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It has been an eventful and, for Ukraine and its European allies, alarming past week or so. First they heard that the US president, Donald Trump, had spent 90 minutes on the phone with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. In one stroke, Trump upended three years in which his predecessor, Joe Biden, had sought to isolate Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On the same day, February 12, Trump’s newly installed secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, told a gathering of senior defence officials in Brussels that Europe would no longer be the primary focus for US security policy, and that Ukraine could not hope to regain the territory Russia had illegally occupied since 2014, nor join Nato.

Hegseth added that not only would the US not contribute to any peacekeeping force in Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, but that any European peacekeeping operation would not be done under the protection of Nato’s Article 5.

This was soon followed by the US vice-president, J.D. Vance, telling the Munich Security Conference that it was Europe, not Russia or China, that was the main security threat – the “enemy within” that fostered anti-democratic practices and sought to curtail free speech.

This week, a US team led by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, sat down with their Russian opposite numbers led by the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss peace negotiations. Ukraine was not represented. Nor was Europe. Following that, and perhaps taking his cue from Hegseth, Lavrov declared that Russia would not accept any European peacekeepers in Ukraine – deal or no deal.

Meanwhile, Trump has taken to his TruthSocial media platform to repeat several favourite Kremlin talking points. Ukraine was responsible for the war, he said. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was a “dictator” who had cancelled elections, and whose popularity with his own people was now as low as 4% (it’s actually 57%, at least 10 points higher than Trump’s rating in the US).

Trump also mocked Zelensky’s concern at his country’s exclusion from the Riyadh talks, telling reporters: “Today I heard: ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years … You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

This leads us back to the Istanbul communique, produced at the end of March 2022 after initial peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Antalya, Turkey. Some US commentators have suggested Ukraine could now be better off had it signed this deal.

Istanbul communique

What happened in Istanbul, and how close Russia and Ukraine were to an agreement, has been hotly debated, with some arguing a deal was close and others refuting this.

Ukraine reportedly agreed to a range of concessions including future neutrality, as well as giving up its bid for membership of Nato. Russia, in turn, would apparently have accepted Ukraine’s membership of the EU. This concession, incidentally, is still on the table.

But there were sticking points, primarily over the size of Ukraine’s armed forces after a deal – Kyiv reportedly wanted 250,000 soldiers, the Kremlin just 85,000 – and the types of weaponry Ukraine could keep in its arsenal.

There were also issues about Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territory, particularly Crimea – this was projected to be resolved over 15 years with Russia occupying the peninsula on a lease in the meantime. Another Kremlin demand was for Zelensky to stand down as president, with the presidency being taken up by the pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk.

Negotiations continued through April 2022, only to break down when Russian atrocities were reported in Bucha, a town Ukrainian troops had retaken as part of their spring counter-offensive. But the fact is, an agreement was never really close.

The UK’s former prime minister, Boris Johnson, has taken much flack over reports that he urged Zelensky not to accept the deal. But there was never a realistic chance this deal would be acceptable to Ukraine. A neutral Ukraine with a reduced military capacity would have no way to defend itself against any future aggression.

Had Ukraine done a deal based on the Istanbul communique, it would have essentially led to the country becoming a virtual province of Russia – led by a pro-Russian government and banned from seeking alliances with western countries. As for joining the EU, it was the Kremlin’s opposition to Kyiv’s engagement with the EU in 2013 which provoked the Euromaidan protests and led to Russia’s initial annexation of Crimea the following year.

What next?

Kyiv signing the Istanbul communique may have quickly stopped the war and the killing. But the Kremlin has repeatedly shown it cannot be trusted to adhere to agreements – you only have to look at the way it repeatedly violated the Minsk accords of 2015, which attempted to end hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

Further, a deal that rewards Russian aggression by agreeing to its taking of territory and demanding the neutrality of the victim would undermine global security, and encourage other illegal foreign policy adventurism.

If the Trump administration has the blueprint of a fair peace deal, it’s hiding it well at this point. Instead, European leaders have been put in a position where they must face the prospect of having to fund Ukraine’s continued defence, while coping with a US retreat from its security guarantees for Europe as a whole.

Either that or, as my University of Bath colleague Patrick Bury wrote on X this week, accept some pretty dire consequences.

Europe is facing a crisis that it could have prepared for after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. With Trump back in power, the relationship between the US and Europe appears increasingly fractured. But Europe too is bitterly divided over how to approach this crisis.

Britain and France initially talked up the idea of providing troops as peacekeepers in Ukraine – but Germany adamantly refused to go along with that plan. Both Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer have since rethought the idea (although there is a report that the UK prime minister has considered a scheme for a 30,000-strong “monitoring force” away from the ceasefire line).

The Kremlin reacts to signals. While it was clearly preparing for the invasion in late 2021, Joe Biden’s statement that he would not send troops to defend Ukraine showed the limits to US involvement. A message that Europe is prepared to dispatch peacekeepers to Ukraine now would send a strong signal to Putin – and the Trump administration – that Europe is serious. Läs mer…

Captain Ibrahim Traoré is the interim leader of Burkina Faso, having taken over the position following a coup which he led against Lieutenant Colonel Paul Henri Damiba in September 2022. The 37-year-old captain had supported Damiba, his commanding officer, in a putsch earlier that year against former president Roch Marc Kaboré.

Since Traoré has been in power, Burkina Faso has played a key role in the withdrawal of three west African states from the regional body Ecowas. Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali have formed an alternative, the Alliance of Sahel States. The Conversation Africa asked researcher Daniel Eizenga where the country was headed under Traoré’s leadership.

Who is Ibrahim Traoré?

Traoré was born in 1988 in Bondokuy, a small town on the route connecting Burkina Faso’s second city – Bobo Dioulasso – and its fourth largest, Ouahigouya. He completed secondary school in Bobo Dioulasso, then moved to the nation’s capital, where he studied at the University of Ouagadougou.

After completing his undergraduate education, Traoré joined the army in 2010 at the age of 22. He undertook his officer training in Pô at the Georges Namoano Military Academy, an officer school for the Burkinabe armed forces. He graduated as a second lieutenant in 2012 and served as a peacekeeper in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission to Mali (Minusma) after being promoted to lieutenant in 2014.

After his stint with Minusma, Traoré took part in missions in northern Burkina Faso as part of a special counterterrorism unit. He was promoted to captain in 2020 at the age of 32.

Damiba led a coup against Kaboré in January 2022. He then assigned Traoré as chief of an artillery regiment in the North Central region of Burkina Faso.

As it became clear that Damiba was losing popularity within the junta, Traoré and a group of junior officers organised a coup. They seized on public and military outrage around an ambush that left 11 soldiers and dozens of civilians dead.

