The engine of innovation exists in peace and quiet. The North Carolina Biotech Center is nestled behind layers of birch trees, on a spacious modernist campus where rustling leaves and birds pierce through the silence. The noisy city-goer wouldn’t realize this is one of the leading hubs of American innovation, with semiconductor fab plants and biotech…

In the end, regardless of U.S. foreign policy positions, the different trajectories of Afghanistan and Ukraine show that nations have their own capacities for self-determination, and nations choose their own futures. Ukraine is a lesson in how foreign invasion, as well as the higher pursuits of language, culture, and identity, can inspire a sense of national solidarity. Afghanistan is a lesson in how foreign intervention, money, and factionalism can erase the same dreams…