Conflict & Conflict Resolution

Contrary to what US President Donald Trump would like to believe, a pandemic like COVID-19 was predicted as recently as last year. After being caught off guard by yet another catastrophe, one wonders when political leaders, markets, and average citizens will start to take risk seriously.

The spread of the coronavirus is scary everywhere. But in Syria, which has faced war for more than nine years, humanitarian aid and health care is already stretched razor-thin.

As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson informed the nation on Monday evening of dramatic new restrictions to stem the spread of coronavirus, Brexit was the last thing on most Britons’ minds. For most citizens and businesses, little has changed in their daily lives since the U.K. left the European Union (EU) on January 31. Although the British government no longer participates in EU decision making institutions, the country remains bound by its rules and enjoys the benefits of membership during a transition period lasting until December 31.

Joseph S. Nye: U.S. and China Need a More Cooperative Security Stance

Amy Austin Holmes is the Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar with the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative. An Associate Professor of Sociology at the American University in Cairo, she has lived and taught in the Middle East since 2008 and is an expert on minority groups such as Kurds, Syriac-Assyrian Christians, and Nubians. She is the author of the 2019 book Coups and Revolutions: Mass Mobilization, the Egyptian Military, and the United States from Mubarak to Sisi.

In the Q&A section of this newsletter, we asked Amy Austin Holmes about her work.

Could using the cash in your pocket have the potential to spread covid-19? That question has rarely appeared in the news, but many governments and leaders in the digital payments industry are wondering how the virus might impact the use of cash. Several countries have already taken drastic measures to limit circulation of bank notes. Could such interventions lead to the end of cash payments?

Among the many things affected by COVID-19 is the electoral process. As Americans debate the wisdom of continuing primary contests for the Democratic presidential nominee, European leaders are struggling with scheduled local, regional, parliamentary, and presidential elections. Thus far, most countries have erred on the side of caution.

Because hand-to-hand exchange of physical currency could transmit the coronavirus, countries around the world are being forced to reconsider the use of cash. In fact, COVID-19 might turn out to be the catalyst that finally brings digital payments fully into the mainstream. Not surprisingly, the digital-payments industry is already focusing on the opportunities created by the crisis.

Federal and local regulations are part of the solution to tough issues related to Artificial Intelligence, writes K. Gretchen Greene, but no regulatory approach on its own can fully answer these questions today. "Finding answers will require significant investments in research and development, collaboration, negotiation, and experimentation, deep and careful thought across many fields and leadership at all levels, across and between governments. The U.S. federal government is well positioned to lead, but if it won't, it should at least stay out of the way."

In an unscheduled, but quite choreographed appearance at the State Duma this week, Vladimir Putin has blessed a constitutional amendment that would allow him to stay in the Kremlin through 2036. “The President is the guarantor of the Constitution or, simply put, the guarantor of the country’s security, domestic stability and, as I said before, evolutionary development,” Putin told the lower chamber on March 10. What the 67-year-old leader, who may end up ruling Russia longer than Ivan the Terrible, did not mention in his address to the lower chamber, however, is that his lifetime presidency would actually bode ill for the stability of the country in the longer-term.