Are the beliefs that nuclear weapons forced the Japanese to surrender and that deterrence keeps the peace little more than received wisdom?
Nuclear Weapons Have Outlived Their Usefulness — if They Ever Had Any
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Europe & Central Asia
Bulgaria: The Next Generation
Bulgaria’s younger generation carries the past more lightly.
Italy’s Election: Lighting the Lamp
On the eve of the World War I the British diplomat Sir Edward Gray is purported to have said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe.” In the wake of the recent Italian election one might reverse that phrase: after years of brutal austerity, collapsing economies, widespread unemployment, and shredding of the social safety net, Italians said “basta!” Enough! And lamps are going on all over Europe.
Camel Wrestling on the Aegean Coast
Drums pound along the Aegean coast. In a natural amphitheater only miles from the ruins of ancient Ephesus the air is split by wailing horns and the raucous cheers of 10,000 spectators drunk on raki and the brute intoxication of camel wrestling.
Organizing the Public in East-Central Europe
NGOs devoted to public works paradoxically became part of the wave of privatization that swept the region.
Human Rights in Serbia
People commit crimes, and they get away with it. These are usually powerful people, like Iliya Pavlov, the head of Multigroup and Bulgaria’s wealthiest individual until a sniper took him out in 2003.
The Sunset of the “Celtic Tiger” Led to the Dawn of the “Horsewich”
The implosion of the Irish real estate bubble begat the Great Horsemeat Crisis.
Eating History
The GDR Museum in Berlin is actually two museums in one. And these two parts, both devoted to everyday life in the German Democratic Republic, subtly contradict one another. That might not have been the intention of the museum founders. But this tension actually captures the ambiguities of East Germany and the ambivalence that many Germans feel today about the erstwhile communist state.
Emphasis Added: The Foreign Policy Week in Fragments
The U.S. military, “witch burning,” negotiations with Iran, among other affairs.
U.S. Could Take a Lesson From France on LGBT Rights
Adoption by gay couples proved to be an especially contentious issue in France.