Writer
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General. His books include <em>The End of Poverty</em>, <em>Common Wealth</em>, <em>The Age of Sustainable Development</em>, <em>Building the New American Economy</em>, and most recently, A New Foreign Policy: <em>Beyond American Exceptionalism.</em>
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UN Security Council can end Israel-Palestine, Ukraine, Syria, and Sahel wars
All P5 members, and indeed the whole world, suffer adverse consequences from the continuation of these wars. All are paying a price in terms of financial burdens, economic instability, risks of terrorism, and risks of a wider war. For the sake of global peace, let the Council now choose to end these wars. Continue reading »
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US ranks last on adherence to UN Charter
At the very bottom of a new index ranking 74 countries adhering to the UN Charter is the United States, with Israel being the second from the bottom. Both countries are frequently at odds with the UN multilateral system. The US needs to recognise that the UN system, operating under the UN Charter, is the Continue reading »
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Saving Israel and Palestine through the UN
Following Hamas’s heinous attack on innocent Israeli civilians, senior Israeli military strategists are threatening the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This would be another Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), akin to the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. If Israel commits massive war crimes in Gaza in the face of global calls for restraint, Continue reading »
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Beyond the neocon debacle to peace in Ukraine
We are entering the end stage of the 30-year US neocon debacle in Ukraine. The neocon plan to surround Russia in the Black Sea region by NATO has failed. Decisions now by the US and Russia will matter enormously for peace, security, and wellbeing for the entire world. Continue reading »
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NATO admits that Ukraine war is a war of NATO expansion
During the disastrous Vietnam War, it was said that the US government treated the public like a mushroom farm: keeping it in the dark and feeding it with manure. The heroic Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers documenting the unrelenting US government lying about the war in order to protect politicians who would be embarrassed Continue reading »
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The US economic war on China
China’s economy is slowing down. Current forecasts put China’s GDP growth in 2023 at less than 5%, below the forecasts made last year and far below the high growth rates that China enjoyed until the late 2010s. The Western press is filled with China’s supposed misdeeds: a financial crisis in the real-estate market, a general Continue reading »
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The real history of the war in Ukraine: A chronology of events and case for diplomacy
The American people urgently need to know the true history of the war in Ukraine and its current prospects. Unfortunately, the mainstream media ––The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN –– have become mere mouthpieces of the government, repeating US President Joe Biden’s lies and hiding history from the public. Continue reading »
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An Asia-Pacific NATO: fanning the flames of war
“My country, the U.S., is unrecognisable. I’m not sure who runs the country. I do not believe it is the president.”, says Jeffrey Sachs in a speech at a Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE) seminar, Melbourne, Australia. “U.S. actions are putting us on a path to war with China in the same way that Continue reading »
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US politics, climate change, and the Paris Finance Summit
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and French President Emmanuel Macron invited world leaders to Paris on June 22-23 to reach a new “global pact” to finance the fight against poverty and human-induced climate change. All kudos for the ambition, yet few dollars were put on the table. To an important extent, the continuing global failure Continue reading »
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US-China relations and the decline of US dominance
What is the path to peace for the war in Ukraine? Is America still powerful enough to impose global order? The US has just 4.1% of the world’s population, while the BRICS countries have 41.5%. In this conversation with economist Jeffrey Sachs, we discuss the origins of the conflict in Ukraine and NATO enlargement, US-China Continue reading »
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How JFK would pursue peace in Ukraine
Sixty years after Kennedy’s commencement address at American University, crucial lessons must still be learned about how to end dangerous conflicts in a nuclear world. Continue reading »
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The war in Ukraine was provoked— and why that matters to achieve peace
By recognising that the question of NATO enlargement is at the centre of this war, we understand why U.S. weaponry will not end this war. Only diplomatic efforts can do that. Continue reading »
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America’s wars and the US debt crisis
To surmount the debt crisis, America needs to stop feeding the Military-Industrial Complex, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Continue reading »
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Money makes the world go round – and development succeed
The key to economic development and ending poverty is investment. Nations achieve prosperity by investing in four priorities. Most important is investing in people, through quality education and health care. The next is infrastructure, such as electricity, safe water, digital networks, and public transport. The third is natural capital, protecting nature. The fourth is business Continue reading »
