James Holmes, 1945
You have to be there to combat terrorism—or any other martial challenge for that matter. This is Strategy 101: the likely victor is the contender that amasses superior strength at the place and time of battle. It overpowers its foe. That being the case, the combatant that resides near likely battlegrounds commands an advantage over a rival that must come from far away and can mount only an episodic presence in the theater.
Jeffrey Sachs, Boston Globe
David Herszenhorn, Politico EU
The 20-year, U.S.-led effort to turn Afghanistan into a stable, democratic country failed. But when it comes to the political and policy implications for the EU, a different F-word comes to mind.
Janan Ganesh, FT
Intervention overseas is too ingrained in Washington for presidents to resist for long
Rajiv Shah, Foreign Affairs
In August 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met aboard the USS Augusta in the waters off Newfoundland to discuss the war then raging in Europe and Asia. As they considered the future, the two leaders remembered the past. The deprivations and divisions fueled by World War I and the Great Depression, they knew, had eventually led to the devastation of World War II.
Council on Foreign Relations
Top Bush administration lawyers issue the first [PDF] in a series of classified memos providing legal justification for a wartime president to authorize "enhanced interrogation" methods such as waterboarding, stress positions, and extended sleep deprivation. The controversial guidance, which is not revealed...
Dexter Filkins, New Yorker
Why efforts to curb the cruelty of military force may have backfired.
T. Barber, FT
By temperament and political belief, Scholz has little in common with the SPD's leftwing base. Like Helmut Schmidt, a former SPD chancellor, he built his political career in Hamburg, the port-city whose citizens are famous for their resolute common sense. It was Schmidt who once said: "Anyone with visions should go to the doctor."
Bernard-Henri Lévy, Tablet
Even in the midst of deep humiliation, there are still signs of the exceptional nation I've loved since childhood
Shuja Nawaz, East Asia Forum
Imran Khan became Prime Minister of Pakistan in 2018 after defeating entrenched dynastic political parties that had been alternating in government for decades. His Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) had not been a strong force on the national scene but promised a ‘tsunami' of change to produce a ‘New Pakistan'. It is struggling to fulfill that promise.
Jonathan Miller, Spectator
The French President has been saved by Covid
A. Rawnsley, G'dian
Britain urgently needs to repair its relations with its neighbours but Boris Johnson's government is singularly ill-equipped to do so
Edward Lucas, The Times
'Losing deposits", to the tune of Waltzing Matilda, is the unofficial, self-deprecating anthem of the Liberal Democrats. I sang it often in my youth. It exempli
Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy
The attacks could be viewed as a historical turning point—or as entirely insignificant.
Thomas Hegghammer, Foreign Affairs
"What," I sometimes ask students in a class I teach on the history of terrorism, "was the name of the Islamic State's branch in Europe?" It is a trick question: the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) never set up a full-fledged European branch. The group's self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, knew better than to try. By 2014, when ISIS formalized its split from al Qaeda and established itself as the dominant player in the global Salafi-jihadi movement... Читать дальше...
