The CSPC Dispatch - Oct 3, 2025
This week, CSPC President & CEO Glenn Nye examines one of Washington’s most persistent dysfunctions—federal government shutdowns—and outlines systemic reforms to restore accountability, cooperation, and fiscal discipline in Congress. Research Fellow Victoria Flick turns to the Arctic, where great power competition is heating up alongside the retreating ice. She explores how the United States can revitalize its shipbuilding capacity, leverage allied cooperation, and safeguard security in a region increasingly defined by Russian and Chinese ambitions. Sitara Gupta analyzes India’s delicate balancing act as both a neighbor to struggling South Asian states and a key partner for the West, weighing whether New Delhi can maintain its global ascent while navigating a turbulent regional environment. Finally, CSPC intern Amarah Din reflects on the recent United Nations General Assembly session, where recognition of a Palestinian state by a growing number of nations has placed new urgency on questions of peace and sovereignty.
As always, we hope you find the Dispatch engaging and welcome your thoughts on how we can continue to improve.
How to End Federal Government Shutdowns for Good
by Glenn Nye
Service members are greeted by locked doors at the Harriotte B. Smith Library aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune due to the government shutdown in October 2013. (Photo Credit: Gunnery Sgt. Ryan O'Hare)
Federal government shutdowns are an enduring national embarrassment and a failure of Congress to conduct its most fundamental annual responsibility to debate, compromise, and decide a budget defining America’s priorities. Every year Members of Congress have from session opening day in January until September 30 to complete this important process, and every year since 1997 they have failed to do so. Even when they avoid a shutdown by passing a Continuing Resolution (CR), they just punt the problem to a later date and extra time rarely results in a thoughtful compromise. Last year, Congress simply passed an entire year CR that held over the 2024 budget through 2025. It looks increasingly likely that the same will happen again this year, and perhaps simply become the new norm. That is a stunning capitulation to the forces of division and a serious red flag moment.
The simple truth is that our governing system was established to require cooperation for basic function but our electoral system has been optimized for partisan gain and rewards tribal division and demonization. Until we address this problem, our budget process and basic governing will not improve. Congress’s failure to pass on-time compromise budgets creates a cascade of problems: public disillusionment grows with each failure to pass a budget on time, federal agencies are robbed of the ability to plan and invest in the future, consigning our government operations to inefficient short-termism, and the inability of Congress to exercise its constitutional authority to appropriate money means power shifts to the executive branch to make spending decisions, eroding the checks and balances our founders created to maintain balance in our government.
To solve this problem and put our congressional function and governing system on a better path the following solutions comprising external systemic reforms and internal systemic reforms are urgently needed:
External Reforms:
Restore incentives for Members of Congress to cooperate by eliminating taxpayer-funded partisan primaries, favoring non-partisan unified primaries where all voters can participate.
Create a requirement for Members of Congress to receive a majority of votes cast to win elections, incentivizing the winner to appeal to a broad set of voters rather than a narrow ideological party base.
Internal Reforms:
Ban Members of Congress from soliciting or collecting funds for their re-election campaigns until after they complete the budget/appropriations for the fiscal year, creating a strong incentive for Members to complete negotiations early in the year and negating the likelihood of coming close to a shutdown. There are models at the state level, for instance in Virginia, where legislators are prohibited from fundraising while they complete the budget cycle.
Pass a balanced budget amendment or law that compels Members to meet reasonable targets for balancing spending and revenue, and including plans to pay down any emergency deficits.
The constitutional system created by our founders is clever, but it assumed members of each branch of government would jealously guard their powers from encroachment by the other branches. They warned not to allow partisanship or tribal loyalties to supersede this competition between the branches, lest the construct become dysfunctional. It is high time we heed that warning and make the reforms necessary to return function to the system. It is not going to get better or fix itself absent a dedicated effort to make these changes.
Glenn Nye is the President & CEO at the Center for the Study for the Presidency and Congress.
Steel, Ice, and Allies: U.S. Shipbuilding and the Arctic
by Victoria Flick
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar attends the commissioning ceremony for the Coast Guard Cutter Storis, the U.S. Coast Guard’s newest polar icebreaker on Aug. 10, 2025. (Photo Credit: Department of Homeland Security)
The Arctic is becoming increasingly vital to U.S. interests, particularly amid heightened geopolitical tensions and melting ice from climate change. Long central to homeland defense, the region now lies at the intersection of resource competition and great power projection. The growing partnership between Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) raises serious concerns for the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, fueling fears that the Arctic could become a future theater of conflict.
