World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Within few hours both Herat and Kandahar fell to the Taliban. The fall of Afghanistan’s third and second most populous cities, respectively, meant that the fate of the capital Kabul would not be different. As expected, the first reaction from the major Western powers, which had troops and…

When the United States waged the Iraq War, which was preceded by the Afghanistan war two years prior, the US accompanied it with an abundance of ideology and military scarcity. Far fewer forces headed to Baghdad than the battles demanded. The alliance that George W. Bush built to this end was…

Some observers wonder if Afghanistan is a model for Biden’s policy in the Middle East. One article in Foreign Policy online from August 19 said Iraqis worry that perhaps Biden will abandon Iraq too, and an August 29 article in the Emirati National News online asked the same question. I urge readers…

A fourth surge of Covid-19 is filling hospitals around the United States, fueled by the relaxing of mitigation measures, the more transmissible Delta variant and lagging vaccination rates. In states and counties where Delta is surging, contact tracers are overwhelmed. But monitoring the spread of…

The Biden administration wants people who got the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines to seek a “booster” shot several months after their second dose, if the Food and Drug Administration deems them safe and effective. (Third doses are already authorized for immune compromised people.) Notably…

For much of its history, the United States was a big country with a small peacetime military. World War II changed that permanently: American leaders decided that a country with new global obligations needed a very large peacetime military, including a nuclear arsenal and a worldwide network of…

While the availability of vaccines refocused the US response to the pandemic, many policy questions remain. Should vaccinated people get boosters? Does everyone need to wear a mask? Are unvaccinated children safe in schools? We think much of the confusion and disagreement among scientists and…

The best part of my job as host of the Masters in Business podcast is that I get to sit down with an incredibly talented and accomplished person each week to discuss their life and career. I save my favorite question for last: “What do you know today about your chosen field that you wish you knew…

As any unfortunate investor in Chinese stocks already knows, the state is striking back. Perhaps the leaders of the Communist Party believe they are righting wrongs and solving problems. But their new intrusions also betray a bit of amnesia. They seem to have forgotten what really made China great…

The cascade of crises in Afghanistan has left many Americans wondering if our credibility on the world stage has suffered a mortal blow. Not since the fall of Saigon and the ignominious evacuation of the last Americans in 1975 has the United States been so vulnerable to fundamental questions about…

There must be no repeat of 2015. That’s been the refrain from politicians across the European Union as they watch the unfolding humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, which can be expected sooner or later to cause renewed mass migration. These European politicians include candidates for…

In 2015, when the garbage crisis erupted in Lebanon, we found ourselves thrown into a strange situation: all the Lebanese, with no sectarian or regional affiliations, were suffering from the problem. At the same time, many villages and towns yelled out: don’t bury “strangers’” trash in our area…