Podcast appearances and mentions of Evan A Feigenbaum

A version of this essay was published by firstpost at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/from-indo-pacific-to-pacific-delhi-must-prepare-for-strategic-loneliness-14024528.htmlI refer, of course, to the (in)famous newspaper headline which said, “Ford to City: Drop Dead” in 1975 when then-POTUS Gerald Ford refused to bail out New York City during a financial crisis.It appears to be the same sentiment now with POTUS Trump regarding India. The end of India's fond hopes of a strategic alliance came not with a bang, but with a whimper: the Pentagon announcement, right in the middle of the G7 conclave in France, that the US has reverted its Indo-Pacific Command to the “Pacific Command”, which had been the name before Trump changed it in 2018.What this means is clear: the US has turned its back on the Indian Ocean, on India, and on the vaunted “strategic partnership” that Indian policymakers had long assumed would be a corollary of that presumed bedrock of Indo-US relations: the mutual need to contain a rampaging China.Coming on top of the remarkable cavalierness about the murders of three Indian merchant-navy sailors, and numerous other slights, we see a pattern of indifference at best, or disdain at worst. The US is signalling that they don't need India. India, in other words, has no leverage. I am not amazed, to be honest: I wrote in 2023 that in an era of relative decline, it made sense for the US to downgrade its aspirations from sole hyperpower to first among equals: that is, a “G2 condominium” with China. This is, in principle, the same as the Vatican-brokered Treaty of Torsedillas in 1494 that divided the world into Portuguese and a Spanish spheres of influence. Interestingly, that didn't end up well for either party, but we shall let that pass. Let us connect the dots: there is a ‘Donroe Doctrine' whereby the US is asserting its hegemony in the Americas, its sphere of influence. Trump has ejected China from Venezuela, and is in the process of kicking them out of the Panama Canal zone; although the Pacific-to-Atlantic railway project in the Brazilian rainforest, and its terminus, the deep-water Port Chancay in Peru, remain.The disastrous Trump foray into Iran was predicated on denying China easy access to that country's hydrocarbons. But the MoU after 100+ days of war suggests that the US has received a bloody nose, and is withdrawing, retired hurt. The shrinking of ambitions away from the Indian Ocean as in the reversion to the ‘Pacific Command' suggests that the US is ceding the continent, including West Asia, to China.America-watchers have noticed this strange attitude to Asia before. Evan A. Feigenbaum, a former advisor to US Secretaries of State, wrote about this in 2011:For Washington, the problem is at once intellectual, strategic, and bureaucratic. Intellectually, the United States still has three separate foreign policies in Asia—one for East Asia, another for South Asia, and a third for Central Asia (which it scarcely regards as a part of Asia at all). As Asia reintegrates, then, the United States is too often stuck in an outdated mode of thinking ...Asia is being reborn, and remade. Yet, the United States is badly prepared for this momentous rebirth, which is at once stitching Asia back together and making the United States less relevant in each of Asia's constituent parts. Asians are, in various ways, passing America by, restoring ancient ties and repairing long-broken strategic and economic links.Well, this is also the end of the “pivot to Asia”, even though it was probably half-hearted at the best of times. Then-POTUS Obama started using the term in 2011, but was himself guilty of ‘awarding' “South Asia” to Chinese overlordship on a visit to that country. Now that the US is dumping its European allies, it should not be surprising, in view of the ‘Fortress America' tone of the National Security Strategy of 2025, that India is also being thrown under the bus.A US official, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said this bluntly in Delhi at the Raisina Dialog 2026: India should understand that we're not going to make the same mistakes with India that we made with China 20 years ago in terms of saying oh you know we're going to let you develop all these markets and then the next thing we know you're beating us in a lot of commercial things.Landau is right from a short-term US perspective. The US blundered, presumably taken in by Chinese propaganda, and allowed itself to be stripped of its industrial prowess. They have learned a lesson: squash potential competitors when you can. This is a back-handed compliment: it suggests that the US is aware that India can be a challenger, and make the G2 a G3. India is literally the only power that's large enough to make it to Great Power status: Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, etc. have too many problems.No incumbent power wants an insurgent power to challenge its hegemony. The so-called “Thucydides Trap” predicts that chances are that they will go to war: a kinetic war or an economic war or both. India is simultaneously facing Thucydides Traps from both the US and China, those G2 buddies. I wrote about this as an “Abhimanyu Syndrome” for India: splendid isolation. I hasten to add that though Abhimanyu died, his side did win convincingly.So it's time for India to be pragmatic, and develop its own self-reliance, both in military power and economic/trade power. The existing G2 are looking for vassals, not allies. The equation between them is also interesting. It is clear that the US is in gentle relative decline; but it does have deep resources, and can survive as a continent sized economy, even if it turns its back on the rest of the world, as it has done several times in its 250-year history. But Trump did kowtow to Xi on his May trip to China: he looked like a supplicant paying tribute to the emperor.China, if you look at its 3000-year-long history, is volatile and unstable. A pattern repeats, again and again: there are periods of prosperity and power under a strong imperial center, followed by collapse and utter chaos. An unwinding of the Chinese empire, much like the implosion of the Soviet empire, is probably only a matter of time.If you look at Indian history, the nation was mostly stable, though its prosperity invited invaders. As far back as 3000 years ago, India was the center of a lucrative Indian Ocean trade, based on Pax Indica in the region. With a deep water navy, a massive manufacturing push, and self-reliance, India can regain its past glory. Military power breeds respect from others. Economic power makes others want to trade.1100 words, 18 Jun 2026AI-generated slideshow courtesy notebookLM.google.com: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

