Daniel Davis, RealClearWorld
U.S. President Joe Biden is coming under heavy pressure to abandon the May 1 deadline to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan. The push to move the deadline might come from a former secretary of state, the congressionally mandated Afghan Study Group, or even NATO's secretary-general. Opposing the pleas of these popular figures are 20 years of unbroken strategic failure. There is ample evidence to suggest that 20 more years of...
Matthew Petti, Responsible Statecraft
Progressive and Catholic groups are urging President Joe Biden to break the diplomatic gridlock with Iran and move to rapidly rejoin the 2015 international nuclear deal.
Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy
It's no coincidence that, after years of fighting abroad, the United States is beset with paranoia, loss of trust, and increasingly bitter divisions.
Ryan Hass, Foreign Affairs
China, the story goes, is inexorably rising and on the verge of overtaking a faltering United States. China has become the largest engine of global economic growth, the largest trading nation, and the largest destination for foreign investment. It has locked in major trade and investment deals in Asia and Europe and is using the Belt and Road Initiative—the largest development project of the twenty-first century—to win greater influence in every corner of the world. Читать дальше...
Freedom House
As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world, democracy's defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny.
Thomas Friedman, NYT
We may be witnessing a major realignment of the Middle East.
Robert Kaplan, Foreign Policy
R. Berg & H. Montealegre, RCWorld
The tragic events that unfolded in January at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., has given rise to elegies of American soft power. The shining example of American democracy has been extinguished, so the argument goes, the insurrection marking the
Shelly Kittleson, Al Monitor
ERBIL, Iraq — Despite concerns that the sharp drawdown of international troops over the past year might negatively impact counterterrorism activities, Iraq has announced the killing of several high-level commanders and operatives since late January.
Javid Husain, Dawn
THE inauguration of the Biden administration has predictably generated a heated debate on America's likely policy concerning Pakistan. Any analysis of the emerging scenario must be firmly grounded in strategic realities rather than in wishful thinking.
Candace Rondeaux, World Politics Review
It may take years to unravel the tangled web surrounding "Project Opus," the bungled 2019 mercenary operation to prop up Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar, which allegedly included efforts to deploy a special hit squad to Libya. Few observers tracking the burgeoning global market for privatized armies, however, were likely surprised by reports last week that U.N. investigators suspect the involvement of former Blackwater CEO...
Nick Westcott, Royal African Society
But progress is always bumpy, as we know in Europe, and the long term trends are more encouraging than the short term setbacks. The progress of democracy in Africa over the past 20 years has in fact been faster and more significant than on any other continent. Successful coups have largely become a thing of the past, and governments have more frequently been changed at the ballot box than by the bullet. Since 2000, Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal... Читать дальше...
S. Rademaker, RCW
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden will find that Iran is not the only constraint on its options as it seeks a negotiated return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The administration will also find its hands tied by a nearly forgotten law enacted by the U.S. Congress in 2015: the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, or INARA.
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Alexei Bayer, Kyiv Post
More than a century since the end of World War I, the two major European wars of the 20th century appear as a single decade-long conflict with a long truce in the middle. For all the clashes of ideologies, the overriding goal of this conflict was the need to contain emerging Germany.
John Ravenhill, EA Forum
Australia's Morrison government has welcomed the UK's bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). In doing so, it risks undermining the positive results of more than half a century of diplomacy.
Joseph Nye, Project Syndicate
Even if China surpasses the US to become the world's largest economy, national income is not the only measure of geopolitical power. China ranks well behind the US in soft power, and US military expenditure is nearly four times that of China. While Chinese military capabilities have been increasing in recent years, analysts who look carefully at the military balance conclude that China will not, say, be able to exclude the US from the Western Pacific.
Economist
uring their 45-year feud, America and the Soviet Union fought proxy battles all across the world. But the cold war was at its most intense in Europe, where the Soviets constantly worried about their satellites breaking away, and America always fretted that its allies were going soft. The contest between China and America, happily, is different from that. For one thing, the two sides armed forces are not glowering at one another across any front lines—although in Taiwan and North...
Henning Hoff, Internationale Politik Quarterly
On foreign and defense policy, the Social Democrats have long been the reliable second pillar of Germany's centrist course. But the SPD's downward spiral at the ballot box has given way to left-leaning signaling that may well do the party more harm than good.
Ben Hall, Financial Times
Paris-Rome axis likely to become engine for integration after Angela Merkel bows out this year
