It’s possible that he’ll be in prison. Or perhaps, because of poll numbers that fall as trial dates approach, the Republican Party won’t end up nominating the current frontrunner as their presidential candidate in 2024. And, of course, in the general election, despite its lukewarm attitude toward Joe Biden, the American electorate could still unite… Continue reading Trump World 2025
In a fit of madness or just plain desperation, you’ve enrolled in a get-rich-quick scheme. All you have to do is sell some products, sign up some friends, make some phone calls. Follow that simple formula and you’ll soon be pulling in tens of thousands of dollars a month — or so you’ve been promised… Continue reading More Butterflies, Fewer Billionaires
In his famous essay about democracy, the British novelist E.M. Forster celebrated the political system’s encouragement of diversity and its tolerance of criticism. However, he only gave two cheers for democracy, rather than three, because democratic systems tend toward inefficiency and mediocrity. Forster believed that democracy, although better than the alternatives, deserves only qualified praise.… Continue reading Korean Armistice, Ukrainian Ceasefire
A powerful state was threatening to protect its compatriots over the border by intervening in the neighboring country. The neighbor had a well-equipped army but could not have beaten back the powerful state all by itself. The world stood on the brink of another world war. But thanks to the intercession of diplomats, a hastily… Continue reading Peace in Their Time
Saudi Arabia is pissed off at Russia. It’s not as if the Gulf state has released any angry statements to the press. Rather, Riyadh has made clear its displeasure in an indirect way. It has offered to host a “peace summit” next week that Ukraine will organize. Brazil, India, South Africa, and China are among… Continue reading Russia’s Agricultural Warfare
As the Cold War began to wane, multipolarism became a rallying cry for everyone sick and tired of superpower politics, nuclear standoffs, and the banal bipolarism of Soviet misinformation and American propaganda. This “rise of the rest” was prefigured in the Non-Aligned Movement that began in 1961, the New International Economic Order that the United… Continue reading Ukraine and the World Order
After last year’s NATO summit, Joe Biden talked to reporters about the war in Ukraine, U.S. military assistance to the government in Kyiv, the invitations to Sweden and Finland to join NATO, and the global economy. The message that the U.S. president emphasized, on all of these issues, was that “America is back.” After the… Continue reading America vs. the Supreme Court
The former hotdog salesman rose about as high as he could. He became a caterer to the Russian elite and a confidante of the president. He led his country’s premier paramilitary force. He was one of Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs. And then he overreached. Yevgeny Prigozhin now says that he had no intention of overthrowing Russian… Continue reading The Beginning of the End for Putin?
It was a peace mission that basically fell to pieces. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa tried to line up a number of African leaders to travel to Russia and Ukraine in an effort to persuade the two countries to stop fighting. He was joined on the trip by the leaders of Senegal, Comoros, and Zambia.… Continue reading A Tale of Two Missions
From a foreign policy perspective, transatlantic relations appear to have reached new heights. The United States and European Union both support Ukraine’s efforts to expel Russian troops from its territory. On the military front, NATO is enjoying boom times thanks to the reemergence of a ‘common enemy’ and the addition of new members like Finland.… Continue reading Greening Transatlantic Relations
HOPE I DIE BEFORE I GET OLD The Last Case of Sherlock Holmes Tickets now available here. Read about the show in the Daily Hampshire Gazette! And here in The Reminder! “Saw this very funny and engaging play last night and really enjoyed it. The playwright and performer, John Feffer,, has melded history, humor, and… Continue reading New Play: Hope I Die Before I Get Old
Entrepreneurs and adventurers have long traveled the world in search of gold. European empires looted Latin America for its silver and tin. Diamonds attracted the rapacious to Africa. Oil has built enormous empires of wealth in the Gulf states. Today, an entirely different scramble for natural resources is taking place. These “critical raw materials” play… Continue reading The Mineral Rush
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has resulted in the deaths so far of more than 8,700 Ukrainian civilians, including more than 500 children. It has caused a massive drop in the country’s economic output, with GDP declining by 29.1 percent. And it has had widespread consequences for the environment: inside Ukraine, in surrounding countries,… Continue reading How Russia’s War in Ukraine Threatens the Planet
Henry Kissinger is arrogant. At 100 years old, he still represents all that is smug and imperious about U.S. foreign policy. Donald Trump and his fellow denizens of the far right project the same vibe with their MAGA madness. A similar strain of American arrogance can even be found among liberals, the ones who believe… Continue reading The Surprising Pervasiveness of American Arrogance
The burning of fossil fuels—oil, coal, natural gas—is responsible for nearly 90 percent of global carbon emissions. Despite almost-universal recognition of the need to reduce the use of those fossil fuels, the industrialized world is having the hardest time breaking its addiction. The economic rebound from the COVID-19 shutdowns generated the largest ever increase in… Continue reading How to Rapidly Reduce Fossil Fuel Use
Taiwan is a country, but not many other states recognize it as such. Only 13 countries maintain diplomatic relations with the island nation. These are small or poor or both, like Haiti, Paraguay, and Tuvalu. Honduras switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing just one month ago. Taiwan doesn’t have a seat at the… Continue reading The Trouble with Taiwan
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the United States quickly moved to support the government in Kyiv. With Joe Biden in the White House, having replaced someone who made no effort to conceal his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin, this U.S. support was no surprise. Prior to the invasion, the Biden administration had… Continue reading U.S. and Ukraine: Sending Arms or Twisting Arms?
