Headlines

The EU’s great frozen Russian asset holdup

You do not invade Russia in winter. Napoleon learned that from the comfort of the Louvre’s heated salons, long before anyone could swipe the empress’s jewels from beneath the museum’s nose. Anyone convinced that the great European jackpot of 2025 is the glitter stolen from a

Trump’s Gaza peace plan is ambition without strategy

President Trump’s twenty-point Gaza peace plan deserves credit for what it has achieved: halting active hostilities after two devastating years of war and securing the return of hostages. These are not trivial accomplishments. But as Washington prepares to move the agreement

FDI is the missing piece of Japan’s puzzle

My book, “Weeb Economy” came out in March, but only in Japanese. Half of the book was a series of translated posts from my blog, so those are already in English. The other half was a new part that I wrote in English and had translated into Japanese by my excellent translator,

Dark Eagle: US hypersonic no silver bullet against China

The US’s vaunted Dark Eagle hypersonic missile promises lightning-fast, non-nuclear strikes deep into enemy territory. However, its real test in the Indo-Pacific may hinge not just on speed and survivability, but on whether US defenses, kill chains and missile production rates

Rupee’s slip testing Modi’s grip on India’s economy

In early December 2025, the Indian rupee fell past the important 90 mark against the US dollar for the first time. It dropped to intraday lows above 90.38 before closing near that level on December 17, as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) suggests. Although official reports say

The elusive dream of rock-bottom US interest rates

Sometime in the next few months, President Donald Trump will appoint a successor to Jerome Powell, whose term as Federal Reserve Board chair expires next May. It’s tempting to think that a Trump-appointed chair will give farmers, ranchers and other business borrowers sharply