For the first time since the end of World War II, a far-right party has won a state election in Germany. This most recent success for the Alternative for Germany (AfD)—it won one-third of the votes in the eastern state of Thuringia—has generated a swirl of questions both inside and outside the country, such as:… Continue reading What the Heck Is Going on in Germany?
Russia has more arms and more soldiers. It is spending more than twice as much as Ukraine on the military. It has managed to survive the world’s economic sanctions. It has plenty of energy, compared with Ukraine, which is facing a very cold winter as a result of Russian attacks on critical energy infrastructure. And… Continue reading Why Russia Invaded Ukraine
In one country, the increasingly autocratic leader of 15 years has up and left after being forced out of power by a student-led opposition. In the other country, the increasingly autocratic leader of 11 years has refused to give up power in the face of protests after he rigged recent elections to give himself a… Continue reading When Do Autocrats Give Up?
They were all buddy-buddy for the cameras, going for a joy ride in a deluxe limo and toasting each other at a gala dinner. In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was determined to welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin in grand style on his first visit to Pyongyang in 24 years. A red carpet, flowers,… Continue reading Revenge of the Sovereignistas
Cynics and conspiracy theorists believe that everything is planned behind the scenes. They think that an assassination, even if it seems to be the work of a crazed loner, is actually stage-managed by a cabal. An accidental fire is no accident. Nothing is ever a surprise. But there have been three major surprises related to… Continue reading Electoral Surprises
Approaching the consequential elections of 2024, the United States faces a stark debate over the role of the country in international affairs. The media has generally presented the two positions as the internationalism of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris versus the isolationism of Donald Trump. The current team in the White House touts the importance… Continue reading The Double Crisis of U.S. Foreign Policy
The conventional Artificial Intelligence doomsday scenario runs like this. A robot acquires sentience and decides for some reason that it wants to rule the world. It hacks into computer systems to shut down everything from banking and hospitals to nuclear power. Or it takes over a factory to produce a million copies of itself to… Continue reading AI Might Kill Us All, But Not the Way You Think
The Right is resurgent! The Left is Back! The Center is on the march! It’s always tempting to declare, on the basis of a few elections, that a political tendency is on the ascendant. I should know: I’ve done it myself. But the only commonality in the most recent consequential elections—France, the UK, and Iran—is… Continue reading What Do Voters Want?
The recent meeting of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un in North Korea marks a new stage not only in their alliance but in their ideological convergence. This is no mere marriage of convenience. The two leaders have become so much closer in their political and economic sympathies over the last two decades that they… Continue reading Putin and Kim: A New World Order?
Poland is supposed to be one of the politically sane places in Europe right now. The far-right Law and Justice Party lost national elections last year to a centrist coalition and exited power after eight long years of democratic repression. Donald Tusk, who’d previously been the president of the European Council, once again became the… Continue reading You Think Trump Is Bad?
Imagine you are a country in the Global South. You suffer from a heavy debt burden. You’ve been trying for decades to catch up to the richer countries, but unsuccessfully, in large part because of that debt hanging around your neck like a giant millstone. And you are spending more and more of your precious… Continue reading The Global South’s Three Body Problem
The Wedding Jester written and performed by John Feffer directed by Josh Perlstein Date: Sunday, February 23 Time: 2:00 p.m. ET (doors open at 1:45 p.m.) Location: Yiddish Book Center (1021 West Street, Amherst, MA 01002) Tickets: $12 member/student admission; $15 general admission. Available here Accessibility: The Yiddish Book Center offers ADA-accessible parking spaces and… Continue reading The Wedding Jester
Ukraine can now use U.S. weapons to strike at targets inside Russia. That permission comes with numerous asterisks. The targets are geographically restricted to the northeast region across the border from Kharkiv, for instance, and Ukraine has only received the go-head to use short-range missiles. Other Ukrainian allies are less cautious. The Netherlands has authorized… Continue reading A Slippery Slope to World War III?
Benjamin Netanyahu’s face may soon be on Wanted posters around the world. In Israel, the prime minister has been charged with various counts of corruption. But now that the International Criminal Court has requested a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest on war crimes, he may become a global outlaw as well. It’s not a done deal.… Continue reading He Fought the Law – Will the Law Win?
