Diplomacy and International Politics

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.

Most public discussion this winter reflects a conviction that Ukraine must — and can — win a decisive victory. But what constitutes a win against a country such as Russia? As we consider the road ahead, we cannot escape the brute fact that Putin commands an arsenal of roughly 6,000 nuclear weapons that could kill us all.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns speaks to CNN's Jim Sciutto about the Iran crisis.

Decades after invading Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, the US now is negotiating with them.

Washington should adjust its coercive economic strategy to reflect a broader use of tools beyond sanctions. Given the degree of political interference in China’s banking system via formal state ownership and the indirect influence of opaque party committees, penalties imposed against the country’s banks are unlikely to produce a meaningful change in behavior.

Like with the Soviet Union, America once again finds itself in a global competition with Beijing today, albeit with many more consequences for Washington’s financial statecraft.