Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

President Trump (R) greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, February 15, 2017.

President Trump’s disclosure to Russian officials of sensitive intelligence provided by a US partner in the fight against the Islamic State threatens to put a chill on one of Mr. Trump’s priorities – the global effort to defeat Islamist terrorism.

That’s because counterterrorism work depends on a high level of trust among partner nations, international security experts say. The partners rely on each other to use the highly sensitive information, which sources may have risked their lives to gather, judiciously and to mutual benefit.

Violate that trust by loosely sharing intelligence from at-risk sources, the experts add, and information critical to stopping one attack – or prevent a new means of carrying out deadly attacks – can dry up.

“This whole episode is terrible for trust – and trust is what makes intelligence sharing work,” says Joshua Rovner, an expert in relations between leaders and intelligence officials at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

“Sharing intelligence is very risky for the side that’s giving the information up, and especially if what’s involved is a human source inside ISIS,” he adds. “Sharing that kind of information with a third party is not something you do lightly.”

Trump shared ISIS-related information the US obtained from another country with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as well as with Russia’s ambassador to Washington, when the two visited the Oval Office May 10.

At a White House press conference May 16, national security adviser H.R. McMaster deemed the information Trump shared as “wholly appropriate” and further stated that the president wasn’t even aware of the country that provided the information. The New York Times reported that the source was Israel.

What worries intelligence officials is that the information shared – which US officials say concerned ISIS methods of placing explosives inside electronic devices like laptops – could be “reverse-engineered” to pinpoint the source or sources of the information.

The Russia factor

Adding a kind of “on-top-of-everything-else” aura to the revelations is the fact that Trump chose to share the information with Russia – a fact that may not sit well with many Americans or with America’s counterterrorism partners in Europe.

“The information sharing is not really the problem. I must tell you that in foreign policy this kind of thing goes on all the time,” says Jeffrey White, a specialist in Middle East military and security affairs at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). “What makes this very bad all around is that this was with Russia, and only underscores [Trump’s] unwillingness to accept that Russia is an enemy state that is not looking out for our interests.”

At one level, thwarting attacks planned by ISIS, Al Qaeda, or other terrorist groups intent on attacking the West depends on a global web of intelligence sources – some of whom provide crucial information at extreme personal peril.

The prospect of having highly classified information about those sources bandied about – even if by the president of the United States to another global power pledging to crush Islamist terrorism – can’t help but cause nervous sources to clam up, and the relaying of valuable information to go cold.

More broadly, destroying the scourge of international terrorism depends on a high degree of trust in international relationships – including sometimes between partners who have access to vital information but who prefer to keep their level of cooperation with the United States under wraps. If partners decide they can no longer rely on the US to safeguard the intelligence they provide on terrorists and their organizations, they may think twice about sharing information that could prevent attacks.

Trump’s information-sharing with Russia may not perturb some US allies that are more focused on garnering US support for other priorities. For example, Saudi officials, preparing for what they are calling a “pivotal” summit with Trump in Riyadh this weekend that is to feature more than 50 Muslim nations, are pushing aside fears over intelligence leaks while praising “closer cooperation” with the Trump administration on top-tier concerns like Iran.

“There is full security, intelligence, and political cooperation with the new administration that will only continue,” says an official Saudi source, who was not authorized to speak to the press and thus insisted on anonymity.

“The new US administration sees the region and the threats that face it like Saudi Arabia [does], and its policies are much more in line with Saudi policies than the previous administration,” says Jasser al-Jasser, an analyst and columnist at the semi-official Saudi daily Al Jazirah. “An incident or leak would not derail this important partnership.”

Keeping information from Trump

But reactions from European partners are likely to be much more critical of the president, experts there say.

“Donald Trump was a businessman who speculated in real estate using other peoples' money. Now as president he is taking risks with other peoples' intelligence (assets),” says Irwin Collier, director of North American Studies at Free University of Berlin.

“Clearly people stop lending to speculators who fail to pay back when they fail,” he says, “and [now] intelligence agencies have witnessed their worst fears, [that] the president of the United States risks their people and methods to satisfy his own ego.”

One mitigating factor, Mr. Collier says, is that German intelligence agencies are dependent on the US sharing intelligence with them. As a result, he says, he doubts it will come down to a widespread refusal to share from the German side.

