Most governments say they want to attract the world’s top talent. Only a few are serious about it. I was struck by this thought as I breezed through Dubai’s airport, which is as hassle-free as a busy airport can be and vastly more pleasant than, say, JFK in New York. When I talked to high-flying expats, they praised the speed and efficiency of Dubai’s digitised immigration system. If your income is high enough, you can get a work visa in a week, with minimal fuss. The contrast with America, which has the most attractive labour market in the world but repels talent with the faff, delay and the arbitrariness of its immigration bureaucracy, was mind-boggling. 

For this week’s cover in most of the world our data guru Ainslie Johnstone worked out which countries are most appealing for graduates to move to. Gabriel Crossley, one of our Beijing correspondents, interviewed gloomy expats in China; I spoke to talented migrants tearing out their hair in America. I also visited a business school in Portugal that moved to the beach to make itself more enticing. The message I heard was straightforward. Unlike asylum-seekers or labourers, highly skilled professionals have a lot of choices. To woo them, governments need to remember that.

Our cover in Asia considers new nuclear rivalries and argues that America needs to build more nuclear weapons to keep the world safe. Nuclear threats have in recent years proliferated and mutated, making them more complex and less predictable than the old, bipolar contest between America and the Soviet Union. China, Iran, Russia and North Korea are co-operating on military matters and could collude on missile technology, too. With more fingers on more red buttons, the chance of miscalculation increases. In a dangerous world, it would be reckless to let America’s nuclear umbrella fray.