What has been the response to his rule in Burkina Faso?

Some media reports suggest that the young captain and his junta enjoy popular support throughout the country. Some have even drawn comparisons between Traoré and Burkina Faso’s earlier leftist revolutionary military leader, Captain Thomas Sankara. It’s true that the two captains did take power at the age of 34. But the comparisons end at their rank and age.

During the 1980s and nearing the end of the cold war, Sankara came to power as ideological division split the Burkinabe armed forces. Officers supporting Sankara led a coup in 1983. Viewed as a Marxist revolutionary, Sankara attempted to enact political reforms. They included policies to boost public political participation, empower women, address environmental degradataion and reduce inequalities.

Traoré’s position is much more precarious. Most military officers did not participate in either his coup or the one led by Damiba, underscoring the fragmented state of Burkina Faso’s armed forces. Traoré’s junta has claimed there have been multiple attempts at destabilisation or coups. This highlights the arbitrary means by which power has changed hands and the inherent instability present under junta rule.

To shore up his position, Traoré has launched a restructuring drive. This has included redirecting revenues from taxes, the mining sector, and other sources of public revenues into defence coffers. He has also mobilised volunteers to fight violent extremists as part of the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a junta-sponsored civilian militia. There are reports that forced conscription has been used to send “volunteers” to the front lines of battle. The conflict data indicate that the strategy is not working.

Traoré may not be as popular among ordinary people as he is often portrayed. This is inferred from the violent repression of critics, multiple alleged coup attempts as well as the ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis. He has cracked down hard on independent voices. Journalists, civil society leaders, political party leaders and even judges have been targeted by the junta with its forced conscription tactics and other forms of violent repression.

What about external players?

The September 2022 coup d’état got the attention of Russian foreign information manipulation and interference campaigns. The campaigns were linked to the shadowy Russian mercenary outfit, the Wagner Group. Other Russian information campaigns employed fake social media accounts that pose as Africans with a genuine interest in Burkina Faso. These accounts promote divisive rhetoric that places blame on France and other western countries for local grievances such as ongoing insecurity.

Aiming to boost support for himself immediately following the coup, Traoré trained his sights on capturing the anti-French sentiment. He blamed the French for many of the country’s woes and cast Damiba as a close French ally. Within a few months, Traoré demanded the French withdraw its security presence from Burkina Faso altogether.

Since the French withdrawal, Russian mercenaries have been seen providing protection for Traoré and reportedly supporting operations near the border with Mali. However, only some 100-300 Russian forces have gone to Burkina Faso. This suggests that the focus is on regime security for Traoré and his junta.

What does the future hold?

Traoré’s actions have not improved the security situation in the country. There have been at least 3,059 violent events linked to militant Islamist groups since he came to power in October 2022. This is a 20% increase in comparison to two years preceding the coup. The number of fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence nearly doubled from 3,621 in 2022 to 6,389 in 2024.

The violence has also spread throughout the country to affect nearly every region and increased along Burkina Faso’s southern border. It’s likely that the data is under-reported.

The junta has claimed to have foiled several coup plots since Traoré’s power grab. A foiled plot came in September 2024 only a few weeks after the deadliest massacre the country has ever suffered. Violent extremists killed hundreds of civilians outside the town of Barsalogho. Civilian fatalities linked to militant Islamist groups have increased from 721 in 2022 to 1,151 deaths in 2024.

Perhaps more worrying are the civilian fatalities linked to the military or its sponsored militia.

The violence in Burkina Faso presents an alarming outlook in which the collapse of the country cannot be ruled out. The military has reemerged as the principal political actor. By some counts the military has been directly or indirectly in power for 45 of the 65 years since Burkina Faso became independent.

All the while, the militant Islamist insurgency embroils more and more of the countryside at great human cost. Some estimates place the number of people displaced by violence as high as 3 million, though the junta will not provide an official figure. That is more than 10% of the population of some 24 million people. Another million or more students may not be in school due to conflict and ongoing insecurity.

Despite the effort to present Traoré as a bold reformer and saviour, the political, security and economic ramifications from his junta rule will reverberate through Burkina Faso for decades to come. Läs mer…

Victims and survivors of gender-based violence have increasingly started naming perpetrators in public. This phenomenon has gained traction through movements such as #MeToo, the #RUReferenceList and #AmINext.

However, there has been a significant backlash. Men identified as perpetrators are turning to the courts to silence those who accuse them of rape and abuse, usually by bringing defamation cases.

In South Africa, in addition to defamation cases, men accused of rape are applying for protection orders under the Protection from Harassment Act.

In a recent paper I analyse a high court ruling which deals with whether publicly naming someone as a rapist constitutes harassment under the act. The court held that it did not amount to harassment.

Based on my experience as an academic as well as an advocate of the high court of South Africa, I argue that the judgment in LW v KA provides a road map for dealing with applications for protection orders against women who publicly name perpetrators. It points to a fundamental shift in the law around the Protection from Harassment Act.

This affects other cases involving the public naming of perpetrators. It makes it clear that identifying a person as a perpetrator is not unreasonable, and does not constitute harassment.

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I conclude from my analysis that the judgment is an important development in the case law around gender-based violence.

The law

South Africa’s Protection from Harassment Act was designed to address stalking and harassment. The act was part of a suite of legislation enacted to protect victims and survivors of gender-based violence, a vast proportion of whom are women facing abuse from men.

Among its provisions is that a court can issue a protection order. Protection orders are used to prohibit the accused person from engaging in harassment, enlisting another person to engage in harassment or any other conditions imposed by the court.

But recently the courts have been approached by a number of men who have been publicly named as perpetrators of gender-based violence. These men have asked for protection orders against the women who accused them.

In two cases that I have personally worked on, South Africa’s magistrates’ courts have granted protection orders to individuals seeking to silence women from speaking out against gender-based violence.

As I argue in my paper, this means that the law is being used to threaten and gag women. This is a perverse inversion of the purpose of the act.

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Magistrates’ courts are the place where most people in South Africa encounter the justice system. These courts deal with a majority of the country’s criminal and civil cases, but can only apply the law and not develop the law. Matters in the magistrate’s court can be sent on appeal to the high court and thereafter to the supreme court of appeal and finally the constitutional court.

Striking a balance

This is not to say that men should not be able to use the Protection from Harassment Act. This legislation is intended to provide relief to anyone who has faced harassment, regardless of their gender. Men accused of rape are not barred from applying for protection orders if they face harassment, and nor should they be.

However, it is crucial that courts approach these cases with a full understanding of the purpose of the act and the context in which these cases are being brought.

