One of the biggest questions of the 21st century is whether the demand for ethnic, cultural and/or religious homogeneity will continue to convulse world politics, drive new generations of conflict, and create millions more victims.

The Ukraine story, one of the most important geopolitical events of the past few years, is still up in the air. Right now, Russia has the advantage but with protestors swarming the streets of Kiev and President Yanukovych away in China, anything could happen.

For the first time since the Cold War, the United States is going to have to adopt a coherent Eurasian strategy that integrates European, Middle Eastern, South Asian and East Asian policy into a comprehensive design.

As is often the case in Thailand, politics are complicated and press reports tend to be garbled. But that doesn’t mean this is not an important story to watch.

As the powers negotiated in Geneva, and as the Israelis and Saudis hissed warnings from the sidelines, flame wars burst out among the chatterati over the nuclear agreement with Iran. Some on our Twitter feed say that the interim nuclear deal with Iran is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Others think it’s the biggest […]

Democrats moved yesterday to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate for most presidential nominees, sweeping aside a decades-old convention in what has come to be known colloquially in Washington as ‘the nuclear option‘: The rule change allows nominations to proceed with a simple majority, or 51 votes when all senators are present, down from the […]

Does the Obamacare debacle mean the death of the American liberal dream? Thomas Edsall, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times, thinks that it might. In a strongly worded and closely reasoned piece, Edsall asks what, for many loyal Times readers, is the unthinkable question: [I]s the federal government capable of managing the provision […]

It’s been a grim month for fans of Obamacare, and perhaps especially for the red state Democrats in Congress who voted for it. Between the ghastly failure of the website, the waves of policy cancellations, and the grim realization that the ‘wonks and experts’ knew all along that the “you can keep your policy” mantra […]

Pundits across the spectrum were enraged this week by a consulting firm that teaches nannies to cook quinoa. The NYT published a piece Wednesday profiling Stephanie Johnson and Dan Yashiv, a couple who hired a “nanny consulting firm” to teach their nanny to cook more “refined” meals for their daughter. Matt Yglesias has a good roundup of […]

The demographic problem facing the industrialized world isn’t just about empty cribs and the empty treasuries when there aren’t enough young workers to pay the retirement and health benefits their parents and grandparents expect. It’s also about quality of life. The consumer society is eating its young; people who live in the most affluent societies […]