Eulogy for Ukraine?
Kiev has lost eastern Ukraine to Russia, says a leading analyst. The turning point came on August 27, as the first direct invasion of Ukraine by Russian regulars broke the… Read more »
Putin ‘scared witless by the idea of people power’
The NATO summit meeting last week in Wales was dominated by Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. The rift with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was… Read more »
Saudi Arabia: Opposing Democracy at Home and Abroad
Since the onset of the Arab Spring, the authorities in Saudi Arabia have pursued an increasingly repressive course, seeking to maintain the status quo in an environment where expectations are… Read more »
Let locals take the lead on ISIS
There may be a continuum between the purportedly non-violent Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State, or ISIS. Nevertheless, “it bears repeating that ISIL’s campaign is not fundamentally… Read more »
Waves of democratization are not over?
In the latest issue of the Journal of Democracy, (PDF), Marc Plattner makes the provocative claim that “the era of democratic transitions is over, and should now become the province of the… Read more »
Iraq’s new government must unify to defeat Islamic State
The formation of Iraq’s new government in Baghdad on Sept. 8 is an important first step toward dealing with the Islamic State transnational jihadist movement, writes Kamran Bokhari, advisor for… Read more »
Guo Feixiong case a ‘dark verdict on China’s future’
Dissident writer and human rights legal activist Guo Feixiong (left), was detained in August of 2013, formally arrested two months later for “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place,” and… Read more »
Islamists ‘not our friends’: Brotherhood ‘a continuum, not corrective’ to ISIS
“The institutions of civil society were too weak; the political culture of winner-take-all too strong; sectarian differences too powerful; and a belief in pluralism too inchoate,” notes Dennis B. Ross, a… Read more »
ISIS: it is the ideology that matters
President Obama on Wednesday authorized a major expansion of the military campaign against rampaging Sunni militants in the Middle East, including American airstrikes in Syria and the deployment of 475… Read more »
Vietnam’s pivot: netizens demand ‘right to know’
Bloggers across Vietnam launched an online campaign Tuesday demanding that their authoritarian government keep the people closely informed about national and foreign policies, including its dealings with giant neighbor… Read more »