Former Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa waves to supporters during a party convention held to announce the presidential candidacy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Aug. 11, 2019 (AP photo by Eranga Jayawardena).

Populist politicians, who have been sweeping to power in countries across the globe, build their appeal partly on claims that they will base their policies on the needs and interests of the people. But once in power, their decisions, often ill-conceived, can create grave problems for the very voters they purport to champion. For proof, look no further than what has befallen the people of Sri Lanka. In recent months, life in the island nation has turned into a grinding, ever-worsening ordeal. What started as a government debt crisis has devolved into broader economic turmoil, marked by critical shortages of […]

Then-President Ronald Reagan shakes hands with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after the two leaders signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in the White House East Room in Washington, Dec. 8, 1987 (AP photo by Bob Daugherty).

The Cold War was bookended by two signal developments—one scientific and technical, the other political and diplomatic—that opened and seemingly closed a terrible parenthesis in the history of the 20th century, but also of humankind. The first was the invention of nuclear weapons. The second was the process by which the U.S. and Russia gradually but methodically rolled back the threat of nuclear war in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. When the U.S. reduced Hiroshima and then Nagasaki to rubble with just one atomic bomb apiece in the final days of World War II, military strategists and […]

Volunteers provide refugees from Ukraine with relief goods after they arrive at the main train station in Berlin, Germany, March 15, 2022 (AP photo by Markus Schreiber).

AMSTERDAM—Back in February, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, a meme went viral on Facebook: “Just booked a Kiev AirBnB for 1 week, simply as a means of getting cash into the hands of Kiev residents. It’s really cheap and can make a small difference right now.” The phenomenon, known as “ghost-bookings,” became a simple, personalized, grassroots method to provide resources to and demonstrate solidarity with Ukraine’s civilian population, while assisting Airbnb hosts in Kyiv who were housing internally displaced persons, or IDPs, fleeing from the invasion further east. This sort of grassroots effort has become not only common […]

A Free Syrian Army fighter holds a rocket-propelled grenade launcher while taking cover after a tank blast in Aleppo, Syria, Sept. 26, 2012 (AP photo by Manu Brabo.)

For the community of analysts that have focused on Syria’s civil war over the past decade, the images of bombed out Ukrainian cities, civilian casualties and refugees flooding across the border over the past month are bitterly familiar. As a policy problem, too, the war in Ukraine invites obvious comparisons to the Syrian conflict. Both raise questions about the costs and benefits of U.S. intervention. Both, of course, involve Russia. And in both cases, “realism” has somehow become synonymous with non-interventionism in the U.S. policy discourse.  In fact, those that make a career out of non-interventionism while casting themselves as […]

A little girl runs past soldier with his weapon drawn, during a surprise operation in the City of God slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Feb. 7, 2018 (AP photo by Leo Correa).

It has now been nearly a month since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Though the shockwaves of this invasion will continue to be felt for years to come, the world has slowly started to process the crisis and to examine the rapid developments in Ukraine more analytically. One clear pattern in particular has emerged from close observation of Russia’s military tactics, Ukraine’s defensive strategies and the international system’s response: The main battlegrounds in this conflict are Ukraine’s cities.  As of March 16, Russian forces were attempting to surround Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city, from multiple angles, while simultaneously targeting its second-largest […]

Russian servicemen ride a military vehicle along a road near the border with Ukraine, in Crimea, Russia (Sputnik photo by Konstantin Mihalchevskiy via AP).

News headlines this week warned that Russia is recruiting mercenaries to scale up its operations in Ukraine. Some 16,000 fighters from Syria and other Arab states have already volunteered, joining the hundreds of Russian mercenaries that were already reportedly operating in Ukraine. The whiff of guns-for-hire was seen as a sign that an even more ruthless phase of the conflict may be ahead. But considering how states have used privatized force in the past, it seems unlikely that mercenaries will introduce any risk factors that could make the conflict much worse than it already is. That says something both about the current state […]

Refugees fleeing conflict in neighboring Ukraine arrive at Przemysl, Poland, Feb. 26, 2022 (AP photo by Petr David Josek).

In last week’s Wrap-Up, I noted that the war in Ukraine was entering a new phase, one in which the human costs of Russia’s brutal siege tactics will become more evident, even as whatever political objectives Russian President Vladimir Putin initially sought to accomplish through the invasion become increasingly unachievable. The course of the fighting in the week since then has only reinforced that conclusion. While both sides are engaged in negotiations to end the war, the prospects for a compromise agreement seem dim, and even if some deal is reached, it’s hard to see how it could be durable […]

Czech volunteer Lukas Saranga cooks soup in a giant pot for refugees fleeing Ukraine at the train station at the border crossing of Medyka, Poland, March 8, 2022 (AP photo by Visar Kryeziu).

WARSAW, Poland—Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, war refugees have been flooding across the country’s western border into Poland, greeted by local Poles, international volunteers and a few small NGOs operating in the country. How is this effort going three weeks into Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II? In Poland this week, I asked these questions of journalists, aid workers and Polish citizens. The reality is, almost as unprecedented as the refugee flows is the absence of most of the big NGOs that Americans think of—and are most likely to donate money to—when it comes to a refugee […]

A farmer carries wheat on his farm in a village in the Nile Delta town of Behira, north of Cairo, Egypt, May 14, 2015 (AP photo by Mosa’ab Elshamy).

