Thinking about Foreign Policy & Geopolitics

by Mr Bilahari Kausikan

Charity Conference by GEX

for HM Gaza Relief 2026

Foreign policy in any democratic society must rest on a sound domestic foundation.  Singapore is no exception. I have been increasingly concerned about what could be called ‘foreign policy illiteracy’ in Singapore. There is growing interest in foreign policy, at least among a certain segment of our public, but this is not matched by adequate understanding. The consequence is a certain naivete in public discussion of foreign policy and geopolitics. This can conscribe the government’s freedom of manoeuvre as it deals with an increasingly complex and volatile international environment.

My theme is how to think about foreign policy and geopolitics. I am not trying to tell you what to think about any issue. Mine is the perhaps more ambitious goal of trying to persuade you adopt a particular mode of thought; how to think . I am going to talk about Ukraine, US-China relations and the wars in the Middle East. You can take my opinions on these issues as you please. I am going to use them only to illustrate what I consider three most common mistakes in public discussion of foreign policy and not only in Singapore.

It is always a good idea to begin by reminding ourselves about what our first foreign minister, Mr. S Rajaratnam, had to say about foreign policy. Mr. Rajaratnam once pointed out that every country has two foreign policies: a foreign policy of  words or theology in which we and all countries always stand for the highest and most noble of ideals and principles, and a foreign policy of deeds or practical diplomacy which is what we and all countries need to do to survive in what he called a ‘jungle world’ in which principles oftentimes have to bend to contingency. The distinction between words and deeds is not absolute. Mr. Rajaratnam acknowledged that we need both types of foreign policy. But he also stressed that to confuse them is suicidal.

Singapore leaders and our government are franker than most leaders and governments in their statements on foreign policy. But it is in the nature of things that public statements by all politicians and all governments tend to approach harsh realities only obliquely and tend towards the theological. Facile diplomats of every country become so accustomed to wearing the mask of theology that they often forget where reality begins.

Bearing in mind the crucial distinction between theology and diplomacy, the three most common mistakes in public discussions on foreign policy and geopolitics are:

• First, confusing our opinions with facts. This is particularly harmful because more often than not, our opinions are shaped by emotional responses rather than reason. Modern information technology, in particular social media, compounds the problem.

  
  

• Second, focusing on events with insufficient attention to the processes and structural factors from which all events necessarily arise. This leads to a loss of perspective. This can accentuate volatility as we over-react or under-react to events and then correct our responses and correct our corrections in a cycle of actions and reactions. A sense of perspective cannot eliminate volatility but can at least limit the range of oscillations.

  
  

• Third, the reduction of dynamic and complex realities into static and simplistic binaries. Although we often use them as if they are synonyms, the complicated and the complex do not mean exactly the same thing. The difference amounts to that between objective realities, say, the law of gravity, which may well be complicated, but are usually static or limited in their range of implications -- the apple can only fall downwards --  and socially constructed realities which consists of complex feedback loops which in principle open up an infinite and continually evolving kaleidoscope of possibilities. In other words, not all facts have the same status even if we do not confuse them with opinion. All social systems including the international system are socially constructed realities.

Now to illustrations. 

In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, then Secretary of State John Kerry famously called this 19^th century behaviour in the 21^st century. There are many excellent reasons to criticize Russian actions against Ukraine which pose global challenges, but Mr. Kerry’s statement was absurd. It was absurd because it assumed that your adversary should share your values or your idea of international order. But if your adversary shared your ideas and values, it would not be your adversary in the first place.

Mr. Kerry’s mistake was to assume that his ideas and values had an objective or autonomous reality that all should recognize regardless of the contingencies of interests and circumstances. These confusions, which were not confined to Mr. Kerry but were widespread throughout the West, played no small role in the ineffectual response to the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas which emboldened Russia and led to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine eight years later in 2022.

Similar confusions underlay Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech in Davos in January this year (2026) when he called on middle-powers who shared similar values to work together to uphold an international order that he said had ‘ruptured’ because the US under Mr. Donald Trump was no longer willing to uphold it. Mr. Carney’s speech was widely acclaimed, but in fact his argument was banal – many countries in Asia had already been doing what he advocated without the melodrama of evoking the world crumbling about their ears --  and contained a central internal contradiction.  

Of course, all powers that share interests or values -- and some values are interests -- ought to work more together. But any system of values needs a foundation of stability to operate and that depends on strong deterrence and a balance of power. There is no possible combination of middle powers that can by itself either deter Russia or balance China, the two powers that challenge international order as Mr. Carney envisaged it.  A week after Mr. Carney’s speech, the  Secretary-General of NATO, a Dutchman, told the European Parliament to “keep on dreaming” if Europe thought it could defend itself without the US.

