Washington’s relationship with Russia appears likely to continue its decades-long decline, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying on May 22 that formal diplomatic talks over the Ukraine war are effectively frozen. U.S. President Donald Trump’s last meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin...

In April, the General Services Administration announced plans to automate 1 million work hours annually after cutting nearly 40 percent of its staff since October 2024, with similar reductions being seen across the government workforce. ...

Missile inventories have become a focal point in the ongoing military confrontation with Iran. The Alma Research and Education Center estimates Iran’s ballistic missile count has fallen from 2,500 at the beginning of the conflict to around 1,000, and U.S. Secretary of War Pete...

We are not facing separate crises, but the simultaneous collapse of multiple historical orders unfolding in the present. ...

Sri Lanka’s 2024 elections have fast-tracked reforms that began after the country’s 2022 economic crisis, when mass protests forced limits on presidential powers. In 2025, the new government has been pushing further toward a parliamentary system, which was in place during...

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...

Amid ongoing discussions over Donald Trump’s plans for trying to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, the U.S. president has maintained steady pressure on NATO allies for months. After his 2024 election victory, Trump again raised the prospect of annexing the Danish territory of...

Five times a day, approximately one-fourth of the world’s population turns toward Mecca to bow their heads in prayer. The Kaaba at the center of this global genuflection has a cornerstone that some speculate is a meteor. ...

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...

Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip—which began following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023—has led to mass civilian deaths including those of more than 6,000 children as of November, with “damning evidence of war crimes,” according to Amnesty International....