Within hours of Syrian rebels entering Damascus Sunday and forcing autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad into exile, President Joe Biden was on national television laying out preemptive military actions and pledging continued U.S. engagement as Syrians chart a new path forward.

The fall of the Assad regime “is a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria,” Mr. Biden said. Adding that it is “also a moment of risk and uncertainty,” he pledged the U.S. would “work with our partners in Syria” and “remain vigilant.”

The president said the roughly 900 U.S. troops in eastern Syria tasked with preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State (ISIS), will remain on the ground, assuring that the vacuum of power did not open the door to new forms of Islamist extremism.

Then Tuesday John Kirby, the White House national security communications adviser, announced that President Biden was dispatching national security adviser Jake Sullivan to the region to address both Syria and Gaza ceasefire and hostage issues. Also this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Turkey, which is backing an insurgent faction that has clashed in northeast Syria with U.S.-backed Kurds, and Jordan.

The flurry of activity – and the commitment to remain intensely involved in a roiling Middle East – contrasts sharply with the message sent so far by President-elect Donald Trump in response to the Syria crisis.

As rebel forces swept southward toward Damascus last week, Mr. Trump jumped on social media to trumpet the hands-off approach that could become the guiding principle of his Middle East policy and broader foreign policy vision.

“THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT,” Mr. Trump wrote, referring to Syria. “This is not our fight.”

“We’re in this odd situation”

The dissonance between the current and future U.S. administrations is confusing major players in the region and raising questions about U.S. ties going forward, some Mideast policy experts say.

“This comes at a very awkward time in a presidential transition,” says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Trump’s stated goal is remaining aloof from the conflict in Syria, but many U.S. allies have acute interests at stake [while] the potential for problems ... to metastasize is large.”

Orhan Qereman/Reuters

U.S. military vehicles drive in Hasaka, Syria, Dec. 6, 2024. President Biden says the roughly 900 U.S. troops in eastern Syria tasked with preventing a resurgence of the Islamic State will remain on the ground.

Perhaps most worrisome for the U.S. among the problems that could spread from a destabilized Syria is international terrorism. ISIS had been regaining strength in Syria even before Mr. Assad’s fall, with counterterrorism experts reporting a multiplication of attacks by the group over the past month.

The U.S. has already carried out dozens of strikes against weapons sites in Syria – and will remain ready to take further action against assets threatening regional stability, including a regrouping ISIS, administration officials say.

Yet U.S. allies and adversaries alike may wonder, experts and former diplomats say, if a last flourish of action by Mr. Biden will be followed by an inward turn and much higher threshold for international engagement by the Trump White House.

“We’re in this odd situation where it’s not exactly clear what U.S. policy is at a time of tremendous flux and opportunities,” says John Hannah, who served in senior national security positions in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Concern for opportunities lost

Indeed for many regional observers, this moment presents a number of opportunities not imagined even a week ago. They range from seeing an end to Russia’s military presence in Syria to undoing the chokehold Iran-backed Houthi rebels have had on international trade routes off the coast of Yemen. But the U.S. will only be able to exploit them – and accurately assess the looming risks the situation presents – with nonstop, hands-on engagement, some seasoned diplomats say.

“This is when there is a great need for what I would call expeditionary diplomacy,” says Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria. “This is a time, if we want to avoid missteps or major surprises, for the closest possible consultations we can manage with our partners in the area.”

Ambassador Crocker also advocates “a diplomatic presence established on the ground as soon as possible,” despite the complications the U.S. faces in engaging directly with the leading rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. HTS is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union, and United Nations, though it has sought to make the case it has moderated.

For the most ambitious among the “this moment presents opportunities” camp, Mr. Assad’s fall – and the blow it has dealt to chief patrons Russia and Iran – cements a growing conviction that there’s a window for action against Tehran’s advancing nuclear program.

Their concern is that the transition from a lame-duck U.S. administration to one already projecting an isolationist bent, could mean opportunities lost.

Ghaith Alsayed/AP

Government soldiers and allies are taken into custody by opposition fighters on the road between Homs and Damascus, near Homs, Syria, Dec. 8, 2024.

“There are some unique opportunities” because of events in Syria “to address some of the unresolved challenges in the Middle East … and the most important of those is Iran’s nuclear program,” says Mr. Hannah, now a senior fellow in defense and strategy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “We may have an opportunity to get that job done.”

Diplomats and others who served in the first Trump administration say they are all but certain the U.S. will return next year to the “maximum pressure campaign” of strengthened sanctions against Iran.