Japan’s recovery from the devastation of World War II was assisted by another war. Japanese manufacturers and the service industries around military bases received a big lift when they helped U.S. forces during the Korean War. A little over a decade later, South Korea got a similar boost when its manufacturers helped the U.S. military… Continue reading Tariffs on China: Trump Was Dumb, Biden Dumber
Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. This quip by the American essayist Charles Dudley Warner applies to fossil fuels as well. Everyone talks about ending fossil fuel production, but almost no one is doing anything about it. Take the example of the Biden administration. It has launched the most ambitious… Continue reading The Race to End Fossil Fuel Production
If Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November, all sorts of hell will break loose. Mexico will face a huge border crisis. China will be hit with a new wave of tariffs. Ukraine will begin preparing itself for abandonment. And Milorad Dodik will tear apart Bosnia. Perhaps you’ve never heard of Milorad Dodik.… Continue reading Europe Braces for the Next Ukraine
The process of crafting congressional legislation is often likened to sausage-making. Best not to look behind the scenes at the mechanics of the process, which is a bloody mess. But the analogy is not apt. Sure, sausage-making can be ugly. The end product, however, is presentable and usually quite tasty. The legislation that emerges from… Continue reading Ukraine, Israel, and the Incoherence of U.S. Foreign Policy
Haiti has descended into chaos. It’s had no president or parliament — and no elections either –for eight long years. Its unelected prime minister Ariel Henry resigned recently when gang violence at the airport in Port-au-Prince made it impossible for him to return to the country after a trip to Guyana. Haiti is the poorest… Continue reading Haiti Today, America Tomorrow?
Critics of Israel once occupied the fringes of the debate in the United States. Then, in 2007, J Street was founded as a loyal opposition to the kind of Israeli politics that received uncritical support from the U.S. mainstream. By organizing “pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans” in favor of a more enlightened U.S.-Israel relationship, J Street… Continue reading The Break-Up?
With its “war on terrorism,” the United States launched a global campaign against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks as well as a number of other targets. The campaign probably created more terrorists than it killed. Moreover, U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq—the first with only a tangential relationship to al-Qaeda, the second with no… Continue reading The Return of Terrorism
If a NATO member doesn’t spend enough on its own defence, Donald Trump said in February, he’d ‘encourage’ Russia ‘to do whatever the hell they want’ to those ‘delinquent’ countries. The Republican frontrunner for the US presidency, as usual, didn’t apologize or back away from his comment, which defies seven decades of US support for… Continue reading Internationalism, the Donald Trump Way
At the outset, the United States was blessed with enormous tracts of land (that it stole from the natives) and a considerable labor force (that it enslaved from Africa) to achieve economic success based largely on growing things. The next leap forward—into the industrial era—was facilitated by large deposits of coal and oil. A century… Continue reading The Critical MIssing Piece from the U.S. Energy Transition
Ever since it withdrew its settlements in 2005, Israel has periodically attacked Gaza. This shelling of locations throughout the narrow strip of land gave rise to the Israeli expression “mowing the lawn.” In other words, Israel was bombing Gaza on a regular basis to “maintain order.” Over the last few months, Israel has gone far… Continue reading Destroying the Lawn in Gaza
The head of the U.S. Strategic Command told Congress last week that a powerful set of countries is ganging up against the United States and World War III is on the horizon. General Anthony Cotton’s testimony didn’t receive much attention from the U.S. press, other than some breathless coverage from conservative outlets eager to emphasize… Continue reading How to Deconstruct the New Iron Curtain
Presidential elections in the United States are almost always decided by domestic issues. Once in a while a global concern like terrorism or a particular war will affect voters’ choices. But Americans care most about their own livelihoods: jobs, housing, the cost of food. In 2024, a number of global issues should weigh heavily on… Continue reading The Foreign Policy Issue that Could Decide the U.S. Presidential Election
On the horizon, shimmering like some heavenly ideal, is a grand bargain to end the war in Gaza, establish an independent Palestinian state, and stabilize the Middle East. Also on the horizon, blazing like an infernal nightmare, is the prospect of an escalation of the current war in Gaza and the spread of destabilizing violence… Continue reading Gaza: Grand Bargain or Wider War
When Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, it focused on embedding the civil rights of the formerly enslaved in the Constitution. But the framers of the amendment also included a clause meant to keep those who served the Confederacy from holding public office. This “insurrection clause” of the U.S. constitution —Section 3 of the… Continue reading How to Deal with an Insurrectionist
The Korean War ended more than 70 years ago, and a tense peace has reigned ever since on the Korean peninsula. The two Koreas have exchanged artillery fire, battled in the economic and diplomatic arenas, and even covertly dispatched spies to each other’s territory. But the threats of a resumption of conflict, disproportionately coming from… Continue reading Are North Korea’s Recent Threats Rhetorical or Real?
It would be funny if it weren’t so potentially tragic — and consequential. No, I’m not thinking about Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign but a related development: the latest decisions from the European Union (EU) about Ukraine. As 2023 ended, European nations failed to agree on a $54-billion package of assistance for Ukraine at a… Continue reading The End of Europe?