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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 Afghanistan, extremist forces within the regime, how 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.

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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.

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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.

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, taken Sept. 23, 2016, a destroyed ambulance is seen outside the Syrian Civil Defense main center after airstrikes in the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo, Syria.

AP

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

The Great Myth About U.S. Intervention in Syria

| October 24, 2016

"...[B]y far the worst argument for intervening in Syria is the suggestion that greater U.S. involvement is necessary to preserve U.S. credibility, to maintain its reputation as a distinctly moral great power, or to preserve the respect of allies and adversaries alike. The historical record shows that not intervening in humanitarian tragedies has had little impact on America's standing in the past, and the same is true today."

Transport through the South China Sea

Flickr Creative Commons

Analysis & Opinions - The Oregonian

Can a rebuked China manage its anger?

| July 27, 2016

China suffered a significant setback this month in its bid for dominance in the South China Sea, and its leaders are following a familiar script after such reversals: They’re making angry statements but taking little action while they assess the situation. David Ignatius, Senior Fellow at the Future of Diplomacy Project, dives into the backlash of the Permanent Court of Arbitration decision against China's dominance of the waters.

Damaged vehicles are seen on the debris of buildings after the airstrikes carried out by Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted Aleppo, Syria.

Getty Images/Anadolu Agency

Analysis & Opinions - Agence Global

Syria becomes even more complicated

| July 23, 2016

"The failed military coup in Turkey and the country’s many links with key regional actors in Syria, Russia, Iran, and NATO clarify how difficult it has become to achieve political solutions to individual conflicts, because local, national, regional, and global interests of any single party do not line up nicely in a coherent and clear balance sheet of desirables and undesirables..."