The United Nations has not been taken over by authoritarian states. It has been used by them, which is a different problem and a harder one to fix. The machinery was built to be neutral about who operates it. Governments that treat multilateral bodies as an extension of their foreign ministries have learned to operate it well, while governments that treat those bodies as a … [Read more...] about How Authoritarian States Captured UN Machinery Under Guterres, and Why the Secretary-General Is Always Chosen Weak
Opinion
Qatar and Turkey Funded the Infrastructure Behind Europe’s Palestine Protests
I don't like conspiracy arguments and I don't make them. When someone tells me a crowd is fake, or that a movement has a single hand behind it, my instinct is that they've mistaken agreement for coordination. Most protests are what they look like: people who believe a thing, showing up. I've said that about crowds I hated and I meant it. So it took me a while to accept what … [Read more...] about Qatar and Turkey Funded the Infrastructure Behind Europe’s Palestine Protests
Who’s Going to Tell Trump That Kim Jong Un’s “Respectful” Country Starves Its Own Citizens
I'm not one of those people who treats every American deployment abroad as sacred. The joint exercises with South Korea are expensive. Seoul is a rich country with a shipbuilding industry that embarrasses ours and it can carry more of the bill. Alliances should be audited like anything else, and the ones that never get audited are the ones that rot. If the argument were that … [Read more...] about Who’s Going to Tell Trump That Kim Jong Un’s “Respectful” Country Starves Its Own Citizens
Ukraine Picked the Right Target in Wildberries, and the Kremlin’s Reaction Proves It
I have spent most of this war as the person at the table who says economic pressure doesn't end wars. Sanctions didn't break Russia. The price cap leaked. The frozen reserves sat frozen while Moscow found new banks, new tankers, new shell companies in new jurisdictions. Every time someone told me the ruble was about to collapse, it didn't. So when Kyiv started burning down … [Read more...] about Ukraine Picked the Right Target in Wildberries, and the Kremlin’s Reaction Proves It
Trump, Iran, and the Mars Attacks Problem: Five Months of Cancelled Strikes
The joke writes itself, so let's get it out of the way. Tim Burton made a film thirty years ago in which a president keeps accepting the invaders' assurances of peace right up to the moment they vaporize his cabinet, and the gag lands because the audience sees the con in the first frame while the man with the launch codes never does. Cancel the strike. They say they want a … [Read more...] about Trump, Iran, and the Mars Attacks Problem: Five Months of Cancelled Strikes