Thursday, May 6, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University The project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and the National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution hosts a conversation on, What’s Next for U.S.-Taiwan Economic Relations?, on Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 4:00 PM PT. Innovation has been a source of comparative advantage for Taiwan—and an important basis for American firms, investors, and government to support Taiwan’s development while expanding mutually beneficial linkages. Yet Taiwan’s innovation advantage is eroding in the face of technological change and strategic risk. What should the next phase of U.S.-Taiwan economic cooperation look like? And how can the new U.S. administration work with Taiwan not just to build on legacy advantages, like in semiconductors, but also to invest in the emerging fields that are rapidly reshaping the future of work, industry, service delivery, and defense? Featuring Dr. Evan Feigenbaum Vice President for Studies Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Followed by conversation with Kharis Ali Templeman Hoover Research Fellow. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Evan A. Feigenbaum is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was also the 2019-20 James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, where he is now a practitioner senior fellow. Initially an academic, with a PhD in Chinese politics from Stanford University, his career has spanned government service, think tanks, the private sector, and three regions of Asia. During the George W. Bush Administration, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, and Member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff responsible for East Asia and the Pacific. Kharis Templeman is Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he manages the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific, and a lecturer at Stanford’s Center for East Asian Studies. His areas of expertise include democratic transitions and consolidations, comparative parties and elections, and the politics of Taiwan. He is the editor (with Larry Diamond and Yun-han Chu) of Taiwan’s Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years (2016) and Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years (2020). His other peer-reviewed research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Ethnopolitics, The Taiwan Journal of Democracy, International Journal of Taiwan Studies, and The APSA Annals of Comparative Democratization, along with several book chapters. Click the following link for more information about the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/hoover-institution-project-taiwan-indo-pacific-region 

Speaker: Evan A. Feigenbaum, Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Evan A. Feigenbaum is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research in Washington, Beijing and New Delhi on a dynamic region encompassing both East Asia and South Asia. He is also the 2019-20 James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Initially an academic with a PhD in Chinese politics from Stanford University, Feigenbaum’s career has spanned government service, think tanks, the private sector, and three major regions of Asia. From 2001 to 2009, he served at the U.S. State Department as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia (2007–2009), deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia (2006–2007), member of the policy planning staff with principal responsibility for East Asia and the Pacific (2001–2006), and an adviser on China to Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, with whom he worked closely in the development of the U.S.-China senior dialogue. This webinar is part of the Critical Issues Confronting China Series at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, hosted by Professor Ezra F. Vogel.

In the second episode, Hank speaks with two leading experts on US-China relations, Ely Ratner and Evan Feigenbaum. They discuss a current framework for the US-China relationship, how the US can properly balance national security with economic progress, and where the US can achieve positive results while navigating a number of important conflicts with China. Ely Ratner: cnas.org/people/ely-ratner Ely's books: https://amzn.to/2Ss2BVh Evan A. Feigenbaum: carnegieendowment.org/experts/719 Evan's book "China's Techno-Warriors:" https://amzn.to/3cZV1uk

Srinath Raghavan is  joined by Evan Feigenbaum to discuss how the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the geopolitical and economic competition between the US and China and their prospects for cooperation. References:A Tale of Two Asias by Evan A. Feigenbaum and Robert A. Manning