Global political history is punctuated by state entities that, after vanishing from the international stage, have reemerged in new forms—sometimes radically transformed, sometimes strikingly faithful to their origins. These revived states—polities that have undergone phases of dissolution, fragmentation, or annexation before regaining effective sovereignty—offer a...

In January 2025, the price of coffee reached an “all-time high” for consumers in the United States; it is now poised to rise throughout the world. In May 2025, an article in Deutsche Welle stated that “the era of cheap coffee may be...

Bob Kaldahl recalled how the fighter jets revved their engines to a high-pitched shriek before catapulting off the USS Shangri-La, producing vibrations so intense that he felt like he had “ants crawling around” in his ears. ...

Over the past few decades, humanity has embarked on an unprecedented trajectory of providing public education to learners in schools and learning centers across the globe. Collectively we have accepted the challenge of managing a large-scale, complex, and adaptive learning system. In 2020, it...

The U.S. and many other societies are cycling into situations of toxic polarization today; discussion, let alone consensus, often appears impossible and the advantage goes to exclusionary social movements built on malignant rather than goodwill impulses. As Heritage Foundation president Keith Roberts stated...

Considering whether modern states are empires tells us almost nothing useful about either modern states or empires. A better question is what policies and structures pioneered by empires are still employed by states today, and how. ...

Louisiana’s “River Parishes,” located along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, shoulder some of the worst industry impacts in the United States. As a result, this region has acquired a grim reputation as “Cancer Alley.” Stretching across 85 miles of rural...

The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 is etched into the minds of anyone old enough to experience the terror it triggered. For the first time, our leaders had ordered and succeeded in creating a military system that could destroy us all—and where there was and...

The contradictions of China-bashing in the United States begin with how often it is flat-out untrue. The Wall Street Journal reports that the “Chinese spy” balloon that President Joe Biden shot down with immense patriotic fanfare in February 2023 did not in fact transmit...

The year 2020 marked parity between the total GDP of the G7 (the U.S. plus allies) and the total GDP of the BRICS group (China plus allies). Since then, the BRICS economies grew faster than the G7 economies. Now a third of total world output...