COVID Exposed the West’s Weakest Link
Rachel Donadio, The Atlantic
Italy rallied after being hit hard by the pandemic. But it is not out of the woods.
Rachel Donadio, The Atlantic
Italy rallied after being hit hard by the pandemic. But it is not out of the woods.
Laura Greenhalgh & Lili Bayer, Politico EU
Who gets what under the new 7-year spending plan.
Bibi Borges, AQ
New data show Venezuela's government is targeting journalists and others who might expose the reality of COVID-19.
Stephen Daisley, Spectator
The Russia report was supposed to prove once and for all that the Kremlin rigged the EU referendum, Boris Johnson is an FSB asset and Dominic Cummings a bot operated from Saint Petersburg. Anything but the glum reality that the Leave campaign was more effective than its rival. That is not to say Vladimir Putin’s regime did not attempt to...
Carolyn Fairbairn, Financial Times
Elizabeth Buchanan, Foreign Policy
Russia and China’s partnership in the north is primarily driven by business, not politics.
Shay Stautz, National Interest
Beijing is making new developments in space after spending decades envying NASA’s dominance in the region.
Daniel Finkelstein, Times of London
Rejecting Corbyn’s foreign policy ideas will reassure patriotic voters but it also marks a battleground within the party
Judah Grunstein, World Politics Review
Should the four-year-long polar night of Donald Trump’s presidency come to a definitive end this November, most observers of his catastrophic handling of U.S. foreign policy will rejoice. After all, Trump has done significant damage to America’s national interests—and has done so in a uniquely corrosive way. He has undermined America’s alliances and partnerships while emboldening its adversaries, all in pursuit of an ad hoc, incoherent and personalized foreign policy devoid of strategic planning. Читать дальше...
A. Basora & N. Gvosdev, FPRI
The original Orbis article, in 2013, focused on how the Euro-zone crisis led to democratic backsliding in the new democracies that emerged in Central Europe, notably in Hungary and Poland. Ambassador Adrian Basora expressed concern that this “could jeopardize the extraordinary progress in post-communist democratization and Western integration achieved with the help of U.S. and EU policy in the 1989-2004 period.” Orbis editor Nikolas Gvosdev asked Ambassador... Читать дальше...
M. Ferraro, RCW
The coronavirus pandemic has spawned highly contagious, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that have led to real-world harm. One of the most widely disseminated claims is that 5G cell towers are responsible for the virus’ spread. It is a prevalent idea around the world. The United Kingdom has seen over 60 attacks on cell towers and 80 cases of harassment...
Kristen Brown, Bloomberg
Six feet. As Covid-19 has torn through the world, that distance has come to define daily life. Six feet is how far we stand from other shoppers or the space we try to maintain while catching up with a friend.
Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal
One of the most beautiful towns in England, Lewes is relatively unspoiled by the twentieth-century British architectural incompetence that has proved so destructive of urban grace, spreading the most hideous ugliness almost everywhere as a kind of metonym for social equality. From Lewes’s streets can be seen the lovely, rolling downs of Sussex, and it is curious how the sight of green hills from the center of a town or city (still possible in Dublin, for example) soothes the mind. Читать дальше...
Emily Yoffe, Persuasion
There is a pattern in the way speech is silenced. Understanding it can help us stand up to the illiberalism of this moment.
Mahboubi et al, ChinaFile
A key feature of current debates over U.S.-China relations is the proposition that “engagement failed,” in light of the Chinese government’s increasingly aggressive posture towards liberal values at home and on the world stage. Already on the defensive, proponents of engagement have had to reckon, most recently, with the heavy-handed passage of a new