Foreign Policy

BY ELISABETH BRAW Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s trial and conviction in February this year were closely watched and condemned by a range of international organizations. Good. But a similarly important Russian trial has also ended in a conviction, and

BY DEREK SCISSORS Remember when our trade deficit with China mattered? Half-year figures for Sino-American goods trade were published Friday, but you’re in good company if you missed it. It’s hard for the bilateral trade deficit to affect the US

BY ELISABETH BRAW Ordinarily, the Arctic is perceived as a sleepy region where nothing much happens. Well, this week something happened, and not just the continued climate change that is causing irreparable damage to this delicate part of the world.

BY ELISABETH BRAW Yesterday brought the extremely odd news that a Ryanair flight between Athens and Vilnius, carrying much the usual Ryanair crowd, had been forced to land in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Why would Belarusian authorities mess with

BY ELISABETH BRAW Anyone who has ever visited London has seen the posters and heard the announcements on Tube stations instructing people to “see it, say it, sorted.” The public awareness campaign encouraging people to report odd behavior to the

BY LEON ARON Whether or not Russian troops cross the Ukrainian border to start yet another invasion of Ukraine, the reasons for Russia’s massing troops on the Russian side of the line fall into two categories. The first, permanent and

BY ELISABETH BRAW In the grayzone between war and peace, the targeted country always struggles with the dilemma of when and how to respond to aggression. In the United States, neither the Obama administration nor the Trump administration managed to

An increase in illegal immigrant minors crossing into the United States from Mexico is evidently forcing the government to reopen a costly and short-lived residential shelter as an overflow facility. With a capacity of about 1,300, the camp is situated

Communist China has long benefitted from American-funded research stolen by Chinese academics who infiltrate colleges throughout the United States. This month a criminal indictment sheds light on a recent scheme allegedly masterminded by a Chinese professor at one of the nation’s top-ranked

Mexican cartels adjusted to restrictions imposed by the global pandemic last year to smuggle huge amounts of narcotics into the U.S. and remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the country, expanding the market as methamphetamine deaths skyrocket. The government

BY RYAN C. BERG Mexico is poised to become just the third country in the world to fully legalize marijuana (after Uruguay and Canada). If legalized, the size of the country would make it the world’s largest legal cannabis market. Already, headlines are

BY DEREK SCISSORS The Chinese Communist Party appreciates American media praise. Yes, China halted COVID-19 and engineered a clear economic recovery. But the party has always denied or distorted major mistakes. Last year it lied about initial virus spread and, consequently, about

BY RYAN C. BERG Mexico’s attorney general has declined to prosecute General Salvador Cienfuegos, accused of cooperating with drug traffickers from the shadowy H-2 cartel. The widely predicted development brings Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) a step further down the

BY LEON ARON On his return from Germany, where he recuperated from an attempt on his life by Russian secret services, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested at the airport and sentenced to 30 days in prison for allegedly violating the

BY KAREN E. YOUNG In ‘Twin Crises Deepen Gulf States’ Policy Competition and Independence’, I argue that, for the Gulf Arab states, the twin crises of the Covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of oil prices in 2020 have accelerated trends

BY DEREK SCISSORS Key Points American investment in the People’s Republic of China probably exceeds $1 trillion, most occurring in the past six years. The vast majority is portfolio investment—holdings of bonds and, especially, small equities stakes. The amount is

A controversial government program launched nearly a decade ago to protect airline safety has failed miserably to meet its “mission of mitigating the threat to commercial aviation,” according to a scathing federal audit sprinkled with redactions to protect “sensitive security information.” Known

The Chronicle has learned that Hunter Biden met more than two dozen times with Ye Jianming, the globe-trotting billionaire and senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) figure who is entrenched in wide-ranging public corruption scandals around the world. They met so