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July 02, 2026
 

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Andreas Kluth
Critics argue the selection of Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to lead U.S. intelligence reflects a preference for political loyalty over expertise.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2026
Pulte will drag U.S. intelligence from bad to worse
Pulte, though, appears to be worse. He seems even less qualified for the job than Gabbard (who at least had military experience).
A woman sits outside her apartment after it was destroyed in an airstrike amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran in Tehran on March 12.
COMMENTARY / World
May 5, 2026
Will the Iran war make Trump gun-shy or trigger-happy?
The sunk-cost fallacy tricks leaders into thinking that they’ve already sacrificed too much to quit.
U.S. President Donald Trump's shifting narratives and pattern of mission creep mirrors historical cases from Iraq to World War II, showing how leaders adjust justifications to fit actions rather than defining war aims.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2026
Congress must stop war by mission creep
The leader of a major power weighs an attack, and adjusts his reasons to justify the war, rather than making the war depend on the objectives.
Historians’ rankings of America’s best and worst foreign-policy decisions show the U.S. succeeded when it led cooperatively through multilateral institutions and failed when it turned inward or went rogue.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2026
The 10 best and worst U.S. foreign policy decisions
America was at its best whenever it was open to the world and engaged with it, and at its worst when it became closed.
A Ukrainian officer watches as an SS-24 nuclear missile booster is removed from its bunker at a military base in Pervomaisk in southern Ukraine in September 1998 as part of the dismantling of the country’s remaining SS-24 missiles under the START I treaty.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2026
Goodbye arms control, hello nuclear anarchy
This marks the first time since the iciest days of the Cold War when no formal arms-control regime will limit the two atomic superpowers.
Pope Leo XIV meets with Donald Trump’s top lieutenants, U.S. Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the Vatican in May.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2026
A pope and a president offer competing Americanisms
In time, this papal voice of humanity’s better angels will resonate ever more broadly as the jingoism of this White House becomes more shrill.
U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to give a news conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday after Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro was captured and flown out of the country, having been indicted by a U.S. court.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2026
Trump is tying his legacy to whatever happens in Venezuela
The intervention probably also violates domestic U.S. law. It comes well after — if one starts the clock on Sept. 2 — when the U.S. struck the first boat in the Caribbean.
The so-called Donald Trump Corollary revives a distorted Monroe Doctrine to legitimize bullying in the Western Hemisphere, increasing instability and the risk of wider conflict.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2025
Turning the Monroe Doctrine into ‘Donroe’ is awful geopolitics
For the Trump administration, as Jay Sexton points out, trolling libs like Kerry is of course another plus for the Donroe Doctrine.
U.S. senators telling American troops they don’t have to obey illegal commands has sparked ire from President Donald Trump, underscoring the enduring principle that soldiers must follow conscience and the law above orders.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2025
The duty to disobey unlawful orders was America’s idea
Members of Congress made a video in which they remind active service members that “our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders.”
The U.S.-China economic confrontation under Donald Trump's leadership is marked by chaos, a lack of strategy and internal divisions within U.S. circles, raising critical questions about the future of global diplomacy and trade.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2025
The U.S. has no China policy, no strategy and no clue
But tariffs were just the overture, as Washington and Beijing, tit-for-tat, started going after each other in every other way.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado speaks to supporters while holding up electoral records during a rally in Caracas in August 2024. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday she was the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2025
Machado receives the Nobel Peace Prize as Trump’s attempts to secure award fall short
Machado, as the committee put it, is known for her tireless work promoting democracy for Venezuelans and her struggle against dictatorship.
Military and national security leaders across major Western countries and the world show dangerous overconfidence and cognitive biases, risking global conflict.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 9, 2025
Global war and the cognitive traps leaders don’t see
Even a cursory scan of today’s major military powers suggests that their leaders and policy elites are dangerously overconfident.
The United Nations Security Council holds a ministerial meeting on Ukraine during the U.N. General Assembly at the body's headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2025
The U.S. assault on the U.N. rests on a tragic misunderstanding
The Trump administration views the U.N. as a useless, woke cesspool. Instead, it reflects the world as it is, assembled to “save humanity from hell.”
A group of U.S. foreign policy veterans has warned Congress that Donald Trump’s erratic and hostile approach to allies is eroding America’s global credibility.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2025
America’s friends will never trust the U.S. again
A group of U.S. foreign policy veterans has warned Congress that Donald Trump’s erratic and hostile approach to allies is eroding America’s global credibility.
Experts warn the world is drifting dangerously close to disaster as North Korea, Russia and China expand their nuclear arsenals and old arms-control frameworks crumble.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2025
Even nuclear experts are at a loss right now
Who would have thought strategists would be almost nostalgic for the Cold War?
U.S. President Donald Trump’s support for Israel’s attack on Iran has sparked outrage among MAGA loyalists who see it as a betrayal of his anti-war promises.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2025
Trump’s MAGA coalition won’t survive a bunker-buster in Iran
As the U.S. president weighs whether to join Israel’s war against Iran, a rift cleaves his own base, not to mention the world.
Demonstrators hold a rally against U.S. President Donald Trump's attacks on Harvard University at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 17.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2025
Stop scaring future world leaders off U.S. campuses
To the extent that a U.S. education gets others to think as Americans think, it is the ideal tool of soft power
U.S. President Donald Trump and his “madman theory” won’t get Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei to scrap his nuclear program.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2025
Why should Iran believe anything the U.S. threatens or promises?
The Iranians — like the Russians — are notoriously shifty negotiators. But so are the Americans, now that they’re led by Trump.
U.S. President Donald Trump's deal-focused approach to diplomacy may prevent a hostile China-Russia-North Korea-Iran alliance, but weakens U.S. global leadership.
COMMENTARY
Mar 27, 2025
The art of the deal meets a four-power axis
Trump’s deal-focused approach may prevent a hostile China-Russia-North Korea-Iran alliance but weakens U.S. global leadership.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy departs following a contentious meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday. Plans to sign a critical minerals deal between the two nations were scrapped after the talks quickly devolved into a fiery exchange over U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2025
Trump’s Oval Office clash with Zelenskyy was a win for Putin
Nobody in Ukraine, or any other country formerly under Moscow’s boot, believes that Putin will honor the terms of a ceasefire without credible guarantees.
Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ¥3,000 from ¥1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
More facilities in Japan placing sanitary bins in men’s restrooms
A sanitary bin with an awareness sticker placed in a men's restroom in the Nagasaki Municipal Government building
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.
Some startups see opportunity in an aging Japan
Yasmin Baba, CTO of Amilis, wins the Grand Prize at the Pitch2Tokyo Grand Final on Feb. 19.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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The Terasaka Rice Terraces are seen with Mount Buko in the background.
What Yokoze can teach Japan about rural revival
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