All Commentaries
What Happened to Brazil?
Latin America’s largest country once looked ascendant. Now it’s been laid low by widespread violence, structural racism, endemic corruption, and external economic shocks.
The Nuclear Mushroom Cloud Foretold
When Walt Whitman wrote of “burial clouds, in black masses spreading,” he couldn’t imagine that a century later, they could invoke the nuclear mushroom cloud.
The Rise and Fall of Guatemala’s Most Feared General
Otto Pérez Molina started his rise to power during a U.S.-backed dirty war. The uprising against impunity that brought him down has been waiting in the wings ever since.
The Star Trek Fallacy
The impulse to “boldly go” has gotten humanity into a mess of trouble.
While Making Peace With It, U.S. Enables Israel to Attack Iran
The United States may equip Israel with weapons to attack nuclear energy sites in Iran.
What the Class Politics of World War II Mean for Tensions in Asia Today
In the Philippines, the grandson of a despised collaborator has endorsed the remilitarization of his country’s former occupiers — by the grandson of a war criminal, no less.
Why Are So Many Weapons Either “Strategic” or “Systems”?
In the defense world, the terms “strategic” and “systems” seem like they’re used almost indiscriminately.
Will Russia Become the “Main Engine” of the Destruction of the Islamic State?
The Russian military moves to shore up the Syrian Regime in its fight against the Islamic State and other rebel forces.
How Greece’s Creditors Trounced Syriza
When Syriza’s leadership failed to seriously plan for a Eurozone exit, they let Europe’s central bank turn the screws.
After Obama: Clinton vs. Sanders
Hillary Clinton just laid out a hawkish foreign policy vision in a major speech. How do her views stack up against those of Bernie Sanders, her challenger from the left?