Unreliable narrators are a staple of literature. Consider the delusional, self-serving narrator of Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” or the way Humbert Humbert used his cultured references and gorgeous prose to dress up his crimes in Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita.” Now along comes John Bolton and his account of time served in the Trump administration as national security adviser. Bolton’s […] More
Johns Hopkins University’s Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC, is one of these institutions of higher learning that prides itself on being close to the locus of power, particularly to the who is who of American foreign policymaking. Or, at least, that was the case in the past. I should […] More
Although the assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, Mary Elizabeth Taylor, was not a high-profile member of the Trump administration, her resignation last week gathered the attention of the media due to the reasons she cited. It was all about what one of the rare black remaining members of the administration was willing to […] More
A little more than a year has passed since the coup that toppled Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir. On June 25, the Sudan Partnership Conference — convened by Germany in concert with Sudan, the European Union and the United Nations — will coordinate action to overcome the country’s economic difficulties. The timing is favorable for Sudan’s […] More
When Disney releases a film version of the musical Hamilton on July 3, it will be 11 years since Lin-Manuel Miranda performed an early number at a White House evening hosted by the Obamas. Watching the musical in the fourth year of the Trump administration is to be jolted back to a very different America. […] More
While this article is not about the extreme right’s responses to COVID-19, thinking about this issue briefly does give us a clear example of what it does focus on: the groupuscular dynamics of the extreme right. Across the globe, myriad extreme-right organizations have been finding ways to capitalize on the coronavirus crisis, from arguing it […] More
Every democratic society takes pride in having open discussion and debate, even when their governments prefer to keep certain subjects off the table if not out of sight. Freedom of thought and expression stands as a fundamental precondition to keep people involved in the business of government. In most modern democracies, the only effective power […] More
If the Trump administration follows through on its threat to restart nuclear tests, it will complete the unraveling of more than 50 years of arms control agreements, taking the world back to the days when school children practiced “duck and cover” and people built backyard bomb shelters. It will certainly be the death knell for the Comprehensive […] More
