Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review
None of them seems to stay that way in office.
Natalie Gonnella-Platts, RCW
2020 is a big year. A fresh start. A new decade. It is the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States, and the 20th anniversary of the landmark UN Security Council Resolution that increased the participation of women and the inclusion of gender perspectives in peace and security efforts.
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Richard Kemp, Jerusalem Post
Despite the closest of ties between our intelligence services and armed forces today, the Foreign Office has maintained its bias against the Jewish state.
Elizabeth Warren, The Atlantic
America should end its military involvement in conflicts in the Middle East and bring our troops home.
Conrad Black, National Post
Canada is a great country crossing the desert of self-chosen and misguided leadership. There is no vision except platitudes and quixotry.
Phillip Orchard & Alex Berezow, Geopolitical Futures
The biggest political and economic effects of pandemics come from public panic and panicked government responses, not the disease itself.
L. Hollmann & D. Heymann, Chatham House
An outbreak of a new coronavirus first reported in Wuhan, China, which has so far led to more than 500 confirmed cases and multiple deaths across five countries (and two continents) has prompted the question from several corners of the world: Should we be worried?
John Ibbitson, Globe & Mail
Every generation is having fewer children than the one before it, leaving fewer and fewer people to care for us in our increasingly long lives. It is a crisis we ignore at our own...
MP Bob Seely, Conservative Home
The world is a more dangerous place than two decades ago. Russia and China are developing new forms of assertive authoritarianism. We, meanwhile, have become complacent. We spend too little on hard power and either too much, or not well enough, on soft power (although both are critical for our future). Too many bits of government deal with the wider world, and they don’t talk to each other enough, like satraps running a series of mini-empires scattered across Whitehall. Читать дальше...
Joshua Mitnick, Foreign Policy
A U.S. peace plan seems designed mainly to get Bibi reelected. The Palestinians aren’t even invited.
Roger Southall, The Conversation
In 2017 the estranged wife of Lesotho’s prime minister Tom Thabane was shot dead in suspicious circumstances two days ahead of his inauguration. Now there’s a new twist in the saga: on 11 January authorities issued an arrest warrant for his current wife, Maesaiah Thabane, in connection with the murder.
Oleg Sukhov, Kyiv Post
After he was elected president in April, Volodymyr Zelensky announced a radical overhaul of Ukraine's law enforcement agencies to introduce the rule of law and eliminate corruption. He said the reforms would be fast and radical. In its first weeks, the new Verkhovna Rada indeed seemed to be making great progress. More than half a ?
Paul Taylor, Politico EU
Gideon Remez, Times of Israel
Just because you like the idea of turning straw into gold and tell the world you can do it doesn't mean you will actually pull it off.
Caroline De Gruyter, ECFR
In a few days, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will finally be able to claim “we delivered Brexit.” But what kind of Brexit will it be? Nobody knows what the UK will look like in a few years’ time. Will it remain close with the European Union, its biggest trading partner? Or will Johnson pursue closer ties with the United States? The geopolitical course he chooses will also determine what will happen to healthcare, education, taxes, and social inequality in the United Kingdom. Читать дальше...
Hilal Khashan, Geopolitical Futures
Shiite clerics have always played an active and essential role in Iranian public affairs. Safavid shahs (1501-1736) found them extremely useful in proselytizing Persians from Sunnism into Shiism. They also extended political legitimacy to Qajar shahs during most of the 19th century. Clerics in Shiism are more involved than Sunni counterparts in the lives of their religious communities. Shiite Muslims, following their religious doctrine, need continuous guidance from senior clerics; otherwise... Читать дальше...
Oded Revivi, Jerusalem Post
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been around for the entirety of Israel’s existence. For all of those 71 years, Israel has been oriented towards achieving comprehensive peace with its neighbors. And over the course of those seven decades, Israel has been paired with thirteen different US Presidents, yet none of them could facilitate peace.
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
The Holocaust was the worst crime in history, but at least this good came from it: Decent people learned not to shrug at genocide. Or did they?
Ivan Krastev, Financial Times
There is a connection between the twin crises of democracy and demography.