Carney’s Davos statement ignored this hard fact and reflected his distaste for Donald Trump much more than any objective analysis. He is not alone in this. Too much of what passes for analysis of contemporary international relations is coloured by dislike for Mr. Trump. Anyone is entitled to his or her own opinion about Mr. Trump. But we pay far too much attention to his personality and not enough attention to the new structural realities he represents. Mr. Trump is much more a symptom or a catalyst than a cause. The American policies and ideas about international order whose ‘rupture’ Mr. Carney lamented were an artifact of, and contingent upon, a particular set of historical circumstances that we call the Cold War. Those circumstances have passed, will not return, and cannot be recreated. 

Except for a short, exceptional post-Cold War period of about 20 years after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, American ideas were never uncontested even at the height of the Cold War. More than half of the world disagreed with them or accepted them only partially. Significant groups in American allies and in the US itself did not accept them in totality. That short period of apparent unchallenged consensus was extremely beneficial to most of us, Singapore included. But that does not make it any less exceptional.

Confusing the exceptional for the norm is a variant of the confusion between theology and diplomacy that Mr. Rajaratnam referred to. The volatility that we are now experiencing is much closer to the historical 20^th century norm and in some ways less dangerous, even if more complex, that what we in Southeast Asia experienced in the latter part of the 20^th century after after the Second World War.

Competition between major powers and thus at least the possibility of conflict, are inherent qualities of international relations and never absent. That structural reality is why deterrence and a balance of power is the sine qua non of any sort of regional or global cooperation. The US is a vital and irreplaceable component of every calculus of deterrence and balance almost everywhere in the world. Whether we like or dislike the President of the United States is irrelevant because our preferences do not change this reality. Nor do our likes and dislikes change the structural shifts in American politics and international relations that brought Mr. Trump to power.

After the end of the US-Soviet Cold War, the US faced no existential threat anywhere in the world. There is therefore no longer any compelling reason for the US to – in the words of President John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War – to bear any burden, pay any price, or fight any foe, to uphold its ideas when it faced an existential threat. For the Americans who twice voted for Mr. Trump, it was time to ‘Put America First’. Mr. Trump’s more transactional definition of American national interests represents a reversion to the historical norm of how all states conceive of their interests. We should not expect anything more than changes of form and presentation from Mr. Trump’s successor.

That is certainly going to be true of US-China relations which will be locked in strategic competition for the foreseeable future. There will be periods of high intensity competition and periods of low intensity competition but competition is a structural reality that will not be wished away. We will all just have to learn how to cope with it. This requires a clinical clarity of thought about our interests and the strategic environment as well as agility of policy. The foreign policy illiteracy of the general public can dangerously compromise both thought and action.

While its precise course cannot be predicted, the parameters of US-China  competition can be outlined. First, it is highly improbable that competition will lead to conflict through a war by design – war as an instrument of policy – whether over Taiwan or because of the so-called ‘Thucydides Trap’. The key factor here is nuclear deterrence. The risk is not resort to war as a policy tool but of accidents. Even then, both sides will do their best to contain accidents because of the gave risks of nuclear escalation.

Second, we should understand US-China competition as a process with many dimensions across many domains and not let our understanding be overly influenced by any specific development in any domain at any point of time. This is particularly important because there is a strong tendency to see US-China competition is stark binary terms. This is misleading.

In Singapore, binary over-simplifications are often coloured by the ethnic sentimentality of some segments of our public. Ethnic sentimentality clouds clinical analysis and too often leads to willful blindness and illogicality. I am often amused when criticism of Chinese policies is answered not by addressing the substance of the criticism, but by criticisms of American policy. There is a lot to criticize in the policies of both countries. But this is only to say that neither is perfect which is true but trite. Citing the imperfections of one country does not refute any specific criticism of the other. 

US-China competition is obviously a competition between two powers. Still, it does not follow that their competition is binary. The multi-dimensional nature of the relationship and the deep interdependence between the US and China make it a complex and not binary competition: it is a competition between two essential components of a single system and not a competition between two separate systems. A complex competition of this nature is unlikely to end in an clear dénouement for one side or another.

In complexity, there is greater opportunity for third countries to exercise agency. I do not claim that it is going to be easy, but the ever evolving kaleidoscope of potentialities that I referred to earlier as characteristic of complexity creates opportunities to exercise agency. Whether we have the wit to recognize the opportunities and the courage and capability to seize them are different matters. But there is always agency and the opportunity to use it.

I think both the US and China have understood the long-term and complex nature of their competition, and while not relenting in their efforts to gain advantage over the other, are now increasingly seeking to manage the risks of their competition. Advantage for one side or another with vary over time and in different domains. It is not particularly useful for third parties like Singapore to characterize a process that has no clear end-point in stark win-lose terms at any particular stage of the unfolding process. Doing so only risks prematurely foreclosing options and flexibility of manoeuvre.