To preserve its great power status and protect freedom of navigation, the United States must prioritize its Arctic strategy, countering Russian and PRC ambitions while maintaining a credible regional presence. This requires both revitalizing American shipbuilding capacity and strengthening collaboration with allies who share a stake in Arctic security. Recent high-level engagements—such as the meeting between President Trump and President Putin in Alaska on the war in Ukraine—underscore the Arctic’s growing role in global security debates. In this context, cooperative initiatives among allies are essential tools. The Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE Pact), a trilateral agreement between the United States, Canada, and Finland, exemplifies this approach by bolstering supply chain resilience, creating domestic jobs, and expanding shipbuilding capabilities to defend shared interests in the Arctic.
Competition in the Arctic
Competition in the Arctic is intensifying as Russia and the PRC eye the region’s vast oil and gas reserves, critical minerals, emerging trade routes, rich fisheries, and growing tourism opportunities. Much of this contest stems from rapid sea ice melt, which – while creating its own set of problems – has also unlocked new shipping corridors and unprecedented access to resources that were inaccessible even a decade ago.
The PRC, which has called itself a “Near-Arctic State,” conducts dual-use research in the Arctic in several locations, leveraging bilateral diplomatic agreements and the 1925 Svalbard Treaty, which recognized Norway’s full sovereignty over Svalbard and granted countries equal rights to peacefully utilize its natural resources, including activities such as hunting, fishing, and mining. Today, climate-driven changes are reshaping the Arctic’s strategic landscape, creating new economic and military opportunities. For example, with the support of Russia, a Chinese shipping company recently announced plans to operate a seasonal cargo route from China to Europe through the Northern Sea Passage. With its inaugural voyage scheduled for the end of September, the 40% faster route will bolster China’s pursuit of its economic interests in the region. Sino-Russian cooperation in the Arctic also extends to joint military drills and overflights that, for now, serve more as demonstration exercises than actual military buildup in the region. Furthermore, the Arctic is also a potential source of critical minerals such as platinum, palladium, and nickel—resources essential to advanced technologies and national defense.
For much of history, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) remained virtually inaccessible, blocked by thick sea ice and impenetrable ridges. With the accelerated retreat of Arctic ice cover under climate change, however, the route has emerged as a potential corridor for navigation, trade, and resource development. Because the NSR runs almost entirely through waters Russia regards as part of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Moscow asserts extensive control over the passage and views it as central to its broader Arctic strategy. As the only non-NATO power in the eight-member Arctic Council, Russia commands more than 53 percent of the Arctic Ocean coastline and has invested heavily in infrastructure to secure both economic and strategic advantages. This buildup includes the refurbishment of older Soviet-era facilities and the construction of new ones, such as the recently expanded paved runway on Kotelny Island in the New Siberian archipelago, which now links directly to a nearby military base.
Defending U.S. interests in the Arctic is critical due to its growing geopolitical and geostrategic importance, particularly in light of Russia’s collaboration with the PRC’s increasing economic and strategic activities in the region. Both nations challenge Arctic stability and U.S. influence, from resource competition to potential territorial disputes. Ensuring a strong U.S. presence in the Arctic—while deepening cooperation with allied partners—both safeguards national security and protects free and open access to Arctic trade routes and resources. The January 2025 presidential action, ‘Unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential’, underscores the administration’s commitment to infrastructure development in Alaska for expanded resource extraction. By linking Arctic security with economic growth, the initiative frames investment in Alaska not only as a source of national prosperity, energy security, and employment, but also as a strategic hedge against external manipulation of energy supplies in a volatile geopolitical environment.
Shipbuilding and the Arctic
Icebreakers are the key tool in defending U.S. interests in the Arctic. The United States’ newest addition of icebreakers was inaugurated in May 2025, when the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Storis embarked on its maiden voyage to the Arctic. It is the first new U.S. icebreaker in 25 years. This brings the U.S. inventory of icebreakers to a total of three. Russia, on the other hand, operates the world’s largest icebreaker fleet, with more than 40 vessels, and has elevated the Arctic to one of its top maritime priorities.
