When monsters square off, they are quick to showcase their asymmetrical superpowers. Take Godzilla, for instance. Thanks to U.S. atomic testing in the Pacific, the dinosaur-like sea creature has explosive, radioactive breath that can destroy everything in its path. His archenemy Rodan, meanwhile, is a pterodactyl-like bird that can fly at supersonic speeds, a skill… Continue reading The New Cold War of Rocks vs. Chips
In a fit of pique, Donald Trump recently scaled back the big annual military exercise between the United States and South Korea. He would have canceled it altogether if the 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield training hadn’t already started. The U.S. president cited as the reasons for his action the cost of the exercise and that… Continue reading Is Donald Trump Good for the Korean Peninsula
Remember that photo from Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as a president back in 2017? The new president was in Riyadh. Instead of going to Europe or Japan or Canada, Trump was making his first presidential trip to Saudi Arabia. And there he was, at the opening of a new World Center for Countering Extremist… Continue reading Another Blow against Pax Americana
In September 2025, Donald Trump designated “antifa” a domestic terror organization. Last month, his administration went one step further by declaring that the “extreme left” had developed the antifa network into a global threat. Marco Rubio announced at a press conference on July 16 that Antifa militants and their comrades travel from across Europe and… Continue reading The Myth of a Global Antifa
About 3,300 years ago, in the region around the Mediterranean, civilization collapsed. That’s what the archaeological record shows: the spectacular disappearance of a number of thriving cultures in Greece, Anatolia, and the Middle East. The Minoan palaces, with their astonishing frescoes of acrobats jumping over bulls, fell into ruins. Cyprus, at the crossroads of late… Continue reading We Are the Marauders
The Trump administration is doing everything it can to get rid of what it considers to be “undesirable” people. The administration has removed temporary protected status (TPS) for more than a million people from over a dozen countries. It is sending people back to active war zones in Sudan and Somalia. It is deporting people… Continue reading Trump’s War at Home
Imagine a public event 50 years from now in Kyiv. The convener speaks to the assembled crowd. “Before we begin,” she says, “I just want to say that we acknowledge that we are standing on and benefiting from land that has been seized, expropriated, and stolen from the Ukrainian people. For thousands of years, this… Continue reading Ukraine and the Spirit of Red Cloud
The Trump administration concluded a recent mineral deal with Kazakhstan that, not surprisingly, enriches not only Trump’s own family but that of his secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick. Trump’s two eldest sons, part owners of Dominari Securities, are set to profit from the Kazakh tungsten deal. So is Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm run by… Continue reading Trump Enrichment Syndrome
Donald Trump has always considered himself exceptional—that is, an exception to the rules. As a tycoon, he has demonstrated that multiple bankruptcies and an utter contempt for business associates have not hindered his accumulation of wealth. As a politician, he has shown that the same outrageous statements and scandals that have sunk other careers have… Continue reading Trump Trapped
It has long been the dream of the U.S. foreign policy elite to bring Japan and South Korea into a tighter alliance. Notoriously dismissive of history, American leaders don’t understand why the two countries can’t just overcome their past differences. For these Americans, the imperative of strengthened security in the region is so much more… Continue reading Japan and South Korea: An Alliance of Middle Powers
This week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth was on hand in Normandy for the eighty-second anniversary of the D-Day invasion. He made the usual remarks about U.S. dedication to defending freedom, just as he did last year on a similar occasion. This time around, however, Hegseth veered off into controversial territory. Not that you can… Continue reading Pete Hegseth’s Invasions
Early adopters pay a premium for their embrace of innovation. If you bought one of the first electric cars in the United States, you had limited range, long charging times, and very little infrastructure to support you on anything but the shortest journeys. If you’d held out just a little bit longer, you could have… Continue reading Saving the Planet Depends on Asia
Ever since North Korea suffered through the death of its first leader in 1994, a loss magnified by an economic collapse and a devastating famine, outside observers have likened the country to an airplane experiencing a serious malfunction. The major question they posed: in the end, would North Korea experience a soft landing or a… Continue reading What Can North Korea Tell Us about America’s Future?
The Kremlin can count on only one real ally in its war in Ukraine. Belarus has offered its territory for the staging of the war, and China has provided some dual-use exports that certainly contribute to the war effort. But only one country has sent a significant number of troops to fight alongside the Russians:… Continue reading Russia and North Korea: An Alliance of Desperation
In the summer of 1998, I traveled to the northeast region of China to visit a unique educational institution. The Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST), founded six years before, was the first private and the first foreign university to emerge under Chinese communism. Located in a region populated by many Korean-Chinese, YUST trained… Continue reading Digging Up North Korea’s Christian Roots
When Stalin wanted to get rid of someone, he didn’t just have them executed with a shot to the back of the head. He attempted to remove the offending person from history as well by excising their name from encyclopedias and airbrushing their image from photographs. In one infamous photo of two dozen Communist leaders… Continue reading The Airbrushing of Climate Change
The source of Russia’s global power derives not from sophisticated technology, an advanced service sector, or a cadre of entrepreneurs. Russia’s power is almost entirely backward-looking. Its geopolitical position rests on a base of prehistoric vegetation. That vegetation, of course, has ended up as Russia’s reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal. About one-quarter of the… Continue reading Why Russia’s Backwardness Benefits Putin
To figure out the future trajectory of Europe, Bulgaria is as good a place as any to start. On the edge of the European Union bordering Turkey and the Black Sea, the Balkan nation is, as of 2014, one of the newest members of the union. It is also the poorest EU member, and one of… Continue reading Where on Earth Is Europe Heading?
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
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
At the World Economic Forum this year, the audience of wealthy and powerful was treated to the kind of trash-talking that was once reserved for the likes of the Jerry Springer Show. Powerful leaders boasted, belittled, and threatened. Instead of infidelities and family secrets, the conversations at Davos took place against the backdrop of proposed land… Continue reading The Man Who Would Be King (of the World)
Restoring the Land The Movement to Address the Theft of Tribal Territory In the largest single land-back deal in California history, the Yurok Tribe reclaimed 73 square miles of ancestral territory on the eastern side of the lower Klamath River in June 2025. The size of the land transfer was certainly important for it… Continue reading Restoring the Land: The Movement to Address the Theft of Tribal Territory
When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the secretary of Health and Human Services, wanted to change his agency’s dietary recommendations, he did something very simple. He took the food pyramid and turned it upside down. After years of promoting healthy grains, pulses, and vegetables, the agency was now favoring meat and dairy. It seemed like a… Continue reading Trump Tries to Overturn the World Order