“A fight for Trump’s mind”

At the same time, others acknowledge there is likely to be an intense interventionist-versus-not-our-fight competition within the new Trump administration for a green light on looming consequential policy decisions. They include the level and type of cooperation with Israel on any military action against Iranian nuclear sites.

For advocates of intervention, the opportunity may be now or never to stop a severely weakened Iran from reacting to the loss of the keystone in its “Axis of Resistance” by rushing to produce a nuclear weapon. U.N. officials reported last week that Iran’s nuclear program has advanced significantly in recent months.

The other key Syria-related question a returning President Trump will face is what to do about the U.S. forces on the ground and their counterterrorism mission.

“I think there will be a fight for Trump’s mind about how quickly we pull our forces out of eastern Syria,” says Mr. Hannah.

Analysts with contacts inside the incoming administration’s foreign-policy circles say the “not our fight” group will argue that any reemerging international terrorism threat can be addressed by other U.S. assets in the region.

But others say President Trump may want to think twice before pulling the plug on the counterterrorism forces.

“If I were talking to President Trump about our troops there, I’d remind him that their prime mission is ISIS” and stopping the group’s resurgence, says Elliott Abrams, who served as special representative for Iran in the first Trump White House.

“I would say, ‘Mr. President, if you pull our guys out, and there’s an attack here by one of their guys, you’re going to be blamed,’” Ambassador Abrams says. “‘It’s not worth it.’”

Hussein Malla/AP

Pedestrians walk across a picture of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a sidewalk in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 10, 2024.

The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, which Moscow had helped to prop up for almost a decade, has dealt a serious setback to Russia’s global ambitions.

But Russian foreign policy specialists insist it’s not a ruinous one.

As they grapple with the rapid demise of Mr. Assad’s rule, Russian analysts say that the Kremlin will need to adjust to the shifting balance of power in the Middle East. That includes absorbing the likely loss of Russia’s two military bases in Syria, and accepting what analysts call the crushing defeat of Kremlin ally Iran.

The psychological blow to Russia is also serious, they warn. The Kremlin’s 2015 military intervention in Syria was Moscow’s first such post-Soviet operation outside its own region. Its perceived success drove a lot of Russia’s subsequent diplomatic efforts in the Mideast, as well as its recent inroads into Africa.

Igor Korotchenko, editor of National Defense, a Moscow-based security journal, says he’s still cautiously optimistic that Russian global influence can survive the loss of Syria, and perhaps the Kremlin can even forge a practical relationship with any new Syrian regime that emerges.

“Let’s wait and see how things play out,” he says. “Russia is still a player in the region, maintaining good relations with countries like the UAE, Egypt, and Qatar. We never put our stakes on one person, and we have sufficient resources to pursue our goals” without a foothold in Syria.

Doling out blame for Syria

For now, the victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces have not touched the Russian Embassy or military installations – Iran’s Embassy in Damascus was trashed on the first day – even though Mr. Assad and his family have been granted asylum in Russia.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Moscow was in contact with the new Syrian authorities in an effort to safeguard Russian assets. “We need to base our actions on the realities that exist at this moment on the ground,” he said.

Russia reached out to the Taliban after the United States’ failure in Afghanistan, canceling its “terrorist” designation and discussing a broader normalization of relations; experts say Moscow may wish to make a similar outreach to HTS. But it will be much harder given Russia’s staunch backing of Mr. Assad and its armed efforts to suppress the Syrian opposition over the past decade.

Maxar Technologies/Reuters

Russia's naval base in Tartus, Syria, shown here in a Dec. 5, 2024, satellite image, is one of two Russian military bases whose future the Kremlin is worried about under a new Syrian government.

Whatever may happen, the blame game is already in full swing in the Russian media.

Some are pointing at Turkey, which allegedly sidestepped the Astana peace process and went behind Russia’s back to sponsor the HTS rebel offensive that overran Damascus last weekend. Others say Israel’s successful war against major backers like Iran and Hezbollah made Mr. Assad’s fall inevitable, even though Moscow kept providing air support to the bitter end.

Some accuse Mr. Assad himself of self-isolating and refusing all attempts to find a broader social compromise.

“Assad didn’t take Russian advice,” says Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser. “He was told many times that he needed to initiate some real political reforms, include members of the opposition in government, reconcile with Turkey, and curb the excesses of his security forces. He didn’t listen.

“So, Assad was already distanced from Russia. At the end, he was taking advice from Iran and his own family, not from us,” he says.

“A bad setback, but we can get past this”

Despite the Putin-era aura of success, this is far from the first time Moscow has faced a debacle in its Middle East relations.

