Audio Articles

Historian Rana Mitter on the new balance of power between Washington and Beijing.

Ronald Reagan honed his right-wing conservatism in the Golden State.

Decision paralysis and divisions among alliance members were easy to exploit.

A more confident China is happy to downplay presidential visits.

How Washington bargains away its Africa strategy to other regions.

Freed from Viktor Orban’s veto, the bloc should expand its actions against Israeli encroachment in the West Bank.

Rather than acting as a good-faith mediator, Trump is humiliating the Lebanese government.

Most worrisome are the terrorist threats missing from the document.

A weakened state can’t disarm Hezbollah. 

The British prime minister’s timid reign will serve as a how-not-to guide in the exercise of power.

Elites in both China and the U.S. are too easily tempted to buy into their own myths.

Beijing can’t easily afford to escalate any economic struggle with Washington.

A half-century of messy politics has inverted the Constitution’s design—and there’s no easy fix.

Recent violence exposes the flaws in the Kremlin’s mercenary security model.

Forced assimilation is costing China dearly.

Countries must prepare for the dual threat of pandemics and supply chain shocks.

Diplomacy of the highest quality is more essential than ever.

For all of the U.S. leader’s efforts, Washington remains deeply vulnerable.

Trouble is brewing as norms against war dissolve.

The Iran war spotlights one of Washington’s most contentious counterfactuals.

The secretary of state may face an uphill battle during his visit to New Delhi this month.

The Kremlin is gaining billions in additional oil revenue.

The Hormuz crisis is hitting diesel even harder than crude.

Facing U.S. troop withdrawal, the continent’s leaders feel less alarmed and better prepared.

Grievances with the Lebanese state, not sectarian loyalty, are driving popular support for the group retaining its guns.

Western-dominated insurance premiums can choke off Beijing’s oil supplies more effectively than warships can.

Trump should push for zero enrichment in perpetuity as part of any deal with Tehran.

Without clear definitions, governance is impossible.

How a headstrong field biologist helped birth the worldwide conservation movement.

What the latest Orwell adaptation says about our politics.

Courts keep taking a skeptical view of the executive branch’s overreach.

U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran have led regular people to rally around the flag—for now.

Used to outwitting his enemies, the Russian leader is running out of room for maneuver.

Iran shows that the delusions that caused Iraq and Afghanistan persist.

The flow of global capital is hitting new walls.

U.S. guarantees have not shielded Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam from economic shock.

By pulling Seoul into its rivalry with Beijing, Washington is undermining the alliance’s core mission.

Amid a regional war, political drama and drone strikes are testing Baghdad’s power.

Tehran’s latest rhetoric is reframing its abdication as a self-respecting state.

There is a way out of this mess—but not right away.

Local elections this week will lay bare growing fragmentation across the United Kingdom.

Fears of Chinese and U.S. trade retaliation have spawned deals that exclude both powers.

Experts say Hamas has few incentives to disarm.

Malaysia becomes the first country to cancel its tariff deal with the White House.

Ukraine and its partners are holding their breath to see what’s next for Patriot air defense missile deliveries.

The West ignores the warning signs in the Sahel at its own peril.  

The so-called Tower fiasco took place in a very different Washington to today.

Collective action by lesser powers will not shape the global order.

The United States has given up on one of its core international strengths.

The Western-led order that emerged after the 20th century’s three energy shocks is losing its grip.

Kevin Warsh will face intense pressure to cut interest rates.

The Iran war is choking supply of the world’s most expensive spice.

A new horror film reckons with the country’s buried sins—and the women erased by them.

Israeli leaders seem increasingly comfortable with the collapse of the Palestinian Authority.

Xi’s new commanders are the men his last generals blocked.

He hoped it would be transformational; instead, it’s just one more round in the conflict.

The geopolitical realignment goes much deeper than just oil markets.

Who is Sharaa’s investment campaign really for?

For Iran’s Sunni admirers, resistance remains the appeal.

Societies will become richer, but history suggests that wealth may not be equally distributed.

Congressional Democrats fought with the U.S. defense secretary over the war and military spending in a rare public hearing.

Why the World Bank’s quiet decision to move the South Asian country to its Middle East column is more than just a bureaucratic footnote.

Deals are being canceled as stockpiles run short.

Gita Gopinath on how countries can make themselves more resilient.

The fight against Russia is accomplishing what years of struggle against corruption couldn’t.

For the foreseeable future, successful statecraft will depend on hedging.

In a world of disorder, the bloc’s boring stability is suddenly attractive.

Washington has no good options for evacuating Americans in a crisis.

Trump’s blockade aims to force damaging shutdowns at Iranian oil fields. But Tehran has been through this before.

Beijing is ready to take risks as Tokyo backs Taiwan.

Record-low unemployment is the result of millions of missing workers.

Why the United States can no longer guarantee freedom of navigation—and why it doesn’t need to.

Washington should help the two estranged neighbors cooperate against a common enemy.

The real test for the Trump-Xi meeting will come afterwards.

The 70-year history of oil transit crises suggests engineering will prove more effective than diplomacy.

The Iran war is choking off a critical input for chipmaking and AI infrastructure.

Literature’s obsessive quest for anti-canonical adaptations pursues the white whale at its peril.

A more active approach would help cement Riyadh’s regional clout.

Peter Magyar must avoid reproducing the very abuses he seeks to dismantle.

Pressure will increase on congressional Republicans to vote to end the war if it surpasses the legal time limit.

Tehran is following Ho Chi Minh’s playbook in Vietnam. 

Trump’s inexplicable effort to lift sanctions on Eritrea reflects a deepening lack of strategy.

Karim Sadjadpour on the extended cease-fire and continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

The truce is hanging by a thread despite Trump’s extension.

Why Beijing’s success spells doom for everyone else.

The first priority is Trump’s image, not national interests.

The State Department has launched a throwback recruitment campaign following layoffs and changes to diversity policies.

How to make sure the cease-fire weakens Hezbollah instead of strengthening it.

Pricey oil and sanctions relief mean smiles in Moscow.

Anthropic’s latest AI model has kick-started a new debate. 

The consequences will be felt long after the fighting ends.

Rather than climate, disease, or artificial intelligence, the next secretary-general should stay focused on conflict resolution.

President Trump could come to represent the restrained, reasonable wing of the GOP.

Patrick Radden Keefe’s “London Falling” is a mystery that turns into a tragedy.

The conflict is wreaking havoc on an obscure sector that is more important than you’d think.

Why exports of illegally sourced gold are gaining on drugs in funding the continent’s illicit economy.

Trump’s party is still providing cover on unauthorized war despite growing signs of misgivings.

In the war’s aftermath, key details about the regime remain opaque. 

Kyiv is struggling with skepticism of conscription fueled by Russian propaganda.

With the rift over Greenland, the intergovernmental body finds itself in troubled waters again.