The military balance around Taiwan is shifting toward Beijing. Chinese missiles threaten to cripple U.S. theater airpower at the outset of conflict. New powered barges can land heavy armor on unprepared coasts. Together, these capabilities create a sequence that begins with missile salvos against American aircraft and ends with Chinese armor supplied across a beachhead. The September parade displayed the barges, drones, and strike missiles; a detailed study in International Security explained how they would be employed and what they could achieve.

By most measures, the world economy has held up under strain. Global trade as a share of GDP is stable, shipping volumes remain high, and production networks continue to stretch across regions. This outward steadiness gives the impression of continuity. Yet beneath the surface, the shape of flows is changing.

For more than seven decades, the U.S. dollar has sat at the center of the international financial system. Its depth, liquidity, and the credibility of U.S. institutions made it the default reserve currency and the medium through which much of global trade was conducted.

The endurance of institutions rests on their ability to maintain independence from immediate political demand. They serve not only as mechanisms of policy but also as structures of continuity that span shifting administrations. Independence grants them credibility; credibility sustains trust; and trust enables stability in both national and international domains.

The American economy is defined not only by what it produces but by what it attracts. Foreign capital enters its markets, industries, and neighborhoods with a scale that is both sustaining and destabilizing.

The Guardian recently ran a feature titled “Can AIs suffer? Big tech and users grapple with one of the most unsettling questions of our times” (August 26, 2025). Reading it, one could mistake the story for a South Park script.

The advanced economies have lived for decades under an implicit bargain: crises could be met with public borrowing, and the debt incurred could be absorbed without destabilizing the larger system.

The present concern with stagflation in the United States arises from a contradiction at the centre of global finance: markets built to anticipate growth and stability continue to advance even when the conditions that support them appear to erode.

In political life, the absence of action is rarely the absence of choice. What looks like hesitation or indecision is often the outcome of a structure that makes inaction appear natural, even necessary.

Spectacle has always revealed more than it entertains. The stadium, the parade ground, the ceremony — these are not only spaces of collective attention, but stages on which societies rehearse their futures.

The hastily arranged summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the remote setting of Alaska represents a significant and jarring departure from the established rhythms of international diplomacy.

The New York Times calls it “greatness.” Two cities burned, thousands killed—erased as incidental, remembered only for the method that made it possible.

Economic statistics appear neutral, offering precise figures whose authority rests on the belief they are consistently produced, free from political influence or short-term pressures.

Capitalism defines fairness narrowly, equating it with uniform rule application, treating procedural equality as the primary measure of justice regardless of history or circumstance.

In 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, presenting it not as historical rupture but as achievement.

For much of modernity, trade was seen as a structured system of reciprocity, governed by rules, stabilized by norms, and shaped by shared expectations.

Today, few serious voices openly argue that peace’s ideals and war’s actions are compatible, acknowledging their fundamental conflict rather than seeking reconciliation between the two.