Soviet-sponsored Syria lost two wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973, necessitating replacement of its military arsenal. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat canceled a treaty of friendship with the USSR in 1971, and kicked all Soviet advisers out of the country. Moscow’s disastrous war in Afghanistan in the 1980s poisoned its relations with the Muslim world, and even contributed to the collapse of the Soviet state.

“We’ve got a long history of dealing with these countries, and we’re quite accustomed to seeing them defeated militarily,” says Mr. Markov. “So, the mood in Moscow [over the loss of Syria] is calm enough. It’s a bad setback, but we can get past this.”

Unlike the former Soviet Union, which based its foreign policy on ideological calculations, Vladimir Putin’s Russia tends to take a pragmatic and transactional approach, seeking advantage where it can, says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, a Moscow-based foreign policy journal.

“The Middle East is a region where you can’t expect any lasting success,” he says. “The big loser in this turn of events is Iran, and the winners are Israel and Turkey.”

As for Russian relations with Ankara, he says, “Of course Moscow is angry, because the Turks knew about the HTS offensive and didn’t say a word to us about it. But that’s how Russian-Turkish relations work in general: A very low level of trust, but we try to find common ground and work together where we can.”

Moscow’s formerly good relations with Israel will grow even worse with the implosion of Russian military power in Syria. “Israel is becoming much stronger as a regional power,” says Mr. Markov. “Russia needs to think about how to deal with Israel in these new conditions, where it is a clear winner.”

A shift in world affairs?

Mr. Lukyanov argues that the fall of Mr. Assad illustrates a completely new trend in world affairs, in which regional players take the lead and the influence of their great-power sponsors diminishes. The main actors in the Syrian drama are relatively independent ones, including Israel, Turkey, Iran, and even HTS. The U.S. and Russia are still on the stage, but are not driving events and, Mr. Lukyanov says, are increasingly irrelevant.

“It’s a seismic shift, in which outside powers are steadily losing influence and local actors are taking the lead,” he says. “Russian capacities are shrinking, but so are American ones. In future, regional powers will be the most important players, formulating their priorities in a regional way.”

Russia already made the choice to put its own local interests first, declining to divert any resources from its war in Ukraine to help Mr. Assad.

“Moscow needs to think about the implications of this,” Mr. Lukyanov says. “Maybe the race for global influence is obsolete, and Russia needs to reformulate its ambitions in terms of being an effective regional power.”

Susan Walsh/AP

President Joe Biden speaks at a White House Conference in Washington, Dec. 11, 2024. President Biden is reportedly considering using preemptive pardons to protect those a Trump administration might target.

In what he called the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history, President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he was commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 others.

The Biden administration is reportedly also considering preemptive pardons for people who could become targets of the U.S. Department of Justice during the second Trump administration.

According to a White House statement released Thursday morning, President Biden is commuting the sentences of close to 1,500 people who were convicted of crimes but placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their communities. He is also pardoning 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes. 

“These actions represent the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history,’’ the statement said.

That news comes on the heels of two other presidential pardon matters that have grabbed headlines of late: a Politico report last week that President Biden was considering preemptive pardons for those who might be targets of the incoming Trump administration and a pardon for his son Hunter, convicted earlier this year of federal gun and tax charges.

The presidential pardon power is meant to be broad, and presidents often close out their terms with this gesture of clemency, meant to be an “act of grace’’ to further “the public welfare,’’ according to the U.S. Constitution. 

But the preemptive pardon—one that covers crimes that people have not yet been accused of or protects them from being charged if they haven’t committed a crime – is rarely used, experts say. Some argue that using preemptive pardons in the way the Biden administration is considering would set a troubling precedent, enabling future presidents to create impunity zones around themselves and their political allies.

Anna Rose Layden/Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden stands with his son Hunter Biden, who earlier in the day was found guilty on all three counts in his criminal gun charges trial, after President Biden arrived at the Delaware Air National Guard Base in New Castle, Delaware, June 11, 2024.

“It’s never felt necessary or appropriate,” says Margaret Love, who served as the U.S. pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997. “It’s unmoored from [the pardon powers’] original ties to the justice system. Presidents have not thought about how to use this power in a democratic society fairly, accountably, for a lot of years.”

Pushing pardon boundaries

President Biden has already pushed the boundaries of the expansive pardon power. In last week’s pardon of Hunter, the clemency covered not just his son’s convictions but also any crime he may have committed during a 10-year period. Hunter has not served any time for his crimes. The only comparable pardon is Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon after the Watergate scandal, as it protected Mr. Nixon from punishment for alleged crimes.

