Every war must eventually end. But how will the last chapter of the Russia-Ukraine war read? With a bang, a white flag or a begrudging agreement? Moscow planned for rapid victory, imagining the indomitable Russian army sweeping aside collapsing Ukrainian resistance. But Ukrainian bravery, weapons from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russian military incompetence prevented a swift win....

In the rapidly shifting Ukraine war, the growing failure of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ground game is causing him to seek asymmetrical responses. Most visibly, he is turning to what is essentially a terror-bombing campaign against the civilian population of Ukraine. Much like the V2 blitzes Nazi Germany directed against British cities in World War II, these missile attacks will accomplis...

Before COVID-19 vaccines were developed and distributed, China’s strict approach to controlling the virus resulted in fewer deaths and a much lower death rate per million people than in many other countries. But while these successes were impressive in late 2020 and early 2021, effective vaccines and treatments have become readily available since then, leading the World Health Organization to dec...

As Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand gear up to host major world summits in November, the 55-year-old Association of Southeast Asian Nations is facing an existential crisis, owing to severe internal splits over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Myanmar’s military coup, and other issues. The 2007 ASEAN Charter’s vision of deeper political, economic, security, and socio-cultural integration is no more....

Among the flood of tributes to Queen Elizabeth II that followed her passing was recollections of her 2011 visit to Ireland, the first by a British monarch in a century. It was a trip for healing, though there were doubts about its success. “I was raised in an Irish family baked in bitterness about British oppression,” wrote New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Her op-ed piece was about the new...

This month, the famed literary magazine Literature & Thought published its 600th issue, commemorating its 50th anniversary. Founded in 1972 by the late professor Lee O-young, the magazine has not only survived, but also thrived for half a century, steering Korean literature in the right direction and significantly contributing to upgrading it from national to world literature. Considering that i...

On Oct. 5, OPEC+ announced a dramatic reduction in production quotas, by 2 million barrels per day. According to oil ministers, the goal is to boost crude prices and “encourage investment” in the sector -- making it sound like they are doing the world a favor. In fact, this is an extraordinarily harmful step that will push oil prices up -- when the global economy is in a precarious state amid per...

Following a week of financial-market turbulence, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced to scrap her plan to abolish the 45 percent top income tax rate for high earners. This U-turn, an attempt to counter a stunning market sell-off that caused the pound to crash and saw the Bank of England launch a massive bond-buying program to prevent “material risk to UK financial stability,” is a necessary fi...

In August, Springer Nature, the publisher of 3,000 academic journals, including the Nature portfolio of the world’s most influential science journals, announced new ethics guidance for its editors, addressing the balance between academic freedom and the risk that publication of some research will harm specific groups of humans. The guidance also mentions, though much more briefly, research using ...