The Economist’s Shashank Joshi on 'purging the sentimentality' from our US relationship

Shashank Joshi is the Economist’s revered Defence Editor. He has deep strategic understanding combined with a rare gift for explaining things clearly.

In today’s snappy half-hour episode of STW, Shashank shares his concerns about the future of democracy in the United States, the implications for the rest of the world, and the question of any emerging “Trump doctrine” from the US President’s international interventions.

He talks about the impact of Trump’s short and sharp military operations without lengthy entanglements, his options on Iran, the significance of Europe’s firm stand against Trump over Greenland at Davos—which Shashank attended—the deep uncertainty as to Donald Trump’s overarching strategy towards China and the latest military purge by Xi Jinping.

A key takeaway is the notion of derisking, which has traditionally applied to countries’ relationships with China but now is being discussed with respect to the US. As Shashank puts it, countries are having to think about a “ruthless purging of the sentimentality” in their US relationships