It is important to strike a balance in these matters. On the one hand, the interpretation of “harassment” must be flexible enough to allow anyone who has been the target of this harm to find relief under the act. On the other hand, courts must avoid the exploitation and appropriation of the legislation by men to threaten and silence their accusers.

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Undressing for redress: the significance of Nigerian women’s naked protests

The answer to this lies in a proper analysis of what is meant by “harassment” in the act.

There is little guidance in the legislation itself. Nevertheless, the question came before the Gauteng high court in 2023 in LW v KCA. The court held that identifying someone as the perpetrator of gender-based violence was not in and of itself harassment. It ruled that:

If any provision of the {Protection from Harassment Act} can bear more than one constitutionally compliant interpretation, that which better allows victims to speak out is to be preferred.

In other words, if a judge is deciding between two different interpretations of the act, they should choose the interpretation that promotes victims’ rights to freedom of expression. In deciding whether some act constitutes harassment, they should favour the interpretation which allows victims to speak out about their experiences.

The importance of this finding cannot be overstated. It creates a fundamental shift in the law not only around the act, but also in respect of all cases involving the public naming of perpetrators of gender-based violence.

In the judgment, the high court provides a road map for dealing with applications for protection orders against women who publicly name their perpetrators. The court:

underscored the importance of taking a balanced and reasoned approach to a situation where men use the Protection from Harassment Act to silence those who accuse them of rape
found that it is not enough to ask whether the conduct constitutes harassment; one must also ask whether the conduct was reasonable in the context of gender-based violence in South Africa
made it clear that the most constitutionally compliant interpretation of the act is the one which allows victims to speak about their experiences.

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Importantly, this finding by the high court has set a precedent which all magistrates and high court judges must take into consideration when hearing matters involving harassment. This matter has not been appealed to a higher court. Läs mer…

Urban parks in Kumasi, the capital city of Ghana’s Ashanti region, are fast disappearing or in decline. Kumasi was designed 60 years ago as a “garden city”, with green belts, parks and urban green spaces. These have been encroached on by developments and are in a poor condition.

Like other cities in Ghana, Kumasi has been growing. According to the latest population data from Ghana’s Statistical Service, the population of Kumasi in 1950 and 2024 was 99,479 and 3,903,480 respectively. The city’s current annual population growth rate is 3.59%.
This growth is a challenge for city authorities.

Adding to the challenge is the fact that in Ghana, political authorities and traditional leadership exist together. It’s the capital of the Ashanti Region and the capital of the ancient Ashanti Kingdom. Most of the land is owned by the traditional authority. This makes it difficult sometimes for city authorities to enforce planning regulations.

We are urban planners who have conducted research on environmental planning, urban informality and inclusive city development. We studied the extent to which areas demarcated as urban parks in the Kumasi Metropolis have been rezoned, and why there’s been encroachment into urban parks.

Our study showed that 88% of the 16 parks studied in the Kumasi Metropolis had either been rezoned or encroached upon by other land uses. This was done in an unplanned way. Zoning regulations have not been enforced and urban sprawl has not been controlled. Part of the reason is that land scarcity drives up its value and customary authorities have an incentive to allow other uses. As a result, the city has lost green spaces that are important for their environmental, traditional and recreational functions.

Decline of urban parks in Kumasi Metropolis

To understand why Kumasi has been losing its green spaces, our study looked at 16 parks across six communities within the Kumasi Metropolis.

The World Health Organization recommends there should be 9m² of green space per city dweller. We calculated that Kumasi currently has only 0.17m² of green space per city dweller.

We also noted significant changes in land zoned for parks. This was mainly due to the politics of land ownership and administration. Other social factors played a part too. The results of the research showed that out of the 16 existing parks studied, 14 (88%) had been rezoned to residential or commercial use or encroached upon by other uses.

The rezoning of parks was gradual, unapproved by local planning authorities, and unplanned. Existing land tenure arrangements and laxity in the enforcement of laws are some of the barriers affecting park development and management in the city.

An official of the city’s Physical Planning Department indicated that places zoned as parks were supposed to be owned, controlled, managed and protected by the state. But this was not the case, because of the complex land tenure arrangement of the city, where most land is customarily owned.

Though Ghana’s land tenure system recognises customary ownership, the determination of land use remains the responsibility of local planning authorities. Land sold for physical developments must conform to an approved scheme prepared by the Physical Planning Department. In most cases, the parks rezoned by the customary owners were in contravention with spatial planning laws (such as the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, 2016).

The representative of the planning department noted that even though it prepared layouts that made provision for parks and open spaces, it was often helpless when it came to enforcement and other land use regulations. We were told that information about the land ownership and transfer process between government agencies and customary landowners was not made available to the department.

Due to poor coordination and increased demand for land for development, about 88% of land demarcated for park development across the study communities had been leased or sold to private developers by the customary landowners.

Our study also revealed a lack of funding for parks development and management. All the agency officials confirmed that parks were planned for but the funds to support their development and management were inadequate. They explained that property values rose as a result of urban development, leading to intense competition among various land uses. We were told that landowners were willing to sell any land available in their community at a higher value without considering its use in the community.

Bringing back the green

The once green city of Kumasi has lost much of its foliage. We suggest that this decline can and should be stopped.

City authorities can incorporate cultural elements that highlight the identity of neighbourhoods to promote ownership and a sense of place in the design of parks. Local planning institutions, custodians of land and residents should collaborate so that plans meet everyone’s needs.

Traditional authorities, together with relevant city authorities, should consciously ensure that parks are developed, protected, managed and sustained. Laws and regulations which guide park use and protection should be enforced strictly.

Finally, parks and green spaces can only survive if there is sustainable funding. City authorities could consider green taxation and charges. For example, they can fine residents whose activities threaten the environment, and use the money to fund parks and green spaces. A percentage of property tax can be dedicated to the protection and development of green spaces in the city. Läs mer…

Indigenous people make up only 6% of the world’s population but manage over a quarter of the world’s land surface. These groups, descended from original occupants of a geographical place and identifying as culturally distinct, possess knowledge about adapting to social and environmental change. Yet their perspectives are rarely included when it comes to planning for a future affected by climate change or biodiversity loss. Researcher Julia van Velden was part of a team of scholars who looked at how Indigenous knowledge could create a shared understanding of a better future for our planet. The Conversation Africa spoke to her and her co-authors about Indigenous futures thinking.

What is Indigenous futures thinking and who does it?

Futures thinking involves imagining and describing different possible futures. It asks us to consider what we want society, the environment and the world to look like in 50 or even 500 years from now. The future we think up can then be used as the basis for strategies to achieve those visions.

Futures thinking has helped people from diverse backgrounds to reach a common understanding of important issues and their underlying causes. It helps people find ways to work towards a future they prefer.

