Myrtle Beach, SC Both halves are partly right and the arithmetic settles which one matters more, so let me do the arithmetic. Total US foreign assistance runs somewhere under seventy billion dollars a year. USAID's share was around forty billion. Federal outlays are roughly six and three-quarter trillion. So the entire foreign aid budget is … Continue reading Do cuts and pauses in foreign-aid and humanitarian vehicles prove that a lot of spending had no domestic constituency — or that efficiency campaigns always start with the least-lobbied accounts rather than the largest ones?
foreign policy
What are the strategic consequences of the U.S. decision to reduce its presence in northeastern Syria and the subsequent Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces?
Cheyenne, Wyoming Correspondent My son is in the National Guard, and the Wyoming Guard has sent people to the Middle East on every rotation since 2003, so I will say at the start that I have wanted American soldiers out of Syria for as long as they have been there, that I was glad when … Continue reading What are the strategic consequences of the U.S. decision to reduce its presence in northeastern Syria and the subsequent Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces?
Can the protests in Sudan and Algeria produce durable democratic transitions, or are they more likely to result in elite bargains that preserve existing power structures?
Sheffield, Jamaica Correspondent The question offers two outcomes, a durable democratic transition or an elite bargain that preserves existing power, and I want to begin by saying that in my experience of how small states change governments the two are not alternatives. Every durable transition I know of was an elite bargain, and most elite … Continue reading Can the protests in Sudan and Algeria produce durable democratic transitions, or are they more likely to result in elite bargains that preserve existing power structures?
What does the election of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine reveal about public dissatisfaction with established political elites, and how might it affect the country’s conflict with Russia?
Sheffield, Jamaica Correspondent I want to answer the question that was asked before I answer the question everyone is asking, because the two have become confused in the past ten days and the confusion is itself a lesson. The question asked is what Volodymyr Zelensky's election reveals about dissatisfaction with elites and what it means … Continue reading What does the election of Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine reveal about public dissatisfaction with established political elites, and how might it affect the country’s conflict with Russia?
Can the Hong Kong protests sustain momentum, and what do they signal about the future of “one country, two systems”?
Sydney, Australia Correspondent There are about a hundred thousand Australians in Hong Kong and several hundred thousand Hong Kongers in Australia, a great many of them in the suburbs around me, and for the past eleven weeks the question in those households has not been whether the protests can sustain momentum but whether the people … Continue reading Can the Hong Kong protests sustain momentum, and what do they signal about the future of “one country, two systems”?
After the Christchurch mosque attacks, how are governments and social-media platforms responding to the spread of white-nationalist extremism?
Sydney, Australia Correspondent The man who did this was ours. He grew up in Grafton, in northern New South Wales, worked at a gym, inherited some money, travelled, and spent two years in New Zealand preparing, and when he was done he wrote in his manifesto that he had chosen Christchurch because it would show … Continue reading After the Christchurch mosque attacks, how are governments and social-media platforms responding to the spread of white-nationalist extremism?
Is the growing migrant caravan from Central America primarily a humanitarian, security, or political issue, and what policy responses does it demand?
Prescott Valley, Arizona Correspondent The question gives me three boxes to choose from, and I taught long enough to distrust any question that comes with its own boxes, so let me say at the outset that the caravan is all three and that the order in which a person ranks them tells you more about … Continue reading Is the growing migrant caravan from Central America primarily a humanitarian, security, or political issue, and what policy responses does it demand?
Is the United Kingdom on a sustainable path toward an orderly Brexit, or is the process heading toward deeper political and economic disruption?
Sydney, Australia Correspondent Australians have a particular stake in this question, and not the sentimental one. Britain is the country that left us behind once already, in 1973, when it joined the Common Market and gave up Commonwealth preference, and the Australian economy spent a decade reorienting toward Japan and then China as a result. … Continue reading Is the United Kingdom on a sustainable path toward an orderly Brexit, or is the process heading toward deeper political and economic disruption?
What are the implications of the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia?
Cheyenne, Wyoming Correspondent F.E. Warren Air Force Base is on the west edge of this city, and under the prairie around it, in three states, are a hundred and fifty Minuteman missiles that the airmen stationed here drive out to tend in all weather. Those are intercontinental missiles; the treaty the President says he is … Continue reading What are the implications of the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia?
How should the United States and its allies respond to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the evidence pointing to Saudi leadership?
Long Island, New York Correspondent I spent ten years watching prosecutors build cases, and the thing I learned about a suspect who changes his story is that the changes tell you more than any single version does. A man who says he was never there, then says he was there but left, then says there … Continue reading How should the United States and its allies respond to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the evidence pointing to Saudi leadership?
