Hugh Pope has lived through many crises during the 25 years he has been in Istanbul as a reporter and policy analyst. ‘What is different this time is the sense of looking into the unknown. In the past there was a sense of an all-powerful US in control. Now the US is withdrawing, and regional states like Turkey are explicitly questioning the rule book.’
Daniel Drezner is a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and blogs for Foreign Policy magazine. He has mused in print on why some public intellectuals earn $1m a speech and others just get a chicken sandwich. He categorizes himself in the ‘D-list’ of the foreign policy ecosystem, among ‘garden-variety think-tankers, A-list bloggers and assorted crackpots.’
Julia Buxton senior research fellow at the University of Bradford, has almost 20 years of experience in monitoring Venezuelan elections. It’s time for a policy change in Washington, she believes. ‘The US should prioritize restoring diplomatic ties with the Venezuelan government - at a minimum committing to track two diplomacy that will allow for confidence building.’
Tarek Osman is the author of an unusually prophetic book, Egypt on the Brink, published in October 2010, four months before the fall of Mubarak. ‘In the coming months the next surprise could be a socio-economic one. If inflation continues to rise and fuel, cooking gas and electricity are in short supply, broad segments of the poor and lower middle classes may express their anger in assertive ways.’
Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer and comes from a family of doctors and nurses. He is the author of LoveStar, which was nominated for the Phillip K. Dick Award 2013. The future of Icelandic politics seems to lie in the hands of comedians and directors. ‘The artists that took over Reykjavik have proved to be good leaders by being human, sincere and modest.’
Patricia Lewis is a nuclear physicist and arms control expert. On the threat North Korea poses, she says: ‘Aesop’s lesson on the boy who cried wolf should temper complacency. There is much scope for misinterpretation and miscalculation, and colossal mistakes could be made.’