(Wikimedia Commons)
Twelve-Step Program
A Season of Caesars

Unlike their predecessors, today’s authoritarians lack a common ideology. But once in power, they behave in remarkably similar ways.

Taylor Weidman / The Vanishing Cultures Project (via Wikimedia Commons)
Peripheral Vision
Why Mongolian Democracy Is Worth Defending

America’s allies in Asia will draw lessons from how nations like Mongolia fare in the new era of U.S.-China competition.

(Wikimedia Commons)
Singapore the Improbable Part III
The Coolidge Proposition

Calvin Coolidge once said, “The business of America is business.” The same is true of Singapore, perhaps even more so than America.

Robert Keffer, via Wikimedia Commons
Disinformation Age
Russia’s Fictional Narratives: A Double-Edged Sword

Republicans leaning on Moscow’s disinformation for political gain would be wise to remember the record of “useful idiocy” during the Cold War.

Photo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The Literary Life
Prostrate with Gratitude: On Clive James

The late literary critic embodied the best of his profession, and proved that books can furnish a life.

TAI elsewhere
Announcing the Zero Corruption Conference

TAI is pleased to announce its co-sponsorship of the Zero Corruption Conference—a major international forum to be held in Ukraine in April 2020.

Evgeny Feldman (Wikimedia Commons)
The Unreality of Realism
The Strategic Case for Supporting Ukraine

In the impeachment hearings, the place of Ukraine in U.S. foreign policy strategy gets lost. It’s important—there remains a strong strategic rationale.

(Wikimedia Commons)
Spies and Lies
John le Carré’s Lessons on Populism

In his two latest books, the world-weary spy writer trains his pen on Trump, Brexit, and populism—and offers a surprisingly optimistic take on the next generation.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder)
Imitation Without Affection
Black Friday and American Soft Power

Why do Europeans resent America, even as they continue to copy it? Never mind Donald Trump. The United States is the steamroller of modernity that invents stuff, ideas, and images the world cannot resist.

(Wikimedia Commons)
Herder vs. Fichte
Nationalism Is Not (Always) The Enemy of Liberalism

In the 19th century, nationalists were the standard-bearers of liberalism—democratic, forward-looking, progressive. This is no longer the case. 

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