Articles by: "Richard N. Haass"
Learning from Rabin

Assassinations are by definition significant because they involve the murder of a prominent individual for political purposes. But not all assassinations constitute turning points. World War I, for example, would likely have happened even without …

The UN’s unhappy birthday

The United Nations is turning 75, and if this were a normal year, many of the world’s leaders would be set to gather in New York City to celebrate this milestone and open the annual …

To the brink with China

Observers of US–China relations increasingly talk of a new cold war. On top of a long-running trade war, the two countries now find themselves in a destructive cycle of mutual sanctions, consulate closings and increasingly …

The politics of a Covid-19 vaccine

The global toll of the Covid-19 pandemic is enormous: more than half a million lives lost, hundreds of millions out of work and trillions of dollars of wealth destroyed. And the disease has by no …

The world waits for no country

The United States finds itself confronting several daunting challenges simultaneously. There is the Covid-19 pandemic, which has already claimed nearly 120,000 American lives and shows little sign of abating in large swaths of the country. …

Deglobalisation and its discontents

Increasing global interconnection—growing cross-border flows of people, goods, energy, emails, television and radio signals, data, drugs, terrorists, weapons, carbon dioxide, food, dollars and, of course, viruses (both biological and software)—has been a defining feature of …

At war with a virus

US President Donald Trump has labelled himself a wartime president, and many other leaders around the world are using similar language. It’s a description that raises an obvious question: what do the history and nature …

How to leave Afghanistan

After nearly two decades, 2,400 American soldiers killed, another 20,000 wounded and as much as US$2 trillion spent, the United States is understandably eager to withdraw from Afghanistan. President Donald Trump wants to be able …

Trump’s Middle East mirage

Enough time has passed to read and digest all 180-plus pages of what the US government calls ‘Peace to prosperity: A vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people’. It’s also referred …

The post-American Middle East

It was 5 August 1990, just days after Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had invaded and conquered all of Kuwait, and US President George H.W. Bush could not have been clearer as he spoke from the South …