Nikolas Gvosdev
Nikolas Gvosdev is a professor of national security studies at the U.S. Naval War College, and serves as Senior Fellow, U.S. Global Engagement Program.
Nikolas Gvosdev's Latest Posts
Searching for a Post-Pandemic Order
The Carnegie Council’s U.S. Global Engagement program held a fascinating and provocative discussion with Ali Wyne of the Atlantic Council, looking at the question of the relevance the narrative of great power competition among U.S. voters. Something that Ali said in that conversation has continued to resonate with me. In discussing great power competition, he […]
Will Consumers Pay More To Not Source from China?
Retailer H&M will stop relying on Chinese garment factories and suppliers located in Xinjiang, over concerns about the use of Uyghers as forced labor. The company will also end relationships with suppliers elsewhere in China that utilize forced labor or inputs from Xinjiang. It is not immediately clear if this will add costs to the […]
Ecological Dimension of Foreign Policy
One of the emerging narratives about U.S. foreign policy is the use of climate change as the central organizing principle. Based on the assessment that environmental security engenders national security, this approach prioritizes efforts to project influence through solving or mitigating environmental problems–to make the U.S. safer from climate-enhanced threats, to build up a new […]
The Ethics of Non-Cooperation: Covid Vaccine Questions
One of the assumptions that Bill Gates, among others, made as the coronavirus pandemic burst onto the world this past spring was that the disease would force cooperation among nations, even among rivals and competitors. However, covid-19 arrived during a particular point of stress in global affairs–a situation that Damjan Krnjevic and I described under […]
Hard Choices on China
The U.S. Global Engagement program has opened its second survey on U.S. foreign policy, and this one has an emphasis on assessing the relative ranking of values and support for democracy within the respondent’s overall calculus. One of the complaints that the survey has been drawing, based on reactions on social media, is the inflexibility […]
Senator Kamala Harris and Foreign Policy Narratives
The selection of Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) to be the presumptive vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2020 elections represents a series of shifts: she is the first member of Generation X (President Barack Obama is more properly described as a member of “Generation Jones“–the last wave of the Boomers) to advance this […]
House Democrats: Ethical Choices and Narratives
For the last two years, one of the foci of the U.S. engagement program has been how generational and demographic change in the United States will or will not impact how U.S. foreign policy is prioritized and what ethical benchmarks will be employed. The Democratic Party currently shelters under its “big tent” several different ethical […]
Ethical Dilemmas in Ensuring Human Security
Following Wednesday’s session with Derek Reveron on human security in an age of a pandemic, I was struggling with how to relate our discussion with earlier conversations about the ethical choices the United States (and the rest of the world more broadly) faces in the relationship with China under the leadership of Xi Jinping. A […]