But granting clemency to potential targets of the incoming Trump administration – even though they may not have committed a crime – would push those boundaries even further, experts say.

Does the Trump era justify such a boundary push? In his first television interview since his reelection, President-elect Trump told “Meet the Press” that the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol should be jailed. The committee had been investigating efforts by his supporters to keep Mr. Trump in power; federal prosecutions of Mr. Trump’s own role in the efforts have been dropped in the past month.

Some of his nominees for high-profile law enforcement positions in his administration have made similar comments over the years. Pam Bondi, his pick for U.S. attorney general, said that “The prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones,” in a 2023 Fox News interview, referring broadly to government lawyers who have brought charges against Mr. Trump. Kash Patel – the nominee to lead the FBI, the country’s top domestic police agency – appended a book he published in 2022 with a 60-name “enemies list.” Some on this list are likely under consideration for the Biden administration’s potential preemptive pardons.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP/File

Sen. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, speaks at a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 13, 2022, alongside Chairman Bennie Thompson and Rep. Adam Kinzinger. President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he will retaliate against committee members.

“Respect for democracy and the rule of law doesn’t mean that Joe Biden has to sit idly by and wait for the Trump administration to do things that he would regard as unjust and destructive,” says Austin Sarat, a political science professor at Amherst College.

In an early case about the pardon power, the U.S. Supreme Court described it as “the benign prerogative of mercy.” But Professor Sarat says the pardon power has come to be used less as an act of mercy and more as a tool to rectify injustice.

Preemptive pardons, by contrast, would not just shield individuals from potential prison time. They would also help deflect public censure, valid or not, and hefty legal expenses likely incurred defending themselves against the Trump Justice Department. Even preemptive pardons of the past have been justified as needed to achieve an essential public purpose, such as helping the country move on after a conflict. Two presidents – Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson – granted blanket pardons to former Confederate officers, for example, and President Jimmy Carter gave a blanket amnesty to individuals who dodged the Vietnam War draft.

Closing a troubling chapter or opening one?

Instead of helping the country close a chapter of its history, however, experts say preemptive pardons here could open a new and troubling one.

To start, issuing preemptive pardons could make the grantees look more guilty than some Americans already believe. Second, however broad the pardons would be, the Trump administration could still likely find targets for prosecution. Most importantly, Mr. Biden would be using the pardon power in a way that future presidents could abuse.

Using pardons “to protect one’s political allies prospectively just creates a really bad precedent,” says Frank Bowman, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law.

Such a precedent becomes even more problematic following the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling earlier this year, which grants former presidents broad immunity for official acts, he adds. Preemptive pardons would mean “All the people in the president’s orbit [could] do whatever they want during the term and get a pardon for it.”

That the Biden administration is even discussing preemptive pardons is disappointing, some experts say, and reflective of a lack of faith in the justice system’s ability to deter wrongful prosecutions.

It’s also reflective of how use of the pardon power has changed. Having issued the fewest pardons of any first-term president in history so far, Mr. Biden now seems focused on pardoning those who may not need that safety net. In doing so, he would be leaving others behind bars, like Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist now serving two life sentences despite high-profile calls for clemency.

Stephanie Scarbrough/AP/File

People gather for a rally outside of the White House in support of imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier, Sept. 12, 2023, in Washington. Mr. Peltier is one of many considered candidates for a presidential pardon.

A more effective use of the pardon power would be to use it as it has been used for the past century – namely, to correct injustice and to broadcast a message of grace, mercy, and unity to the nation, experts say. That could come through pardoning someone like Mr. Peltier, as Democratic U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii has called for. Or it could come through commuting the sentences of the roughly 40 people on federal death row, as a growing campaign – reaching as far as the Vatican – is calling for.

There is also the possibility that preemptive pardons won’t be accepted. California Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, an outspoken critic and the lead prosecutor in Mr. Trump’s 2020 impeachment trial, has said he does not want a pardon. Liz Cheney appears undaunted by the prospect of being investigated.

“There is no conceivably appropriate factual or constitutional basis for what Donald Trump is suggesting – a Justice Department investigation of the work of a congressional committee,” she said in a statement on Sunday, describing his claims as “ridiculous and false.”

“Any lawyer who attempts to pursue that course would quickly find themselves engaged in sanctionable conduct.”

Editors note: This story, originally published Dec. 11, has been updated with President Biden's Dec. 12 clemency announcement. 

