What does it mean to be an educated person? This is the most important question we must ask ourselves on a college campus.
Universities, by definition, turn us into educated citizens — men and...
We live in a time when openness and secrecy have both increased. With social media and other Internet communications, it is easier than ever to procure information about topics from foreign affairs and...
On Saturday I had the privilege of delivering the keynote speech to the 2015 Honors Day Convocation of undergraduates at the University of Texas. The students inspired me to think deeply about how educated...
One of the great accomplishments in recent American society was the recognition, during the 1960s and 1970s, that the “personal is political.” For civil rights activists; this meant that racial...
It is always easier to shout in anger than to talk calmly and reasonably in moments of maximum pressure. It is always easier to condemn than to compromise with adversaries. It is always easier to fight...
During the last 18 months I have participated in intensive discussions with policymakers, scholars and students in London, Melbourne, Munich, Abu Dhabi, Toronto, Tokyo and countless American cities, especially...
March is my favorite time of year: the end of winter, spring break and, of course, March Madness. I am a college basketball junkie. I used to play myself and I love the excitement, the team play, the win-or-go-home...
We have entered a leadership selection season on steroids. Everywhere one looks, longtime leaders are preparing to move on and open space for successors. One can see this in Washington as well as in Austin,...
Is it just me, or has our world taken a turn to greater incivility in the last few years? The evidence seems overwhelming. Our politicians attack one another and show no inclination to listen to anything...
Our college campuses are plagued with numerous problems, but the shortage of guns is not one of them. No one walks around our campus thinking: “I wish the students and faculty had more guns.”...
With all the recent attacks on higher education in the United States, perhaps most noticeably in funding cuts to public universities, one has to wonder how Americans created and supported our great universities...
One of the great accomplishments of the last century was the rise of international law. Through the League of Nations, the United Nations and other transnational institutions, the majority of the world’s...
We live in an impatient moment, when everyone wants immediate results. The Internet has encouraged this attitude, allowing anyone with a computer and a wireless connection instant access to videos, music...
I love this time of year, especially in Texas. While our friends in New York and Boston endure mountains of snow and frigid temperatures, we benefit from beautiful, sunny and mild days. Everything seems...
I am not sure how to measure it, but I am certain that American society is filled with more public expressions of hatred today than anytime since the 1960s. Public officials now routinely condemn their...
Editor's note: An earlier version of this column ran with a cartoon which inaccurately stated the name of the cartoonist. The correct cartoonist is Connor Murphy.
In the world...
As observers of international affairs, we have a tendency to divide the world into good guys and bad guys, friends and foes. Old maps from the Second World War show the allied countries in one color, the...
Newspapers, television and social media were filled this weekend with stories about the Berlin Wall. In case you were not paying attention, it came down 25 years ago, on Nov. 9, 1989. Thousands of young...
Last week I had the opportunity to dine with a large group of leading business people who came to Austin for the Formula 1 Grand Prix. These were pioneers of technology, finance, real estate and even wine....
Fighting terrorists never works out as we hope. The threat of violent extremists is not new to this millennium. Fears of small, organized groups undermining authority at home and abroad go back at least...
We have become a society driven by crises. Every day seems to bring us closer to an apocalypse — an existential terrorist threat, a crazed shooter, a growing oil spill, a gigantic storm and now a...
For all the talk about globalization, most Americans still think in very local ways. We generally ignore distant problems that we cannot see, and then we overreact when they arrive at our shores. Overnight,...
The future of democracy might rest on the shoulders of courageous student protesters in Hong Kong. Thousands of young men and women on the island have taken to the streets to stall Chinese efforts at rigging...
The United States possesses more force and money than any other country in the world, yet it does not seem to be enough. Over the last decade our society has deployed the best-trained soldiers and the...
We live in a time when everything seems too big or too small. We are told that the federal government is too big, too bureaucratic and too threatening to individual liberties. The same critics say that...
Our nation’s founding fathers disagreed about many issues: slavery, the presidency and foreign policy. They almost universally shared a belief about the military: It was a necessary part of the “common...
The United States is at war again in Iraq — for the third time in 25 years. Our main enemy this time is not Saddam Hussein or Al-Qaeda, but the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), sometimes called...
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a weekly column on foreign policy from Suri.
College is a time when students focus most of their attention on campus activities. That is perfectly appropriate....
The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of proxy wars throughout the Middle East, Africa, central Asia and Southeast Asia. These are violent, often genocidal, conflicts between local groups fueled...
I love rigorous toe-to-toe debates, but I hate what I have seen from our presidential candidates in their recent performances. Debates are supposed to force a detailed and focused interrogation of issues,...