An important emerging area within this field is Indigenous futures thinking. This brings unique Indigenous perspectives into how people view the future. Indigenous perspectives emphasise the need to look after the land for the well-being of future generations.

Indigenous people consistently express their responsibilities for the past, present, and future of their societies and their traditional lands, built on centuries, sometimes millennia, of knowledge.

How does Indigenous futures thinking work?

Our new research reviewed academic articles and technical reports to identify four main approaches to Indigenous futures thinking.

Adaptation oriented: This approach uses scenarios in planning and modelling to help communities understand and manage future environmental and social changes. We find that these scenarios are best when designed in partnership with Indigenous people, and not imposed.

Participatory: This is where diverse stakeholders collaborate to develop visions of the future together. This approach helps to ensure decisions about the future are democratic. Creative and interactive methods such as role-playing and storytelling are often combined with environmental and socioeconomic modelling to achieve this.

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Culturally grounded: This approach grounds futures thinking in Indigenous traditions, knowledge systems, and cultural practices. It aims to prioritise the right of Indigenous people to self-determination and sovereignty.

Culturally grounded futures thinking encourages solutions that are rooted in traditional values and practices. Indigenous connections, arts, lore, rights, knowledge systems, worldviews, cultural renewal, spirituality, and different understandings of time are all included in this approach.

For example, researchers used methods such as eco-cultural mapping and calendars with communities in Benin, Kenya and Ethiopia. Doing so helped these communities revitalise customary ways of governing using agroecology, sacred natural sites, and community rituals.

Indigenising: This approach aims to decolonise thinking about the future. To do this, indigenising highlights the need to challenge and overturn colonial frameworks. The Sámi Márkomeannu festival in Norway is an example. At this festival, the Indigenous Sámi people present their hopes and fears for the next 100 years through seminars, drama, and art installations. These show a future where they’ve succeeded in adapting to a degraded environment and climate change.

How can Indigenous futures thinking help people explore alternative futures?

With a focus on long-term thinking, Indigenous futures thinking envisions sustainable and thriving futures for generations to come. Creative methodologies such as storytelling are key in creating these future visions. Storytelling confirms lived experiences and transmits knowledge across generations.

Indigenous understandings of time also help society to reimagine thinking in relation to past and future generations. For example, in the Australian Indigenous notion of “Everywhen”, past, present, and future exist at the same time. It obliges us to consider our actions across the whole circle of time.

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African ubuntu can deepen how research is done

In the African philosophy of Ubuntu, humans are viewed as situated within a complex intergenerational web of relationships. Human existence is seen as occurring in three dimensions. These are the living, the departed or ancestors (those who have lived before), and those yet to be born, all of whom are present today.

Our research finds that Indigenous communities are not often included fully and equitably in research processes. As the field of Indigenous futures thinking grows, ethical and inclusive research practices are very important. Indigenous people must be included as equal partners in designing and carrying out research.

How will Indigenous futures thinking help address climate change?

Indigenous Woppaburra leaders in Australia map their future vision of their customary land and sea country areas. From left to right: Valmai Smith, Harry Van Issum, Earl Gibson, Julie-Anne Rogers.
Supplied

Indigenous-managed ecosystems like forests, grasslands, and wetlands are vital for carbon sequestration (the process where carbon is removed from the atmosphere and captured in plants and soil). Preserving the world’s biodiversity also depends on the land managed by Indigenous people.

Indigenous understandings are also relational – where environmental, social, and cultural systems relate to and depend on one another. This is an important way of thinking to understand our world.

Finally, Indigenous peoples’ experiences of colonisation provide knowledge of how to survive catastrophes and navigate environmental changes. This knowledge must be included in the world’s strategies to adapt to climate change and protect biodiversity. It should also be brought into local climate adaptation plans to make sure they align with traditions and values.

For example, the Arctic Council encourages countries to co-operate in protecting the Arctic. It places Indigenous knowledge and governance at the centre of its work. This organisation uses Indigenous ecological knowledge in developing plans to adapt to climate change, and includes Indigenous people equitably when making policy and monitoring changes in the environment.

There is joy and creativity in Indigenous futures thinking, through storytelling, art, and participatory design. But imagining better worlds is just the first step. Ensuring that Indigenous communities have the power and agency to lead their own paths forward is what will bring the better worlds to life. Läs mer…

Make Canada angry. Make Mexico angry. Make the members of NATO angry.

During the first few weeks of the second Trump administration, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a lot of things about longtime allies that caused frustration and outright friction among the leaders of those countries.

Trump and Vance indeed appear to disdain close alliances, favoring an America First approach to the world. A New York Times headline characterized the relationship between the U.S. and Europe now as “A Strained Alliance.”

As a former diplomat, I’m aware that how the U.S. treats its allies has been a crucial question in every presidency, since George Washington became the country’s first chief executive. On his way out of that job, Washington said something that Trump, Vance and their fellow America First advocates would probably embrace.

In what’s known as his “Farewell Address,” Washington warned Americans against “entangling alliances.” Washington wanted America to treat all nations fairly, and warned against both permanent friendships and permanent enemies.

The irony is that Washington would never have become president without the assistance of the not-yet-United-States’ first ally, France.

In 1778, after two years of brilliant diplomacy by Benjamin Franklin, the not-yet-United States and the Kingdom of France signed a treaty of alliance as the American Colonies struggled to win their war for independence from Britain.

France sent soldiers, money and ships to the American revolutionaries. Within three years, after a major intervention by the French fleet, the battle of Yorktown in 1781 effectively ended the war and America was independent.

Isolationism, then war

American political leaders largely heeded Washington’s warning against alliances throughout the 1800s. The Atlantic Ocean shielded the young nation from Europe’s problems and many conflicts, and America’s closest neighbors had smaller populations and less military might.

Aside from the War of 1812, in which the U.S. fought the British, America largely found itself protected from the outside world’s problems.

That began to change when Europe descended into the brutal trench warfare of World War I.

Initially, American politicians avoided becoming involved. What would today be called an isolationist movement was strong, and its supporters felt that the war in Europe was being waged for the benefit of big business.

But it was hard for the U.S.to maintain neutrality. German submarines sank ships crossing the Atlantic carrying American passengers. The economies of some of America’s biggest trading partners were in shreds; the democracies of Britain, France and other European countries were at risk.

A Boston newspaper headline in 1915 blares the news of a British ocean liner sunk by a German torpedo.
Serial and Government Publications Division, Library of Congress

President Woodrow Wilson led the United States into the war in 1917 as an ally of the Western European nations. When he asked Congress for a declaration of war, Wilson touted the value of like-minded allies, saying, “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations.” The war was over within 16 months.

