In The News

Saudis Have Lost the Right to Take Sunni Leadership

David Gardner August 13, 2014
Governments that secretly fund intolerant extremists to harm opponents lose credibility in the international community and with their own citizens. In a globalized world, such financing connections are transparent, and the international community must devote scarce resources to battle groups with bizarre goals, like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Such extremist groups are...

Brutality and “the Beast”: Why Child Migration to US Is Slowing Down

Gabriel Stargardter August 13, 2014
The numbers of children detained after crossing the US southern border is slowing. A Reuters team points to tighter enforcement at the border and for cargo trains moving northward, including increasing the speed of trains; road checkpoints; anecdotal tales about crime and drug gangs; high profile arrests and a US advertising campaign on the dangers associated with the journey. “The sight of...

ASEAN Paralysis Gives China Free Hand in South China Sea

Bertil Lintner August 12, 2014
The United States would prefer that ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, unite in demanding an end to China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea. But two principles, consensus decision-making and non-interference in the internal affairs of member states, guide ASEAN. “In effect, ASEAN finds it impossible to take any unified stand in regional conflicts – or address bilateral issues...

Obama Authorizes Air Strikes on ISIS to Help Iraqis Besieged on Mountain

August 8, 2014
After invading Iraq in 2003, the United States struggled to repair the bitter Shia-Sunni divide and install a system of governance more stable than that of brutal dictator Saddam Hussein. After US troops withdrew in 2011, a relatively small group of militants fighting in Syria took advantage of a power vacuum to impose what they call an Islamic State, also known as IS, ISIS or ISIL, rapidly...

Clashes With Russia Point to Globalization's End

Mark Leonard August 7, 2014
Russia hopes to wield control over bordering states like Ukraine and block them from close ties with the United States and the European Union. The US and EU countered Russia’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine with sanctions and Russia responded by targeting McDonald’s restaurants as unsanitary. Unraveling symbols of cooperation could be the undoing of globalization, and trade can be used...

The Social Laboratory

Shane Harris August 4, 2014
Big data – “emails, phone logs, Internet searches, airline reservations, hotel bookings, credit card transactions, medical reports” – can point to patterns in motivation and behavior. Eager to expand such programs for security purposes, some US officials envy Singapore’s law-and-order attitudes and the uninterrupted power of the People's Action Party since 1959: “They are drawn not just to...

The World Cannot Afford a Cold War

Nayan Chanda August 4, 2014
Europe and the United States regard Russia as a pariah since the downing of a Malaysian passenger airliner and support of insurgents in eastern Ukraine. A new Cold War could be in the making: “Far from the ideological struggle between two nuclear-armed rivals of the last century, it would represent a battle of political will between a democratic alliance of 28 European countries and the US on one...