My newest “Notes From All Over“—a collection of the best essays, news items, blog posts, podcast episodes, and scientific articles that I read this month, and recommend you read as well—is now posted to Patreon. This will be a recurring monthly feature in the future. Subscribers are welcome to go read it!
Over the last two years I have written a few pieces on the flagging vitality of American intellectual life. This week Ross Douthat wrote up a response to these pieces. It has prompted a few thoughts. 1. In the comment thread for “Where Have All the Great Works Gone?” a common objection to the premise […]
Image Source It would take gods to give men laws. —Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1762] This is going to be one of those essays where I throw a lot of things on the wall and see what sticks. We are going to range today from the American Revolution to Cambodian spirits to hunter-gatherer conceptions of authority to […]
Image source Last month there was a minor hullabaloo about the latest entry in the “Kennan Sweepstakes,” a long document published by the Atlantic Council titled “The Longer Telegram.”1 I read it three times. I did not like it. This week Foreign Policy gave me some column space to explain why. I will note here […]
Much of what I have written about Taiwan defense issues assumes that the primary challenge facing Taiwanese forces and their allies is defeating (and thus deterring) a proper amphibious invasion. Two recent reports argue—convincingly, I think—that this assumption is wrong. In his testimony to Congress a few weeks ago, former DIA analyst Lonnie Henley asks […]