Now to the Middle East. This is a region which arouses strong passions. Emotion is a natural response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza but does not justify abandoning reasoned analysis. With the exceptions of the Gulf monarchies, Turkey and Israel, the Middle East is rife with failed, failing and fragile states where violence and human suffering is endemic. We are always selective in what we choose to consider shocking. Why should the perhaps 70,000 dead and 2 million displaced in Gaza be more horrifying than, say, Syria, where war has caused 700,000 deaths and 6 million refugees?

Not every humanitarian crisis is of geopolitical significance. It has been a long time since most Middle Eastern governments, particularly in the Gulf, placed the Palestinian issue high on their strategic priorities. Please note I said governments and referred to their strategic priorities. The peoples of the Middle East no doubt are as moved by the plight of the Palestinians as anyone. To many Gulf governments, the passions of their peoples make the Palestinian question a domestic issue to be managed. But their primary strategic challenge is Iran and has been for a long time.

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the Gulf monarchies have come to regard Iran as an existential threat for two main reasons. First, the Islamic Revolution was a republican revolution that overthrew an absolute monarchy and posed a direct challenge to the political systems of all Gulf monarchies. Second, the new regime in Tehran claimed leadership of all Muslims and not just the Shia. Given that 85 to 90 percent of Muslims are Sunni, this is a remarkably ambitious and essentially revanchist claim that in effect sought to reverse the Battle of Karbala and the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali in the 7^th century that led to the Sunni-Shia split. This was of particular concern to Saudi Arabia which as the Custodian of the Two Holy Places, enjoyed a special status in the Muslim world. 

Moreover, by 1979, having fought and lost 4 wars against Israel, most Arab governments had, however reluctantly, reached the conclusion that Israel was irrevocably part of the Middle East. Even though none would have said so in public, prospects for a Palestinian state were fading into a distant and indeterminate future. In 1979, Egypt formally recognized Israel. In 1994, Jordan followed suit. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, support for the Palestinian cause became increasingly pro forma. Some Arab states provided financial and other material support, but for most it was a matter of passing performative resolutions in the UN, Arab League and OIC (Organization for Islamic Cooperation). They provided much more material support to Iraq during Saddam Hussain’s eight year war against Iran from 1980 to 1988.

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussain. Iraq descended into instability from which it is unlikely to ever completely recover. This removed the only effective regional check to Iran and fundamentally shifted strategic calculations. The 2011 ‘Arab Spring’ added a new layer of concern to the Gulf monarchies and spurred their efforts to reform themselves to ensure their long-term survival. In this effort, Palestine was useless whereas Israel’s technology, expertise and links to the West, were potentially of great value. Many Gulf monarchies began to develop unofficial links with Israel. The 2020 Abraham Accords only formalized what was already a reality for many; it was an American-sponsored anti-Iran alliance in which Israel provided the military weight in return for recognition, de facto or de jure.

This is the background to the current war against Iran. The war did not suddenly appear out of nowhere; nor is it likely to end in any neat or conclusive manner. Although almost all day-to-day attention focuses on disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab, these are actually second order issues. Whether or not you think this war is justified depends on one central question that defines the core issue: should Iran be allowed to have a nuclear weapon?

The answer of Israel and every US administration of both parties to this question has been a resounding ‘No’. There was debate only over the best way of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The Gulf monarchies and most other Middle Eastern states shared this view, even though they tried to stay out of the limelight and avoid direct involvement. Still, by 2018 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was publicly saying on American TV that if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia would too.  I have heard senior Saudi leaders express similar sentiments in the early 2000s.

Framing the issue in terms of the nuclear question changes perspective. Rather than seeing the current war as a discrete event, it is part of a decades-long process that began circa 2002 when credible evidence emerged that the Islamic Republic had a secret nuclear weapons programme. The first phase of the war against Iran began around this time. It was a shadow war fought by assassinations and sabotage that occasionally burst into open conflict against Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Gaza.

This phase ended on 8^th October 2023 when Hezbollah foolishly decided to join Hamas’ 7^th October terrorist attack on Israel. It then became well-nigh inevitable that Israel and the US would get into direct conflict with Hezbollah’s sponsor, Iran. The second phase of direct conflict was fought between 13^th to 24^th June 2025 when Israel and the US attacked Iran. This short second phase ended with an informal ceasefire that Oman tried, unsuccessfully, to turn into a more formal and lasting end to conflict. The third phase started on 28^th February 2026 when the US abruptly abandoned Omani mediated talks and resumed large scale attacks on Iran. The Gulf monarchies could no longer avoid involvement. All (as well as Egypt) were attacked by Iran; Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait retaliated by striking back at Iran while Qatar shot down two Iranian war-planes.