“But they will definitely work out procedures to double-insulate their sources and methods before sharing,” he adds. “They will seek assurances that their US colleagues figure out ways of keeping particular information very far from the current occupant of the White House.”

Some even see the spectacle of the American president casually sharing hard-won intelligence with the Russians as pushing European officials back to a mistrust among powers that some thought had ameliorated in recent decades.

“We are almost going back to this cold war type of environment where information obtained by the other side, it could be misused and lives potentially could then be in danger,” says Sajjan Gohel, a terrorism expert at the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation. “One has to be very careful. Especially more-so when you are discussing things with Russia.”

Ties to intelligence community at risk

WINEP’s Mr. White says that as worrying as the impact on US relations with its intelligence partners may be, he is much more concerned about what this latest crisis in the Trump White House says about White House-intelligence community relations.

Calling it “very clear to me” that the information about the intelligence sharing, first reported in The Washington Post, was leaked by someone in intelligence, White says, “This indicates to me that the Intell Community is out to get Trump, and that’s not a healthy thing.”

SMU’s Dr. Rovner concurs that damage has been done to “intelligence policy relations,” right when, he says, signs were mounting of steady mending in White House-intelligence community relations.

But he is less optimistic about repairing the breach he anticipates is widening with international counterterrorism partners as a result of the Oval Office ISIS information sharing.

“I really think the difficulty so many countries are now going to have sharing information with the US will be a factor as long as Trump is in office,” Rovner says. “Intelligence people around the world are seeing a US president that is unreliable, unpredictable – and not the kind of leader you’d entrust with your most sensitive information.”

Staff writer Sara Miller Llana contributed to this story from Paris; Correspondent Taylor Luck from Amman, Jordan; and Correspondent Rachel Stern from Berlin.

Lintao Zhang/Reuters

Representatives attend the Roundtable Summit Phase One session of the Belt and Road Forum, alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the International Conference Center in Yanqi Lake in Beijing, China on May 15, 2017.

High-speed railways in Indonesia and Hungary. Deep-water ports in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Gas pipelines across central Asia. All are part of what is arguably the largest overseas development drive ever launched by a single nation.

Even the Marshall Plan, America’s postwar reconstruction effort in Europe, pales in comparison to the more than $900 billion China has pledged for the construction of infrastructure projects in more than 60 countries as part of its “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined his vision for this modern-day Silk Road during a two-day forum in Beijing that ended Monday. While the initiative is still in its early stages, it comes at a critical moment in Asia. Developing countries in the region need to invest some $1.7 trillion per year on infrastructure to maintain growth, tackle poverty, and fight climate change, according to the Asian Development Bank. Meanwhile, the United States seems poised to reverse the Obama administration's plans for a “pivot to Asia.”

The Belt and Road Initiative gives China the opportunity to create a political and economic network based on its own rules, with the ambitious goal of establishing what Chinese state-run media have dubbed “globalization 2.0.” Mr. Xi used the forum this week to present himself as one of its leaders – and, in stark contrast to US President Trump, as an advocate for free trade.

“We should embrace the outside world with an open mind, uphold the multilateral trading regime, advance the building of free trade areas, and promote liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment,” Xi said Sunday in his opening speech. 

Yet his call for governments to pursue “greater openness” and “reject protectionism” has raised eyebrows. Trading partners who complain that China is the most-closed major economy question whether the Belt and Road Initiative will let foreign companies in on the action. And despite Beijing's decades-long support for noninterference  – not meddling in other countries' domestic affairs – foreign policy analysts ask if its growing economic leadership will give rise to more political ambitions, too.

Staking its claim

Speaking to an audience that included the leaders of 29 countries – including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Central Asian autocrats – Xi insisted on Sunday that China had “no desire to impose our will on others.” He said economic globalization should be “open, inclusive, balanced, and beneficial to all.”

Xi pledged an additional $14.5 billion to the Silk Road Fund set up in 2014 to finance infrastructure projects and $8.7 billion in aid to developing countries and international organizations. He also announced that two government-run banks would distribute loans of $55 billion to support Belt and Road projects. 

China's leader didn’t mention Mr. Trump by name, but the implicit message was clear: If an inward-looking United States is going to focus on “America first,” China is ready with a new economic order for the world to follow.

