Didion in El Salvador
While Joan Didion felt compelled to write about Latin American culture and politics because everyone else was doing it, she didn’t understand them very well.
Charlotte Allen
· 17 min read
Foreign Affairs
A collection of 213 posts
This Is About More Than Ukraine
In the early days of World War Two, George Orwell published a marvelous essay entitled “England Your England.” With the Luftwaffe in the skies above London laying waste to the city, Orwell observed a peculiarly contemptible trait of the English intelligentsia. In a word, this portion of the national elite
Brian Stewart
· 6 min read
Drones Over Ethiopia
The growing use of armed drones in Ethiopia and other backwater conflicts is linked to the recent war in Afghanistan.
James Jeffrey
· 11 min read
Remembering Richard Leakey (1944–2022), the Last Victorian Scientist
While he may have seemed like something of an (enormously) overachieving dilettante to some, there was in fact a unity to his life and work.
Geoffrey Clarfield
· 11 min read
The Free-ish World
A review of World in Danger: Germany and Europe in an Uncertain Time by Wolfgang Ischinger, Brookings, 280 pages (November, 2020) Every winter in Bavaria, the great and the good from Europe and the United States gather to take stock of the threats facing the world. The Munich Security Conference
Brian Stewart
· 8 min read
Taiwan, Ukraine, and Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations Revisited
Putin believes that the current crisis puts principled opposition to authoritarian empire-building at odds with the imperatives of faith and history, as well as the pragmatic imperative of keeping Germans supplied with energy.
John Lloyd
· 9 min read
Ethiopia’s Stunning Battlefield Reversal
A year is a long time during warfare, and the Tigray conflict that began last November has now been flipped on its head. Not many observers saw the current scenario coming. The world’s recurring tendency to forget Ethiopia, noted by the eminent 18th-century British historian Edward Gibbon, has
James Jeffrey
· 6 min read
Sandinista! The US Left and Nicaragua
Recent events in Nicaragua have caused stirrings of unease among many of Ortega's previously loyal US supporters, and in some cases, strident criticism.
Ronald Radosh
· 18 min read
Bitter Lessons from Afghanistan
The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan returns those nations willing to fight evil to their couches, where they can sigh in safety.
John Lloyd
· 13 min read
Welcome to Cold War II
Challenging China across the technological landscape requires a mammoth effort.
Ari David Blaff
· 7 min read
Dictatorship and Responsibility in Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s political culture is being dismantled.
Peter Baehr
· 16 min read
Will Biden Resurrect the Iran Deal?
The logic of making Iran’s nuclear program less dangerous via the JCPOA agreement while leaning on the FBI to ignore the crimes of the smugglers that made Iran’s nuclear program so dangerous remains hard to fathom.
Art Keller
· 11 min read
Pax Americana is Here to Stay
Lost in much of the fretting (or boasting) about American declinism is the massive lead the American economy continues to hold over China, despite four decades of rapid growth for the latter.
Imran Said
· 8 min read
Why I Believe Climate Change Is Not the End of the World
The Congo has a way of putting first-world prophecies of climate apocalypse into perspective.
Michael Shellenberger
· 37 min read
PODCAST 69: Forensic psychologist Armando Simón on the risks of going to Mars
Quillette, Jonathan Kay
· 1 min read