North America
The Taliban Won the War. Now It Has to Govern.
Afghanistan’s government disappeared with astonishing speed. President Ashraf Ghani fled. The Taliban occupied the presidential palace. Twenty years of American-backed government effectively ended. This week, the images have changed. The battlefield has been replaced by…
Kabul Has Fallen. Twenty Years of War Ended in a Week.
There will undoubtedly be an argument that America gave Afghanistan twenty years, enormous amounts of money and a military, and Afghans simply failed to use them. That explanation absolves the foreign power almost perfectly. It…
America Is Leaving Afghanistan. The Taliban Isn’t Waiting.
In April, when President Biden announced that American troops would leave Afghanistan, I wrote that there would probably never be a perfect moment to withdraw. I still think that. But four months later, watching what…
Cuba Is Protesting. The Argument Over Why Is Almost as Political as the Protests.
What began in San Antonio de los Baños spread into demonstrations across towns and cities, including Havana. Protesters complained about food shortages, medicine, electricity cuts and the government’s handling of COVID-19. Some shouted “Patria y…
Haiti’s President Was Assassinated. Who Governs the Country Now?
Since then, Haitian authorities have arrested a number of suspects, including former Colombian soldiers, while several others were killed by police. Investigators are still trying to determine who organised the operation and why. Those questions…
20 Years Later: When Is It Time to Leave?
This week, President Joe Biden announced that all American troops would leave Afghanistan by 11 September 2021, bringing America’s longest war towards an end. Twenty years. That number feels almost impossible to understand. The war…
Diplomacy in Suspension: Negotiation Without Trust and Power Without Resolution
This week’s international developments reveal a global order increasingly defined by suspended outcomes. Diplomacy persists, negotiations resume, alliances deepen, and crises are managed, yet rarely resolved. I observe that states are engaging not to close…
The Return of Strategic Bargaining
This week, international politics increasingly resembles a crowded negotiating table rather than a rules-based forum, as major powers reinsert themselves into diplomacy not as neutral guarantors of peace, but as strategic stakeholders seeking influence, leverage,…
Ceasefires, Credibility, and the Politics of Restraint
This week in global affairs is marked less by dramatic escalation and more by deliberate restraint. Across regions, states signal a preference for managing tensions rather than resolving them outright, relying on ceasefires, calibrated diplomacy,…
Negotiation Without Concessions
This week, international politics is defined by cautious engagement rather than decisive breakthroughs. I observe a recurring pattern across regions: actors signal willingness to talk, cooperate, or reform, yet remain unwilling to yield first. Diplomacy…
America Returns, Red Lines Harden, and Diplomacy Is Put on Trial
This week marks a recalibration rather than a rupture in international politics. I observe that power is not being redistributed so much as rearticulated, through language, posture, and the reassertion of norms that had appeared…
Justice, Legitimacy, and the Limits of Institutional Authority
This week, international affairs reveal a recurring tension between legal process and moral legitimacy, highlighting how judicial decisions, public health governance, and political accountability increasingly spill across borders. I observe that institutions, whether courts, regional…
