Travelling through Germany in the run-up to its federal election on September 24, one cannot help but be struck by the lingering signs of profound trauma from the 2015 refugee crisis.Suddenly and virtually without warning, nearly a million desperate people — mostly Syrians fleein

We are now in the final days of the industrial age.Just as the second generation of steam engines propelled the Industrial Revolution forward, so, too, are new technologies advancing today’s digital revolution.But as technology races ahead of us, it is difficult to anticipate wha

Angry American voters who feel slighted by the Washington establishment have had their say. A stunned world must now come to terms with what the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States means for global stability in the years ahead.The world has so

We are living in dangerous and uncertain times.

Next year marks the centennial of the Balfour Declaration, the British statement that paved the way for Israel’s founding in 1948, and for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as the larger Arab world, that continues today.Despite all the Middle East’s other —

Muscular language has become increasingly prevalent in the debate about how to counter the threat of jihadist terrorism.Television talk-show hosts speculate about when control of Raqqa in Syria or Mosul in Iraq might be wrested from Daesh, implying that these cities’ liberation w

Something seems to have gone wrong with politics in the West.In the United States, the billionaire tycoon and reality-TV star Donald Trump seems set to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.And throughout Europe, populism in one guise or another is running rampant.We

The roots of the Middle East’s many conflicts lie in the unravelling of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century and the failure since then to forge a stable regional order.As the international community works towards securing a durable peace in the region, its lea

As the European Union prepares to enter the new year, it faces an almost perfect storm of political challenges.The strategy it used in the past — barely muddling through a series of calamities — may no longer be enough.Of course, the EU is no stranger to crisis management.The eur