World

Patrice McMahon, University of Nebraska-Lincoln More than 8 million Ukrainian refugees have entered Poland since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. About 1.5 million of them have remained in the central European country rather than moving on to other places or returning home amid Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II. So far, Polish citizens have demonstrated incredible solidarity and generosity, in many cases hosting Ukrainian refugees in their own homes. Many Poles told me that they appreciated President Biden’s visit to Warsaw in February 2023 and his acknowledgment of their work and sacrifices. But the end of the war is

Olayinka Oyegbile, Trinity University, Lagos Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the ruling All Progressives Congress in Nigeria, has been declared winner of the country’s keenly contested presidential election. The 70-year-old former governor of Lagos State and Nigeria’s political kingmaker will inherit a Nigeria that is faced with a fractured polity, national security threats and economic challenges including skyrocketing cost of living. Tinubu polled 36% of the 24,965,218 votes cast in the 25 February presidential election whose outcome is being disputed by his closest rivals. To emerge as Nigeria’s President, Section 134 of the constitution states that a presidential candidate must score

Michael Beckley, Tufts University In a rare show of bipartisanship, Republican and Democratic House members put on a united front as they probed how to respond to the perceived growing threat of China. The inaugural hearing of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party comes at a delicate time – amid concerns in the U.S. over Chinese espionage and tensions over Taiwan and China’s position on the Ukraine war. Michael Beckley, an expert on U.S.-China relations at Tufts University, was among those watching on as witnesses gave evidence during the committee’s

Andrew Blum, University of San Diego It’s been a year since Russia first launched a full invasion of Ukraine, and, right now, peace seems impossible. Peace talks between the two countries have launched, and then faltered, multiple times. In February 2023, a senior Ukrainian official said that peace talks are “out of the question” – without Ukraine’s reclaiming its territory that Russia overtook 2022. All wars end, however, and research shows that almost half end in some type of agreement to stop the fighting. The others end in victory for one side or when, for a variety of reasons, the

Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University The U.S. and four dozen other countries have imposed punishing sanctions on Russia in reaction to its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The sanctions were unprecedented in their scope and severity for an economy of Russia’s size. The initial sanctions included the freezing of Russian assets abroad and a ban on the export of key technologies to Russia. Over the course of 2022, the sanctions were ratcheted up significantly as the European Union eventually phased in a radical reduction of the purchase of Russian oil and gas. Separately, over 1,200 Western companies closed their

Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences After decades of progress on limiting the buildup of nuclear weapons, Russia’s war on Ukraine has prompted renewed nuclear tensions between Russia and the United States. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual State of the Nation address on Feb. 21, 2023, that Russia is “suspending” its participation in the U.S. and Russia’s last remaining nuclear arms agreement – known as New START. “Our relations have degraded, and that’s completely and utterly the U.S.’s fault,” said Putin, who stopped short of entirely withdrawing Russia from the deal that