World News Insights: Opinion Articles

The Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan is, first and foremost, a tragedy for Afghans. The world’s attention is rightly focused on trying to help those desperately trying to flee the country and worrying about those left behind, notably women and girls. But it is also a severe blow to the West…

BMW AG is set to effectively bail out its flailing Chinese joint-venture partner. For the German carmaker, that’s a smart move. BMW’s China unit is close to a deal to buy production assets worth $252 million from the parent of its main partner, Brilliance Auto, Bloomberg News reported citing…

A paradox of President Joe Biden’s decision to end the war in Afghanistan is his vow to keep fighting the wider battle against terrorism even in the country he has just abandoned. It has been a theme of Biden’s administration since he announced the unconditional withdrawal in April. The…

Before the ink could dry on India’s quarterly gross domestic product statistics, officials have been quick to parade last quarter’s 20% growth as vindication of their prediction of “imminent V-shaped recovery.” How sensible is that claim? The April-June period was when the pandemic overwhelmed…

China is not a fan of video games. Earlier this week, a government agency announced new rules that would restrict the time that minors’ can play online games to about three hours a week — down drastically from a prior limit of roughly 10 hours. Beijing has said the constraints were imposed to…

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…