Every era produces its own emblematic array of knuckleheads and butterfingers: Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops. The Three Stooges. The 1962 Mets. Beavis and Butt-head. Wayne and Garth. In Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War classic, “Dr. Strangelove,” the fools wield apocalyptic weapons rather than custard pies. Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden, grows so … Read more
If there’s one truth Donald Trump seems to have absorbed in his seventy-eight years, it is that there are advantages to lying all the time—foremost among them that no one knows when you’re bluffing and when you actually mean what you say. Imposing crippling tariffs on allies? Selling out Ukraine? Using the government to enact … Read more
Just over three years ago, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and perhaps the most prominent “realist” foreign-policy scholar of his generation, made clear that he believed the blame for Russia’s attack lay most prominently with the United States. This was not exactly … Read more
Last year, the Africa Cup of Nations, the continent’s biggest international soccer tournament, kicked off in Côte d’Ivoire, in a stadium designed, financed, and built by China. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who follows the sport, nor is it some new development. The first Chinese-made stadium in Africa was completed more … Read more
Last year, the Africa Cup of Nations, the continent’s biggest international soccer tournament, kicked off in Côte d’Ivoire, in a stadium designed, financed, and built by China. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who follows the sport, nor is it some new development. The first Chinese-made stadium in Africa was completed more … Read more
