Dan Reiter & Paul Poast, War on the Rocks
A pillar of American grand strategy since 1945 has been the deployment of forces — sometimes smaller and sometimes larger — abroad. A key logic underpinning smaller deployments is that they serve as tripwires: Attacking them is assumed to inevitably trigger broader intervention, deterring aggression. We question this logic. Not only are small tripwire deployments unlikely to prevent an attacker from capturing its objective and establishing a strong defensive position... Читать дальше...
Ali Hasem, Al Monitor
The election of Ebrahim Raisi as president of Iran reflects a more revolutionary turn under the direction of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Dmitri Trenin, Carnegie Moscow Center
The UK-Russia incident off the Crimea coast highlights Britain's new role in the international system. It features the newly baptized "Global Britain" as a proactive member of the U.S.-led coalition that seeks to reassert the West's global leadership against the challenge of China and the actions of Russia. In doing so, London is willing to go to the edge and take non-negligible risks.
Damien McElroy, The National
Officials who attended the meeting said Turkey insisted that its military forces in Libya enjoy exceptional status with a formal invite from the governing authorities preceding the current interim government. Turkey makes a distinction between these troops and the mercenaries - many of them Syrian rebel militia members it has flown there and directed in frontline fighting.
Charles Stith, New African
All day long on 17 June I was contacted by folks from all over the world, asking if I had heard that KK had died. Such as it should have been. Anybody that comes from or cares about Africa would have felt this loss. If Africa had a Mount Rushmore of iconic African leaders, Kenneth David Kaunda would be on it.
George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures
I entered graduate school in 1970, determined to study two things. One was political philosophy, the consideration of the nature of justice, particularly as presented by German philosophers. The second was called comparative communism, the study of communist states and movements, particularly contemporary ones. The choice of subjects wasn't random, if perhaps presumptive. I wanted to understand Germany, the place that had defined my origins. And I wanted to understand communism... Читать дальше...
Jonathan Miller, Spectator
Five years ago, Emmanuel Macron was ‘en marche' to his improbable ascent to the presidency of France. Last night, having united France against him, the certitude that he will be re-elected in 270 days has evaporated.
Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic
Marxist literary scholars and popularizers of critical race theory have one thing in common with certain GOP commentators: a tendency to see their own view of the world as the only valid one.
James Savage, New Statesman
Sweden's Prime Minister Stefan Löfven resigned on Monday, one week after losing a confidence vote in parliament. Now Andreas Norlén, the speaker of the Riksdag or Swedish parliament, is charged with finding a workable governing coalition among its eight political parties.
K. Khuldune Shahid, Dipl.
On May 7, in the hours after Friday prayers, textile and carpet merchant Abdul Wali was preparing to lock up his shop in Islamabad in preparation for the COVID-19 lockdown that had been imposed in the Pakistani capital. The deputy commissioner had announced that public transport would be suspended after 6 p.m., so Wali faced a race against time if he wanted to catch one of the last few buses heading north to spend Eid-ul-Fitr with his family like every year.
Sun Yu & Tom Mitchell, Financial Times
Last month a senior official from China's education ministry addressed more than 100 government colleagues and scholars at a closed-door event to discuss the centenary of the establishment of the Chinese Communist party, which will be officially marked with great fanfare in Beijing on Thursday.
Bradley Bowman & Behnam Ben Taleblu, The Dispatch
The election of Ebrahim Raisi shows Iran's lack of interest in peace with the West—and the perils of pulling out of the Middle East altogether.
Economist
Scott Erickson, National Interest
Cartels have been exploiting the border crisis to move vast amounts of deadly drugs into the country, reversing the recent gains made in the fight against drug and opioid abuse.
Jen Kirby, Vox
The fighting has had horrific consequences. There have been credible reports of atrocities being committed by all parties in the conflict, including mass killings, mass rape, and destruction and looting of property. As of April, more than 1.7 million people had been internally displaced, and
Christian Putsch, Worldcrunch
BERLIN — It was late May, as 10,000 spectators arrived at Barthélemy Boganda Stadium in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, for a special film premiere. There was a red carpet for the VIPs arriving for the film "Tourist" — a feature that glorifies the use of Russian mercenaries, who heroically defend the local population from murderous rebels in a fictional African conflict.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
There are some political moments that live in the memory. I vividly recall standing in the Place de l'Opéra in Paris watching Jean-Marie Le Pen address a rally during the 2002 French presidential election. Next to me were members of Forza Nuova, an Italian far-right party. It felt like a new and dangerous moment for European democracy.
Stephen Chan, AA
Zambia's first president was a flawed leader, but his legacy of inclusiveness and African unity survive in political structures to this day.
