Essays
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Brexit and British Politics
A Guide for the Perplexed

A former British diplomat guides us through the current crisis—and why the issues go well beyond Brexit.

Wikimedia Commons
Mind Over Matter
Artificial Intelligence: What’s to Fear?

What should worry us most about artificial intelligence: losing our jobs to cheaper labor or losing our lives to killer robots? The real threat may lie in yet another danger: losing our minds.

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A Lingering Trauma
No Trust In Self, No Money For Defense

It’s neither pacifism, nor a proclivity to free-riderism, nor (strictly speaking) a sense of moral certainty that leads Germans to shirk their security responsibilities. It’s actually a profound psychological sense of self-doubt that’s to blame.

Baku, from 1734 atlas of I.B. Homann (Wikimedia Commons)
Memo from a Diplomat
America and Azerbaijan: Five Reflections on the Contract of the Century

Azerbaijan—the oil-rich dynasty that borders Iran and Russia, abuses human rights, and peddles influence throughout the West—has shifted from being an essential U.S. energy partner to a competitor. The former U.S. ambassador speaks out on the energy diplomacy he witnessed—and why we need a new approach to Baku today.

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Bipartisanship
The One Place Congress Works

A bill to outlaw anonymous shell companies has broad bipartisan support, and is a rare example of Congress working exactly as it’s meant to.

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Barista Bolsheviks
Contemporary Marxism: A Flag Without An Army

Jeremy Corbyn could very well be Britain’s next Prime Minister. In this context, it is worth examining what has in many ways become the ur-text for the new British Marxism: Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being, by Paul Mason.

Flickr via user Etan Liam
China’s Nationalist Moment
Will Hong Kong Rain on Xi’s Parade?

For China’s revanchist nationalists, the Hong Kong protests are as much an opportunity as they are a threat.

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Eyewitness to History
Viktor Orbán, Fidesz, and Me

A former Fidesz activist recalls marching for democracy alongside Viktor Orbán—and then breaking ranks as he steered Hungary down a different path.

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Rooted Cosmopolitans
The Conservative Case for Globalism

Conservative intellectuals in the Trump era have taken to lambasting free trade and international institutions. Dalibor Rohac’s In Defense of Globalism could not, therefore, have come at a more opportune time.

Caspar David Friedrich, “The Abbey in the Oakwood” (1809-10)
Maculate Conception
The Miracle of Canticle

Sixty years on, Walter M. Miller Jr.’s post-apocalyptic novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, offers a poignant rebuke to the political extremists of our own time.

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