From the top floors of Japan’s Defense Ministry headquarters, the view of East Asian security is increasingly dire, adding urgency to Tokyo’s goal of strengthening the U.S.-Japan-South Korea alliance despite ongoing political upheaval in Seoul.

Scores of Chinese warships and aircraft are fanning out this week around Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the South China Sea as part of a massive Chinese military exercise. Russian ships, in an apparently coordinated move, are plowing waters near South Korea and Japan.

North Korea, meanwhile, has been stepping up missile launches in recent months, firing one in October that landed off the coast of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.

“We are getting into a new crisis era,” says a Japanese Defense Ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, per the ministry’s press policy. She describes the country’s security environment as “the biggest challenge since World War II.”

Japan’s military cannot face these threats alone – a point stressed by Japanese Defense Minister Nakatani Gen on Tuesday when he told visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that they need to boost “alliance capabilities to deter and respond” to the “increasingly severe” security challenges.

Yoshikazu Tsuno/Reuters

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin meets with his Japanese counterpart, Nakatani Gen, on the day of their talks at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo, Dec. 10, 2024.

At the center of this alliance is the historically fraught relationship between Japan and South Korea. Over the past two years, Japan and the United States have made major strides in the trilateral defense relationship with South Korea. But whether that progress can continue has been thrown into question by the political crisis in Seoul, ignited by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s bungled attempt to impose martial law last week.

South Korea’s alliance with Japan and the U.S. “is already a very challenging issue,” says retired South Korean army Lt. Gen. Chun In-bum. “If Yoon goes down, it will get worse, which is going to be a real shame.”

Building up Japan-South Korea cooperation

Mr. Yoon, a conservative elected in 2022, helped bring about a dramatic improvement in South Korea’s ties with Japan, which had plunged to their lowest point in decades as a result of festering historical disputes over Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

Ties were so strained, for example, that in 2018 Japan’s Defense Ministry charged that a South Korean navy destroyer directed a targeting radar system at Japanese military patrol aircraft, charges that South Korea denied.

Mr. Yoon put these tensions squarely in the rearview mirror, saying in 2023 that Japan had “transformed from a militaristic aggressor of the past into a partner.” Mr Yoon and then Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, a fellow conservative, launched the two nations into military cooperation including joint anti-submarine warfare exercises and ballistic missile defense drills.

In June this year, Seoul and Tokyo normalized defense relations, and in July, together with Washington, they signed a memorandum to institutionalize their defense ties in a bid to lock in policy talks, joint training exercises, and information sharing on ballistic missiles. In part, the agreement was meant to sustain ties despite “ups and downs in the political situation in each of the three countries,” says a second Japanese defense official.

South Korea Defense Ministry/AP

Warships of South Korea, the United States, and Japan take part in the trilateral Freedom Edge exercise in international waters off South Korea's southern island of Jeju, Nov. 13, 2024.

In November, Mr. Nakatani became the first Japanese defense minister to board a South Korean warship, when the ship made a port call in Yokosuka, Japan. He was reportedly scheduled to visit South Korea later this month – the first Japanese defense minister to do so in nine years – but the ongoing political crisis has complicated these plans.

“Strange Japan-centered foreign policy”

As police investigate whether Mr. Yoon’s martial law decree constituted an insurrection, judicial authorities have barred the president from leaving the country. Mr. Nakatani’s counterpart, former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, resigned last week for his role in the martial law decision and was arrested. On Tuesday he reportedly attempted suicide in jail.

A coalition of South Korean opposition parties is now working to impeach Mr. Yoon, arguing in part that he endangered South Korea by improving relations with Japan. The impeachment motion states that Mr. Yoon “has antagonized North Korea, China, and Russia, [and] insisted on a strange Japan-centered foreign policy … inviting isolation in Northeast Asia and triggering the crisis of war.”

If Mr. Yoon is forced from office or steps down, and the center-left opposition gains power, ties with Japan could suffer, say defense experts in both countries. “If the people choose a left-wing cabinet that is pro-North Korea, that would be very, very difficult,” says a senior Japanese Defense Ministry adviser.

Meanwhile, Japan’s relationship with the U.S. – which has often acted as a stabilizing intermediary between Tokyo and Seoul – becomes all the more important, despite Washington facing its own political turnover in January.

Secretary Austin, visiting U.S. forces based in Japan this week to hear about efforts to modernize command-and-control between the two militaries, emphasized that the U.S.-Japan alliance is stronger than ever.

“America’s extended deterrence commitment to Japan and the Republic of Korea is ironclad,” Secretary Austin said, pledging the U.S. will advance the “historic” trilateral cooperation with South Korea.