We are now (28 July 2026) still in the third phase of fighting while talking and talking by fighting, the use of force by both sides being a form of communication. I do not know how or when this phase will end. But we can be reasonably sure of 4 things:

• First, regardless of how and when the third phase ends, it will almost certainly be followed by subsequent phases of conflict. The only unknowns are when subsequent phases will begin; their duration; whether it will be shadow war or open conflict or some mixture of both; and the nature and extent of the involvement of the US and the Gulf states. Conflict will continue because once any country decides that it needs nuclear weapons, there is no way to erase the knowledge of how to enrich uranium and build a weapon. You can only delay those ambitions by destroying the physical infrastructure of enrichment and weapons development. Force must be periodically reapplied because Tehran will try to rebuild.

  
  

  Diplomacy has already been proved ineffective. Even if some kind of diplomatic mechanism is put in place, Tehran’s incentive to cheat will be very high because its conventional defenses and proxies having proven ineffective, the Islamic Republic’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons for survival has probably been enhanced. Since Tehran probably regards nuclear weapons as an existential necessity, it would be prudent to see any diplomatic agreement in terms of the Shia doctrine of Taqiyya which justifies dissimulation for survival.

• Second, the Gulf states may not be entirely happy with the US or Israel, but this does not erase their existential concerns about Iran. They will certainly hedge by developing their relationships with, among others, Russia, China, Turkey, Pakistan and even Iran itself. But they cannot ignore the fact that Iran’s close relations with Russia and China not only singularly failed to deter the US, but when war broke out, Moscow and Beijing made only token efforts to help Iran and that those efforts had little or no impact. China clearly prioritized its relationship with the US over helping Tehran by receiving Mr. Trump in Beijing even as he was waging war against Iran. The US is clearly the only external power willing and able to use force against Iran and is the only power that can balance Iran. This has underscored the importance of their security relationships with the US and entrenched the American role in Gulf security. This is a critical vulnerability for Tehran because, as argued above, the war will, in one way or another, continue for the foreseeable future.

An assumption that the regime has probably held since the early 1980s -- that its enemies did not have the stomach to directly attack Iran -- has been disproven. That assumption may have become Tehran’s operating principle after 1983 when Hezbollah, on Iran’s instructions, carried out a suicide terrorist attack against US marines in Beirut, killing more than 200 Americans. After token retaliation, the US withdrew from Lebanon. But the Islamic Republic can no longer assume that it is immune from direct attack. American willingness to use force is a lesson that cannot be ignored anywhere.

• Third, closing the Strait of Hormuz and disrupting traffic in the Bab al Mandeb were tactical successes for Iran and its Houthi proxy. But these were desperate moves – Tehran had no effective counter to the US blockade – and were strategic failures. It deepened and entrenched the Gulf’s mistrust and antagonized the world, including its ally China. This is a card that can be played at maximum effectivity only once. The Gulf states will rush to build infrastructure to bypass Hormuz and the Red Sea. Other countries, including China, will invest in this too. As subsequent phases of the war unfold over time,  this card will be less and less effective. But Tehran will not easily give up its claim of sovereignty over Hormuz which is another reason for regarding any kind of agreement to end conflict as precarious and at best temporary.

• Fourth, the US clearly underestimated the regime’s resilience. But while the Islamic Republic still rules in Tehran, it is a seriously weakened regime. Its defense-industrial capabilities, including its nuclear infrastructure, has been severely degraded, as has its civilian economy. Iran’s economy was failing even before the war. Its leadership has also been degraded and uncertainty over who in Iran has the authority to conclude a settlement and the clout to enforce it has added to the intrinsic difficulty of concluding any sort of even temporary agreement. To survive, the regime must preserve a minimally viable economy when the fighting stops. But different groups in Iran probably have different ideas about what constitutes a ‘minimally viable economy’. The longer the conflict, the weaker the regime becomes. This is another reason for believing that Tehran regards talks primarily as a means to buy a pause in fighting to rebuild. But the Trump administration is not known for its patience. I suspect the fourth phase of war will start after the mid-term elections in November.

Ladies & Gentlemen, I will end here. I trust I have said enough to illustrate what I mean by adopting a different mode of thought on foreign policy and geopolitics. This mode of thought does not require you to agree with any of my conclusions – different conclusions can well be reached from the same set of facts. But it does require you to regard facts with cold logic free of illusions; in short, to adopt Mr. Rajaratnam’s terminology, not to confuse theology with the realities of practical diplomacy. We all should have aspirations and dare to dream, but analysis and policy should be made during our waking hours.

Thank You.