With such fierce competition and a glaring lack of U.S. icebreaker capability, the administration needs to look for alternative ways of building up its icebreaker inventory to ensure U.S. supremacy in the region. While the current administration has been cautious about relying too heavily on partners, collaboration with allies such as Canada and Finland through the ICE Pact offers significant advantages. Joint shipbuilding initiatives not only strengthen America’s ability to secure its Arctic presence but also deliver important domestic benefits. As Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin emphasized, “by revitalizing U.S. shipyards, creating jobs, strengthening industrial capabilities, and opening up the Arctic’s vast potential to American businesses, the Trump administration is putting America’s prosperity and security first.”
ICE Pact
The ICE Pact—a trilateral agreement between the United States, Canada, and Finland—was launched at the NATO Washington Summit in July 2024, followed by the signing of a broad Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in November 2024 under the Biden administration. The pact represents a joint commitment by the three countries to advance the development of polar-capable icebreakers as part of broader policy innovation in the shipbuilding industry. (Wilson Center). Combining their expertise in polar vessel production, the Pact aims to strengthen shipbuilding demand, attract high-quality jobs, bolster maritime infrastructure supply chains essential to national security, and promote sales to other countries. The framework established four working groups: technical expertise and information sharing, workforce development, collaboration with allies and industry, and research and development. Under the Trump administration, the ICE-Pact continues and the working groups have met with increasing frequency—now averaging nearly ten meetings per month. The collaboration between the three countries allows each one of them to leverage its comparative advantages, enabling more efficient production and speeding up the assembly of these icebreaker ships.
Trilateral meetings at the ministerial level have already taken place in March 2025 in Helsinki, Finland and in June 2025 in Ottawa, Canada. While this marked a positive first step, the upcoming meeting—set to be hosted by the U.S. government in Washington, DC in November 2025—must deliver tangible outcomes by moving beyond rhetoric and initiating the commissioning of new icebreakers. This effort aligns closely with the White House’s Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance executive order.
For Finland, the pact also fits into a wider context of deepening U.S.–Finnish relations. The Embassy of Finland in Washington, DC emphasizes cooperation on national security and technology, supported by the implementation of NATO’s Defense Cooperation Agreement after Finland joined the Alliance. Moreover, Finland is particularly renowned for its expertise in icebreaker design and technology. According to the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, “80% of the world’s icebreakers are designed by Finnish firms and more than 60% are built in Finnish shipyards.” This unique expertise presents a significant opportunity for the United States to draw upon as it seeks to expand its icebreaker fleet and strengthen shipbuilding capabilities in this critical sector.
As evidenced by the executive order that encourages U.S. agencies to engage with allies and partner governments when it comes to the shipbuilding industry, the same can be said about expanding the U.S. icebreaking capacity in the Arctic. For the United States, defending its interests in the Arctic requires more than rhetoric—it demands real investment in maritime capabilities, closer coordination with allies, and a revitalized industrial base. The ICE Pact offers a tangible pathway to strengthen shipbuilding, enhance supply chain resilience, and ensure regional presence, while countering the growing ambitions of Russia and the PRC. By seizing this moment to translate strategy into action, the United States can safeguard its security, protect freedom of navigation and sovereignty in the Arctic, and reaffirm its leadership in a rapidly evolving Arctic order.
Victoria Flick is a Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.
Can India Act as Both Good Neighbor and Ally of the West?
by Sitara Gupta
Aerial view of New Delhi’s Central Vista on August 6, 2025 (Photo Credit: Government of India, CC BY-SA 4.0)
In the last decade, South Asia has witnessed both unprecedented growth and historic crises—and nowhere is this divergence clearer than in the gap between India and its neighbors.
India’s growing economic and geopolitical heft looms large over the region—not just for the speed of its ascendance, but also for the mix of factors underpinning the country’s resilience and stability. With the world’s fourth-largest economy, India reached a $4.3 trillion GDP (gross domestic product) in early 2025, fueled by an 8.3% surge in its services sector. The nation’s booming digital economy is already the world’s third largest, according to the State of India’s Digital Economy Report 2024. India’s diversified export base also cushions against global shocks, a vision Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced in his August 15, 2025, Independence Day call for Atmanirbhar Bharat (‘self-reliant India’).
India’s defining strategic autonomy results from a deliberate balancing act: New Delhi has signed landmark U.S. defense pacts, to include the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA); has deepened ties with the United States, Japan, and Australia resulting from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD); remains a leading member of the BRICS alignment (Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa) that amplifies the voices of the Global South; and it continues to source 36% of its oil from Russia. These diverse alignments allow India to seize opportunities, even while avoiding overdependence on any single partner.
