A. Arduino, The Diplomat
With its quick seizure of power, the Taliban also acquired U.S. military equipment left behind by the withdrawal or abandoned by Afghan forces.
Vappala Balachandran, Atlantic Council
Concerns about Pakistan extend beyond rival India, which has historic and cultural ties to Afghanistan and invested heavily in infrastructure projects there. Bruce Riedel, who helped the Obama administration synthesize policy on Afghanistan in 2009, noted in April that US President Joe Biden had yet to engage with Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan. Biden's mistake, he said, comes after the US president inherited "a terrible deal from Trump's...
A. Wess Mitchell, National Interest
The greatest risk facing the twenty-first-century United States, short of an outright nuclear attack, is a two-front war involving its strongest military rivals, China and Russia. Such a conflict would entail a scale of national effort and risk unseen in generations, effectively pitting America against the resources of nearly half of the Eurasian landmass.
Siddharthya Roy, Newsweek
While President Joe Biden faults Afghanistan's leaders and soldiers for their own defeat, Afghan National Army officers, who vainly fought to save Kabul, say their defeat was manufactured in Washington, D.C.
Edward Luce, Financial Times
Many allied nations prefer the Democratic president to Trump but crave clarity about Washington's world role
George Packer, The Atlantic
Alexander Baunov, Moscow Times
A retreat from Afghanistan doesn't mean that the U.S. give up its positions so easily elsewhere.
Sultan al-Kanj & Amberin Zaman, Al Monitor
IDLIB, Syria — Islamists of various shades have hailed the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan as a major victory for global jihad. Leaders of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the powerful extremist Sunni group that rules over broad swathes of the northwestern province of Idlib and used to pay fealty to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS), are no exception, airing hope that a similar scenario will unfold in Syria with the...
Robert Kaplan, Economist
A favourable geography gives the United States many advantages over its rivals, including the ability to fail
Justin Hastings, EAF
Any spread of COVID-19 in North Korea will prove disastrous. Its healthcare system is unable to cope. Medicine and medical equipment are difficult to import due to sanctions, the border closure, the departure of humanitarian agencies and the lack of foreign currency. Even if (as North Korea claims) there is no COVID-19 in the country, North Korea's economy is undoubtedly doing it tough.
Martin Sandbu, FT
Per capita incomes flatlined over the past decade and corruption is endemic
D. Lepeska, The National
The news out of Afghanistan has been one heartbreak after another: Afghans falling from the sky; a toddler crushed in a stampede; women forced into hiding; and Hazara men massacred.
Michael Blake, Worldcrunch
Chaotic scenes in Kabul accompanied the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The fundamentalist Islamic group was able to retake power after President Joe Biden's decision to withdraw the remaining U.S. troops from the country.
Matt Pottinger, Foreign Affairs
Although many Americans were slow to realize it, Beijing's enmity for Washington began long before U.S. President Donald Trump's election in 2016 and even prior to Chinese President Xi Jinping's rise to power in 2012. Ever since taking power in 1949, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has cast the United States as an antagonist. But three decades ago, at the end of the Cold War, Chinese leaders elevated the United States from just one among many antagonists... Читать дальше...
R. Barrons with E. Braw, FP
Retired British Gen. Richard Barrons warns that the United Kingdom and European Union can no longer simply rely on the United States for their security.
Anthony Cordesman, CSIS
The U.S. already faces a crisis over managing its evacuation from Afghanistan, over how to treat Afghans that aided the U.S. in the war, and over which refugees it should allow to enter the United States. This crisis, however, is only the prelude to a far more serious crisis: How will the Taliban govern and what can be done to protect the nearly 38 to 40 million people that will now remain in Afghanistan under the Taliban's rule.
Alastair Stewart, The Scotsman
The unfolding crisis in Afghanistan is a tragedy that has exposed policy fault lines across the UK.