Immediately after the war, the Allies – led by the U.S., France and Britain – stayed together to craft the peace agreements, feed the war-ravaged parts of Europe and intervene in Russia after the Communist Revolution there.

Prosperity came along with the peace, helping the U.S. quickly develop into a global economic power.

However, within a few years, American politicians returned to traditional isolationism in political and military matters and continued this attitude well into the 1930s. The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 was blamed on vulnerabilities in the global economy, and there was a strong sentiment among Americans that the U.S. should fix its internal problems rather than assist Europe with its problems.

Alliance counters fascism

As both Hitler and the Japanese Empire began to attack their neighbors in the late 1930s, it became clear to President Franklin Roosevelt and other American military and political leaders that the U.S. would get caught up in World War II. If nothing else, airplanes had erased America’s ability to hide behind the Atlantic Ocean.

Though public opinion was divided, the U.S. began sending arms and other assistance to Britain and quietly began military planning with London. This was despite the fact that the U.S. was formally neutral, as the Roosevelt administration was pushing the limits of what a neutral nation can do for friendly nations without becoming a warring party.

In January of 1941, Roosevelt gave his annual State of the Union speech to Congress. He appeared to prepare the country for possible intervention – both on behalf of allies abroad and for the preservation of American democracy:

“The future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders. Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, and Asia, and Africa and Australasia will be dominated by conquerors. In times like these it is immature – and incidentally, untrue – for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.”

When the Japanese attacked Hawaii in 1941 and Hitler declared war on the United States, America quickly entered World War II in an alliance with Britain, the Free French and others.Throughout the war, the Allies worked as a team on matters large and small. They defeated Germany in three and half years and Japan in less than four.

As World War II ended, the wartime alliance produced two longer-term partnerships built on the understanding that working together had produced a powerful and effective counter to fascism.

A ‘news bulletin’ from August 1945 issued by a predecessor of the United Nations.
Foreign Policy In Focus

Postwar alliances

The first of these alliances is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. The original members were the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and others of the wartime Allies. There are now 32 members, including Poland, Hungary and Turkey.

The aims of NATO were to keep the peace in Europe and contain the growing Communist threat from the Soviet Union. NATO’s supporters feel that, given that the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and in the Ukraine today are the only major conflicts in Europe in 80 years, the alliance has met its goals well. And NATO troops went to Afghanistan along with the U.S. military after 9/11.

The other institution created by the wartime Allies is the United Nations.

The U.N. is many things – a humanitarian aid organization, a forum for countries to raise their issues and a source of international law.

However, it is also an alliance. The U.N. Security Council on several occasions authorized the use of force by members, such as in the first Gulf War against Iraq. And it has the power to send peacekeeping troops to conflict areas under the U.N. flag.

Other U.S. allies with treaties or designations by Congress include Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, three South American countries and six in the Middle East.

In addition to these formal alliances, many of the same countries created institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization of American States and the European Union. The U.S. belongs to all of these except the European Union. During my 35-year diplomatic career, I worked with all of these institutions, particularly in efforts to stabilize Africa. They keep the peace and support development efforts with loans and grants.

Admirers of this postwar liberal international order point to the limited number of major armed conflicts during the past 80 years, the globalized economy and international cooperation on important matters such as disease control and fighting terrorism.Detractors point to this system’s inability to stop some very deadly conflicts, such as Vietnam or Ukraine, and the large populations that haven’t done well under globalization as evidence of its flaws.

The world would look dramatically different without the Allies’ victories in the two World Wars, the stable worldwide economic system and NATO’s and the U.N.’s keeping the world relatively peaceful.

But the value of allies to Americans, even when they benefit from alliances, appears to have shifted between George Washington’s attitude – avoid them – and that of Franklin D. Roosevelt – go all in … eventually. Läs mer…

The United States’ steadfast allegiance to Ukraine during that country’s three-year war against Russia appears to be quickly disintegrating under the Trump administration. President Donald Trump on Feb. 19, 2025, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator” and falsely blamed him for the war that Russia initiated as part of a land grab in the countries’ border regions.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said on Feb. 19 that Trump is trapped in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “disinformation space.”

The intensifying bitterness comes as the U.S. and Russia started talks in Saudi Arabia, without including Ukraine, on how to end the conflict.

The U.S. and Russia have long been adversaries, and the U.S., to date, has given Ukraine more than US$183 billion to help fight against Russia. But that funding came when Joe Biden was president. Trump does not appear to be similarly inclined toward Ukraine.

Amy Lieberman, a politics editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Tatsiana Kulakevich, a scholar of Eastern European politics and international relations, to understand the implications of this sudden shift in U.S.-Russia policy under Trump.

Kulakevich sees Trump’s moves that could be perceived as self-interested as instead part of a calculated strategy in preliminary discussions.

An airplane passenger reads a Financial Times article about U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 19, 2025.
Horacio Villalobos Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Can you explain the current dynamic between the U.S., Ukraine and Russia?

People should not panic because the U.S. and Russia are only holding exploratory talks. We should not call them peace talks, per se, at least not yet. It was to be expected that Ukraine was not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia because there is nothing to talk about yet. We don’t know what the U.S. and Russia are actually discussing besides agreeing to restore the normal functioning of each other’s diplomatic missions.

People are perceiving the U.S. and Russia as being in love. However, Trump’s Russia policy has been more hawkish than often portrayed in the media. Looking at the record from the previous Trump administration, we can see that if something is not in the interests of the U.S., that is not going to be done. Trump does not do favors.

He approved anti-tank missile sales to Ukraine in 2019. That same year, Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, an agreement with Russia that limited what weapons each country could purchase, over Russian violations.

In 2019, Trump also issued economic sanctions against a Russian ship involved in building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. These sanctions tried to block Russia’s direct gas exports to Germany – this connection between Russia and Germany was seen by Ukraine as an economic threat.

Based on Trump’s talks with Russia and remarks against Ukraine, it could seem like the U.S. and Russia are no longer adversaries. How do you perceive this?

There are no clear indications that Russia and the U.S. have ceased to be adversaries. Despite Trump’s occasional use of terms like “friends” in diplomacy, his rhetoric often serves as a tactical maneuver rather than a genuine shift in alliances. A key example is his engagement with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, where Trump alternated between flattery and threats to extract concessions.

Even if the U.S. is meeting with Russia and the public narrative seems to say otherwise, strategically, abandoning Ukraine is not in the United States’ best interests. One reason why is because the U.S. turning away from Ukraine would make Russia happy and China happy. Trump has treated China as a primary threat to the U.S., and China has supported Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also still saying that everyone, including Ukraine, will be at the table for eventual peace talks.

