Children Pay the Cost 
When Voters Decriminalize Drugs

Two sisters comfort each other at the graves of their parents on Sunday, June 21, 2020, in Troy, MI. (The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The U.S. election produced a “green wave” as voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota approved the legalization of recreational marijuana. In Oregon, voters decriminalized the possession of small amounts of harder drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. In The Wall Street Journal, John Walters and Naomi Schaefer Riley examine the unfathomable costs on children of increasing substance abuse and addiction. While hardline drug policies have lost their allure, Americans should hope that keeping children safe has not.

Can the WHO Be Fixed?

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, attends a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, on January 28, 2020 in Beijing, China. (Naohiko Hatta - Pool/Getty Images)

Joe Biden says he’ll take the U.S. back into the World Health Organization on his first day in office, reversing the withdrawal President Trump began in July. That would be a mistake, writes Claudia Rosett in The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. should require the WHO to meet two conditions before resuming the lavish flow of funds. First, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus needs to resign, and make way for a director-general more devoted to health and less devoted to Beijing. Second, the WHO should invite Taiwan to its proceedings, despite Beijing’s objections.

Addressing Secular Blindness

Pall bearers carry coffins during the funeral service for people killed during clashes between Fuliani cattle herders and Christian farmers, on January 11, 2018, in Ibrahim Babangida Square in the Benue state capital Makurdi.  (Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images)

Religious genocide is often written off by Western experts and politicians as an "issue of resources" or "inter-communal conflict," such as the current attacks on Christians by Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria that have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.  In Providence Magazine, Paul Marshall explores the dangers of viewing genocidal conflict through a secular lens and ignoring the ways in which real beliefs shape human responses into actions and agendas.

Building on Trump's China Successes

Fighters of Japan Air Self-Defense Force and the Royal Australian Air Force are seen during the joint air exercise at the JASDF Chitose Air Base on September 25, 2019 in Hokkaido, Japan. (The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)

Joe Biden is entering the White House promising to restore U.S. leadership and its standing in the world. In The Australian, John Lee advises the Biden administration to undertake a dispassionate assessment of Donald Trump’s successes, which can be improved and built on. A virtue of the Trump administration is that it takes seriously the cost of inaction, whereas Trump’s predecessors tended to focus on the risk associated with strong action. To lead well, Biden needs to replicate elements of Trump’s competitive mindset and approach. The Trump administration worked with other nations to impose enduring constraints on errant Chinese behavior, which increased the strategic courage and creativity of forward-leaning nations like Australia and Japan.

Biden and "The Blob"

The U.S. Department of State building is seen in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. (Alastair Pike / AFP)

In The Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead observes how President-elect Joe Biden has turned to what Obama adviser Ben Rhodes famously called “the Blob”—experienced foreign-policy insiders who work comfortably within the key assumptions that have guided U.S. foreign policy since the late 1940s. The news that Biden is expected to nominate Antony Blinken as secretary of state and to appoint Jake Sullivan as national security adviser speaks volumes about the next era in U.S. foreign policy.  Biden’s expected nominees may be centrists, but it is the Democratic mainstream in which they swim.

BEFORE YOU GO...

Nine months after COVID-19’s spread throughout South Asia, the pandemic has imposed heavy costs on almost every nation in the region. In a new policy memo, Aparna Pande and Amb. Husain Haqqani build on their May report, Crisis from Kolkata to Kabul: COVID-19’s Impact on South Asia, to provide an updated look at each country’s response to the pandemic.