At the bustling Defense Ministry in Tokyo, eight television screens broadcast different news channels above an open office. Officials here say Japan is prioritizing its relationship with the U.S., but wants to build upon ties with South Korea when possible. “We can’t control the South Korean domestic situation – we can watch carefully and cooperate with the U.S.,” says the Defense Ministry adviser.

Kelly Field

Dino Koff, Dartmouth College's director of financial aid, gives a presentation to students and parents at Plymouth Regional High School, Nov. 4, in New Hampshire. Dartmouth is part of a growing coalition called the Small Town and Rural Students College Network.

Dino Koff, Dartmouth College’s director of financial aid, knows his institution’s $90,000 price tag can scare away low- and middle-income families.

So when he spoke to students and parents at Plymouth Regional High School in rural New Hampshire last month, he was quick to mention some more encouraging statistics. Statistics like 50% – the share of students on scholarships – and 22% – the share of families who pay nothing at all.

“You have to look at more than sticker price to what it’s going to cost you,” Mr. Koff told them.

His pitch was part of a push by a group of elite and flagship colleges to grow its ranks of rural students, who enroll in and complete college at lower rates than their urban and suburban peers. The coalition, which recently doubled in size, to 32 colleges, has sent representatives to more than 2,000 small-town high schools in 50 states in the past year.

For America’s colleges, recruiting more rural students could be one way to diversify their campuses in the wake of a Supreme Court ban on race-conscious admissions. Students from small towns can bring different experiences, perspectives, and values to the classroom than their urban counterparts.

Enrolling more rural students in higher education could also help to bridge the political divide between rural and urban America, says Marjorie Betley, the executive director of the Small Town and Rural Students College Network, or STARS, which debuted in April 2023.

“One of the best ways to combat polarization is to have a conversation with someone who is different from you,” says Ms. Betley, who is also the deputy director of admissions at the University of Chicago. “Where better to do that than in a college classroom?”

One rural recruit to Ms. Betley’s school was Jillian McGeehin, a sophomore from Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania, a town with just under 4,000 residents. Ms. McGeehin did summer programs at the university during high school, but says it didn’t really hit her until she arrived on campus just how different living in a city would be. The sprawling subway system was overwhelming, and she couldn’t get over how expensive everything was.

“The minimum wage back home was $7.25, and here, that’s a coffee,” she says.

Why fewer rural students enroll

Closing the longstanding college attainment gap between rural communities and the rest of the country won’t be easy. Barely a fifth of rural adults over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 35% of nonrural adults. In many small-town high schools, “college is more the exception than the expectation,” says Ms. Betley. “It’s not built into the fabric of the school.”

When college is promoted or encouraged by rural schools, it’s often only for the highest-achieving students, says Crystal Chambers, a professor of educational leadership at East Carolina University, who has studied the influence of teachers on rural students’ aspirations. This can lead the remaining students to underestimate their academic potential and rule out college, she says.

Kelly Field

Norman Sackett (left) and Mason Glew, seniors at Plymouth Regional High School, have applied early decision to Dartmouth and Colby College, respectively. They attended a presentation by Dartmouth at Plymouth Regional Nov. 4.

High school guidance counselors, whose job it is to help students figure out their postgraduation plans, are often pulled in different directions. They are tasked with responding to immediate crises like addiction and food and housing insecurity, says Noa Meyer, board chair of the rootEd Alliance, which places dedicated college and career advisers in rural high schools and collaborates with the STARS network.

“They’re spending less time helping kids get into their futures, and more on protecting them in the present,” she says.

In families where neither parent has been to college, students can be left to navigate complicated admissions and financial aid processes on their own.

Rural schools are also less likely than urban and suburban ones to offer advanced math – a requirement for admission to many top colleges.

Meanwhile, a growing number of rural students are questioning the return on a costly degree and choosing work over college. At Plymouth Regional High School, which draws its 660 students from eight small towns, students now talk proudly about entering a trade and making good money sooner, counselors say.

“Since COVID, kids have been reassessing the value of college,” says Brian Sutherland, one of the counselors. “They have a hard time imagining that in 10 years, maybe their body won’t feel like laying wire all day.”

Those students who are willing to postpone a paycheck for the promise of higher earnings down the road tend to pick cheaper options, like Plymouth State University, a mile from the high school, or the University of New Hampshire. Even with its generous financial aid, it can be hard for Dartmouth to compete with the state’s flagship university, which is free for some low-income students, Mr. Koff acknowledges.