The allegations that Russia was holding some information over Trump and blackmailing him started long before this presidential term and did not stop Trump from imposing countermeasures on Russia during his first term. The first Trump administration took more than 50 policy actions to counter Moscow, primarily in the form of public statements and sanctions.

What does the U.S. gain from developing a diplomatic relationship with Russia?

Trump is a transactional politician. American companies could profit from the U.S. aligning with Russia and Russian companies, as some Russian officials have said during the recent Saudi Arabia talks with the Trump administration. But the U.S. could also benefit economically from the Trump’s administration’s proposed deal with Ukraine to give the U.S. half of Ukraine’s estimated $11.5 trillion in rare earth minerals.

Zelenskyy rejected that proposal this week, saying it does not come with the promise that the U.S. will continue to give security guarantees to Ukraine.

Historically, since the Cold War, there has been a diplomatic triangle between the Soviet Union – later Russia – China and the U.S. And there has always been one side fighting against the two other sides. Trump trying to develop a better diplomatic relationship with Russia might mean he is trying to distance Russia from China.

A similar dynamic is playing out between the U.S. and Belarus’ authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, a co-aggressor in the war in Ukraine. Lukashenko is close with both Russia and China. The U.S. administration is looking to relax sanctions on Belarusian banks and exports of potash, a key ingredient in fertilizer, in exchange for the release of Belarusian political opposition members who are imprisoned. There are over 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus. This U.S. foreign policy strategy is aimed at providing Lukashenko with room to grow less economically dependent on Russia and China.

A worker clears snow from a cemetery in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Feb. 17, 2025. More than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in combat since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Pierre Crom/Getty Images

Is this level of collaboration between the U.S. and Russia unprecedented?

While U.S.-Russia relations are often defined by rivalry, history shows that pragmatic cooperation has occurred when both nations saw mutual benefits – whether this relates to arms control, space, counterterrorism, Arctic affairs or health.

Moreover, the U.S. has always prioritized its own interests in its relationship with Russia. For example, the U.S. and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia’s uranium and nickel industries only in May 2024, over two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This was due to the United States’ strategic economic dependencies and concerns about market stability if it sanctioned uranium and nickel.

Even after Russia invaded Crimea – an area of Ukraine that Russia claims as its own – in 2014 and provided support for Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbass region, the U.S. and other Western countries imposed largely symbolic sanctions. This included freezing assets of Russian individuals, restricting some financial transactions and limiting Russia’s access to Western technology.

We should also notice that Trump in January 2025 promised to sanction Russia if it does not end the Ukraine war. The U.S. still has not removed any existing sanctions, which signals its commitment to a tough stance on Russia, despite perceptions of a close relationship between Trump and Putin.

Given Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy, his tough rhetoric on Zelenskyy could be a deliberate negotiation strategy aimed at pressuring Ukraine into making greater concessions in potential peace talks, rather than signaling abandonment. Läs mer…

Imperialist rhetoric is becoming a mark of President Donald Trump’s second term. From asserting that the U.S. will “take over” the Gaza Strip, Greenland and the Panama Canal to apparently siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine, Trump’s comments suggest a return to an old imperialist style of forcing foreign lands under American control.

Imperialism is when a nation extends its power through territorial acquisition, economic dominance or political influence. Historically, imperialist leaders have used military conquest, economic coercion or diplomatic pressure to expand their dominions, and justified their foreign incursions as civilizing missions, economic opportunities or national security imperatives.

The term “empire” often evokes the Romans, the Mughals or the British, but the U.S. is an imperial power, too. In the 19th and early 20th century, American presidents expanded U.S. territory westward across the continent and, later, overseas, acquiring Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands, Guam and the Philippines.

After that, outright territorial conquest mostly ceased, but the U.S. did not give up imperialism. As I trace in my 2023 book, “Dying by the Sword,” the country instead embraced a subtler, more strategic kind of expansionism. In this veiled imperialism, the U.S. exerted its global influence through economic, political and threatened military means, not direct confrontation.

Embracing traditional U.S. imperialism would upend the rules that have kept the globe relatively stable since World War II. As an expert on U.S. foreign policy, I fear that would unleash fear, chaos – and possibly nuclear war.

No redrawing borders

One of the most fundamental principles of this post-war international system is the concept of sovereignty – the idea that a nation’s borders should remain intact.

The United Nations Charter, signed in San Francisco in 1945, explicitly bars countries from obtaining territory through force. Outright annexation or territorial takeover is considered a direct violation of international law.

Work by the late political scientist Mark Zacher outlines how, since World War II, the international community – including the U.S. – has largely upheld this standard.

But imperialism still shapes world politics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is a blatant instance of imperial ambition justified by alleged historical grievances and national security concerns. Russia’s invasion set a dangerous precedent by undermining the principle that borders can’t be changed by force and that countries shouldn’t resort to aggression.

Putin’s precedent, in turn, has raised concerns that another great power may attempt to forcibly redraw international borders.

Take China, for example. President Xi Jinping has become increasingly aggressive toward Taiwan since 2019. If Putin’s invasion culminates with Russia successfully annexing parts of Ukraine – which the Trump administration has agreed with Russia should be part of any settlement – Xi may follow through on his threats to invade Taiwan.

A destroyed Russian tank in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 23, 2023. Territorial invasions like Russia’s ongoing effort to annex parts of Ukraine have been relatively rare since World War II.
Roman Pilipey/Getty Images

Respect for national sovereignty has made the world more stable and less violent.

The decline of traditional imperialism after World War II led to a flourishing of independent nation-states. As former colonial powers gradually relinquished control of their holdings in the second half of the 20th century – voluntarily or after losing wars of independence – the number of sovereign countries increased dramatically. The U.N. had 51 member countries in 1945 and over 150 by 1970.

The U.N. was founded on the idea that people of all countries should have a say in how they build their own futures. Today, 197 countries try to work together through the U.N. on a wide range of global issues, including defending human rights and reducing global poverty.

When a major power like the U.S. openly embraces imperialist rhetoric, it further weakens the already fragile rules that keep this delicate collaboration working.

Nonviolent imperialism

Imperialism does not require military force. Great powers still exert influence over weaker nations, shaping their behavior through economic might and wealth, diplomacy and strategic alliances.

The U.S. has long engaged in this form of influence. It has often pursued its imperialist agenda in what I would call a more “gentlemanly manner” than historical empires with their bloody physical conquests.

During the Cold War, for example, the U.S. established extensive dominance over much of the globe. In Latin America and the Middle East, it used economic aid, military alliances and ideological persuasion rather than outright territorial expansion to exert its control. Russia did the same in Eastern Europe and its other spheres of influence.

