Economics
Sinn Féin Just Became Northern Ireland’s Largest Party. That Does Not Mean Ireland Is About to Reunify.
For the first time since Northern Ireland was created a century ago, an Irish nationalist party has won the largest number of seats in its devolved legislature. Sinn Féin emerged from Thursday’s Assembly election with…
Macron Has Won Again. That Does Not Mean France Has Chosen Macronism.
He defeated Marine Le Pen tonight with 58.55% of valid votes against 41.45%, securing a second five-year term and becoming the first French president in two decades to win re-election while still governing. On the…
France Still Has the Same Democracy. It No Longer Has the Same Political System.
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will face each other in the second round of the presidential election on 24 April, repeating the runoff of 2017. Macron finished first with 27.85% of the vote and…
Imran Khan Has Been Removed. Pakistan’s Institutions May Have Just Passed a Harder Test.
Shortly after midnight, Pakistan’s National Assembly voted 174–0 in favour of the no-confidence motion against him after members of Khan’s party largely left the chamber. He becomes the first prime minister in Pakistan’s history to…
Hong Kong’s Zero-COVID Strategy Worked. Then the Virus Changed.
For most of the pandemic, Hong Kong appeared to have accomplished something many Western countries could not. Through strict border controls, quarantine, contact tracing, isolation and aggressive restrictions whenever cases appeared, the city kept COVID…
Europe Thought Trading With Russia Would Make War Less Likely. Now Trade Is Part of the War.
For years, one of the strongest arguments for economic interdependence was that countries which trade extensively with one another become less likely to fight. War is expensive when your factories depend on somebody else’s inputs,…
Russia Invaded Ukraine. The European Security Order We Have Been Discussing for Months Just Failed.
For almost three months, I have ended posts about Ukraine with some version of the same qualification: Russia has assembled the capability to invade, Western governments believe the risk is serious, but an invasion has…
The Crisis Is in Europe. So Why Does Europe Still Look Like the Middleman?
Emmanuel Macron spent nearly six hours talking to Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday. He then travelled to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been moving through his own…
America Is Publicly Revealing What It Says Russia Is Planning. That May Be Part of the Strategy.
For more than two months, the crisis around Ukraine has revolved around a question nobody outside the Kremlin can answer with certainty: does Vladimir Putin actually intend to order a major Russian military operation? This…
Italy Spent a Week Trying to Find a New President. It Ended Up Asking the Old One to Stay.
Italy has spent almost an entire week trying to elect a new president. After eight rounds of voting, hundreds of blank ballots, failed compromises between political parties and an increasingly obvious inability to agree on…
Everyone Is Warning Russia Not to Invade Ukraine. What Happens If Putin Doesn’t Believe Them?
When I wrote about Russia and Ukraine in early December, the central problem was uncertainty. Russia had assembled substantial military forces near Ukraine, American and Ukrainian officials were warning that Moscow might be preparing for…
Boris Johnson Says He Thought It Was a Work Event. That Isn’t Really the Most Important Question.
On 20 May 2020, Britain was living under some of the most extraordinary restrictions on ordinary life imposed in peacetime. People could not freely meet friends and family. Weddings and funerals were heavily restricted. Millions…