The pitch from recruiters

By reaching out to rural students through high school visits and fly-in programs for students and counselors, highly selective schools like Dartmouth hope to convince some high-achieving, low-income students that an elite education is within their reach. For rural students without access to calculus in high school, STARS offers free online courses and tutoring through partnerships with Khan Academy and Schoolhouse.world.

When Mr. Koff and other college representatives visit rural schools, they provide students with the information and tools they’ll need to apply to any college and pay for it. They’re there not just to sell their own institutions, but the idea of college as an attainable dream and a worthwhile investment.

Norman Sackett, a senior who applied early decision to Dartmouth, attended the recent presentation by Mr. Koff. Mr. Sackett’s father is an MRI technologist and his mother works in early child care. When he entered their income into the U.S. Department of Education’s net price calculator, he learned his family would be asked to contribute just $5,000 – a manageable amount. He’ll find out if he got into Dartmouth later this month.

Colleges haven’t always paid so much attention to rural students. Until fairly recently, most college recruiters saw rural schools as too remote, and too small, to justify travel expenses. While an urban high school might see hundreds of recruiters, a rural one would be fortunate to get a dozen.

This history means that many rural high schoolers have no idea how many options are available to them, says Ms. Betley. When she asks rural students how many colleges they think there are in the U.S., all say fewer than 100. When she tells them there are over 4,000 “their minds are blown,” she says.

Participating in the STARS network, which has received $150 million in support from Trott Family Philanthropies, provides colleges with the money – between $200,000 and $1 million each per year for a decade – to pay for trips to far-flung schools. It also allows them to share expenses on group trips to different geographic regions, such as northern New England.

Several colleges that participate in STARS, including The Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are also enlisting their own students as recruiters and advisers to rural students. Some serve surrounding high schools; others act as ambassadors for the college on visits back home.

“We were in their shoes once”

Avery Simpson, a peer adviser from Brooklyn, Wisconsin, who grew up in a farmhouse raising chickens and honeybees, says the biggest thing the high schoolers she speaks with want is reassurance. Some want to know if they’re choosing the right college; others are unsure if they’re even college material.

In those cases, says Ms. Simpson, who is now a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “it’s nice to look at them and tell them we were in their shoes once, and they can do it.”

Colleges in the STARS network are also creating programs aimed at helping students from rural high schools make the transition to large, urban institutions.

In Chicago, Ms. McGeehin was helped by her school’s Rural Student Alliance, a place where she can “be reminded that not everyone around you is from New York City.” She now serves on its board. She’s planning to invite members of the university’s public transit club to speak to first-year students who may be as confounded by the subway as she was.

“It’s still jarring sometimes,” she says, “but I’m better than I was.”

When I applied for a part-time job at my local library, I had no idea that I’d be asked to sing and dance the Hokey Pokey several times a week. I would’ve run. I thought I’d sit behind a desk and get reacquainted with some of my favorite childhood authors, like Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume, while helping parents find books for their well-behaved children.

My dream of it being a quiet desk job was shattered the first time I co-hosted “Toddler Time,” with 45 active toddlers mostly going in 45 different directions. The librarian and I took turns reading books, hosting a puppet show, and handing out precut crafts. Even though we wore mics, the children could barely hear us above the din, and it looked like a confetti bomb had gone off when they left.

Libraries had changed since I was a kid. They were now more like a community service center than just a home for books. Older people signed up to learn basic computer skills or how to set up an Instagram account. Children reading below their grade level showed up weekly for tutoring, and immigrants came to study for their citizenship test. Even homeless people ventured in to get away from the elements.

All were welcome. No one was turned away.

One day a woman came in and held out her library card to me. “I heard we can get free zoo tickets with our card here,” she said. I asked where she heard that. “On a radio station in Colorado,” she replied. I gently explained that we were in Texas in a different library system.

“Well, what can I get for free with my library card?” she asked. I hardly knew where to begin. I explained that there were thousands of books, movies, CDs, and games – all were free. She appeared unimpressed.

I ramped up my sales spiel. “We have book clubs, audiobooks, e-books, magazines, and streaming services.” 

I kept going. “There’s classes on 3D printing, finance workshops, a cooking club, and free access to Ancestry.com. There are even trained volunteers to help you file your taxes.” She sighed and walked away.

Some patrons were easier to please than others. When a 7-year-old boy approached the desk with a slim volume from a popular series to check out, I asked, “Just one? Do you want to get some more?” He’d watched in awe as another family walked up to the checkout desk with three rolling suitcases full of books. Our library had a generous limit of 150 items per person.

