Until two weeks ago, Western officials could, and did, excuse MbS’s domestic authoritarianism by citing his apparent reordering of a Saudi Islam as being moderate rather than the extremist version which produced, via irresponsible religious education and charitable giving, 9/11 and the Islamic State. Not any longer. Read Here – The Hill Also Read: The Irony […]
The catalogue of apocalypses is thick, and its contents are easy to mock. There are many who are skeptical about current global-warming claims in part because they remember that only a few decades ago we were in a worldwide panic about global cooling and the new ice age that was supposed to be descending upon […]
Nearly two years into the Trump administration, over two dozen ambassador posts remain unfilled and without a nominee—including the ambassador positions in both Turkey and Saudi Arabia. That staffing gap issue resurfaced in the past week when Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi—who is also a U.S. resident—went missing in Turkey amid reports that he was murdered inside […]
A growing number of Chinese have rushed to obtain long-stay visas or property in friendly foreign countries as an insurance policy against a worsening of domestic conditions. Spurred on by a lack of investment options at home and rattled by the sweeping anti-corruption campaign of President Xi Jinping, those with significant assets are looking for […]
From the military juntas that ruled Argentina and Chile in the 1970s and 1980s to Joseph Stalin’s iron-fisted regime in the Soviet Union, dictatorships have a long history of making their detractors “disappear.” Today, this sinister practice seems to be making a comeback. Read Here – Project Syndicate
As the consensus in D.C. shifts toward taking on an increasingly aggressive China, ideas about how corporations relate to the state will also have to change—or else undermine their new stated national framework. Read Here – Foreign Policy
“Political South Asia” was an invention of the 1980s. It has not survived the test of time. As India’s footprint goes way beyond the Subcontinent, Bangladesh becomes the throbbing heart of the Bay of Bengal and an economic bridge to East Asia and Sri Lanka emerges as an Indian Ocean hub, Delhi needs to reimagine […]
The fate of Khashoggi has at least provoked global outrage, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. We are told he was a liberal, Saudi progressive voice fighting for freedom and democracy, and a martyr who paid the ultimate price for telling the truth to power. This is not just wrong, but distracts us from […]
At first shrill and chaotic, Europe’s outrage at Trump’s take-no-prisoners Iran policy has now found a bold and practical course of action. A core group of creative European civil servants has devised several economic mechanisms meant to demonstrate the EU’s continued support for the nuclear deal, deliver Iran its economic benefits, and assert Europe’s ability […]
Finally, and perhaps ultimately what may prove most decisive of these factors, the notorious Great Game—in which outside powers have intervened in and jousted over Afghanistan for a century and a half—is proving surprisingly propitious in terms of a rare coinciding of the interests of these countries. Read Here – The National Interest
looking beyond borders 