Towards Strategic Pragmatism in Foreign Policy

Dr Charles Chao Rong PHUA now runs Solaris Strategies Singapore (and Solaris Consortium of Management Consultancies) dedicated to pragmatically solving complex problems supporting governments, corporates and underserved nonprofits at sector and enterprise levels, after two decades in government, where he functioned as head research trainer in defence and chief external affairs supporting cities and infrastructural diplomacy. Charles also presides over Association for Public Affairs (Singapore) spearheading active citizenry in policymaking and serving as chief judge for Singapore Model Cabinet and Parliament organised by government. He is an internationally certified management consultant and agile certified practitioner with doctorate in public policy, degrees in international relations, security management, education, accounting, law, and completed executive education in strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainability, marketing from leading business schools: Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, Berkeley, Babson, INSEAD, Cambridge, Oxford, London Business School. He applies pragmatism in his adjunct teaching/coaching of applied problem-solving practicums in five universities/colleges in Singapore (National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University, Civil Service College Singapore) and Switzerland (University of St Gallen), and has coedited Governing Cities: Asia’s Urban Transformation (Routledge). A Fulbright fellow, he was formerly resident fellow at Brookings Institution, Columbia and Johns Hopkins universities, and non-resident senior fellow at East-West Institute (New York). He currently serves as series editor for Routledge series for strategy, wisdom and skills with a commitment to codify practitioner+academic wisdom in applied and interdisciplinary fields.

1. A Pragmatic Definition of Pragmatism (Problem Solving Approach) I. What is Pragmatism 2. Fitness Beats Truth: Towards a Definition of Pragmatism 3. Big P and Small P Pragmatism, Strategic Pragmatism and Grand Strategy 4. Agential and Structural Factors of (Pragmatic) Production 5. Pragmatism in Policy Process Framework 6. Varieties of Pragmatism II.China 7. The Dao of Pragmatism: Going With the Flow Without Being Swept Away 8. Seeking Truth from Facts 9. Red Lines (and Pink Lines) in Chinese Foreign Policy III. Singapore 10. The Ideology of Pragmatism 11. A Friend to Everybody and an Ally to None 12. The Geography of Pragmatism IV.The United States13. The System (Systemic Pendulums) of Pragmatism 14. Small P and Big P Pragmatism on the Election Trail 15. How the Emergent Properties of the US System Force Unpragmatic Actors to Make V. What Have We Learnt? 16. From Varieties of Pragmatism: Muddling Through, In Style 17. Strategic and Systemic Pragmatism Through Dynamic Equilibria