“The situation in the US and in the EU with Brexit has created an international policy vacuum,” says Peter Cai, a fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney and author of a recent report on the Belt and Road initiative. “China has been emboldened to step into the vacuum and stake its claim as a global economic leader.”

Mr. Cai says China has greatly expanded the scope of the initiative since Xi announced its launch four years ago. What was once largely focused on infrastructure in Asia now extends all the way to central Europe, as well as Africa and the Middle East. In a sign of its growing reach, delegates from more 100 countries and the leaders of international organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank attended the forum in Beijing.

“Britain led globalization for more than 200 years and the US led it for more than 100 years,” says Huiyao Wang, president of the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. “Now it needs new energy.”

That energy is something China is eager to provide, especially after Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Obama administration’s signature trade agreement, on his first full weekday in office. With American economic influence in the Asia-Pacific region likely to wane, China wants to take its place as it looks to open new markets for Chinese goods and reassert itself as Asia’s leading power.

“Xi wants to make China great on the international stage,” Tom Miller, author of “China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building Along the New Silk Road,” said at a book talk in Beijing last month. “He wants China to predominate in the East, much as the US does in the West.”

Who owns the road?

Critics say China is trying to rewrite the rules on global trade and security in pursuit of its own economic and geopolitical interests. They warn that Beijing’s proven willingness to work with authoritarian regimes could undermine human rights and environmental standards in the developing world. Meanwhile, economists have raised concerns that the massive infrastructure projects, if poorly conceived or negotiated, could leave poor countries with unsustainable levels of debt.  

Supporters of the initiative, such as Zhang Yansheng, chief research fellow at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges in Beijing, say China’s aim is to supplement existing global governance and economic systems – not replace them.

“ ‘One Belt, One Road’ is a way to help rebalance the world economy. It’s about how to reduce the gap between rich and poor,” Mr. Zhang says. “The image China wants to send to the world is that ‘One Belt, One Road’ does not only belong to China, it belongs to the world.”

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, Xinhua

The parts of the world that the initiative targets are fraught with risk. Cai of the Lowy Institute says nearly two-thirds of the countries that have accepted Belt and Road projects have credit ratings below investment grade. In nations such as Pakistan, rampant corruption and security threats also present significant challenges.

And how far China is willing to go to uphold its commitment to non-interference, the unconditional respect for state sovereignty, will surely be tested as its economic influence over other countries grows. What could China do to protect the $57-billion economic corridor it’s helping to build through Pakistan, where militants have killed 44 Pakistani workers since 2014? What about Beijing's perceived threat from ethnic Uighurs from the western region of Xinjiang who are suspected of fighting with militant groups in the Middle East and accused of killing Chinese diplomats in central Asia?

“China will have a considerable amount of economic leverage as these projects get built,” Cai says. “The temptation to use that economic leverage will always be there, but only time will tell if China decides to use it in pursuit of other interests.”  

Xie Yujuan contributed reporting.  

There are few Europeans more hopeful over the election of Emmanuel Macron in France and its bearing on the European Union than those in the Pulse of Europe movement.

The group that has been leading weekly pro-EU rallies since last fall in a rare burst of Euro-optimism gathered, fittingly, outside the German chancellery Monday as President Macron arrived in Berlin for his first trip abroad. Many draped in EU flags, the group chanted “Jetzt auf geht's,” or “Europe, let's go!” as Macron headed to a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Mr. Macron’s victory on a decisively pro-European platform has turned him into a beacon to those wishing to move the EU beyond its Euroskeptic troubles. The 39-year-old former investment banker is seen as the best hope to strengthen France, and thus bring balance back to the Franco-German relationship that is so crucial to the project’s viability.

But if Europeans like Pulse of Europe activists are looking to him, there is also a shifting inward of gazes – nowhere more so than in Germany, which, as the powerhouse of Europe, has set the tone and the rules of the European playbook over the past decade. Since confidence in the EU has plummeted, Germany and France have spent much time in familiar roles: Germany as the responsible player and France as the pesky one, resistant to any reform proposal.

Now there is an opening.

While Macron promises to tackle unpopular reform at home, many Germans say they also need to meet him in the middle on economic matters, even if that puts Germany outside its comfort zone. “Both sides need to change in order for this relationship to be much more balanced in the future, and that is a learning process on the German side because for too long we have been very arrogant vis-à-vis France,” says Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.

