THE QUIET IMPERIALISM OF HENRY BIENEN, OR HOW A NORTHWESTERN PRESIDENT TAUGHT THE WORLD TO LOVE ITS NEOLIBERAL OVERLORDS By Our Correspondent Somewhere Between the Quad and the IMF It is tempting, in the age of instant outrage and TikTok summits, to dismiss Henry Bienen as a quaint Midwestern apparition: tweed, tortoiseshell glasses, and the…
Norway, the postcard nation that keeps the rest of the planet honest—and slightly annoyed—about its own life choices, has quietly become the world’s moral GPS. While other countries fumble for direction, Norway just keeps recalculating, politely suggesting we take the next exit toward decency. The rest of us, naturally, ignore the instructions and end up…
When the United States and Japan square off these days, it’s rarely on a battlefield—unless you count the fluorescent trenches of a semiconductor plant or the algorithmic no-man’s-land of a trade negotiation. Still, the world watches, popcorn in one hand, antacid in the other. Because whenever Washington and Tokyo jostle, the tectonic plates of the…
Joe Swash: How a Former EastEnders Barista Became an Unlikely Global Metaphor for the Age of Perpetual Side-Hustles By Our Man in the Departure Lounge There are, in this fractured century, only two kinds of celebrity: those who accidentally ignite geopolitical crises and those who quietly embody them. Joe Swash—yes, the grinning geezer who once…
The Fjord and the Vineyard: Norway vs Moldova in the Theater of the Absurd By Correspondent-at-Large, Dave’s Locker International Desk If you squint at Europe from a weather satellite suffering from late-stage capitalism, you will see two blips flickering like mismatched LEDs on the same aging motherboard. One is Norway, sleek and smug, reclining on…
Portugal: Europe’s Charming Afterthought That Keeps Accidentally Mattering By the time most foreigners remember Portugal still exists, the rest of Europe has already moved on to its next collective panic attack. Yet like a polite guest who shows up late but brings excellent wine, Lisbon keeps slipping back into global relevance just when the room…
Wales vs Canada: Two Tiny Countries Pretending to Matter on the World Stage By the time you finish this sentence, the Canadian prime minister will have apologized for something and the Welsh rugby squad will have broken into a three-part harmony about coal. That, in microcosm, is the difference between a nation that weaponizes politeness…
Burnham Yard: The Tiny Patch of Rust That Just Taught the World How Not to Die By the time the last Union Pacific freight rumbled out of Burnham Yard last Tuesday, the Denver rail hub had already become an international parable. Not because it was particularly large—at 70 acres it could fit comfortably inside a…
The Global Kindergarten: How the World Outsources Its Toddlers and Calls It Progress From Reykjavík to Rio, a silent consensus has formed: the most valuable mineral of the 21st century is not lithium but a qualified grown-up willing to watch someone else’s offspring for less than the price of a Manhattan martini. Welcome to the…
In the grand theater of international relations, where every handshake is a potential dagger and every pipeline a geopolitical jugular, the sudden romance between Azerbaijan and Ukraine is less a love story than a mutually beneficial hostage situation. One country sits atop enough oil to make a Saudi prince blush, while the other has become…
Thin Mints as Soft Power: How Girl Scout Cookies Conquered a Planet That Can’t Agree on Anything Else By [Name Withheld to Protect the Guilty], International Affairs Desk GENEVA—While the UN Security Council spends another evening locked in performative stalemate over whose war crimes are more “contextual,” a stealthier multilateral force has managed unanimous global…
Baku to Kyiv: Two Wars, One Playbook, Zero Refunds By Our Man Who’s Stopped Expecting Miracles If the planet were a casino, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe would be those smoky back tables where the house always wins and the players keep doubling down on losing hands. This week, while the world’s attention swung like…
