George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures
Just about every U.S. president promises a new era of U.S. foreign policy. George W. Bush promised to abolish nation building as a goal. Barack Obama promised to make the world, and particularly the Muslim world, like America more. Donald Trump promised a foreign policy that benefited the United States. Joe Biden is promising a foreign policy that reverses the damage Trump did to all of America's foreign relationships. The operant principle is that the past was bad and the future will be good. Читать дальше...
Andrew Sheng & Xiao Geng, Project Syndicate
Both the US and Chinese governments must start to understand that combining cooperation with competition is the best way forward. Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, both chastened by four years of Trumpian disruption, have a real chance to reverse the course of bilateral relations.
Robert Ford, Foreign Affairs
Washington Must Acknowledge That It Can't Build a State
Ayah Aman, Al Monitor
CAIRO — A delegation from the Sudanese Sovereignty Council, headed by Lt. Gen. Shamseldin al-Kabashi and Director of the General Intelligence Service Jamal Abdul Majeed, visited Cairo Jan. 14, where they met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to discuss the...
Georges Fahmi, Chatham House
When reflecting on the past 10 years, it's clear to see that the Arab Spring is far from over. The popular uprisings in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon over the last couple of years, coupled with ongoing political and socio-economic tensions across the region, show that no political equilibrium has been found. However, waiting for another 2011 moment, as if nothing has changed, would be a mistake.
S. Pifer, NI
The Biden administration should consider whether the benefits to United States and allied security of limiting all nuclear weapons, including non-strategic nuclear arms, would justify accepting some constraints on missile defense.
Dmitri Stratievski, Riddle
Dmitri Stratievski charts the rise of a new leader of Germany's CDU. What will be his stance on German-Russia relations?
A. Muraviev & N. Markovic Khaze, Lowy
For all the talk of China, the Russia factor is a still a huge challenge for the Biden administration.
Garry Kasparov with Jonathan Tepperman, FP
Garry Kasparov on why this weekend's protests may be the beginning of the end of autocracy in Russia.
Jeff Hawn, Foreign Policy
There's no sign of defection from Russia's security services, let alone the army.
Alexander Baunov, Moscow Times
Saturday's protests were undeniably anti-regime, anti-elite, and anti-corruption, but not necessarily liberal and pro-Western.
William Bratton, Nikkei Asian Review
EU proving increasingly irrelevant in a region dominated by China.
Farhat Popal, RCWorld
Afghan women are closely watching as peace talks continue between their government and the Taliban. Women hope the talks will end decades of unabated violence, and not return them to a social, political, and economic prison from which there is no escape.
Marian Blasberg, Der Spiegel
With the second wave of the COVID pandemic crashing over his country, Jair Bolsonaro has left his people in the lurch. Instead of battling the disease, Brazil's president prefers to peddle conspiracy theories.
Milica Delevic, ECFR
The EU can learn from Brexit how to manage divergence and differentiate integration - for the sake of its other neighbours.
Loubna El Amine, London Review of Books
Nothing changed and everything did. In Mar Mikhael, one of the areas of Beirut most damaged by the explosion last August, there were more signs of reconstruction than destruction when I visited last month. New glass storefronts were being mounted; inside pubs, furniture was set up for reopening. Across the highway, the remains of the 48-metre-high silos at the port stood charred and desolate.
Tamara Cofman Wittes, Brookings
For over a decade, the United States has sought to wind down the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, reduce its military footprint in the Middle East, and redirect scarce resources to Asia. Global and regional trends reinforced this American desire to reduce the priority of the Middle East in its global strategy, and the military "pivot" is well underway. The challenge for American policy is how to protect its remaining and still important interests in that region... Читать дальше...