He looked down and shook his head no. It dawned on me that he thought you had to pay for them. When I explained that the books were free, he happily picked out two more.

While many of my days were spent walking young readers through the stacks, my job also entailed shelf-reading, weeding out torn books, and watching tiny tots shred the shelves and carousels from the time we opened until the minute we closed.

I fielded my share of questions from visitors who had no idea what they wanted or even liked, and others who hoped I might remember a title with the vaguest of hints. (“The cover was blue.”) Perhaps most challenging were the times when I didn’t even understand the question.

A middle schooler once asked me, “Do you have any books on pH?” Thinking he had left several letters off his question, I responded with, “Huh?” He spoke more slowly as I looked in our Polaris catalog for two random letters and finally said, “No, sorry.” I was wrong.

When I shared this request with my manager later, I received some wise advice. “Never say no or that you don’t know,” she said. “Always say, ‘Let’s find out.’” Lesson learned. In the library, there’s never a shortage of learning opportunities on both sides of the desk.

One evening, a patron was having trouble with the copier and couldn’t get it to print double-sided. When my co-worker tried to help, the woman began yelling at her and could not be pacified. Then she had computer problems, followed by printer issues. Her curses and complaints could be heard all over the department.

After a few quiet moments I looked up to see the distraught woman hugging one of the staff members and sobbing. It turned out that the woman’s husband of 25 years had left her, and she didn’t know what to do. She was trying to get a résumé together and had no one in her life to turn to, so she came to the library.

Libraries today are about so much more than what’s on the shelves. They can be a sanctuary, a place to get answers, to ask questions, or simply a companionable place to be alone.

They can also be a place of enchantment.

During spring break one year, our children’s department hosted a Teddy Bear Camp. Kids could bring their favorite stuffed animal, leave it with us, and then watch online as their bear had adventures all week long – participating in story times and scavenger hunts, riding the book carts, climbing the shelves. It ended with a reunion party and puppet show. Seventy bears participated, and the daily photo shoots took forever. Imagine staging dozens of stuffed animals that can’t stand or follow directions.

One little girl who’d been watching the escapades online came in and asked to see her bear.

She stared at its lifeless body, looked up, and said, “But how do you make them come alive when we leave?”

Ah, that’s what makes a library so magical.

AP

Woodcarver Papis Kanté sculpts a wooden hippopotamus in Dakar, Senegal, for the Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Arts, Nov. 28.

For four weeks, the people of Senegal in West Africa showed up in droves at sites across the capital, Dakar, to view art. Some waited hours to get into exhibition halls. They flooded social media with selfies, attracting millions of views.

This burst of appreciation for creative expression, particularly among young Senegalese, came at least partly at the behest of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye. Elected in March on a wave of youth-led demands for change, he opened the Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art on Nov. 7 by acknowledging the relationship between artistic freedom and national well-being.

Art “feeds our imagination ... makes us dream and think; it teaches and educates,” he said. It breathes an “extra soul” into public aspirations “so that they adhere ever better to what we are and aspire to become as a people.”   

Such sentiments are a sharp contrast to a debate in Africa over what the continent is due for past colonialism and the slave trade. On a trip to Angola last week, President Joe Biden paid tribute to “the stolen” Africans brought to America with “unimaginable cruelty.” In April, Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa suggested his country owed Africa reparations. For many Africans, those acknowledgments are long overdue.

Yet the art festival in Dakar, which brought together the works of some 3,000 artists, invited viewers to confront the past differently. One hall gathered pieces that depicted an alternative history of Africa untouched by colonialism or slavery. Others sought to awaken in visitors a sense of individuality and identity defined by innate dignity and worth rather than by how they are seen by others or what others had done.

The event transformed a neglected courthouse that once epitomized “the crushing justice of the French colonial empire” into a place where “we want everyone to feel legitimate,” Salimata Diop, a French Sengalese curator, told The New York Times.

Mr. Faye seems to be moving his country toward a similar shift in thought about the past and its bearing on Africa’s future. On Dec. 1, the history of a French massacre of Senegalese soldiers 80 years ago was added to school curricula. The purpose of history, he said, is to “reveal the truth ... to discharge a moral debt” to those who suffered. “We are not opening a door to arouse resentment, maintain anger or hatred,” he said.

The works of African artists that adorned Dakar, the president said, dissolve “the fears that inhibit” beauty and convey “the pressing need to cultivate peace and harmony among peoples.” For young Senegalese posing gleefully for selfies, an art festival that explored Africa’s independence from an inflicted past formed the backdrop of a future defined by self-worth, dignity, and equality.