Demonstrators in Panama City insist ‘Panama Canal is Not For Sale’ following Donald Trump’s threats to seize the canal, Jan. 20, 2025.
Arnulfo Franco/AFP via Getty Images

Today, China excels at nonviolent imperialism. Its Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure construction project launched in 2013, has created deep economic dependencies among partner nations in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Trade and diplomatic ties between China and those regions are much closer today as a result.

Nuclear era

A critical distinction between imperialism past and present is the presence of nuclear weapons.

In previous eras, great powers frequently fought wars to expand their influence and settle disputes. Countries could attempt to seize territory with little risk to their survival, even in defeat.

The sheer destructive potential of nuclear arsenals has changed this calculus. The Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction guarantees that if one country launches a nuclear weapon, it will quickly become the target of nuclear counterattack: annihilation for all sides.

Any major war between nuclear-armed nations now carries the risk of massive, potentially planetary, destruction. This makes direct conquest an irrational, even suicidal strategy rather than a calculated political maneuver.

And it makes Trump’s old-school imperial rhetoric particularly dangerous.

If the U.S. tried to annex foreign territory, it would almost certainly provoke serious international conflict. That’s especially true of the most strategic places Trump has threatened to “take over,” like the Panama Canal, which links 1,920 ports across 170 countries.

These imperialist threats, even if they’re not intended as serious policy proposals, are already ratcheting up global tensions.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino — a pro-American ally — has flatly ruled out negotiating with the U.S. over control of the Panama Canal. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, says its territory of Greenland is “not for sale.” And Palestinians in Gaza, for their part, fiercely reject Trump’s plan to move all of them out and turn their homeland into a “Middle East Riviera,” as have neighboring Arab countries, which could be expected to absorb millions of displaced Palestinians.

Rhetoric shapes perception, and perception influences behavior. When an American president floats acquiring foreign territories as a viable policy option, it signals to both allies and enemies that the U.S. is no longer committed to the international order that has achieved relative global stability for the past 75 years.

With wars raging in the Middle East and Europe, this is a risky time for reckless rhetoric. Läs mer…

Five years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S. cities are still adjusting to a new normal, with more people working remotely and less economic activity in city centers. Other factors, such as underfunded pension plans for municipal employees, are pushing many city budgets into the red.

Urban fiscal struggles are not new, but historically they have mainly affected U.S. cities that are small, poor or saddled with incompetent managers. Today, however, even large cities, including Chicago, Houston and San Francisco, are under serious financial stress.

This is a looming nationwide threat, driven by factors that include climate change, declining downtown activity, loss of federal funds and large pension and retirement commitments.

Spending cuts abound in many U.S. cities as inflation lingers and pandemic-era stimulus dries up.

Why cities struggle

Many U.S. cities have faced fiscal crises over the past century, for diverse reasons. Most commonly, stress occurs after an economic downturn or sharp fall in tax revenues.

Florida municipalities began to default in 1926 after the collapse of a land boom. Municipal defaults were common across the nation in the 1930s during the Great Depression: As unemployment rose, relief burdens swelled and tax collections dwindled.

In 1934 Congress amended the U.S. bankruptcy code to allow municipalities to file formally for bankruptcy. Subsequently, 27 states enacted laws that authorized cities to become debtors and seek bankruptcy protection.

Declaring bankruptcy was not a cure-all. It allowed cities to refinance debt or stretch out payment schedules, but it also could lead to higher taxes and fees for residents, and lower pay and benefits for city employees. And it could stigmatize a city for many years afterward.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many urban residents and businesses left cities for adjoining suburbs. Many cities, including New York, Cleveland and Philadelphia, found it difficult to repay debts as their tax bases shrank.

The New York Daily News, Oct. 30, 1975, after U.S. President Gerald Ford ruled out providing federal aid to save the city from bankruptcy. Several months later, Ford signed legislation authorizing federal loans.
Edward Stojakovic/Flickr, CC BY

In the wake of the 2008-2009 housing market collapse, cities including Detroit, San Bernardino, California, and Stockton, California, filed for bankruptcy. Other cities faced similar difficulties but were located in states that did not allow municipalities to declare bankruptcy.

Even large, affluent jurisdictions could go off the financial rails. For example, Orange County, California, went bankrupt in 2002 after its treasurer, Robert Citron, pursued a risky investment strategy of complex leveraging deals, losing some $1.65 billion in taxpayer funds.

Today, cities face a convergence of rising costs and decreasing revenues in many places. As I see it, the urban fiscal crisis is now a pervasive national challenge.

Climate-driven disasters

Climate change and its attendant increase in major disasters are putting financial pressure on municipalities across the country.

Events like wildfires and flooding have twofold effects on city finances. First, money has to be spent on rebuilding damaged infrastructure, such as roads, water lines and public buildings. Second, after the disaster, cities may either act on their own or be required under state or federal law to make expensive investments in preparation for the next storm or wildfire.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (center) discusses wildfire recovery in Pacific Palisades, Calif., Jan. 27, 2025. Cleaning up after the wildfires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures, will include disposing of several million tons of toxic ash and debris.
Drew A. Kelley/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images

In Houston, for example, court rulings after multiple years of severe flooding are forcing the city to spend $100 million on street repairs and drainage by mid-2025. This requirement will expand the deficit in Houston’s annual budget to $330 million.

In Massachusetts, towns on Cape Cod are spending millions of dollars to switch from septic systems to public sewer lines and upgrade wastewater treatment plants. Population growth has sharply increased water pollution on the Cape, and climate change is promoting blooms of toxic algae that feed on nutrients in wastewater.

Increasing uncertainty about the total costs of mitigating and adapting to climate change will inevitably lead rating agencies to downgrade municipal credit ratings. This raises cities’ costs to borrow money for climate-related projects like protecting shorelines and improving wastewater treatment.

Underfunded pensions

Cities also spend a lot of money on employees, and many large cities are struggling to fund pensions and health benefits for their workforces. As municipal retirees live longer and require more health care, the costs are mounting.

For example, Chicago currently faces a budget deficit of nearly $1 billion, which stems partly from underfunded retirement benefits for nearly 30,000 public employees. The city has $35 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and almost $2 billion in unfunded retiree health benefits. Chicago’s teachers are owed $14 billion in unfunded benefits.

Policy studies have shown for years that politicians tend to underfund retirement and pension benefits for public employees. This approach offloads the real cost of providing police, fire protection and education onto future taxpayers.

Struggling downtowns and less federal support

Cities aren’t just facing rising costs – they’re also losing revenues. In many U.S. cities, retail and commercial office economies are declining. Developers have overbuilt commercial properties, creating an excess supply. More unleased properties will mean lower tax revenues.

At the same time, pandemic-related federal aid that cushioned municipal finances from 2020 through 2024 is dwindling.