As highlighted by the 2025 Global Bharat Summit in Telangana, India still confronts major challenges, including persistent domestic nationalism and unemployment at 5.1%. A key long-term question is whether India can maintain its geopolitical ascent while its neighborhood continues to struggle. Put another way, will India’s rapid growth lift the region, or leave it behind?
India has long recognised the importance of fostering close ties with neighboring nations whose histories and cultures are closely intertwined with its own. For that reason, its 2008 “Neighbourhood First Policy” aimed at strengthening trade, connectivity, and people-to-people ties with Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, and the Maldives. But no one denies that from virtually every point on the compass it is a difficult neighborhood to cooperatively manage.
To the west, Pakistan remains India’s most contentious neighbor and it faces persistent political and economic instability. Islamabad achieved just 2.7% economic growth in 2025, for instance, and it has required recurring financial bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the latest coming with a $1 billion loan in May 2025. Anti-India sentiment in Pakistan has intensified with the rise of Modi’s nationalist party in 2014, and it was greatly exacerbated by a four-day conflict last April, which proved a major point of contention at the recent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. India-Pakistan relations were further strained recently after Pakistan signed a strategic mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia on September 17, 2025, committing both nations to treating an aggression against either one as an attack on both.
To the east, Bangladesh faces continued economic pressures, with youth unemployment high and a new 35% U.S. garment tariff threatening millions of jobs. India-Bangladesh relations have remained sour since 2024, when former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled to India, fueling anti-India sentiment in that country and complicating longstanding border disputes involving illegal migration.
To the south, Sri Lanka is still reeling from a 2022 financial collapse that greatly slowed tourism, and it faces a net debt of 101% of GDP (2025), according to S&P Global Ratings. Its strategic tilt toward China—including the 2008 Hambantota Port development—has also unsettled New Delhi. Sri Lanka’s Buddhist resistance to India’s Hindutva-driven nationalist politics adds a cultural layer to bilateral tensions. The Maldives likewise sits at the center of a geopolitical tug-of-war between India and China. Heavy debt (62.4% of GDP in 2024) and a Maldives-China Free Trade Agreement signed earlier this year, prompted India to offer $565 million in credit relief and reduced debt repayments of its own. Recent media restrictions in Mali have also sparked domestic and international concern.
To the north, Nepal, a small country with a 1,000-mile open Himalayan border with India, suffers from chronic political instability. Deadly Gen Z-led protests on September 8, 2025, toppled former Nepali Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, and his successor Sushila Karki reached out to New Delhi first for help. Nepal’s remittance-driven economy, accounting for 33.1% of GDP in 2024, underscores its heavy reliance on India. Past tensions, however, including an unofficial Indian blockade in 2015–16, fuel Kathmandu’s wariness. Meanwhile, neighboring Bhutan remains politically stable but economically fragile, and China’s growing trade role in the country potentially threatens India’s strategic Siliguri Corridor.
This combination of economic and political instability in India’s neighborhood, coupled with rising geopolitical tensions between major powers China, Russia, and the United States, could threaten New Delhi’s global ambitions. China is already capitalizing on these fractious dynamics, financing energy, construction, and infrastructure projects across the region. Modi’s September 1, 2025, visit to Beijing—his first in nearly a decade—signaled an attempt to stabilize ties and lower tensions in the relationship, a move that has the potential to reshape the regional balance but complicates New Delhi’s relationship with the West generally, and with the United States specifically.
India’s ability to manage its turbulent neighborhood while also acting as a potential counterweight to China is critical to U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Instability with Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka risks drawing New Delhi inward, just as Washington wants it focused on balancing China. For the United States, keeping India regionally engaged and economically aligned is key to preventing China from exploiting power vacuums and reshaping the balance of power in South Asia to its advantage.
Sitara Gupta is a former intern at CSPC and recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
Two Years and a Two-State Solution
By Amarah Din
Annalena Baerbock, President of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, opens general debate. (Photo Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe)
The recent gathering of world leaders for the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) convened around the theme “Better Together: 80 Years and More for Peace, Development and Human Rights.”
Leaders originally gathered to discuss topics such as climate change, multilateralism, and the state of world affairs, but many nations focused most of their addresses on the war between Israel and Hamas that has escalated throughout the Middle East and on the issue of Palestinian statehood. Those speeches followed in the wake of the High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution that was held in July and co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia. Its stated purpose was to “to catalyze concrete, timebound and coordinated international action toward the implementation of the two-state solution” to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Just a day before the U.N. General Assembly began, France and Saudi Arabia resumed those discussions even as ten additional countries--to include U.S. allies Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom--announced their recognition of a Palestinian state. That brought the number of U.N. member states to recognize Palestinian statehood to roughly 80 percent.
