Letter from the Editors

From the Korean Peninsula to the Solomon Islands to the valleys of Kashmir, domestic politics and foreign policy are inexorably intertwined. In this issue, we explore the domestic political calculations that drive foreign policy decision-making. Leaders might be acting globally, but they are thinking locally.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the Korean Peninsula, where the potential for a devastating conflict is rising – largely due to political changes in both Koreas. Ellen Kim, deputy director of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), outlines how the ascension of a conservative administration in South Korea, led by President Yoon Suk-yeol, has overlapped with Kim Jong Un’s ever-more confrontational and hostile policy toward his southern neighbor. Yoon has adopted a more security-heavy approach to the North, while also embracing a values-driven rhetoric that is anathema to Pyongyang. Meanwhile, Kim has officially abandoned the idea of unification, labeled South Korea an enemy, and taken the very idea of denuclearization off the table. The result, Ellen Kim writes, is a “fundamental clash” between the political interests of Seoul and Pyongyang.

In India, the Modi administration’s fervor to remake India as a Hindutva state is nowhere reflected more strongly than in Kashmir. As the former state, now union territory, of Jammu and Kashmir gears up for the first local election since having its autonomy stripped away, journalist Anando Bhakto captures the local mood. While the Modi government has justified its policies in terms of economic benefits and security necessities, locals in Kashmir see a bald ploy to erase their unique Muslim culture in the form of an ongoing campaign of repression against all dissent. As a result, Bhakto writes, the upcoming election doubles as a referendum to decide “how a Muslim-majority region should adapt to the ignition of Hindu nationalist rage seen in the Narendra Modi years.”

Five years ago, the Solomon Islands made “the Switch,” shifting its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing and embracing the One China principle. That decision, writes Solomon Island journalist Georgina Kekea, “has had profound and far-reaching effects on the country's development, economy, and political landscape.” The economic dividends have to be weighted against domestic political turmoil, and the short-term gains against long-term concerns about sovereignty, transparency, environmental sustainability, and the country’s democracy. Kekea, news editor of Tavuli News and director of the Solomon Islands Local Media Agency (SILMA), lays out where the Solomon Islands is now and what the country’s leaders should think about as they look toward the future.  

We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.