Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy
Reforming the Authorization for Use of Military Force isn't as altruistic as it seems.
John McLaughlin, Ozy
The Biden administration slapped economic sanctions last week on a number of Russian officials in response to the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in August and his imprisonment upon returning to Moscow in January after successful treatment in Germany. Navalny's supporters met the Kremlin's action with waves of protest, for which 4,000 were detained or arrested. The protests have now quieted down, and when that happens in Russia, the temptation, based on...
Andres Oppenheimer, Miami Herald
President Biden deserves applause for his first moves on Venezuela. Biden not only is disproving former President Trump's ridiculous claims that he's a "Socialist" who would befriend Venezuela's dictatorship, the president also is exploring more-effective ways to press for democratic changes in that country.
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Ian Teh, ChinaFile
From Madoi county, a settlement near the headwaters of the Yellow River, our two-car convoy headed out to visit a desert Yang Yong had first viewed through binoculars in 1997. From the roadside, the geologist had seen a small, wind-blown patch of sand surrounded by greenery. This time, from the same vantage point, Yang looked out past a stretch of sloping grassland to where a new desert now extended beyond the horizon. That sandy expanse, Yang told me, was where we would sleep that night. Читать дальше...
Henry Foy, Financial Times Magazine
Clad in a light-brown sheepskin overcoat that fell over his wool felt boots, Vladimir Putin strode from a dacha outside Moscow across the thick snow. It was 17 degrees below zero on the morning of January 19. Putin disrobed, draping the coat over a wooden railing, and stepped out of his boots. Wearing just a pair of blue swimming shorts, he descended through a crucifix-shaped hole cut in the six-inch-thick ice, wading into the frigid water.
Wi Sung-lac, JoongAng Daily
America's foreign policy on China is shaping up just two months after the launch of Joe Biden's administration in January. Biden prioritizes China policy as seen in his considering the appointment of an "Asia czar" in the White House. In a changed international environment in which the former U.S.-Soviet rivalry was replaced by the Sino-U.S. confrontation, the Biden administration will certainly deal with Korean Peninsula issues, including the North Korean nuclear threat... Читать дальше...
Katarzyna Zysk, War on the Rocks
The U.S. Navy approach toward the Arctic appears to be fraught with contradiction. Its new strategic plan for the region, Blue Arctic: a Strategic Plan for the Arctic, was published in January 2021 and calls for a stronger U.S. footprint and greater influence in the region. In line with the tri-service
Hadi Kahalzadeh, Foreign Affairs
Sanctions Shrank the Middle Class and Empowered the Revolutionary Guards.
Council on Foreign Relations
For more than a century, countries have wrestled with how to improve international cooperation in the face of major outbreaks of infectious diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than 2.5 million people and brought the world to a near halt in 2020, underscores the urgency.
Inés de Marcos, Global Americans
The COVID-19 pandemic has put informal settlements, and the policy failures that they represent, back in the spotlight. Immediate strategies to combat the virus in slums have been deployed throughout Latin America, which includes five of the countries—Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina—that have suffered the most COVID-19-related deaths per capita
David Herszenhorn, Politico EU
So far, no one is predicting any concrete outcomes from the Conference on the Future of Europe, a roughly 15-month-long, Continent-wide self-scrutiny tour that is the brainchild — some would say devil-spawn — of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Con Coughlin, The National
Nothing better illustrates the dangerous game of brinkmanship that Iran has embarked upon than the latest round of attacks carried out against Saudi Arabia's oil facilities.
