“Xi’s sense of personal destiny entails significant risk of war…”
Foreign Affairs (September 29, 2023):The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own. Not since the Korean War has the United States had to contend with powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. And no one alive can remember a time when an adversary had as much economic, scientific, technological, and military power as China does today.
The problem, however, is that at the very moment that events demand a strong and coherent response from the United States, the country cannot provide one. Its fractured political leadership—Republican and Democratic, in the White House and in Congress—has failed to convince enough Americans that developments in China and Russia matter. Political leaders have failed to explain how the threats posed by these countries are interconnected. They have failed to articulate a long-term strategy to ensure that the United States, and democratic values more broadly, will prevail.
The Globalist Podcast (September 29, 2023) – A look ahead to the Slovakian elections with Rikard Jozwiak. Meanwhile, tensions are high in Washington as lawmakers try to avoid a shutdown and Taiwan unveils its first domestically made submarine.
Plus: we examine the Austrian far-right’s links with the Taliban, the Académie française elects a new permanent secretary and the ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ adds new words.
Some mainstream House Republicans representing districts won by President Biden have explored a bipartisan stopgap measure as right-wing lawmakers push Congress toward a shutdown.
America’s Black Cemeteries and Three Women Trying to Save Them
In Georgia, Texas and Washington, D.C., three Black women are working to preserve desecrated African American burial grounds and the stories they hold.
Gifts, Gadgets and Greece: Inside a Huawei Lobbying Campaign
Leaked internal messages detail efforts by the Chinese tech giant to court Greek officials and fight an American-led effort against its technology.
The New York Review of Books (October19, 2023)– The latest issue features with Gary Younge on the Black soldiers who fought for freedom at home and abroad, David Shulman on the road to a second Nakba, Jenny Uglow on the exuberant Gwen John, Suzy Hansen on America’s endless and remote wars, Kim Phillips-Fein on plundering private equity, Natalie Angier on milk, Megan O’Grady on Lucy Lippard, Adam Kirsch on the prophetic Kieślowski, Philip Clark on the lines Chuck Berry crossed, Susan Neiman on Germany’s historical memory, poems by Arthur Sze, Jessica Laser, and Jules Laforgue, and much more.
Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad by Matthew F. Delmont
The ambivalence many Black soldiers felt toward the United States during World War II was matched only by the ambivalence the United States demonstrated toward the principles on which the war was fought.
One of my favorite novels is by Compton Mackenzie, a Scottish writer known today, if he is known at all, for his whimsically comic Whisky Galore (1947) and his ambitious early novel Sinister Street (1913). The one I love, however, is Extraordinary Women: Theme and Variations (1928), a satirical roman à clef about the sapphic adventures of the unorthodox and eccentric inhabitants of an island modeled after Capri during World War I. After Sappho, a novel by Selby Wynn Schwartz that was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022, is many things, none of them satirical, but I kept thinking of the title of Mackenzie’s book as I read it.
The Economist Magazine (September 30, 2023): The latest issue features The war in Ukraine is a powerful reason to enlarge—and improve—the EU; Why fear is spreading in financial markets; A humanitarian disaster is under way in Nagorno-Karabakh…
The Globalist Podcast (September 28, 2023) – Spain struggles to form a government and we discuss the changing symbolism of the car in American politics.
Monocle’s Tokyo Bureau Chief, Fiona Wilson, reports as Russia mulls over an import ban on Japanese seafood, and discuss Russia’s claims that Black Sea Fleet commander Viktor Sokolov is alive. Plus: fashion news and the Charlie Watts auction at Christie’s.
Dozens of leaders, mostly from Western states, have asked the Supreme Court to overturn lower court decisions that restrict enforcement against public camping.
The Globalist Podcast (September 27, 2023) – We give you the latest on the mass exodus from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Also in the programme: a diplomatic spat between Austria and Romania over Schengen and news from the Balkans.
Plus: will there soon be a new hotline between the US and China for crises – in space?
The Federal Trade Commission and 17 states sued Amazon, saying its conduct in its online store and services to merchants illegally stifled competition.
The decision in a lawsuit that could go to trial next week is a major win for Attorney General Letitia James, who says former President Donald J. Trump overvalued his holdings by as much as $2.2 billion.
Biden Joins Autoworkers on Picket Line in Michigan
The president’s trip came a day before former President Donald J. Trump was scheduled to arrive in Michigan, as the two offer dueling messages in a key swing state.
‘Monster Fracks’ Are Getting Far Bigger. And Far Thirstier.
Giant new oil and gas wells that require astonishing volumes of water to fracture bedrock are threatening America’s fragile aquifers.
Boomers Daily 