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China’s “Historic” push for multipolar world to end U.S. domination
This is a historic watershed that the world is living through right now. What China is after is true multilateralism. What’s very important to understand is that most of the world also does not want the U.S. as the global preeminent power. Most of the world wants a truly multipolar world, and is, therefore, not Continue reading »
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The need for a new US Foreign Policy
US foreign policy is based on an inherent contradiction and fatal flaw. The aim of US foreign policy is a US-dominated world, in which the US writes the global trade and financial rules, controls advanced technologies, maintains militarily supremacy, and dominates all potential competitors. Unless US foreign policy is changed to recognise the need for Continue reading »
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The global banking crisis and world economy
The banking crisis that hit Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week has spread. We recall with a shudder two recent financial contagions: the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, which led to a deep Asian recession, and the 2008 Great Recession, which led to a global downturn. The new banking crisis hits a world economy already disrupted Continue reading »
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The geopolitics of peace in a post-Western world
We are in the midst of an extraordinarily dangerous and destructive hot war in Ukraine, and there is now daily talk about the prospects of a US-China war in Asia, perhaps over Taiwan. We cannot afford a continuation of the current war, and we cannot afford a war between the US and China. That would Continue reading »
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The ninth anniversary of the Ukraine war
We are not at the 1-year anniversary of the war, as the Western governments and media claim. This is the 9-year anniversary of the war. And that makes a big difference. Continue reading »
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Jeffrey Sachs’ testimony at UN security council on the Nord Stream Pipeline destruction
Testimony of Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs University Professor at Columbia University UN Security Council Session on the Nord Stream Pipeline Destruction Continue reading »
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What Ukraine needs to learn from Afghanistan about proxy wars
The greatest enemy of economic development is war. If the world slips further into global conflict, our economic hopes and our very survival could go up in flames. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to a mere 90 seconds to midnight. Continue reading »
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The new geopolitics
There is universal assent that we are in a period of geopolitical tension and flux. In a rough chronology, 1815-1914 was the era of British hegemony, the not-so-peaceful Pax Britannica. Continue reading »
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The new world economy
Belém, Brazil – I inaugurate this new series of columns in a New Year and a new beginning for Brazil with the inauguration of President Lula da Silva, His well-wishers poured out across the country in a revival of hope for Brazil after four years of disastrous rule under his right-wing predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who Continue reading »
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Where are China-U.S. relations going? Must watch interview
“There is a battle in the US between so called hardliners, so called neocons or neoconservatives, and those who want cooperative relations with China.” Continue reading »
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Best of 2022: The great game in Ukraine is spinning out of control
Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski famously described Ukraine as a “geopolitical pivot” of Eurasia, central to both US and Russian power. Since Russia views its vital security interests to be at stake in the current conflict, the war in Ukraine is rapidly escalating to a nuclear showdown. It’s urgent for both the US and Continue reading »
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A mediator’s guide to peace in Ukraine
The Ukraine War is an extremely dangerous war between nuclear superpowers in a world desperately in need of peace and cooperation. Continue reading »
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Biden’s foreign policy is sinking the Congressional Dems – and Ukraine
The proxy war between the U.S. and Russia is devastating Ukraine, ironically in the name of saving Ukraine. Continue reading »
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The great game in Ukraine is spinning out of control
Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski famously described Ukraine as a “geopolitical pivot” of Eurasia, central to both US and Russian power. Since Russia views its vital security interests to be at stake in the current conflict, the war in Ukraine is rapidly escalating to a nuclear showdown. It’s urgent for both the US and Continue reading »
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The wealthy pollutors inflict pain and death on the poor of Pakistan
Even if we measure cumulative emissions just from the 1992-2020 period, the US share is 19.6%, the high-income group’s share is 46.9%, and Pakistan’s share is 0.4%. Continue reading »
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On Ukraine and Taiwan we are not using diplomacy; we are using weaponry
We are taking exactly the same tactics in East Asia that led to the war in Ukraine. We’re organising alliances, building up weaponry, trash-talking China, having Speaker Pelosi fly to Taiwan, when the Chinese government said, “Please, lower the temperature, lower the tensions.” We say, “No, we do what we want,” and now send more arms. Continue reading »
