207 Items

(AP Photo/Toufik Doudou)

(AP Photo/Toufik Doudou)

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

Algeria’s Second Arab Spring?

| Mar. 28, 2019

Since February, the long-entrenched regime of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has been beset by mass protests and demands for economic and political liberalization. The potent mix of anger and hope fueling the demonstrations suggests that the country's elite erred in slow-rolling earlier reforms.

Estonian Military Officer reading NATO at 70

Munich Security Conference

Analysis & Opinions - Economist

What NATO Needs To Do To Live To Its 100th Birthday

| Mar. 14, 2019

Yet as this special report has pointed out, NATO is also deeply troubled. Douglas Lute and Nicholas Burns, two former American ambassadors to NATO, say Donald Trump has “hurtled the alliance into its most worrisome crisis in memory.” The report, “NATO at Seventy,” sets out a daunting array of the challenges it faces.

Professor Nicholas Burns and Congressman Joe Kennedy III

Benn Craig/Belfer Center

Analysis & Opinions

Conversations in Diplomacy: Congressman Joe Kennedy III

| Mar. 04, 2019

In this installment of “Conversations in Diplomacy," the Future of Diplomacy Project's Faculty Chair Nicholas Burns is joined by Congressman Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), representative of the fourth congressional district of Massachusetts, for a conversation about convincing American voters that foreign policy matters. 

(MENARA)

(MENARA)

Paper

The Implications of the Syrian War For New Regional Orders

| Sep. 12, 2018

This paper argues that the impact of the eight-year war in Syria will reverberate across the region for years to come, and explores, in particular, four noteworthy legacies. First, it examines the series of interventions in Syria by regional and foreign powers (including Russia, Turkey, Iran, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) that reconfigured the role of such powers across the region. Second, it reveals the emergence of two opposing alliances in the region, each comprising Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global powers and local nonstate actors. These or similar alliances may well reappear in other Middle Eastern conflicts. Third, it analyses the striking number and variety of foreign forces that either directly fought in Syria or indirectly supported warring factions. Since 2012, these forces have included at least twenty states and major non-state players, alongside hundreds of smaller tribal, Islamist and secular rebel and pro-Assad groups. Finally, the paper suggests that the international community’s weak response to the untold war crimes on both sides, and its apparent de facto acceptance of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s incumbency, portend continuing regional authoritarian and violent political systems for the foreseeable future.

United Nations General Assembly Hall in the UN Headquarters, New York.

Basil D Soufi

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

The World After Trump

| March/April 2018 Issue

The warnings started long before Donald Trump was even a presidential candidate. For at least a decade, a growing chorus of foreign policy experts had been pointing to signs that the international order was coming apart. Authoritarian powers were flouting long-accepted rules. Failed states were radiating threats. Economies were being disrupted by technology and globalization; political systems, by populism. Meanwhile, the gap in power and influence between the United States—the leader and guarantor of the existing order—and the rest of the world was closing.