| | | | Fareed: How to Get Out of Afghanistan | | The Trump administration might finally be on the right path toward exiting Afghanistan. But doing so will mean rethinking US diplomacy—and accepting a more formal role for the Taliban, Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column.
Washington "cannot, for example, keep fantasizing about overthrowing the Iranian regime while simply hoping for a settlement in Afghanistan. Iran and Pakistan have the means to ensure that Afghanistan stays unstable forever. The largest regional issue is for Washington to decide how much to involve India, which would shift the strategic landscape altogether.
"This is the difficult, painstaking work of diplomacy that the Trump administration has tried to ignore, demean and defund. But if the president actually wants to extricate America from its unending wars, it's the only way out."
| | | The idea of a nuclear-armed Germany is no longer just the stuff of fiction, Matthew Karnitschnig writes for Politico EU. Disillusioned with the United States and concerned about NATO's future, some in Berlin "are daring to think the unthinkable."
"For years, German politicians have avoided discussing defense, worried about alienating an electorate skeptical of devoting more resources to the military," Karnitschnig writes.
"After decades under the US nuclear shield, most Germans came to take such protection for granted (if they were aware of it at all).
"But Trump's persistent criticism of Germany's modest defense spending, currently about half of NATO's 2 percent of GDP target, is forcing the political class to confront the issue." | | Britain Seems to Have Forgotten It Needs a Parachute | | | Britain appears determined to stick to the "no deal is better than a bad deal" principle in its negotiations with the European Union. It's a common sense rule that makes no sense at all for Brexit, The Economist argues.
"In most negotiations 'no deal' means sticking to the status quo. If you are not prepared to pay the asking price, you can walk away none the worse and try somewhere else. The Brexit talks are different. If no deal is reached Britain will not maintain the status quo of its EU membership, but find its links to the continent abruptly and acrimoniously broken off. The metaphor is not buying a car, it is buying a parachute—having already leapt out of the airplane," The Economist says.
Under this scenario, the "EU's GDP would fall by about 1.5%. Worse still—again, for everyone, but chiefly for Britain—would be the turmoil from leaving without agreements in place over everything from airline safety to the transfer of radioactive material. The supply of such essentials as food and medicine could be disrupted, too." | | When Trump Met Putin: So Bad, It Has Been Good? | | President Trump turned in a weak performance in his Helsinki meeting with Vladimir Putin. Ironically, that's proving to be a strength for America, suggests John Herbst for The Washington Examiner.
"The Senate quickly passed a resolution, 98 to 0, rejecting the notion that Russian agents could question US officials. A bipartisan group of senators introduced Senate Resolution 571 condemning the Russian seizure of Crimea and not recognizing its 'annexation,' Herbst writes.
"The incident also forced the administration to shore up its posture on Crimea. Reaffirming and strengthening US policy in his July 25 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement ruling out the possibility of the United States recognizing Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. The administration also announced publicly that it would be providing an additional $200 million in military assistance to Ukraine." - Image boost. The meeting appears to have been good for America's image among Russians, too, a new poll suggests.
"Forty-two percent of Russians have 'positive' feelings toward the US following the Helsinki meeting, whereas only 40 percent have a 'negative' perspective," writes Jason Lemon for Newsweek, citing a poll by the independent Levada Center.
"Prior to the summit, about 70 percent of Russians had negative feelings toward the US."
"Explaining the results, Levada said that Russians are 'tired of the policy of confrontation with the West, which has been going on for several years and has resulted in the decline of people's incomes.'"
| | The US-China Fight We Should Be Talking About | | Fears over the escalating trade fight between the United States and China dominate the headlines. But there's another battle that also deserves attention, writes Arthur Lambert for the Boston Globe. China looks poised to overtake America's investment in research and development—and that has big implications for its economic prospects, too.
"The United States is still the preeminent location for scientific research, but this is not a given, and we should not take it for granted. The new policies being implemented by China, and especially their ambition to attract outside talent, could quickly drain the lifeblood of our scientific institutions. Without a determined effort to attract, support, and retain leading researchers, we cannot expect to drive the breakthroughs, technologies, and medicines of the future," Lambert writes.
"This battle for scientists will have long-term implications. In the current trade dispute with China a major issue concerns the unfair practice of forced transfer of intellectual property. But the focus on this issue, however justified, ignores a larger point: Protecting our IP will be irrelevant if China poaches the talent behind our innovations." | | | | | | |
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