"The IOC can continue to shrug—or it can get creative. Indoor sports won’t save winter. But they might just save the Winter Olympics. foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/18/w...

There's a common assumption in Western political thought: republicanism grew out of centuries of nobles and parliaments challenging kings. And that this tradition is unique to the West — that in the Islamic world, rulers were obeyed with religious submission, and self-government was a foreign import

The foundations of NATO were suffused with racial and religious ideas about Western civilization, but also with a clear aspiration to transcend them for something more universal. Rubio's speech turns back the clock past the 50s by abandoning even the aspiration. foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/14/r...

Had a lot of fun talking with @tcambanis.bsky.social last week about the fate of US foreign policy. The conversation was a rollercoaster of optimism, despair and outrage. thecenturyfoundation.podbean.com

If @aoc.bsky.social's comments on the hypocrisy and then dismantling of the international liberal order at Munich piqued your curiosity, listen to @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social. He gives the historical sweep of that order, why it hit a wall, and what a better replacement might look like.

@nicholasdanfort.bsky.social and I also invited the author, @alperentopal.bsky.social for a podcast discussion, available here:

tl;dr Join me, and together, we can rule the galaxy as son and father! foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/14/r...

rubio’s invocation of “western civilization” — defined here as racial and religious chauvinism, if not outright supremacy — is a rejection of the more egalitarian and universalistic notions that came out of america’s two revolutions.

Much of the legacy US, UK, EU media is framing his speech as: "Rubio reassures allies", "softer tone from Rubio", "warmer tone from Rubio". I don't know what the fuck they listened to or read.

Dear friends on Bluesky, it's been an overwhelming week since the mass layoff at the Post. I'll be continuing the work and would be so grateful if you sign up here to keep up with my future journalism. docs.google.com/forms/d/1dlh...

"They found Bella sitting on the same chair where they had left her, trembling, shocked, and unable to recognize them at first. Only after hearing her name repeatedly did she remember and return to their arms. palestinenexus.com/articles/res...

At this point, even if you think that the liberal international order was buried prematurely, it will struggle to claw its way out of the coffin. foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/09/l...

The nice thing about having a big security conference in Munich is no matter how badly it goes no one's going to be like "well that was the worst thing that ever happened in Munich"

A highly recommended snappy piece by @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social: Who Killed the Liberal International Order foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/09/l...

"It is hard to know just how much hypocrisy is too much for the world to bear. Ironically, the more clear-eyed one is about Washington’s record of abandoning allies or supporting genocide, the harder it is to think that any new betrayal can finally ruin the country’s credibility.

A very basic test of U.S. historical literacy is “which side of the slave/free divide in America’s founding wanted slaves to count as a whole person and why” and yet I see it being failed so consistently

From Kosovo to Greenland, FP’s Nick Danforth conducts a postmortem on the liberal international order.

"The claim that Washington broke the liberal international order by intervening to create an independent Kosovo is a niche one. But it appeals to a particular kind of legalistic leftist with a penchant for contrarianism and geopolitical deep cuts.

The whole online discussion of Turkey-EU Customs Union negotiations is phony. I feel like it's an urgent matter for Turkey, but it's not a big deal for the EU. Makes me think that Turkey is making online fuss to pressure the EU, which seems weak and ineffectual.

Who really killed the Liberal International Order. My latest from @foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/09/l...

The Foreign Policy Union stands in solidarity with the Washington Post journalists who were affected by mass layoffs this week. 1/3

Halil Karaveli on Trump and Turkish Democracy foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/05/t...

Solidarity with all the fine people at the Washington Post finding themselves without work today. It’s been a critical resource for so many of us working on the Middle East. A newspaper that’s incurious about the world outside the US is not one worth reading.

Sometimes feels like the goal of progressive history is to prove everything bad in the world is causally related to everything else bad.

Great to have @akmckeever.bsky.social joining Kulturkampf from Damascus to discuss the latest developments in northeast Syria kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/discussing...

Any historians out there want to write about watching the entire internet go through the Epstein emails and discover the possibilities and perils of doing primary source research in real time?

One takeaway from the latest Epstein emails is that a lot of rich, powerful people have the same half-baked views on foreign affairs as everyone else

Great to have @akmckeever.bsky.social joining Kulturkampf from Damascus to discuss the latest developments in northeast Syria kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/discussing...

Fascinating piece on broader Russian and Turkish political identity by @samharshbarger.bsky.social.

The town of Kobani, where in 2014 the alliance with the US began, is being besieged by Syrian forces during a cease-fire. Once again, Turkish Kurds are watching as their government cheers on the Islamist forces attacking their ethnic counterparts across the border foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/28/r...

A little niche, but I can't tell you how excited I am to read this forthcoming book from Murat Yildiz utpress.utexas.edu/9781477332863/

The depressing, cynical and deeply unjust takeaway here might be that the SDF's willingness to work with the US after we betrayed the Kurds so many times suggests the geopolitical penalty for such betrayal is actually fairly low: foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/16/t...

A lovely look at the politics of urban renewal in Iraq foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/23/p...

Wrote up a quick post about Trump's foreign policy and the redistribution of prestige: kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/trumps-pre...

Thesis: ICE is un-American and the Minneapolis protestors are real Americans. Antithesis: Ackshually ICE is operating in a long American tradition of racist terror. Synthesis: Minneapolis is now the epicenter of a clash between two distinct but historically grounded American political traditions.

@nicholasdanfort.bsky.social's piece on how Trump is redistributing prestige.

“Prestige economy” for Trump resonates with me. The idea of redistributing respect away from liberal elites strikes me as innately populist: pure people vs corrupt elite framing. For reputational and material ends. And reminds me of other populists like Erdoğan - e.g., “the world is bigger than 5”

Wrote up a quick post about Trump's foreign policy and the redistribution of prestige: kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/trumps-pre...

Really appreciate Christian Caryl cutting through the bullshit here: foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/22/t...

elect a man who once bankrupted a casino and you too can achieve this outcome for the low low price of your civil liberties

'Is There A Plan Behind Trump's Confusion of Greenland and Iceland' will appear somewhere tomorrow, I'm sure. people invested in the idea that the system can still work will do anything to avoid the reality of the president's deluded ignorance.

Good Crisis Group report on the situation in northeast Syria between the government and SDF. Still very tenuous and tense. www.crisisgroup.org/stm/middle-e...

This is why this crowd actually likes trump, even tho these arguments make no sense. He’s their hypocrisy-exposing, contradiction-heightening wrecking ball that is destroying the liberal society they always hated, and they think they won’t get caught in the wreckage.

Analyst Henri J. Barkey joined our podcast today to discuss the Kurdish-led SDF’s territorial losses in Syria and possible implications for Turkey’s PKK peace talks. Full episode: www.turkeyrecap.com/p/syrias-new...

Like I said, the Mercator projection is actually terrible for showing Greenland's strategic importance

And to think he could have gone with: Hey, Mullahs, Leave those kids alone.

At long last, an article arguing that the Mercator projection disguises the real importance of Greenland: www.wsj.com/world/europe...

Report itself is here: tcf.org/content/repo...