Politics

United States International Human Rights Climate Change

The Lie of Nation Building

From the very beginning, the problem with the US involvement in Afghanistan lay essentially in the deficits in American democracy.

October 7, 2021 issue

Stephen Kinzer

Ortega in His Labyrinth

Nicaragua’s president has created an insular dynastic tyranny that eerily resembles the one against which he fought decades ago.

September 23, 2021 issue

Fred Kaplan

Why Did We Invade Iraq?

The most complete account we are likely to get of the deceptions and duplicities that led to war leaves some crucial mysteries unsolved.

July 22, 2021 issue

Jelani Cobb

A Warning Ignored

American society did exactly what the Kerner Commission on the urban riots of the mid-1960s advised against, and fifty years later reaped the consequences it predicted.

August 19, 2021 issue

Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson

How Can We Neutralize the Militias?

The threat of violence from domestic far-right extremists calls for a measured and well-coordinated response from law enforcement and intelligence services.

August 19, 2021 issue

Mark Danner

‘Reality Rebellion’

By doubling down on Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen, Republicans are making their base angrier, more radical, and more likely to turn to violence.

July 1, 2021 issue

Jessica T. Mathews

Losing No Time

In his first hundred days President Biden has been bold, decisive, and willing to take risks in his foreign policy judgments, but his early mistakes on Iran and Taiwan may have dangerous consequences.

May 27, 2021 issue

Thomas Rogers

Welcome to Germany

Since Angela Merkel admitted 1.2 million refugees in 2015 and 2016, the dire predictions about their impact on the country have not materialized.

April 29, 2021 issue

The Latest

Michael Massing

The Story the Media Missed in Afghanistan

Belated press coverage of what enabled the Taliban’s return to power as the US withdrew exposed past failures to report the conflict’s effects on Afghans beyond Kabul.

October 20, 2021

Yasmine El Rashidi

Pharaonic Ambition in Ferro-Concrete

This makeover of Egypt’s capital is not just heedless of its heritage, but wantonly destructive of old neighborhoods—all in service of a self-aggrandizing nationalist mythology.

October 16, 2021

Yasmine El Rashidi

Egypt: Lost Possibilities

What the revolution opened up in our lives—beyond activism—and then eventually took away.

November 4, 2021 issue

Bill McKibben

The Future Is Electric

Because electricity is so much more efficient than combustion, totally electrifying our country would cut primary energy use about in half.

November 4, 2021 issue

Assaf Sharon

‘This Obstinate Little Man’

Tom Segev’s biography of David Ben-Gurion depicts a man who intended to become a Zionist Lenin but ended up “an Israeli King Lear.”

November 4, 2021 issue

Jonathan Stevenson

Not So Great Britain

The UK’s hapless part in the US-Australian submarine deal exemplifies the post-Brexit nation’s problem: how to stay relevant in world affairs after jilting its biggest trade and diplomatic partner, the EU.

October 13, 2021

Raja Shehadeh

Jaffa Revisited

The lost world of my parents’ life in the city once known as “the bride of the sea” mirrors the dispossession that has been story of Palestine from 1948 to this day.

October 1, 2021

Perry Link

The CCP’s Culture of Fear

In China under Xi Jinping, idealism is passé and conformity a shell for the ruthless pursuit of hierarchical power and private interests.

October 21, 2021 issue

Sue Halpern

The Human Costs of AI

Artificial intelligence does not come to us as a deus ex machina but, rather, through a number of dehumanizing extractive practices, of which most of us are unaware.

October 21, 2021 issue

Diana R. Gordon

Another Immigration Purgatory for Children

Rather than detain unaccompanied minors, the US places tens of thousands with families every year—then virtually abandons them. Detention is not good policy, but neither is neglect.

September 27, 2021