To Fix US Foreign Policy, Put Feminism First
Ursula K. LeGuin once said that, in hard times, we must be “realists of a larger reality.” This advice resonates with those of us who have been sounding alarm bells about US foreign…
Associate Editor
Laila Ujayli
Associate Editor
Laila Ujayli is passionate about the intersection of narrative and policy, concentrating on using stories to reorient US foreign policy towards human needs. She currently studies public policy as a graduate student at the Blavatnik School of Government, where she is a Rhodes Scholar. As a former Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow at Win Without War, she worked on reimagining US security spending to invest in the tools necessary to confront today and tomorrow's major challenges. She is especially interested in the use of film to engage the public on global issues and holds a Master of Studies in Film Aesthetics from the University of Oxford.
A Reason for Hope in Russia’s Industrial Heartland
The courageous return to Russia and arrest of Alexei Navalny opened a new phase in the opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s rule. Not only were the ensuing demonstrations the largest…
A Decade Ago, We Dared to Dream
A decade ago, after seeing Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia, after watching a truck back up on protesters in Egypt’s El-Tahrir Square, after admiring Libyans waving…
Impunity Still Reigns in Syria
Today marks 3,653 days of senseless violence and untold suffering in Syria’s brutal civil war. The conflict has decimated the country’s healthcare system and left 12 million Syrians in…
How US Counterterrorism Fuels Violence in the Sahel
I traveled to Burkina Faso’s dusty capital of Ouagadougou in January 2020, just before the pandemic threw me – and the world – into lockdown. Harmattan winds blew in from the…
Copts in America: Traversing Identity’s Many Streets
The first time I heard the Islamic call to prayer, I was maybe six years old. I was walking through the dusty and congested streets of Alexandria, smelling the sweat, the sand and the…
Time for A Realistic North Korea Policy
For decades, the United States has been trying to get North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons program. Successive presidents have continued to demand complete, verifiable, irreversible…
US Syria Policy Is Still About Everything But Syria
Those who do not regularly follow the vagaries of Syria policy can be forgiven for not knowing how exactly to react to President Joe Biden’s first airstrike as commander in chief – a…
An Unregulated Facebook is a Foreign Policy Quagmire
On February 18, Facebook followed through on its threat to suspend major news outlets’ content from timelines in Australia, protesting a new digital platforms law. Today that law passed in…
After the Apocalypse: Defense Spending
From an ongoing pandemic to deadly winter storms to rising poverty, Americans are facing myriad threats to their everyday security. At the same time, US military spending is at record…