Policymakers in the United States and Europe have adopted the position that their mission is to promote democracy worldwide, regularly arguing that if they fail, authoritarian governments will exploit American restraint and join forces. Read More Here
It is now clear that there was no Afghan state, no government, no military. These were convenient fictions, phantasms, if you will, that were invoked by successive administrations to justify America’s presence as an occupying power. But no sooner did Biden pullout than the entire Potemkin village came crashing down. Read More Here
The swift fall of Kabul recalls the ignominious fall of Saigon in 1975. Beyond the local consequences – widespread reprisals, harsh repression of women and girls, and massive refugee flows – America’s strategic and moral failure in Afghanistan will reinforce questions about US reliability among friends and foes alike. Read More Here
Afghans are entering a new stage in their country’s troubled history, with many of them fearing for their lives and their freedoms, as the government of President Ashraf Ghani collapsed Sunday and Taliban fighters entered Kabul and took over the presidential palace. Read More Here
Even as the United States pulls back from the Middle East, some in the U.S. foreign policy community believe that the region will be among the places where a so-called great-power competition between Washington and Beijing will play out. Read More Here
Not only is the endgame of the armed conflict in Afghanistan undetermined. There are also questions about how moderate the Taliban will ever be, which has a tremendous impact on Chinese officials’ perception of, and policy toward, the organization. Read More Here
Even before Thursday’s swearing-in of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s incoming, hard-line president, the Islamic Republic was escalating hostilities on several fronts in the Middle East. Now Tehran is only likely to get more aggressive, experts say, and that means U.S. President Joe Biden—like so many of his predecessors—may not get his wish to downgrade the region’s […]
In the past two decades, China has risen further and faster on more dimensions than any nation in history. As it has done so, it has become a serious rival of what had been the world’s sole superpower. Read More Here
The way ordinary Americans think about trade is very different from the way economists and policy wonks think about it. Most people do not have accurate knowledge of how trade affects them personally: they do not support trade if they stand to gain from it or oppose it because it will hurt them economically. Read More Here
Beijing’s move to set out demands for Washington in their latest talks suggests it is taking a more pragmatic approach to handling tense relations with its rival, according to analysts. Read More Here
looking beyond borders 