State and local governments received $150 billion through the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and an additional $130 billion through the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. Now, however, this federal largesse – which some cities used to fill mounting fiscal cracks – is at an end.

In my view, President Donald Trump’s administration is highly unlikely to bail out urban areas – especially more liberal cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Trump has portrayed large cities governed by Democrats in the darkest terms – for example, calling Baltimore a “rodent-infested mess” and Washington, D.C., a “dirty, crime-ridden death trap.” I expect that Trump’s animus against big cities, which was a staple of his 2024 campaign, could become a hallmark of his second term.

Detroit officials respond to disparaging remarks about the city by Donald Trump during a campaign speech in Detroit, Oct. 10, 2024.

Resistance to new taxes

Cities can generate revenue from taxes on sales, businesses, property and utilities. However, increasing municipal taxes – particularly property taxes – can be very difficult.

In 1978, California adopted Proposition 13 – a ballot measure that limited property tax increases to the rate of inflation or 2% per year, whichever is lower. This high-profile campaign created a widespread narrative that property taxes were out of control and made it very hard for local officials to support property tax increases.

Thanks to caps like Prop 13, a persistent public view that taxes are too high and political resistance, property taxes have tended to lag behind inflation in many parts of the country.

The crunch

Taking these factors together, I see a fiscal crunch coming for U.S. cities. Small cities with low budgets are particularly vulnerable. But so are larger, more affluent cities, such as San Francisco with its collapsing downtown office market, or Houston, New York and Miami, which face growing costs from climate change.

Workers in North Miami Beach, Fla., distribute sandbags to residents to help prevent flooding as Hurricane Milton approaches the state on Oct. 8, 2024.
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

One city manager who runs an affluent municipality in the Pacific Northwest told me that in these difficult circumstances, politicians need to be more frank and open with their constituents and explain convincingly and compellingly how and why taxpayer money is being spent.

Efforts to balance city budgets are opportunities to build consensus with the public about what municipalities can do, and at what cost. The coming months will show whether politicians and city residents are ready for these hard conversations. Läs mer…

The school choice movement received a major boost on Jan. 29, 2025, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order supporting families who want to use public money to send their children to private schools.

The far-reaching order aims to redirect federal funds to voucher-type programs. Vouchers typically afford parents the freedom to select nonpublic schools, including faith-based ones, using all or a portion of the public funds set aside to educate their children.

But research shows that as a consequence, this typically drains funding from already cash-strapped public schools.

We are professors who focus on education law, with special interests in educational equity and school choice programs. While proponents of school choice claim it leads to academic gains, we don’t see much evidence to support this view – but we do see the negative impact they sometimes have on public schools.

The rise of school choice

The vast majority of children in the U.S. attend traditional public schools. Their share, however, has steadily declined from 87% in 2011 to about 83% in 2021, at least in part due to the growth of school choice programs such as vouchers.

Modern voucher programs expanded significantly during the late 1980s and early 1990s as states, cities and local school boards experimented with ways to allow parents to use public funds to send their kids to nonpublic schools, especially ones that are religiously affiliated.

While some programs were struck down for violating the separation of church and state, others were upheld. Vouchers received a big shot in the arm in 2002, when the Supreme Court ruled in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause permitted states to include faith-based schools in their voucher programs in Cleveland.

Following Zelman, vouchers became a more realistic political option. Even so, access to school choice programs varied greatly by state and was not as dramatic as supporters may have wished. Because the Constitution is silent on education, states largely control school voucher programs.

Currently, 13 states and Washington, D.C., offer one or several school choice programs targeting different types of students. Total U.S. enrollment in such programs surpassed 1 million for the first time in 2024, double what it was in 2020, according to EdChoice, which advocates for school-choice policies.

Voters, however, have taken a dim view of voucher programs. By one count, they’ve turned down referendums on vouchers 17 times, according to the National Coalition for Public Education, a group that opposes the policy.

Most recently, three states rejected school choice programs in the November 2024 elections. Kentucky voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to enshrine school choice into commonwealth law, while Nebraska voters chose to repeal its voucher program. Colorado also rejected a “right” to school choice, but more narrowly.

In 2025, Tennessee became the 13th state to pass some sort of school choice program, despite opposition from public school supporters.
AP Photo/George Walker IV

Trump’s order

At its heart, Trump’s executive order would offer discretionary grants and issue guidance to states over using federal funds within this K-12 scholarship program. It also directs the Department of Interior and Department of Defense to make vouchers available to Native American and military families.

In addition, the order directs the Department of Education to provide guidance on how states can better support school choice – though it’s unclear exactly what that will mean. It’s a task that will be left for Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee for secretary of Education, once she is confirmed.

Trump promoted school choice in his first term as well but failed to win enough congressional support to include it in the federal budget.

Research suggests few academic gains from vouchers

The push to give parents more choice over where to send their children is based on the assumption that doing so will provide them with a better education.

In the order, Trump specifically cites disappointing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showing that 70% of eighth graders are below proficient in reading, while 72% are below proficient in mathematics.

Voucher advocates point to research that school choice boosts test scores and improves educational attainment.

But other data don’t always back up the notion that school choice policies meaningfully improve student outcomes. A 2023 review of the past decade of research on the topic by the Brookings Institution found that the introduction of a voucherlike program actually led to lower academic achievement – similar to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A 2017 review by a Stanford economist Martin Carnoy published by the Economic Policy Institute similarly found little evidence vouchers improve school outcomes. While there were some modest gains in graduation rates, they were outweighed by the risks to funding public school systems.

Indeed, vouchers have been shown to reduce funding to public schools, especially in rural areas, and hurt public education in other ways, such as by making it harder for schools to afford qualified teachers.

Critics of voucher programs also fear that nonpublic schools may discriminate
against some students, such as those who are members of the LGBTQ+ community. There are some reports of this already happening in Wisconsin. Unlike legislation governing traditional public schools, state laws regulating voucher programs often do not include comprehensive anti-discrimination provisions.

School reform

Criticisms of voucher programs aside, many parents who support them do so based on the hope that their children will have more affordable, high-quality educational options. This was especially true in Zelman, in which the Supreme Court upheld the rights of parents to remove their kids from Cleveland’s struggling public schools.

There is little doubt in our minds that in some cases school choice affords some parents in low-performing districts additional options for their children’s education.

But in general, the evidence shows that is the exception to vouchers, not the rule. Evidence also suggests most children – whether they’re using vouchers to attend nonpublic schools or remain in the public school system – may not always benefit from school choice programs. And when it takes money out of underfunded public school systems, school choice can make things worse for a lot more children than it benefits.

While the poor reading and math scores cited in Trump’s executive order suggest that change is needed to help keep America’s school and students competitive, this order may not achieve that goal. Läs mer…