When Russian officials and analysts here talk about the US investigation of their alleged hacking of the 2016 campaign, two themes predominate: They’re flattered that their country is seen as such a powerful threat and also amazed that America is so preoccupied with the scandal.This is the official line, to be sure, but it was also expressed by several critics of the regime I interviewed this week. People can’t quite believe the sudden reversal of fortunes: Russia is back as a global force, afte

US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will no longer participate in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the landmark United Nations treaty that many of us worked so hard to achieve. Trump is making a mistake that will have grave repercussions for his own country, and for the world.Trump claims that he will try to renegotiate the deal reached in Paris, or craft a new one. But leaders from around the world have already hailed the agreement as a breakthrough for the fight aga

In the US and Europe, many people worry that if prominent politicians signal that they dislike and fear immigrants, foreigners and people of minority religions, they will unleash people’s basest impulses and fuel violence. In their view, social norms of civility, tolerance and respect are fragile. If national leaders such as President Donald Trump flout those norms, they might unravel.　The most careful work on this general subject comes from Duke University economist Timur Kuran, who has studied

That China is taking an assertive foreign policy toward its neighbors has quickly passed the point of debate and is now a reality. Xi Jinping’s foreign policy had “Amity, Sincerity, Mutual Benefit and Inclusiveness” as its guiding principles, yet it has been quite some time since China has upheld these values in its diplomacy. Instead, power politics have come at the forefront of almost all of its foreign relations, leading to conflict on all fronts. It is hard to say that the tragedy of great p

The big trick terrorists are trying to pull is to convince the world, little by little, that there is no other way out. Whether they are doing a good job or not, the “Stay Strong” or “We Are With You” taglines expressing solidarity with the latest city attacked are sounding less and less inspirational the more often they appear. The increasing frequency of terror attacks, however, is just half the story.　The world shakes every time a big bomb explodes or a truck ploughs through a crowd, but the

The UN Commission of Inquiry into North Korea’s human rights violations described the Kim dynasty’s totalitarian misrule -- which “seeks to dominate every aspect of its citizens’ lives and terrorizes them from within” -- as without parallel in the modern world. Crimes committed against innocents strikingly resemble those of the Nazis, specified the commission.Atrocities perpetrated against guiltless victims within the Kwanliso political prison camps “resemble the horrors of camps that totalitari