David Herzenshorn & Jacopo Barigazzi, Politico EU
The EU may aspire to "strategic autonomy," but Friday's virtual summit of heads of state and government showed leaders experiencing another concept: strategic cacophony.
Fehim Tastekin, Al Monitor
Turkey's increasing focus on Iraq's Sinjar region is linked to a broader rivalry with Iran for influence over Mosul.
Sameer Lalwani, War on the Rocks
Two years ago this week, I touched down in New Delhi, groggy from my intercontinental flight from Washington, D.C. I looked forward to a quiet two-day layover en route to a South Asian crisis wargame that I was hosting in Sri Lanka. The next morning I awoke to the news that India had just conducted the first cross-border airstrike on Pakistan's mainland in five decades, and found myself in the midst of a serious, real-life crisis.
John Lloyd, CapX
You have to hand it to the Putinites. They have imbibed KGB tactics from the master and wield them with both subtlety and precision.
K. Khuldune Shahid, Diplomat
Farmers in Pakistani Punjab plan to take to the streets next month, hoping to generate some of the noise that their Indian counterparts have created.
Michael Rubin, 1945
Graeme Wood, The Atlantic
T. Sheppard, Scotsman
When the Scottish parliament was established in 1999, the idea was that it would become a beacon of democratic accountability and good governance.
Oleg Varfolomeyev, Jamestown
The Ukrainian government concluded a series of agreements and held important discussions with European Union officials during Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal's February 9-11 visit to Brussels, where he co-chaired the seventh meeting of the Ukraine-EU Association Council (UNIAN, February 13). Less progress was reached this time compared to the sixth meeting, around the same time...
Ezra Klein, New York Times
The point of the report is simply this: The world's economic systems teeter atop "backward-looking risk assessment models that merely extrapolate historical trends." But the future will not be like the past. Our models are degrading by the day, and we don't understand — we don't want to understand — how much in society could topple when they fail, and how much suffering that could bring. One place to start is by recognizing how fragile the basic infrastructure of civilization is even now... Читать дальше...
Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness
Nothing is more dangerous than stronger powers, even inadvertently, sending signals that are interpreted as weakness by weaker powers.
Paul Pillar, National Interest
Now with a new administration preparing to bring the United States back into compliance with the agreement, the opposition machinery is gearing up again.
Neri Zilber, Newlines
Israel cautions Biden not to rush it with the Iranians and to adapt to a fundamentally changed Middle East.
Santiago Ramos, Commonweal
A new Bolivian president should have been elected a year earlier. But the results of the October 2019 election were annulled after observers from the Organization of American States (OAS), seconded by the European Union, claimed to have found significant irregularities in the vote tallies. On election night, vote counting was suddenly suspended for twenty-four hours, after which the lead of the incumbent candidate, the...
David Pilling, Financial Times
Cultural movement's search for an alternative future can look to the achievements of African history.
Kris Cheng, Foreign Policy
Foreign passport holders risk being trapped in China by nervous authorities.
Phillip Orchard, Geopolitical Futures
In 1992, during a visit to Inner Mongolia, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping quipped: "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earths," referring to 17 elements on the southern end of the periodic table that are essential to the manufacturing of everything from light bulbs to smartphones to fighter jets. China indeed has rare earth metals, oxides and permanent magnets in spades, as well as a preponderance of the world's rare earth refining operations. As recently as 2010... Читать дальше...
Ali Wyne, WPR
One of former President Donald Trump's principal legacies was to elevate the attention that U.S. foreign policy accords to China. His administration argued that America's erstwhile "engage but hedge" approach had failed and that it was time to take a tougher line. The results of his policies, though, suggest that adopting an overly China-centric U.S. foreign policy is mistaken.
Ray Takeyh, Foreign Affairs
Jimmy Carter's Secret Program for Regime Change in Iran—and What It Means for U.S. Policy Today
