PATRICK LAWRENCE: All Unquiet on the Ukrainian Front
The Europeans have run out of postures and gestures in the way of performative statecraft, and the Russians see no point in indulging them any further. Sometimes wars have occasions that can be read — immediately, soon or in time…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: New Year’s Notes on Purported Leaders
It is no use hoping for any alteration in the collective West’s course so long as today’s “purported leaders” remain in office. “Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.” So did Chinese peasants celebrate their distance from the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Diplomatic Chess, Ukraine the Pawn
In Istanbul, a door was pried open after a soap opera’s worth of chicanery in London, Paris, Berlin and Kiev. Now the question is what Trump can do to address Russia’s concerns. As was universally expected, little came out of Istanbul…
Patrick Lawrence: The Centrists Cannot Hold
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…” Alot of us are familiar with these lines from Yeats’s thoroughly anthologized and…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: James Baldwin at 100
Things got lost in our remembrances. James Baldwin would have celebrated his 100th birthday on Aug. 2, had he lived so long. He didn’t: He died young. He was but 63 on Dec. 1, 1987, the day he slipped away at…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Ðiên Biên Phú at 70
How did the Vietnamese prevail at that world-historical moment? The answers shed light on the world we see outside our windows now. I had the most salutary email the other day, a reviving lift amid these, humanity’s darkest days, surely, in…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Europe’s Identity Crisis
As European leaders continue to import a version of U.S. militarism, rearmament will cost the Continent its postwar social contract. It is many years now since the French, bless them, revolted as Disneyland Paris arose near the previously uninvaded village…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Russians in Ukraine
Recent disclosures provide an incomplete inventory of the West’s covert activities in Ukraine. There is more than we have been told, surely. You may have read or heard about the freakout that ensued after Emmanuel Macron convened a summit of…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Macron’s Europe
France’s president has proven himself to be a well-oiled weathervane. What he says on Monday may not match what he says or does on Wednesday. But his remarks while visiting China are interesting in several ways. Emmanuel Macron got poor…
WATCH: The World This Week, Episode 2
We break down Davos after Trump’s Greenland retreat, Mark Carney’s speech, Zelenksy berating the Europeans and Sy Hersh channeling Ukraine War myths. Meanwhile, Australia outlaws criticism of Israel. 8 pm EST tonight, Saturday. Joe Lauria and Patrick Lawrence analyze it for you at…