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which pits two of the world’s major wheat and corn producers against one another, has deep implications for several grain-importing countries. Grain prices had already risen steadily over the past year due to pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and increasing energy prices. The war further pushed these prices to an all-time high in February, seriously rattling an already shaky global food system. While some commentators are calling for trade measures that would facilitate alternate sources of grain exports to make up for the shortfalls, what is really needed is a major rethink of the conventional food security […]

A young woman holds a weapon during a basic combat training for civilians organized by Ukraine’s National Guard, Mariupol, Ukraine, Feb. 13, 2022 (AP photo by Vadim Ghirda).

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, social media feeds have brimmed with portrayals of Ukrainian women’s remarkable spirit of resistance. In one widely shared video, a woman confronts a Russian soldier occupying her city, telling him to put sunflower seeds in his pockets so that when he dies on Ukrainian soil his grave will sprout the national flower. In a similarly widely shared tweet, a female parliamentarian described how her weekend gardening plans were scuttled by the need to learn how to handle a gun. Yet, as women’s contributions to the war effort have gone viral, much of the response, including […]

People work in a sawmill, with downtown Lagos in the distance, Lagos, Nigeria, May 12, 2020 (AP photo by Sunday Alamba).

In late February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released its most recent report, summing up the latest research on how climate change is affecting ecosystems as well as the effectiveness of the various climate adaptation measures governments across the world have enacted so far. On the latter score, the report concludes that the current pace of adaption is insufficient and finds that the measures being implemented are not holistic enough to address the major climate challenges the world faces. According to the report, some of climate change’s impacts on the natural world and human societies are now considered […]

Bogdan, who is staying to fight while his family leaves the country, says goodbye to his wife Lena at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, March 3, 2022 (AP photo by Emilio Morenatti).

As the war in Ukraine enters its third week and the refugee crisis in neighboring countries intensifies, among the many heartbreaking stories in the international spotlight is the separation at the border of Ukrainian families fleeing the fighting. As The New York Times’ Daily podcast reported, fathers, brothers, boyfriends and husbands as well as single men between the ages of 18 and 60 are being forced to stay and enlist in Ukraine’s military, while women of all ages are not only being allowed over borders but actively encouraged to flee. This denial of the right to flee on the basis of age and […]

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks via video link during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, New York, Sept. 23, 2021 (AP photo by Spencer Platt).

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the reaction it has drawn from the United States and the European Union, has been described by many observers as having “revitalized the liberal international order,” as Kori Schake of the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute wrote in The Atlantic. Ivo Daalder, the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, tweeted that “the West isn’t weak, divided or declining after all.” Other commentators have drawn similar conclusions following the stronger-than-expected response on both sides of the Atlantic to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. But many observers outside the core countries of the […]

Dr. Paul Farmer gestures during the inauguration of the national referral and teaching hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti, Jan. 10, 2012 (AP photo by Dieu Nalio Chery).

One of my greatest regrets in life is that I never got to meet Paul Farmer. The closest I came was in 2015, when Grinnell College, my alma mater in Iowa, invited me to participate in a symposium on global health at which Farmer was to be the keynote speaker. Unfortunately, my presentation was scheduled a week before Farmer’s, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t wait for a week among the cornfields to see him. A physician and anthropologist who co-founded the global health and social justice organization Partners in Health, or PIH, Farmer died unexpectedly on Feb. 21 in Butaro, Rwanda. He […]

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks with European Council President Charles Michel as they walk to a group photo in Versailles, March 10, 2022 (AP photo by Michel Euler).

The European Union’s 27 leaders are in Versailles today for a summit that could prove to be historic. They are expected to sign the “Versailles Declaration,” intended to formalize the far-reaching but ad hoc policy changes the EU has implemented in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is now entering its third week. The measures under discussion would strengthen the union’s existing military, economic and border control capabilities, while also giving the bloc new powers in those areas that will push it further down the path toward federalism. The symbolism of the decision to sign the declaration at the Palace […]

Patients in hospital beds wait in a temporary holding area outside Caritas Medical Center in Hong Kong, March 2, 2022 (AP photo by Kin Cheung).

After two years of controlling the coronavirus pandemic with stringent border restrictions and social distancing measures, Hong Kong’s zero-COVID policy has collapsed under the weight of the omicron variant. In the past few months, the city has experienced its largest outbreak of coronavirus cases to date, with tens of thousands of daily infections and a total of over 500,000 recorded cases as of Tuesday. The fatality rate has also soared, as the coronavirus ravages nursing homes in the city and afflicts its large population of undervaccinated elderly residents. Medical experts have attributed the spike in cases to a series of […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin enter a hall for talks in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, June 5, 2019 (AP photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko).

Scarcely more than a week ago, Chinese social media and the country’s internet were ablaze with quick takes from both prominent commentators and ordinary folks praising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armed bid to subdue Ukraine, as well as with fervent celebrations of what many in China saw as a toothless reaction from the West. The responses from Chinese voices like these, more emotional and nationalistic than lucid and analytical, saw in Putin’s defiance of the United States and Europe more evidence of the unstoppable rise of authoritarian states like their own, and of the longed-for decline of the West. Although […]

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