THIS IS home.php

Politics

WashU Expert: There is no end to forever

The swift fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban apparently signals the end of a nearly 20-year conflict. But is it, asks Krister Knapp, a teaching professor of history in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Or is this simply the beginning of the next chapter of U.S/Afghan entanglements?
Politics

WashU Expert: Play it again, Uncle Sam

Rick and Ilsa, “Casablanca’s” ill-fated lovers, will always have Paris. Uncle Sam will always have Kabul. And Saigon. And Baghdad. In the long-running tragedy of American foreign entanglements, Uncle Sam has become less a hapless romantic idealist and more a cynical “love ’em and leave ’em” serial abuser, says veteran filmmaker Richard Chapman.
Biology

For larger, older trees, it’s all downhill from here

Sunlight through trees
Jonathan Myers, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, and William Farfan-Rios, a postdoctoral research fellow of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University, are co-authors of a study that found that trees’ fecundity — or physical potential to reproduce — peaked or plateaued as they reached an intermediate size.
Politics

Afghanistan crisis was a predictable catastrophe

Without international pressure, the power-sharing agreement between Kabul and the Taliban was doomed, according to research by William Nomikos, assistant professor of political science in Arts & Sciences. But the political cost of continued occupation was too great.