To say that Snowden acted according to his conscience, but then to excuse his decision to become a fugitive and argue we should ignore his character and focus on what his acts revealed, is to mistake the nature and importance of conscientious action.

A strong and rising China is something the U.S. should worry about—and so is a weak and unstable China. But perhaps most worrying of all is the fundamental uncertainty about which scenario we’ll see.

Responding to public outrage, The Met has canceled global simulcasts of its staging of The Death of Klinghoffer in 2,000 theaters and 65 countries—a clear admission of the opera’s potential to spread hatred. The eight New York performances should be canceled as well.

The great religious traditions of west Asia, on the one hand, and south and east Asia, on the other, approach the mysteries of the cosmos and human history from very different starting points.

How Western central bankers and Treasury Secretaries cater to illicit drug syndicates, money-launderers, racketeers, and kleptocrats.

In Nigeria, Boko Haram and #BringBackOurGirls are just one side of the story. As in much of Africa, terrorism, lawlessness, and state powerlessness exist alongside economic growth and rapidly declining poverty.

The Iraqi state in its historic territorial configuration is gone—solid gone, and it ain’t coming back. Time to start thinking hard about next steps.

Does liberal democracy depend on the existence of ideological and civilizational rivals to spur it into cycles of reinvention and renewal?

Why 1814 should tell us more than 1914 about 2014.

Britain is leaping head first into the juridicalization of its politics. It will regret it.