Middle East & North Africa

As NATO enters its 70th year of existence the challenges to Europe’s security are as much in flux as are the appropriate answers to deal with them. Moreover, the framework of dealing with European security has extended beyond the present members of NATO and the EU as former members of the Soviet Union struggle to become democracies whose fate has therefore become a concern to the West.

NPR's All Thing Considered talked to Amanda Sloat, Fellow at the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, about Turkey's investigation into the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Karl Kaiser, Senior Associate of the Belfer Center's Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship, gives his view on the recent U.S. administration's criticism of the International Criminal Court in the latest issue of Metro U.N. magazine.

For the first time during the Syrian civil war, the US has shot down a Syrian aircraft. In response, Russia has threatened to target any aircraft, including US aircraft, that fly west of the Euphrates River.

While Washington and the media were preoccupied with James Comey hearings and Donald Trump press conferences this week, what else was going on that we didn't hear about? Or, ought to be paying closer attention to? The World's Marco Werman talked to Nick Burns to find out. 

Anne-Marie Slaughter, the president of New America Foundation, says the Russians hacked the presidential election and the U.S. needs to respond, but the national trauma of 9/11 and the Iraq War has made the U.S. more timid and reluctant to use force. Prior to that, Deutsche Bank’s Sebastien Galy says the catalyst for a stronger dollar will be better data in the U.S. Then, Tony Dwyer, Canaccord Genuity’s chief market strategist, says you should never sell until you’re in close proximity to a recession. Nicholas Burns, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, says you need to work across borders to counter modern terrorism. Finally, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of University of California, Irvine’s School of Law, says Neil Gorsuch is smart and articulate but isn’t answering many questions in Congress.

"What happens when, after another dozen major attacks, the chain of their barbarism outpaces the chain of our human solidarity? When is the permissible moment to start asking if we can muster as much wisdom and realism to fight terror as we do to harness emotions of solidarity? The recent increasing pace and widening geographic scope of terror suggest we are dealing with a qualitatively new kinds of terrorists — but the policy responses of governments and the emotional responses of entire societies suggest we have no idea how to respond to quell this monster."

"As 2015 comes to a close, the annual numbers of migrants smuggled to Greece and Italy and asylum claims lodged in Germany have passed a million, as well as the number of additional displacements produced this year by the conflict in Syria. Moreover, Europe’s Mediterranean shore has now the unchallenged title of the world’s most lethal border. Not only this. The migrant crisis is also putting to the test some of Europe’s most fundamental values, from the freedom of circulation within its territories, to international protection beyond..."