I suspect if the pilot is captured Tehran will now make a big show of treating them well to score a global pr win

“if Trump is looking for a rerun of the 1991 Gulf War, he is likely to be disappointed”: the wonderful and blueskyless Daniel Neep on the how the US’s fading relationship with the UN reveals that escalation, not limited war, is the sole way forward the US has left open for itself

Personally, I think your willingness to appear on TRT should directly reflect your willingness to appear on Russia Today.

Great new piece by @selimkoru.bsky.social on Turkey, democracy and national solidarity: foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/27/t...

my job as an academic isn't to predict the future, but "this will be even worse than you think it will be" has yet to serve me wrong as a guide to any given government choice during the Trump years

Graeber was the leftist Malcolm Gladwell.

And to think some people believed him...

It's important to think about what work the claim "Crash Bandicoot is political" is doing in a conversation, and that work is usually supporting the claim "now I get to yell at you about Crash Bandicoot".

@centuryintl.bsky.social colleague @freddydeknatel.bsky.social on the ways in which Trump's war on Iran is a degraded, copy-of-a-copy Xerox of Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq: newlinesmag.com/essays/the-u...

Reproducing this in meme format, which @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social introduced to me years ago re Turkish nationalists and the Armenian genocide

Incidentally, this article implicitly acknowledges that Israeli rhetoric about freeing Gaza from Hamas was actually bullshit

This is one of the funniest corrections I’ve ever read

Dude, this war - after myriad prior outrages - demonstrates conclusively that the “principles” you “fear” the US “may be retreating from” have long been thrown out of the window and lie in the gutter. It’s happened already. Catch up

Reposting this piece on the aesthetics of empire: foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/22/t...

A very thoughtful piece on the predicament of Iranian Kurds foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/05/i...

A very thoughtful piece on the predicament of Iranian Kurds foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/05/i...

Great piece! @joelhs.bsky.social writes: "What is uncomfortable about this time period is how easily legitimate questions about Israel’s role in stoking this war can slide into conspiracy theories. The lines are not always as easy to maintain as we might like." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It’s worth noting that for all his flaws, George W. Bush didn’t frame the War on Terror as ‘Western Civ’ or Christianity against Islam or the East but as a struggle of decent peoples against a new form of totalitarianism. Now we’re doing the full on Christian nationalist dream of war with Islam.

I gather that everyone here is 100% certain Donald Trump is a misogynist. So who here actually knew that his wife is a woman? And how does that influence your certainty?

Selim on the Turkish angle on the war: kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/turkey-wat...

Nathalie Tocci weighs in on the European response foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/03/e...

If the war ends well for Trump, It was his brilliant idea. If it doesn’t, blame the Jews.

The people of Maine shouldn't have to choose between Susan Collins and a quasi-nazi.

you know, this is why you should not elect people who have never once learned anything about anything

Trump has no plan. This is a damning summary from The Economist’s Middle East Correspondent Gregg Carlstrom.

Thought of this essay the other day. Most imperial nostalgia whitewashes the role of violence in empire. But perversely, a lot of what passes for realism these days ignores the fact that successful empires also maintained some measure of political legitimacy www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/r...

Just checking the news

The key question now is whether the Iranian regime can survive. If U.S. or Israeli forces sustain an aerial presence to target repressive forces, it could shape what follows. (Members Only) Listen here: warontherocks.com/ep...

There was an era about a decade ago when Serious People talked a lot about defending the Westphalian State System from rogue regimes and if that meant anything I'm pretty sure it was not assassinating heads of state.

Tapping the sign foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/24/t...

"No new wars" really just meant "f*ck Ukraine" and everyone knew it.

I wrote about this in June after the first round of US strikes on Iran: foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/24/t...

wapo.st/4kT0GVX @jimmillward.bsky.social

A proud people steeped in the Shia tradition, the Persians may choose heroic martyrdom over national humiliation. This is difficult for the pragmatic Western mind to comprehend, as we have no examples of this in our culture.

From a book review by Magda Teter:

Had a great discussion with @selimkoru.bsky.social and Reuben Silverman about Reuben's new book: kulturkampftr.substack.com/p/the-rise-a...

My take on Trump’s foreign policy with @berkesen.bsky.social and Tudor Onea is out! Trump’s whims may be unique but his approach to FP isn’t. We identify seven pillars of populist FP, with examples from Hungary, India, Turkey, and Venezuela as well as the US. foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/19/t...

A fantastic piece from @liselhintz.bsky.social, @berkesen.bsky.social and Tudor Onea foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/19/t...

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement

"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.