The latest loop in the escalation of US-Russia hostilities is probably the dumbest and the most damaging: The two countries are introducing de facto travel restrictions for each other’s citizens, choking off the friendliest, most human channel of communication between them. It’s the biggest step back into the Cold War era that the two governments have taken yet. The State Department has stopped ...

North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons program isn’t the only news to unnerve arms-control experts this summer. A new survey has revealed that Americans are surprisingly willing to make a first nuclear strike -- and kill millions of civilians abroad. The survey casts doubt on the power of what experts call the “nuclear taboo,” said Stanford University historian David Holloway, author of “Stalin...

China’s SUV specialist Great Wall Motor Co. may, in the end, never get its hands on Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s Jeep division. But expect more and more Chinese automakers to seek out foreign acquisitions. The Chinese government has long dreamed of creating a globally competitive car industry, and having Chinese automakers purchase established companies and brands would seem one obvious way to ...

As summer reached the high Himalayas this past June, one corner of the mountains turned hotter than expected. On a small plateau called Doklam, close to where the India-China border meets the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, two of the largest armies in the world faced off against each other. Chinese soldiers, convinced they were on Chinese territory, had brought equipment to extend a road; Indian soldier...

Symbolic struggles over the Confederacy are uniquely American. But fierce battles over public spaces and monuments, and the values they elevate and enshrine, are not. “The French have their own versions of these battles,” said Peter Brooks, a professor of literature who has taught at Yale and Princeton. In such battles for cultural and political supremacy, history is a weapon. And in France, the...

Speak to China experts these days and you typically get one of two contrasting views on its outlook. The prevailing wisdom is that an unreformed state industrial sector and rising debt mean it is on an unsustainable path, with a financial crisis on the not too distant horizon. The optimists acknowledge that debt is too high, but hold out hope that a growing services sector will fuel stronger cons...