“Many treat France almost as if it were a basket case, where actually economically it has a lot of strengths,” from its banking industry to high productivity throughout many sectors, says Mr. Benner. “We need to adapt and see France with different eyes, and Macron can help.”

Bridging North and South

The Franco-German motor at the heart of the EU has started to sputter due to weaknesses in the French economy – which, in turn, has sparked clashes between the nations over deeply held views of how to move forward. While Germany, valuing savings and credit worthiness, runs an enormous surplus – Benner notes in a Foreign Affairs piece that the surplus is 35 billion euros with France alone – France’s economy has remained largely stagnant. That has translated into stubborn French unemployment rates of about 10 percent (up to 25 percent for youths) and greater Euroskepticism. While Germany underwent painful labor reform in the early 2000s, France has resisted deep structural reform, striking at attempts to loosen labor laws, with a preference on public spending.

Enter Macron. The new French president noted even before he launched his campaign that a bridge needed to be built to unite the “North” and “South” of Europe, with Germany leading the former and France considered the periphery of the latter. To meet German desires, Macron has promised to lower the deficit to 3 percent of the GDP, in part by cutting public spending and by making labor laws more flexible. But he has also said he wants Germany to assume more risk within the eurozone, such as with a joint eurozone budget for infrastructure and other projects that would entail deeper economic integration.

Before any of this, major challenges stand in the way.

Macron faces legislative elections next month where he will attempt to get a majority to push through his reform agenda. Germany holds national elections in September, when Ms. Merkel will seek a fourth term. While her Christian Democrats are polling on top, particularly after a decisive victory Sunday in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, no major reforms are likely until at least the late fall.

Still, the two leaders are already signaling an understanding on the need to accommodate each other.

Merkel said yesterday that Germany depends on a “strong France,” while Macron attempted to ease German concerns that France will want Germany to pay more for EU troubles. Ahead of his trip Macron, who promised to draw on the strengths of the right and left, named Édouard Philippe, a conservative and German-speaker, as French prime minister.

Such signs have given new wind to pro-EU liberals like those forming Pulse of Europe, which began in November in Frankfurt after the shock of Brexit and the election of US President Donald Trump.

Soscha zu Eulenburg, a Pulse of Europe participant awaiting Macron’s visit in Berlin, says she has faith in a functional Franco-German relationship moving forward – and that Germany has a role to play. “Macron must succeed with his ideas, and we must help him in any way that we can,” she says.

'A game changer'

It’s not as easy as that, of course. Doubts hang over Macron.

Beyond his 66 percent victory over anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen lies the fact that more than one-third of French voters didn’t vote in the runoff, or cast blank ballots. And Germans are still deeply skeptical about a French commitment to reform: the same process they underwent, loosening worker protection but shoring up their economic strength today. The mood is best illustrated with a Bild headline the day after French elections, which asked, “How much will Macron cost the Germans?”

This reflex has deep roots, and was encouraged during the eurocrisis by politicians who perpetuated a “morality tale” of the “virtuous Germans” against the “freespending Southerners,” mostly for political expedience, Benner says. The dynamics of the Greek crisis, in particular, hardened positions as Greek politicians tended to project blame squarely on Germany. This is where Macron could help shift perspectives.

“Macron can be a game changer,” says Benner, because he admits to the need to reform at home, which will benefit France and then the EU. “That might actually lead to a much more constructive engagement.”

He points to many hopeful signs, including recent statements by conservative Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble. A financial hardliner, Mr. Schäuble would be one of the least likely to support softening on France. But even he has shown flexibility – for example, telling Der Spiegel that Germany’s trade surplus is too high.

Franziska Brantner, a federal lawmaker from the Green party, says that Macron must be given space and patience to carry out reform that can ultimately bring Germans on board – and secure its own position. “Germany can be convinced to pay more if it sees itself as a beneficiary of reforms coming out of the national level too,” she says. “Germany might need the EU to help it out one day too.”

Indeed, many Germans might be convinced now simply because they find the alternatives so unpalatable. During the height of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, strains on the EU were mounting but its viability was unquestioned. That all changed in 2016.

Maxim Nitsche, a dual French-German citizen and co-founder of educational mobile app MATH 42, says France must prepare to undo some regulations in the labor market, no matter how unpopular they will initially be domestically. Yet Germany and other EU countries must strike a compromise with France, particularly by being willing to spend more on joint-EU initiatives such as infrastructure and education.

