Jeff M. Smith, RealClearWorld
An attempt to organize quadrilateral grouping of Indo-Pacific democracies in 2007 proved short-lived. The revival and reinvigoration a decade later of what is termed the "Quad" was a key foreign policy success of the Trump administration.
Sen. Marco Rubio, RealClearWorld
The United States' relationship with Mexico is critical to our shared security and economic interests. The deep cultural ties between our peoples, our cooperation on security issues, and the strong economic partnerships we have maintained will always necessitate close coordination between our governments.
Timothy Garton Ash, Bush Center
What an interesting question to start with. My spontaneous answer is that it identifies the difference between the U.S. but also Canadian or Australian senses of the people and a traditional European sense of what the people is.
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R. Norman & J. Wilson, National Review
Our nation has endured revolution, civil war, world war, and cold war. We have survived every kind of hardship and won. Today, we are in a new kind of war: a war of information.
Janan Ganesh, Financial Times
The spread of freedom after the cold war was the exception to the autocratic norm.
Jenni Marsh, CNN
(CNN)Jeff Wasserstrom is a self-proclaimed China specialist who is seriously considering never returning to China -- at least, he says, not while President Xi Jinping is in power.
Frederick Kempe, Atlantic Council
Who is going to organize the world? And what forces and whose interests will shape the global future?
Thomas Traumann, Zeina Latif, Brian Winter & Tony Volpon, Am. Quart.
The market is very sensitive right now and is reacting to any news. The first reaction was negative, but we are very far from the election still. So personally, I think it is still early to say whether this is a negative or a positive development. We can also look at it as, by getting Lula back in the running, and again polarizing the presidential dispute, it diminishes the uncertainties regarding who will run. It may... Читать дальше...
Wang Xiyue, Hoover
The Islamic Republic of Iran remains one of the world's worst human right abusers: it has the highest executions per capita; it constantly crushes peaceful assembly and freedom of expression; and it harshly persecutes human rights defenders and civil society activists. From the perspective of the Iranian regime, what the West defines as Iran's "human rights" problem is actually a deadly serious political problem. It is about safeguarding the inviolability of Iran's theocratic... Читать дальше...
Ido Vock, New Statesman
Pashinyan has offered to call snap elections, confident that he will retain power. Unusually, the opposition have so far refused the offer unless the prime minister concedes power to a transitional authority, probably because most polls show him comfortably winning re-election, though his approval ratings have more than
Rohan Mukherjee, EA Forum
China-India relations took a turn for the worse in 2020. Intrusions by the People's Liberation Army along the contested border led to a military standoff and skirmishes, the likes of which had not been seen for decades between the two countries. Only recently have they begun the process of disengagement.
Colm Quinn, Foreign Policy
The way is now clear for Lula to run against Bolsonaro in 2022, and polls favor the challenger.
Peter Hessler, New Yorker
While political leaders trade threats, the pandemic has made Americans even more reliant on China's manufacturers.
Roger Boyes, Times of London
When the Royal Mint was set up opposite the Tower of London in the 19th century it had sentry boxes and high walls that were patrolled by the Mint military guard. The need for security was obvious: a worker need only clip a few shavings from a silver or gold-based coin and successfully smuggle it out to enrich himself.
Steven Pifer, Brookings
As Russia and Gazprom push to complete the last kilometers of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the Biden administration faces a dilemma. Opinion in Congress and Washington is dead set against the project, but President Biden does not want a big fight with Chancellor Merkel.
Spectator
Even after Sturgeon's evidence to Holyrood this week, it is not at all obvious that she will have to resign as First Minister. This leaves us with a First Minister whose government breaks the law; who apparently misleads parliament herself; who seemingly treats the ministerial code like a takeaway menu, its provisions being there to pick and choose from as the appetite strikes her.
Emma Ashford, War on the Rocks
During Donald Trump's presidency, many senior national security roles came to resemble the post of Hogwarts' Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: The jobs were fraught with peril, most occupants came to regret their choice, and few lasted more than a year. The upside is that, though the Trump era has only just ended, a first batch of memoirs have come out from those who served in the Trump White House. H.R. McMaster's Battlegrounds, however, is likely to prove... Читать дальше...
A. Applebaum & P. Pomerantsev, Atlantic
o read the diary of Gustave de Beaumont, the traveling companion of Alexis de Tocqueville, is to understand just how primitive the American wilderness once seemed to visiting Frenchmen. In a single month, December 1831, Tocqueville and Beaumont were on a steamship that crashed; rode a stagecoach that broke an axle; and took shelter in a cabin—one of them bedridden from an unidentified illness—while the nearest doctor was a two-day hike away. Yet... Читать дальше...
Dylan Myles-Primakoff, Atlantic Council
When the Russian government sent an FSB hit squad to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny with one of the Novichok nerve agents, it violated international law. The Russian government faced no domestic accountability for this lawlessness. However, there has been a degree of accountability on the international level. The EU and the
Farid Kahhat, Worldcrunch
LIMA — I've written before that overall, there were reasons for believing that the new U.S. administration will be better for Latin America than the last one. Still, there is one big exception: international trade. Considering what President Joe Biden has said and done since his campaign began, we have sufficient reasons to believe that his too will be a protectionist...
Iqbal Quadir, RealClearWorld
Myanmar's February coup is a tragic setback for human rights in the region. Yet it also creates an opportunity. With a new administration in Washington, there is finally a chance to resolve the refugee crisis that has displaced the Rohingya population for over three years.
L. Taylor & H. Matsiko, Afr. Arg.
Ethnicity isn't meant to be a big part of politics, yet both the president and his rival accuse the other of tribalism and see themselves as its antidote.
Stewart Patrick, World Politics Review
A raging pandemic, an absent America and an emboldened China have exacerbated an ongoing global democratic recession. That is the message of "Freedom in the World 2021," Freedom House's latest status report on the fortunes of democracy. During 2020, democracy retreated for the 15th consecutive year, deteriorating in 73 countries and improving in only 28—a record margin according to Freedom House, which has been tracking...
James Dorsey, Responsible Statecraft
By defining Chinese characteristics as "seeking common ground while reserving differences," a formula that implies conflict management rather than conflict resolution, Messrs. Sun and Wu were suggesting that China was seeking to prepare the ground for greater Chinese engagement in efforts to stabilize the Middle East, a volatile region that repeatedly threatens to spin out of control.
Paul Stronski, World Politics Review
In late February, police raided the party headquarters of the opposition United National Movement in Tbilisi, Georgia, to arrest its chairman, Nika Melia. The raid and arrest, which were live-streamed and video-recorded by observers, have thrown the country deep into political crisis. Given Melia's longstanding role as a thorn in the side of the ruling Georgian Dream party, his detention appears to be a politically...
