171 Items

Taliban fighters patrol on the road

AP/Abdul Khaliq, file

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Affairs

Should the United States Normalize Relations with the Taliban?

| Aug. 21, 2023

Foreign Affairs has recently published a number of articles on how the United States should engage with the Taliban government in Afghanistanextremist forces within the regimehow the West can help ordinary Afghans, and the fate of the country’s women. To complement these essays, Foreign Affairs asked a broad pool of experts for their take. As with previous surveys, Foreign Affairs approached dozens of authorities with expertise relevant to the question at hand, along with leading generalists in the field. Participants were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with a proposition and to rate their confidence level in their opinion. Two Belfer Center experts participated, International Security Executive Editor Jacqueline L. Hazelton and Future of Diplomacy Project Senior Fellow Paula Dobriansky.

US President Trump Calls the Findings of the Mueller Report a ‘Complete and Total Exoneration'

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Wall Street Journal

Mueller Report Clears President Trump — but Not President Putin

| Mar. 25, 2019

President Trump is off the hook. Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t. That seems a fair, concise reading of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, at least as summarized Sunday by Attorney General William Barr. Understandably, the first half of this formulation is getting the most attention right now, but the second half is equally important for America’s leaders and citizens to keep in mind in the months ahead.

(Economic Research Forum)

(Economic Research Forum)

Journal Article - Economic Research Forum

Is Oil Wealth Good for Private Sector Development?

| March, 2019

When do autocratic rulers in oil-producing countries support private sector development? We argue that the size of oil rents per capita has an important effect on ruler support for the rule of law, respect for private property rights, and other factors that promote private investment.

(POMEPS Studies)

(POMEPS Studies)

Report Chapter - Project on Middle East Political Science

A landing strategy for Saudi Arabia

| January, 2019

With rising population and incomes, the “rentier” mode of development in Saudi Arabia has long been unsustainable. While the issue of fiscal stabilization will occupy policy-making in Saudi Arabia in the short and medium terms, the long-term challenge of finding new sources of growth to complement oil has only been made starker by the recent drop in oil prices. Analysis of the prospects for such reforms in KSA has long been divided between two opposite camps: those who believe that the inadequacies of the rentier model will necessarily usher a doomsday scenario sooner or later, regardless of economic policies; and those who believe the impending crisis can be met by moving from the current mono-sector economy to a modern and diversified knowledge based economy OECD-style.

teaser image

Analysis & Opinions

KNX InDepth

| Dec. 19, 2018
President Trump declared on Twitter that ISIS had been totally defeated, and then got to work executing a surprising and rapid withdrawal of American military and state department personnel from Syria. The problem is, U.S. intelligence agencies seem to disagree with the President's victory declaration.

teaser image

Analysis & Opinions - Vanity Fair

“He Doesn’t See the Value for the U.S.”: Trump’s Syria Ultimatum Gives Washington Whiplash

| Dec. 19, 2018

In a single cryptic tweet Wednesday, Donald Trump declared that the U.S. mission in Syria had been accomplished. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” the president wrote. Shortly afterward, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed that troops would begin returning home “as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.” It was not immediately clear what Trump or Sanders meant, or what would happen to the reported 2,000 troops currently working alongside Kurdish fighters against Islamic militants in northeastern Syria.

Anti-Trump protest in London in summer 2018

Loco Steve/ Flickr

Analysis & Opinions

Donald Trump

| Dec. 11, 2018

Some Presidents have plans to change the world. They execute their strategies step by step and are judged by how far they get. Donald Trump came to the presidency by surprise and has attended to its responsibilities erratically. And yet, just as he rewrote the rules of politics in 2016 and remade the presidency in 2017, Trump left his mark on the planet this year.