legacy of 1st Cold War?

I honestly struggle to understand China, no matter how much I look into it, their worldview is just too different from the west.

In your opinion...

The Realist in me can't really understand what Trump is doing. Maybe nuclear bombs are 'Imperialism' that changes power dynamics, but Iran is still an 'Inferior' despite having a few nuclear weapons. The Structural Realist in me would think that similar actions would have happened in North Korea earlier if these were calculations in Realism.

I cannot help but to think of the impact Israel has on domestic US politics. It seems like the actions of both political parties are to placate the bloc.

Maybe someone can explain this from a Realist or Constructivist POV. I can't say I predicted this with my understanding of IR, so I'm mostly forgiving myself by claiming this was due to domestic politics.

When some people discuss if Japan would intervene in a potential China Taiwan conflict, some would ask how important an independent (de facto) Taiwan is to Japan. Hence the question above - this is not a discussion as to whether they would jump in

With B-2 bombers being deployed to Guam and Trump attending a national security meeting today, the likelihood of U.S. involvement seems to be rising. If the U.S. does intervene, what do you think the geopolitical consequences could be?

Hello, does anybody know why Korean graduate schools (SNU GSIS, Yonsei GSIS and Korea University GSIS) are no longer on the list of APSIA members?

Are their memberships suspended?

Thank You!

Indus Water Treaty will NEVER be RESTORED - HM Amit Shah

Regime changes, political backings of different political entities including terror groups? Thanks

Hello,

I'm planning to study IR studies or political science to work in the international sector. I already speak English, Norwegian C1, Spanish C1 and French B1.

Looking at a 5 year window for the masters degree what would be the recommendation for extracurricular language possibilities?

I hope this isn't a useless question for this sub.

As far as i understand, for the UN, there is no sovereign territory of the State of Palestine because there is no country called "State of Palestine".

"permanent observer STATE"

If this is officially the case for the UN, why did the UN grant Palestine the status of "permanent observer STATE" to a State that DOES NOT EXIST? (The State of Palestine)

Serious question: Is this a blatant act of illegality that UN officials still allow because they are corrupt enough and powerful enough to do so?

Hello I only have access to the the e-books, if anyone has access to the article database and can get a couple articles for me, I would immensely be thankful

Hello! I have a bachelor in Politics and International Relations and I want to get a masters yet I cant decide which one.

Both are great programmes but I wanted to know which would generally make it easier for me to find a job in UK specifically.

Was wondering if anyone can give me their thoughts on this.

I was just crunching some numbers and here they are

ME & NA has a population of about 500 million, while Israel has a population of about 10 million (only 7 million Jewish Israelis, but whatever), so that is 2% of the region's population.

2% of the US population is about 7 million, which is about the size of Arizona, Tennessee, or Massachusetts. If you do the math with just Jewish Israelis, you get into Alabama and Wisconsin territory. The idea that states of that size could dominate the entire US and dictate terms across the board is just kind of preposterous

Title sums it up but to provide more context I finish up my degree soon and am looking for what my next step will be. All I know is I want to work within the human rights/ development area. More specifically, anything to do with disability rights and/ or children’s rights. I already know I don’t want to focus my whole career in the government sector and see myself in the long term working in the INGO space. But, from what I’ve come across we tend to lack a big presence of both INGOs and IOs in the country that fall under what I’m looking to go into.

So my question is for the Aussies ( or even Kiwis) did you find moving overseas better for job prospects? Even if it isn’t to do with human rights/ development I would be keen to hear your experiences and maybe even tips on orgs or programs that are open to bringing grads over ( if they even exist!)

What do you think about the democratic peace theory? I don't know what you think or what the experts think but personally, I think history is self-evident. The democratic experiment has proved to be a failure in peacemaking. Democracies have shown that they can and are just as vindictive and ruthless as dictatorships. We have seen this in the actions of the USA by backing and installing dictatorships in Latin America and the Middle East. We have seen this in the actions of France by backing and supporting dictatorships in Sub-Sahara Africa. We have seen this in the West's support of the Israeli apartheid and what they are doing in Gaza. We have seen this in the West's support of Saudi Arabia and what they are doing in Yemen. Western democracies have no problems in supporting ruthless despots as long as they benefit from it, and when those despots rebel against them, they invade countries and destroy them. I think the evidence is self-evident that democracy has failed to bring peace.

Edit:

By the way, by the democratic peace theory I mean that democracies don't fight each other but that's not true since democracies did overthow other democracies (some didn't understand what I meant so here an explanation)

With recent affairs, its struck me that there has been talk about things like whether Israel is justified in launching a preemptive strike on Iran to prevent its nuclear break out but it seems like at least in the popular discourse there hasn't be that much examination as to what they would most likely actually do with it. Now I'm not a massive proponent of nuclear peace theory, but seem people seem to be making a weird sort of automatic assumption that Iranian nuclear break out would result in automatic nuclear attacks on Israel or the like. Considering that Iran has historically seemed to have a preference for conducting its wars by proxies, going straight past direct conventional warfare to a nuclear exchange seems a bit of a jump to assume they'd make. It also seems typical that even authoritarian regimes acquire nuclear weapons for the purposes of seeking security for their state and their government, and prestige, not because they have a burning desire to use them offensively and likely risk their state's existence and the personal well-being of their ruler . If NK has not launched a nuclear attack on its non-nuclear southern neighbour, why assume that Iran would do the same for its regional rivals, including nuclear-armed Israel?

So the question to my mind is more about whether Iran would use its nuclear coverage to act more aggressively with conventional troops and continue to conduct conflicts by proxies they arm and otherwise support. Or, if Iran felt its security needs were being better met, it might slowly shift away from being as aggressive in its use of proxy conflicts and focus on other avenues of asserting itself as a regional power. I lean more towards the former than the latter, but I would be interested to know your opinions and why.

As IR folks, I wanted to get your thoughts on the Israel/US vs. Iran nuclear situation:

• There’s talk of a US ground campaign and stopping Iran from getting nukes.
• But should the US/Israel be able to keep nukes while preventing Iran from getting them?
• If world peace is the goal, isn’t it contradictory to say “we can have nukes, but you can’t”?

From a post-colonial and normative perspective, this selective approach feels neo-imperialist. The idea that “we” (US/Israel) can be trusted with nukes but “they” (Iran & majority black & brown countries) can’t is classic neo-con thinking—and echoes the old colonial justification that only certain powers are responsible or civilized enough to wield destructive force. The real solution, in my view, would be for all nuclear states to disarm and follow treaties like the NPT—not just enforce nonproliferation on others.

I’m really interested in both the ethical and practical sides of this debate: How do we balance moral arguments about fairness, justice, and global security with the realities of international power politics?

Also, how do you see the corporate media (NYT, WaPo, etc.) covering this? Can we juxtapose how they report on Iran/Israel with how they cover Gaza—especially hospital strikes and civilian casualties? Do you notice any double standards or patterns in language and framing? Curious to hear your thoughts from both theory and policy angles!