As President-elect Joe Biden pivots to the all-important work of governing, those of us who teach and write about foreign policy are pivoting to the less-important work of forecasting how a Biden administration might steer the ship of state.

Chinese Communist Party propagandists are mocking the American election and deriding it as inferior to the Chinese system. They’re wrong.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has extended his menacing military involvement to the South Caucasus, where Turkish army personnel are assisting Azerbaijan in a massive invasion against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Armenia.

Taiwan and the US should develop a policy for if, and when, tensions with the People’s Republic of China escalate. For Taiwan, the opportunities of COVID-19 present the perfect time to do so.

The pandemic has only confirmed the importance of states.

Pandemics have historically been catalysts for political, economic, and social change. From Thucydides, Prokopios, and Ibn Khaldun, historians of the past who lived through the great pandemics of their day charted the ghastly toll of these invisible killers.

After years of wishful thinking, America and its allies in the Indo-Pacific are returning, finally, to what President Franklin Roosevelt called “armed defense of democratic existence.” Given Beijing’s actions both at home and abroad, one wonders what took them so long.

With Myanmar’s military still controlling 25 percent of its parliament and a history of brutal crackdowns—not to mention the recent Rohingya crisis—COVID-19 is exacerbating the precarious balance between the military and civilians in power.

In the past few weeks, Pakistan has attempted to mitigate COVID-19’s effect on its economy and people. However, these efforts have largely ignored the needs of Pakistan’s minorities. The result is an increase in human rights violations.