For decades, China’s rulers have successfully convinced foreigners to pay no attention to the men behind the curtain; now the Bo Xilai saga is tearing down that curtain completely. The latest bombshell comes from the New York Times, which has revealed that Bo ran an extensive wiretapping operation that included top Communist Party officials. Not even President Hu […]

Two weeks ago, North Korea earned the jeers of the world after launching a missile that fell into the sea within 90 seconds. Undeterred, it has continued celebrations of Kim Il-sung’s 100th birthday with a display of massive new missiles loaded on “the largest mobile launch vehicles North Korea has ever unveiled.”Perhaps the spectacle could […]

It’s a tragic failure that, after a decade of close U.S. diplomatic engagement with South and Central Asia, the media does not provide better coverage of a country of such pivotal importance. “Yes, Pakistan reality is complex,” Anatol Lieven writes in Foreign Policy, but “Western news outlets and academics must examine yet again their chronic tendency to analyze developments […]

Obama expanded the controversial “signature strikes” drone program into Yemen this month, where drone strikes can now be authorized even when the identity of the potential victims is unknown. The Washington Post reports that this program has already killed its first target: Mohammad Said al Umda, an al-Qaeda operative who received extensive training in Afghanistan […]

A new Rasmussen poll has a startling finding that could turn the blue ideology on its head. Findings released Wednesday indicate that a full 50 percent of likely voters believe that government regulation of the economy makes society less fair, compared to only 22 percent who believe that government intervention will lead to a fairer […]

Via Meadia has studiously avoided delving into the partisan fever swamp during this election season. Instead, we’ve taken the road less traveled, focusing on real trends, ideas, and analysis rather than media-manufactured “debates” over the ethics of dog-eating or trumped-up claims of a war on women. Mona Eltahawy’s searing Foreign Policy essay on the real […]

In an important new piece at Fox News, James Pinkerton asks a provocative question: what if neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are able to build a sustainable majority? Over the past decade, power has swung wildly from the Republicans to the Democrats and back again with alarming speed. The only constant seems to be […]

If you have ever wondered how people who take money from evil dictators rationalize their behavior and deceive themselves about what they are doing, you should go read a recent Atlantic article by Jacqueline Frazier describing her experiences with one of the Great Loon’s sons, Saadi Qaddafi.Frazier helped out on one of Saadi’s projects—a free-trade […]

Over the past few weeks, a swathe of Asian countries has been test-firing new intercontinental missiles across Asia  in an attempt to gain an upper hand in the Game of Thrones, but in many ways economic growth will have a bigger impact than missile tests, or even military developments in general, on social stability across […]

North America’s shale gas boom is chipping away at the market for gas producers like Russia. What’s more, if the United States becomes a gas exporter, Russia’s customers (especially in Europe) could decide to cancel expensive contracts with Gazprom in favor of cheaper American natural gas.Here’s the story from the FT: “If the US starts […]