“If we don’t want … a surging far-right movement, we have to do whatever we can to communicate and find purposeful solutions where all countries and their people are beneficiaries,” he says. “The rest of the world is going forward. We need to be willing to change too.”

Oleksandr Rupeta/NurPhoto/Sipa U/Newscom

San men make fire in the Living Museum of the Ju/'Hoansi-San in Namibia. Researchers have long been fascinated by the San people of southern Africa, but the indigenous group has not always been comfortable as the subjects of scientists' scrutiny.

Knowledge is power, and the San people want to wield it as such.

In March, the long-studied San people joined other indigenous groups in asking that scientific study be a two-way street, carrying benefits back to their communities as it shares their information with the world. Such guidelines seek to bridge the divide between scientific pragmatism and traditional values, in hopes of making painful legal battles a thing of the past.

More than ten distinct nations spread across five countries make up the San, an indigenous people of southern Africa who have drawn ample scientific attention for their genetic diversity, botanical knowledge, and unique linguistic consonants. But decades of sustained research traffic through their communities has created a culture clash.

The South African San Institute (SASI), a non-governmental organization dedicated to serving San communities, says some scientists have not treated the San fairly over the years. "Promises were not kept, there was no clear communication about the research, no consideration of language and cultural differences, no consultation with elders and leaders, no involvement in research results," according to a statement from SASI. The group cites a 2010 genetics paper involving a number of illiterate individuals who some suggest may not have fully understood the study's ramifications.

To build more equitable relationships with the scientific community, early last month SASI published the San Code of Research Ethics, a first for any African indigenous group.

At stake is not just the San's image, but ending the sense of loss research participants often feel when scientists disappear at the end of the study without fully communicating what they learned back to the community, according to SASI.

"The San to this day suffer from a major derogatory image, to which – not all – but many researchers have contributed, even to the extent of exploitation," a SASI spokeswoman writes in an email. "It is time to correct this image and prevent further potential exploitation." 

The code emphasizes transparency, respect, and fairness, and asks scientists to consult the San at each experimental stage from design to publication, to protect the privacy rights of individuals, and to provide some sort of tangible benefit in return, such as money, training, or employment. The outline isn’t legally binding, but proposes listing unethical researchers in a “black book” in extreme situations.

The San code shares many elements with forerunners published by Australian Aborigines in 2002, and Canadian First Nations in 2009: namely, the importance of asking groups for input, getting consent from the appropriate governing body, and sharing results with the community in a non-technical format before publication.

A model of respect

These guidelines make explicit central tenets of partnership that many hope will prevent the bitter clashes of the past.

Neither side wants a repeat of the two-decade battle over the fate of the Kennewick Man, an 8,500-year-old skeleton uncovered in 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River in Washington state. For years scientists argued that the man’s Caucasian features meant the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), did not apply. NAGPRA, which took effect in 1990, requires researchers to return cultural materials found on public land to related Native American groups. A costly legal debate raged until DNA techniques advanced enough to confirm his Native American ancestry, resulting in reburial earlier this year.

But the story of a 10,300-year-old Alaskan skeleton discovered just weeks earlier unfolded differently, showing that researchers and tribes don't have to be rivals. When University of South Dakota paleontologist Timothy Heaton found ancient human remains on his final day excavating an archaeological site in southeastern Alaska known as the On Your Knees Cave, he contacted Forest Service tribal liaison and archaeologist Terry Fifield immediately. Within 24 hours Mr. Fifield was meeting with Tlingit tribal leaders to decide how to proceed.

The discussions got "pretty animated," Fifield recalls in a phone interview, but in the end the councils involved voted to support the investigation out of curiosity about their heritage.

"The Tlingit have a deep respect for education and pursuing knowledge. We also have core cultural values that were at play in this case: Haa Latseen – Strength of Body, Mind and Spirit," explains anthropologist Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute.

The decision led to a 12-year collaborative project that produced a number of findings, after which representatives from both the Native and scientific communities gathered to celebrate what they had learned would be a Native American ancestor reburial.

Courtesy of Terry Fifield/USDA Forest Service

A gravestone gives estimated birth and death dates for the On Your Knees skeleton's reburial.

