World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Over the last several years, that famous poem has been quoted countless times: “The center cannot hold,” William Butler Yeats wrote, before adding, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” People cited it so often because it was true. But it was not so…

Keep the airspeed, altitude and course steady: That was the mantra for American pilots who regularly encountered Soviet aircraft during the Cold War. And the Soviets often returned the favor. Off the coast near the Russian port city of Vladivostok, helicopter pilots from US Navy frigates kept an…

The people of the South are aware of “the responsibility Hezbollah bears for leaving the state suspended and the interests of the Lebanese women and men marginalized to the benefit of its interests and commitments.” This phrase is not taken from a closed internal meeting but came at the beginning…

I am reading many analyses of the geostrategic implications of the war in Ukraine and its economic impact around the world. Unfortunately, there is no serious discussion yet about the negative consequences from the Ukraine crisis on refugees and displaced people in the Middle East, especially Syria…

India, the world’s largest democracy, has abstained in yet another United Nations vote to condemn Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Commentators in the United States are beginning to wonder how reliable an ally India can be. The White House and Congress should handle any…

Sitting on the fence is uncomfortable. Faced with a geopolitical fight that is both unthinkably brutal and sprawling in its consequences, Beijing officials are finding that such a posture might also, in the long run, be impossible. When President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he appears to…

The free and open World Wide Web has for years been moving toward becoming a patchwork of information siloes, divided by national borders. That shift towards a so-called splinternet(1)accelerated over the weekend, when Russian officials announced they were limiting access to Facebook products,…

Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates eloquently summed up the state of the world generally and that of Western countries in particular after the Russian attack on Ukraine. “Our holiday from history is over.” The holiday began with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet camp in 1989…

Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine seems to be totally unexpected for the Chinese leadership. When the war is over, whoever prevails in the Eastern European theater, China would be the one who loses the most in East Asia. China was one of the most surprised by the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s…

The yellow and blue of Ukraine’s flag, which was banned during the Soviet era, has become a powerful global symbol after Russia’s invasion. It’s been beamed onto landmarks from New York to Sarajevo, splashed across social media, and waved during anti-war protests around the world. It has also…

I have good news and bad news for you. Let’s start with the bad: a concept I call Depressing Math. Check this out: That’s one box for every week of a 90-year life. It often feels like we have countless weeks ahead of us. But actually, it’s just a few thousand — a small-enough number to fit…

The French call it retourner sa veste — to turn one’s coat to fit the changing political times. And with widespread international condemnation of Russia growing as its forces close in on Ukraine’s capital, there is a lot of coat-turning happening across Europe. Traditionally pro-Putin political…