South Asia

Stephen Walt analyzes why "the single most indefensible and brain-dead aspect of U.S. foreign policy today remains the fruitless but never-ending effort to defeat the Taliban and achieve some sort of meaningful victory in Afghanistan."

President Donald J. Trump’s tweet this weekend that the U.S. might terminate all trade with countries doing business with North Korea was widely derided on the grounds of realism. Given that 90 percent of North Korea’s trade is with China, the tweet was little more than a veiled threat to terminate all U.S. trade with Beijing, ending a bilateral trade relationship valued at $650 billion a year. It would, as many correctly pointed out, mean economic disaster for North Korea -- and also for the U.S.

In the global revulsion at the recent terror attacks in four Muslim countries, the United States and its allies have a new opportunity to build a unified command against the Islamic State and other extremists. FDP Senior Fellow David Ignatius examines the diplomatic relationships needed to create an effective counterterrorism strategy.

The tensions unsettling the Saudi royal family became clear in September, when Joseph Westphal, the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh, flew to Jiddah to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, nominally the heir to the throne. But when he arrived, he was told that the deputy crown prince, a brash 30-year-old named Mohammed bin Salman, wanted to see him urgently. Senior Fellow, David Ignatius, discusses Mohammed bin Salman opportunity to transform Saudi Arabia.

Professor Burns shares his key takeaways from the "Future of Afghanistan" conference he co-hosted on April 4-5 at Harvard. Like most wars, this will not be won on the battlefield; rather, it will be brought to an end in a negotiated solution between the Afghan government and the Taliban. He reminds us that the U.S. government has a basic responsibility, moral as well as political, to stay involved as the majority of Afghans wish, but that we should seek greater political and financial support from Afghanistan’s powerful neighbors — Russia, China, India, and Iran.