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▲ 21 r/geopolitics

Extreme Weather Will Upend U.S.-China Competition: The Cost of Falling Behind on Climate Adaptation

[Excerpt from essay by Alice C. Hill, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Fight for Climate After COVID-19; and Mengye Zhu, Senior Scientist at the Natural Capital Alliance at Stanford University.]

Climate change looms in the background of the contest between China and the United States. It is the underappreciated factor that could determine who wins the race to develop frontier technologies, gain economic advantages, and secure influence across the world. And as global temperatures continue to climb, its role will become harder to ignore—because the two countries, the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide, both face great risks from climate-related extreme weather.

Extreme weather threatens the physical foundations of Chinese and U.S. economic and technological power. It can degrade critical systems such as those that convey electricity and water. It can obstruct the transportation networks and break the supply chains on which industry relies. It can destroy housing and businesses, pushing communities into economic downturns as people leave and stores shutter. It can constrict insurance markets as the affordability and availability of property coverage decline. And it can dampen labor productivity and force governments to divert resources to manage public health crises. According to the 2026 Climate Risk Index produced by the nonprofit Germanwatch, China and the United States ranked among the top 20 countries that suffered the largest economic and human tolls from extreme weather between 1995 and 2024. These weather events will only intensify as the planet warms. XDI, a firm that performs climate-risk analysis, has projected that by 2050, the world’s 100 subnational jurisdictions most exposed to climate disruption will include 29 Chinese provinces and 18 U.S. states.

foreignaffairs.com
u/ForeignAffairsMag — 6 days ago
▲ 73 r/geopolitics

Europe Goes Its Own Way: Drifting From America, the Continent Is Rearming and Reordering Itself

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/europe-goes-its-own-way

[Excerpt from Marina Henke, Professor of International Relations at the Hertie School and Director of its Centre for International Security; Iren Marinova, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; and Till Knobloch, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.]

Europeans have been humiliated, disparaged, and sidelined since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Europe has become the president’s favorite punching bag. The continent is, his administration believes, militarily emaciated, economically irrelevant, politically unfit, and culturally doomed to civilizational erasure. Trump’s attempt to coerce Denmark into relinquishing Greenland in 2025 was symbolic of the administration’s dismissive attitude.

So set is Washington in its beliefs about Europe, however, that it has overlooked the profound changes that are taking place. For the first time in decades, Europeans recognize the dangers that surround them. They are, accordingly, willing to invest in military resources and serve in their countries’ armed forces. From these shifts a new grand strategy is slowly being forged, which signals a new European geopolitical and strategic trajectory. Europe has come to recognize that its old paradigm—wealth without military strength, influence without sacrifice, and protection without obligation—is no longer sustainable. To dismiss Europe as permanently irrelevant is to ignore the scale and depth of the changes that are now underway. For decades, European countries reflexively aligned themselves with Washington’s priorities. They were even willing to send their soldiers to fight in U.S.-led wars that many of their publics—and at times their governments—regarded as misguided, peripheral, or strategically costly. A Europe that invests seriously in its own defense will no longer do that—and Washington had better get ready.

u/ForeignAffairsMag — 7 days ago