Part Field Notes from a Catastrophe, part 1984, part World War Z, John Feffer’s striking new dystopian novel, takes us deep into the battered, shattered world of 2050. The European Union has broken apart. Multiethnic great powers like Russia and China have shriveled. America’s global military footprint has virtually disappeared and the United States remains… Continue reading Splinterlands
In 2012-13, as part of an Open Society Foundation fellowship, I re-interviewed many of the people I talked to in 1990 when I traveled for seven months through East-Central Europe. Twenty-three years later, I also interviewed a wide range of additional people in order to get as broad a picture as possible of what has… Continue reading Full Interview List
In the universe of far-right politics, the three members of the Axis of Evil are Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Viktor Orban. The first presides over the most powerful country in the world. The second launched the first major land invasion in Europe in over 75 years. The third has done his best to destroy… Continue reading The Axis of Evil Suffers a Big Loss
Before he became one of the great diplomats of the twentieth century, Henry Kissinger wrote his dissertation about the Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich. Kissinger closely studied how European diplomats like Metternich constructed a new regional order after the defeat of Napoleon. Metternich was an early expert in the art of herding cats, with the… Continue reading Negotiating with Bombs
The latest technology can prove decisive in war. Think of the atomic bomb in World War II. Or the stirrup in the Mongol conquest of Europe and the Middle East. More recently, after the two sides had been deadlocked for decades, Azerbaijan defeated Armenia in 2020 in a matter of days and took over the… Continue reading Artificial Intelligence vs. Human Stupidity
To combat climate change, the entire world has to make the transition away from fossil fuels. If a major emitter like the United States or India doesn’t substantially reduce its emissions, it will doom the entire enterprise. As never before in human history, richer and poorer must work together. But what will that joint action… Continue reading The Case for Global Climate Reparations
World War III will not start with an exchange of nuclear weapons. It won’t ignite from the jostling of great empires. Nor will it result from a single madman (or two) bent on taking over the world. It won’t be any of those things because World War III has already begun. The current global conflagration… Continue reading It’s Already a World War
An elected leader who tries to seize absolute power through a military coup commits the most serious political transgression that can take place in a democracy. In December 2024, Yoon Suk Yeol attempted just such a coup to overcome opposition in the National Assembly that he called “anti-state” and blamed for the country’s political paralysis.… Continue reading This Is What Accountability Looks Like
The Supreme Court’s decision is clear. The president did not have the authority to impose most of his tariffs. Trump argued that, under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, his actions were justified because of a national emergency caused by a foreign threat. In the 6-3 ruling, the Court said that, on the contrary, that… Continue reading The Silver Lining Behind Trump’s Tariff Tantrum
A mere 15 years ago, during an epoch that now seems as distant as the Paleozoic era, an American president attempted to use military power to prevent a dictator from slaughtering his own citizens. Barack Obama billed the action in Libya as a humanitarian intervention, citing the new U.N. doctrine of “responsibility to protect” (R2P).… Continue reading Trump Goes Rogue as Globocop
By some measures, the Palestinian bid for statehood has never been stronger. By the end of last year, at least 157 countries had recognized the state of Palestine, which represents slightly more than 80 percent of the world’s nations. Some of those countries are quite powerful, such as China, India, Indonesia, the UK, France, Australia,… Continue reading The Disappearance of Palestine
China has been nipping at the heels of the United States for a quarter of a century. By some measures, the size of the Chinese economy exceeded that of the United States about a decade ago. China has a huge trade surplus thanks to the fact that it is the leading trade partner of 145… Continue reading Trump Delivers Lunch to Beijing