Inflection Points

Inflection Points

A weekly column by Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe, Inflection Points focuses on the global challenges facing the United States and how to best address them.

Subscribe

Inflection Points with Frederick Kempe podcast

Content

Inflection Points

Oct 13, 2018

Saudi silence on Khashoggi must end

By Frederick Kempe

I count myself as one of those who had been captivated by the possibility of change and the compelling MBS personality. What impressed me was his focus, energy and vision, laid out over three lengthy meetings in Riyadh and Washington, of how his country had gone wrong and what he would do to modernize it with next-generation support.

Saudi Arabia

Inflection Points

Oct 6, 2018

Trump’s China offensive

By Frederick Kempe

Four pieces of news this week underscore the far-reaching, multi-faceted nature of the Trump administration efforts aimed at China, with senior officials promising more in the weeks ahead.

China Economy & Business

Inflection Points

Sep 23, 2018

Navigating the next crisis

By Frederick Kempe

In my many years of taking the global pulse around UN week, where more than 120 leaders will gather, I've seldom seen or sensed such uneasiness and uncertainty.

Inflection Points

Sep 16, 2018

Great powers, big questions

By Frederick Kempe

Just as US leaders after World War II conjured up an approach that fit their times, ultimately resulting in a system of global institutions and regional alliances, so must the United States and its friends and allies rise to this new era of global competition.

China Politics & Diplomacy

Inflection Points

Sep 9, 2018

China, Trump and an ‘epochal shift’

By Frederick Kempe

Moral of the story: In an increasing number of places in the world, it isn’t that the US and its democratic allies are losing the battle for influence. They are too frequently no-shows.

China Politics & Diplomacy

Inflection Points

Sep 1, 2018

McCain’s ‘Causes greater than ourselves’

By Frederick Kempe

Most of all, Senator McCain understood that the cancer of US political polarization and self-centered myopia was as hazardous in a larger sense as brain cancer had been to him personally.

Politics & Diplomacy United States and Canada

Inflection Points

Jul 29, 2018

China’s ‘Project of the Century’ vs. Trump’s good week

By Frederick Kempe

The fact that Chinese experts themselves compare the project to the era-shaping U.S. Marshall Plan after World War II—except far bigger and with more global reach—provides the context for our times.  

China Economy & Business

Inflection Points

Jul 22, 2018

Navigating ‘A very grave period’

By Frederick Kempe

History has disturbing lessons about the potential consequences of this week’s confounding Helsinki Summit of US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

International Organizations Politics & Diplomacy

Inflection Points

Jul 16, 2018

Trump in three acts

By Frederick Kempe

In the end, dramaturgist Trump confounded both the hand-wringers and the hopefuls. Never has a NATO Summit simultaneously produced so much good news and such bad blood.

NATO Russia

Inflection Points

Jul 9, 2018

Toward a new transatlantic bargain

By Frederick Kempe

You’ve likely never heard of the Parsley Island crisis, sixteen years ago this week in the narrow waters between Morocco and Spain. So, it’s unlikely you’ve considered what its peaceful resolution says about the stakes involved the next few days in President Trump’s meeting first in Brussels with NATO leaders and thereafter with Russian President […]

NATO Politics & Diplomacy
Load More