Throughout the decade, Fifield kept the tribes updated every step of the way, a clear contrast to the lack of conversation SASI criticizes. "You wouldn't want to count up the number of hours I spend attending meetings and making phone calls," he says. "It's all about communication."

Dr. Worl attributes the success of the project to the deference scientists showed the Tlingit. "The decision about further research was made by the Tlingit themselves and was not imposed on Native Americans, as was the case in Kennewick," she explains.

Fifield's telling also reflects a partnership between equals, where local leaders had the final say. "We really didn't keep secrets," he says. "We were prepared for them to say no and luckily for us they never did."

Tlingit culture, history, language, and arts have long been research targets, as have the San's. While no official guidelines existed at the time of the On Your Knees cave find, the Sealaska Heritage Institute now has an official research policy that aims to foster such trusting and respectful collaborations.

When views conflict

But other researchers worry such ethics codes run against science’s open nature. San Jose State University anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss supports measures such as practicing cultural sensitivity, getting proper consent, and hiring locals, but suggests guidelines could give tribes carte blanche to halt unfavorable research.

"I think that codes of ethics can put the power into the wrong hands. Research should be driven by the desire for increased knowledge and when it helps populations, great. But, not all research is clearly advantageous to a single population," she writes in an email.

Like Dr. Weiss, many scientists feel that sharing pre-published research for tribal feedback smacks of censorship. While the findings of the On Your Knees cave skeleton and a recent Aboriginal DNA hair study largely upheld oral tradition, some researchers fear that printing results that challenge indigenous views of history could land them on the blacklist.

These worries may be overblown, Fifield says, because at least in the case of the Tlingit, censorship is not the goal. "They have never objected to anything we've put out. The motivation was that they didn't want to be surprised and embarrassed by something that came out that everyone else knew about," he says.

Worl insists that the Tlingit seek to include Native voices, rather than suppress conflicting findings. "If we have differences of opinion, we ask that our perspective be included in the account, but we do not demand that the scientist change their writings," she explains.

SASI suggests the San would handle conflict in a similar way, not censoring but requiring that publications include the San views.

Another concern of Weiss’s is reproducibility. Analytic techniques advance each year, but if tribes maintain control of scientific data (or worse, bury it), that puts a roadblock in the way of re-visiting past conclusions.

Dr. Heaton, of the University of South Dakota, agrees that unfettered access would be ideal, but suggests both sides need to compromise. "It's just a balance between the purely scientific interest and the cultural interest."

Regardless of personal opinion, now that indigenous groups like the San are joining the Tlingit and others in recognizing the value of their cultural resources, researchers who want access will need to come to an agreement. "There are rights associated with the origination of the information," says Fifield.

The details of such agreements will vary from project to project, but Heaton suggests the spirit of the collaboration matters more than the fine print. "If you're talking to people and you're open with them and you share concerns back and forth and you develop a rapport, I think that's really the key thing."

Fengie Saintelus was 25 years old, trying to mix part-time enrollment in a community college with 12-hour shifts as a nursing assistant, when she found out that she was failing one of her classes.

It was a shock. Ms. Saintelus says she had thought she was getting by, but the long hours at work made her feel disconnected from her studies and campus life at Connecticut’s Norwalk Community College.

 “I wasn't involved, I didn't have time to be involved. I didn't even know who my adviser was,” says Saintelus.

So she made a decision that made all the difference: She committed to going to school full-time. Two years later Saintelus graduated from Norwalk with an associate’s degree in social work.

Researchers have long known that full-time students at two-year institutions graduate at far higher rates: 57 percent, versus about 39 for all students. But a new report by the Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) suggests that even one semester of full-time enrollment could make a significant difference in the likelihood that a student will attain a qualification.

More than one third of students tracked in the CCCSE report who attended at least one semester full time graduated with an associate’s degree or certificate, compared to 23 percent of those who went part time. “What we see in the data is the more full-time they have the more likely they are to be successful, and the earlier the better,” says Evelyn Waiwaiole, executive director of the CCCSE.

Josh Kenworthy/The Christian Science Monitor

Fengie Saintelus, a nursing student at Roxbury Community College in Boston, Mass., sits in the hall a few hours before an exam, May 8, 2017. She is in her first semester as a part-time student, studying for her second degree.