U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the General Assembly on day one of the General Debate. His speech heavily focused on immigration, global wars, and criticizing the United Nations. He called for the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas and an end to the war in Gaza. Regarding Palestinian statehood, Trump stood firmly against the idea, calling it a “reward” for Hamas.
The Trump administration blocked Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and other authority officials from entering the U.S. for the conference, stating that they “must repudiate terrorism... and the pursuit of unilateral recognition of statehood” in order to “be taken seriously as partners for peace.”
This didn’t stop Palestinian officials, however, from participating in the UNGA. On day three of the debate, President Abbas addressed the assembly via video livestream. He labeled Israel’s actions in Gaza as war crimes and crimes against humanity. He also declared that the Palestinian National Authority is ready to assume “full responsibility for governance and security” in Gaza, while explicitly ruling out Hamas participation. To conclude his speech, he reaffirmed the need for a Palestinian state with the borders of 1967.
Israel kicked off the fourth day of debate. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked up to the podium, dozens of officials and diplomats staged a walk-out in protest. Netanyahu began his address focusing on Iran’s nuclear threats. He called for the release of the remaining hostages, denied the label of genocide and forced starvation, and praised Trump for his support. He condemned the countries who recently came out in support of recognizing a Palestinian state equating their actions to encouraging terrorism on Jews.
This October 7 will mark two years since Hamas’ attack on Israel, which killed over 1,200 Israelis. 20 hostages are believed by Israel to still be alive. It also marks the beginning of Israel’s full offense on Gaza, which, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, has resulted in over 66,000 Gazans killed, with women and children making up about half of the death toll. The Ministry also reports that 168,000 have been wounded and 90% of the population is displaced from their homes. Over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are now experiencing famine.
Organizations and experts, such as the U.N. and International Association of Genocide Scholars, have recently declared that the conflict and actions taking place in Gaza constitute a genocide against the Palestinian people. Israel denies the accusations of genocide, often claiming they act in self-defense.
The U.S. stands in a particular position of power, as it has approved over $12 billion in military assistance and arms sale just this year. Trump met with Netanyahu earlier this week and proposed a 20-point plan. Netanyahu has accepted the plan while a response from Hamas is awaited. Hamas has not officially responded to the deal, but a top military official has objected to it while Hamas leadership in Qatar may be more open to accepting it. One could hope that this plan, if implemented, may provide Palestinians some relief. While the U.S. has historically vetoed U.N. resolutions calling for an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire, perhaps there’s a chance this could be different.
The circumstances of Palestinians in Gaza begs one to question: is the recognition of a State of Palestine too little too late?
For the past two years, Gazans have faced horrific living conditions, and Israeli families have long-awaited the return of their loved ones. Simple recognition does not end the violence in Gaza—it is merely a symbolic gesture for what is hoped to be accomplished in the future. While recognition marks a significant step in the right direction for Palestinian statehood and sovereignty, countries must also hold those responsible for violence and atrocities accountable for their brutal actions on the Palestinian people. This rising wave of acknowledgment may pave the way for stronger, more determined advocacy for a people who have endured unimaginable suffering and pay respects to the dignity of both the Israeli and Palestinian people.
Amarah Din is an intern at CSPC and recent Political Science graduate from Appalachian State University.
CSPC IN THE NEWS
America’s Long History of Political Violence—and Why We Can’t Ignore It Now
Originally published in The Fulcrum on September 29, 2025:
CSPC Senior Democracy Fellow Jeanne Zaino writes how America’s legacy of political violence, from the civil rights era to Charlie Kirk’s murder, continues to shape our democracy.
Read the full article here.
Peter Sparding on NewBooks Network Podcast: “No Better Friend? The United States and Germany Since 1945”
Originally published in NewBooks Network on September 12, 2025:
Our SVP and Director of Policy Peter Sparding was recently featured in an episode of the New Books Network to discuss his book, "No Better Friend? The United States and Germany Since 1945."
Listen to the full episode here.
James Kitfield on NPR’s 1a: Friday News Roundup
James Kitfield will appear this morning on NPR’s 1A Program in their Friday News Roundup during the International Hour. Tune in between 11am-12pm here or your local NPR station.