If you take a poll of American pundits and policymakers about the greatest threat facing the U.S. government, they’d probably put China at the top of the list. Maybe a handful would opt for Russia. A few holdouts from the War on Terrorism era might point to Islamic extremism. But the greatest threat to the… Continue reading The U.S. Government’s Greatest Enemy
Donald Trump is currently facing 34 charges of tax and accounting fraud in a New York trial. It is the first time that an American president has faced criminal charges. The United States now joins a number of democratic countries where the chief executive has been put on trial. In some of these countries—South Korea,… Continue reading Donald Trump and America’s Democratic Reputation
Gustavo Petro doesn’t just want to transform his own country; he wants to change the world. The new leader of Colombia, who took office last August, is targeting what he calls his nation’s “economy of death.” That means pivoting away from oil, natural gas, coal, and narcotics toward more sustainable economic activities. Given that oil… Continue reading The Shift from Pink to Green in Latin America
Leaving aside the manufactured justifications, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to reassert U.S. power in the Middle East and reduce the influence of Iran. It wasn’t terrorism or yellow cake or even Saddam Hussein’s appalling human rights abuses that motivated one of the most tragic of U.S. foreign policy blunders. It was geopolitics,… Continue reading Ukraine and the Lessons of the Iraq War
The global economy hit a new milestone in 2022 by surpassing $100 trillion. This expansion, which has experienced only the occasional setback such as the 2020 COVID shutdowns, has been accelerated by trade. The world trade volume experienced 4,300 percent growth from 1950 to 2021, an average 4 percent increase every year. This linked growth… Continue reading Free Trade or Just Green Trade
On February 24, the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to commemorate the occasion with a speech. There wasn’t much for Putin to celebrate. The invasion had failed to dislodge the government of Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv or incorporate all of Ukrainian territory into greater Russia. Over the last… Continue reading Ukraine’s Future: Like Korea or Yugoslavia?
Right after delivering this year’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden briefly encountered his former Senate colleague, Bob Menendez. The Democratic senator from New Jersey, well-known for his hawkish views on Cuba, was never a fan of the Obama administration’s vaunted opening to the island a decade ago. He continues to stand in… Continue reading Does Cuba Have a Future?
This weekend, I went on a walk on a paved road that soon turned to dirt. The further into farmland it went, the muddier and more difficult to traverse the road became. The map function on my phone, connected by invisible strands to a satellite way above my head, continued to show me these roads,… Continue reading Spying vs. Spying
Lynas bills itself as the only significant producer of separated rare earth oxides outside of China. It mines these minerals at Mt. Weld in Western Australia. From there, it sends the material to a secondary processing facility in Malaysia where it separates and processes the ore. According to its own promotional materials, Lynas is “designed… Continue reading Battling a Mining Giant on Two Continents
The international community is not in great shape. The war in Ukraine pits two entirely different conceptions of the global order: authoritarian Russia and its supporters versus the more-or-less democratic world. This war is currently mired in a stalemate that could, nevertheless, escalate into a nuclear conflict very rapidly. At the same time, the United… Continue reading Maybe the World Isn’t Falling Apart?
There are currently only two Jewish heads of state in the world. The first, not surprisingly, leads Israel. The second is Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. They don’t get along. Religious affiliation by itself does not determine political or military alliances. Plenty of wars have pitted Christians against Christians and Moslems against Moslems. But… Continue reading Israel’s Strange Ambivalence on Ukraine
In 1972, the Club of Rome released a report called The Limits to Growth that laid out the damage to the planet and to human beings of unrestrained increases in economic production and population. It was a straightforward extrapolation from then-current trends that took into account limited resources like water, fertile soil, and fossil fuels.… Continue reading From the Unsustainable Here to the Sustainable There
Some politicians just hate politics. They get into the game in order to disrupt it. They have such a visceral hatred of governance that, like suicide bombers, they’ve smuggled themselves into government in order to blow it up from within. Much of the coverage of the multiple attempts to elect Kevin McCarthy as House speaker… Continue reading The Rise of Self-Hating Politicians