The data – drawn from 61,000 community college students from 253 institutions, and transcript data of 17,000 students at 28 institutions nationwide – also revealed increased engagement for students with some full-time attendance:

• More said they increased their collaboration with other students (52 percent versus 45 percent);
• More said they used academic advising/career planning services sometimes or often (69 percent versus 62 percent.)
• Fewer said they “never” talked about their career plans with an instructor or adviser (22 percent versus 30 percent)
• Fewer said they never discussed readings or classes with instructors outside of class time (41 percent versus 50 percent.)

Of course many community college students – who are on the average 28 years old and often juggle family, work, and tight finances – are not in a position to be able to attend school full time. But the report recommends that community college advisers should at least introduce the idea of full-time attendance, asking all students one question straight off the bat: “Is there any way you could attend college full-time, even for one semester?”

Focus on full-time enrollment as a path to student success is one piece of a broader effort by community colleges to focus harder on student outcomes.

“For years, community colleges had been all about access,” says Dr. Waiwaiole, “[but then they] really began to say we need to be about access and student success.”

But not all educators agree that it’s full-time enrollment by itself that gives students what they need to get through school.

“Those who choose to enroll full time may have a host of characteristics that are associated with better college outcomes, for example [having] more resources, and should not be attributed to enrollment type per se,” says Michal Kurlaender, a professor of Education Policy at the University of California, Davis.

However, Dr. Kurlaender of the study, “ [it’s a] descriptive picture that suggests that enrollment full-time … is associated with lots of other positive behaviors.” 

For Saintelus, the student who made the switch from part-time to full-time studies, completing one degree led to another. After graduating from Norwalk in 2008, she transferred into a four-year program at Barry University in Miami Shores, Fla., for another two years. She graduated from Barry with a bachelor's degree in social work in 2010, and now is enrolled in a nursing program at Roxbury Community College in Boston.

She remembers that, back in 2006 when she switched from part- to full-time enrollment, she had to ask her supervisor at work for a new schedule that would allow her do all her work toward the end of the week.

It still wasn’t easy, she says, but it was worth it because it accelerated her through her degree, which gave her the confidence and put her in a financial position to go on to her second degree.

“If you have the support and you can go full-time, I absolutely encourage it,” says Saintelus. “It's not easy, but if you really want it, then you make it work.”

US Department of State/handout via REUTERS

A satellite view of part of the Sednaya prison complex near Damascus.

Just days before President Trump’s trip to the Middle East, which may include a tour of Israel’s Holocaust museum, his administration has accused Syria of killing thousands of political prisoners – at a rate of about 50 a day. It even released declassified photographs of the Sednaya military prison outside Damascus, showing a crematorium used to hide the evidence of the slaughter.

Reports of the mass executions at Sednaya are not new. Amnesty International said in February that as many as 13,000 detainees had been hanged there since 2011. But with the State Department now adding to the documented evidence, Mr. Trump has joined a line of recent US presidents who have chosen to deal with a mass atrocity in another country or the imminent threat of one – from Rwanda in 1994 to Libya in 2011. And like previous administrations, Trump officials have framed the prison killings by the Syrian regime in moral terms, calling them “a new level of depravity.”

In April, Trump responded to Syria’s use of chemical weapons on a few dozen civilians with missile strikes on a Syrian military airbase. But how will he respond now that the United States has highlighted the far more systematic and large-scale atrocity at Sednaya?

One goal by the US may be to pressure Russia, a military ally of President Bashar al-Assad, into seeking a peace deal. This would allow the US and its allies to better focus on ending the Islamic State (ISIS) presence in Syria. At some point, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not want to be tainted by Syria’s slaughter. Or he may not want the US to attack the Assad regime in an attempt to end the prison executions.

US presidents often have to mix a moral purpose with a national interest. Trump is eager to end the threat of ISIS in its ability to inspire terrorist attacks on Americans. But how much is his concern about the prison executions a matter of morality, or simply a tactical move?

President Barack Obama considered the prevention of mass atrocities to be “a core national security interest.” Yet despite regular reports of large-scale killings in Syria, he was reluctant to intervene. He had seen how his attacks on Libya to prevent a massacre in the city of Benghazi led to chaos in that country.

Having exposed the Sednaya killings, the Trump administration must now level with Americans about the next course of action. As he heads to Saudi Arabia and Israel, the president should offer clarity about US responsibilities in Syria. The choices are difficult. But a mature debate can help.