I was supposed to attend a conference for American academics to debrief on the recent Israeli elections. American Airlines did not cooperate and what was supposed to be a five or six hour trip to Milwaukee with a connection through Dallas looked like it was going to...
Big ideas often get watered down when tested empirically. Scott Appleby’s masterful Ambivalence of the Sacred—which includes deep, rich discussions of religious peacebuilding—is usually reduced to...
Even if you did have a LLM that could mirror human actions and decision-making processes in a wargame, it wouldn’t actually be sufficient to model how weird people are both as individual thinkers or thinking in groups
Amid US and Israeli strikes aimed at preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, sovereignty and security have become an urgent priority for Tehran. This has been reinforced with peace...
Editorial Note: this post contains spoilers. Christopher Nolan is one of the most important working American movie directors. He is one of the few directors in the Hollywood system who consistently delivers non-franchise blockbusters. Many of his films, including Dunkirk and Oppenheimer, are as successful with critics as they are at the box office. The same is true of his most recent film, The Odyssey, which has surpassed $1 billion in global ticket sales and received generally high marks from critics. But The Odyssey does have its detractors. The film has generated a fair amount...
On June 19, 2026, as American and Iranian negotiators were set to meet in Switzerland to work through the terms of a fragile memorandum of understanding, Israeli jets struck Hezbollah targets in Nabatiyeh and the Bekaa Valley. Iran responded by skipping the Switzerland talks and announcing it would close the Strait of Hormuz again, citing Israeli violations of the agreement, which had specified that fighting in Lebanon must end. The ceasefire seemed unsure and on the verge of breaking down, and the incident handed Trump a public embarrassment. For a while, the 60 day ceasefire continued to...
President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran may weaken the U.S. ability to deter great power rivals. But not because the recent U.S.-Iranian memorandum of understanding (MOU) to end the conflict makes the United States look weak. The damage has already been done. Reactions in the United States largely panned the MOU even as disagreement persisted on the war itself. The MOU consensus points to a damaged U.S. reputation for resolve which can undermine deterrence. Countries, as Thomas Schelling famously argued during the Cold War, should fight to maintain “a...
I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, and unfortunately it hasn’t gone out of date. On April 29th, a man stabbed two Jewish people in London. Shortly before that someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of a synagogue. A string of attack preceded that, including the arson near the former offices of a Jewish charity, bricks being thrown at a synagogue, and the destruction of ambulances belonging to a Jewish organization. These attacks are obviously antisemitic, but I think they also constitute terrorism. What we need to figure out, however, is what type of terrorism we’re...
As I have discussed here, I am a proud Protestant. I was raised Lutheran, and am now Episcopalian. While there is some variation among Episcopalians and Anglicans over whether they see themselves as Protestant, both my birth and adopted traditions are united in a rejection of the Pope’s—or as some call him, the Bishop of Rome’s—authority. And as a fan of medieval and early modern history, I always vicariously sided with the political leaders who stood up to the Roman Catholic church. I even named one of my first articles after an argument attributed to Frederick II on the need to separate...
Over the past month, U.S. President Donald Trump has shifted from misogynistic jabs to full‑scale performances of militarized authority, an evolution entirely consistent his political brand of hegemonic, martial masculinity. In late 2025, U.S. Chief of Protocol Monica Crowley announced that the country had entered “an era of real masculinity thanks to the bold, muscular leadership of President Trump and our Secretary of War Pete Hegseth,” contrasting it with what she called the Biden administration’s “destructive, stupid era of toxic...
On 7 January, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents opened fire on Renee Goode, killing her. To be honest, I wanted to write a post on just how sad and terrifying this murder was. How wrong it is that ICE agents are targeting opposition-led cities and using brutal tactics against people suspected of being in the US illegally and protesters, including clergy who take part in protests. How unjustified it was that an ICE agent fired three times at someone who did not present any threat to him (see this good breakdown by a former FBI agent). How predictable it was that this...
I had high hopes for director Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite, a new Netflix movie about U.S. nuclear command and control. There’s so much potential for cinema to unpack the dilemmas and tragedies of living under a nuclear sword of Damocles, and my initial reaction was disappointment at the ways this fails to be that movie. But for all its shortcomings, the film also serves as a sobering reminder of the profound peril nuclear weapons entail. (Heads up, spoilers follow if you haven’t yet seen it.) I write from the perspective of someone who works on nuclear (as well as biological and...