Bonnie Kristian, RCW
The Trump administration published its 2021 budget on Monday. The $4.8 trillion proposal makes modest cuts to domestic expenditures while increasing military spending to $740.5 billion. The budget is not...
D. Khalifa & E. Tsurkov, WOTR
“People who travel north through these areas bid their family goodbye, in case they do not return,” said Samir, a lawyer living in Hajjin, south-eastern Syria, referring to areas in the countryside of Deir Ezzor. Worrying dynamics are emerging on the ground in northeast Syria. After losing its last pockets of territory, the self-proclaimed Islamic State shifted its strategy to an increasingly robust insurgency, which by now threatens to undermine security across the area. Читать дальше...
D. Smeltz & J. Cookson, The Hill
More and more politicians on both sides of the aisle appear convinced that U.S. adventurism in the Middle East has been a disaster and that it is time to bring U.S. troops home. President Donald Trump could not have been clearer in his most recent State of the Union address, declaring that “we are working to end...
Fehim Tastekin, Al Monitor
The escalation in Idlib has left Turkey vacillating between Russia’s tough options and the United States’ enticing prodding, as it maintains its menacing posture to force the Syrian army’s retreat to now-defunct cease-fire lines in the rebel stronghold. Amid the standoff, the Syrian Kurds are becoming a key factor in both US and Russian calculations to sway...
none, Economist
“ONLY IN China and only under the leadership of President Xi can there be such effective measures to put this sudden and fast-spreading epidemic under control.” So claims Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, when describing China’s extraordinary mobilisation to combat the new coronavirus—from the ultra-fast construction of new hospitals to the mass lockdown of Chinese cities.
Carly Kind, The World Today
Artificial intelligence is poised to impinge on our lives in ways we could not have imagined a decade ago, writes Carly Kind.
Thomas Wright, Foreign Affairs
For seven decades, U.S. grand strategy was characterized by a bipartisan consensus on the United States’ global role. Although successive administrations had major disagreements over the details, Democrats and Republicans alike backed a system of alliances, the forward positioning of forces, a relatively open international economy, and, albeit imperfectly, the principles of freedom, human rights, and democracy. Today, that consensus has broken down.
M. Tanchum, TPQ
he Turkey-Russia relationship is in the midst of a major reset. The outbreak of hostilities in Syria's Idlib province has left 13 Turkish soldiers dead and seven Turkish military posts under siege by Russian-backed Syrian government forces. Prior policy convergences between Turkey and Russia had raised speculation about the prospect of a Turkish-Russian strategic partnership dominating the security architecture on Europe's southern borders. However, Ankara seems to have overplayed... Читать дальше...
Owen Jones, Guardian
Johnson and Cummings are able students of the new right that blends culture war with a raid on leftwing economics
Menna Farouk, Al Monitor
Bret Stephens, New York Times
Expelling Wall Street Journal reporters returns China to a darker age.
Michael Auslin, Hoover Institution
Amid trade tensions and geopolitical frictions, relations between the United States and China have taken a twist. But that twist creates opportunities for the United States—and for human rights.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, New York Times
I am convinced that the killing and the maiming must stop, the deputy leader of the Taliban writes.
