Images from Afghanistan have flooded the news media this year as the US completed its chaotic withdrawal. Crowds of Afghans desperate to escape the Taliban takeover flocked to Kabul airport despite the risk of terrorist attacks. Just a fraction made it onto evacuation flights, and those who remain...
The upheaval in Afghanistan was undoubtedly one of the most shocking events of the year. It will likely have fatal consequences for the Afghan people, neighboring countries and the international community. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is so devastating that it is impossible to predict the...
Twenty years have passed since the 9/11 attacks in the United States. It was in the immediate aftermath that US President George W. Bush declared his infamous “war on terror” and launched a cataclysmic campaign of occupation in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2001, a US-led coalition invaded...
The concept of decolonizing the curriculum within British higher education returned to the spotlight this year with the Sewell Report on ethnic and racial disparities. While there are myriad problems and risks in downplaying institutional racism, the section of the report that criticizes...
It is now well known that younger officers in the Pakistani army are no longer members of the Scotch-swilling elite. To understand the growing radicalization in Pakistan, it is instructive to read Nadeem F. Paracha, a noted columnist in Dawn, Pakistan’s most reputed newspaper. In 2013, he...
Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has been transformed into a paranoid state fanatically motivated by ensuring security at any and all cost. This obsession stems from the desire to maintain the physical security of the Chinese mainland, to safeguard Beijing’s investments abroad...
Following the fall of Kabul in August, the first face-to-face meeting between US officials and the Taliban took place last week. As is typical in such first encounters, both sides came with their respective agendas, including demands and requests of the other side. The one issue on which both...
Until recently, France appeared to be on the way out, the Australian-American betrayal on the submarine deal the coup de grace, the ultimate humiliation for what once was known as the grande nation. Grand no longer, a nation at risk, collective psyche in the dumpster: autumn in France. Things...
In early September, with the war in Afghanistan officially over and the Middle East retreating from the media’s landscape, The New York Times began preparing the American public for the next theater of war. This time it will be just off the coast of mainland China, in Taiwan. There will be no...
Organized crime is an ever-evolving, transnational threat that affects every country in the world and poses a global threat to peace and security. It transcends borders and undermines sustainable development, governance, economic stability and public health. Nations experiencing conflict and its...
