Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Directors Without Borders
Harvey Keitel, Michael Caine, and Rachel Weisz in Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth Gianni Fiorito / 20th Century FoxAn Irish man and a French woman are sitting in an airport cafe, bickering about their American children. A tall Norwegian lurks offscreen, peering through the lens of his German camera. Everyone speaks English. This is not an...
Are European Countries Really ‘Free Riders’?
French President Francois Hollande addresses a joint news conference with President Barack Obama. Jonathan Ernst / ReutersThe idea that Europeans are “free riders,” enjoying the benefits of an international order safeguarded by the United States without contributing much to it, is well-worn in Washington. In that sense, President Obama did not...
What Brought Down the Plane From Dubai?
ReutersA passenger plane coming from the United Arab Emirates has crashed while trying to land at a Russian airport, killing all 62 people on board, officials said. The Boeing 737-800 crashed early Saturday as it made its second attempt to land in the city of Rostov-on-Don, according to Russian officials. Flight FZ981, operated by airline...
Syria Withdrawal: The View From Russia
Russian Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets after arriving from Syria, at an airbase in Krasnodar region, southern Russia. ReutersAs Russian warplanes continued their partial withdrawal from Syria two days after President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly announced that Moscow’s objectives in the country had been “generally accomplished,” observers debated...
Orbital View: Ukraine’s White Whale
There’s something fishy about this photo, posted by Russian Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev: A photo posted by Oleg Artemyev (@olegmks) on Mar 14, 2016 at 4:28pm PDT The caption identifies this whale-like formation as the Tendra Spit, located in the Black Sea. Speaking of whales, a new study suggests that the southern right whale population is...
What We’re Following This Evening
The refugee crisis: The number of migrants and refugees at the camp in Idomeni, a Greek village near the country’s border with Macedonia, is growing each day. Macedonia has constructed a razor-wire fence there to keep people from entering, but some have tried to break through. Simon Shuster at TIME has this harrowing dispatch from Macedonia...
The Atlantic’s April Issue Online in Full Today
Washington, D.C. (March 15, 2016)—The Atlantic’s April 2016 issue is released in its entirety today at TheAtlantic.com, led by Jeffrey Goldberg’s “The Obama Doctrine,” an exclusive and sweeping telling of President Obama’s worldview based on many hours of in-depth and unusually candid interviews with the president. The piece,...
The Obama Administration’s Drone-Strike Dissembling
Lucas Jackson / ReutersAs a frequent critic of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, I found Jeffrey Goldberg’s excellent interview a useful reminder that, for all my misgivings about the Iraq War hawks that Barack Obama elevated, his persecution of whistleblowers, his decision to assassinate an American without due process, and...
Why Credibility Matters
U.S. President Barack Obama holds a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Jonathan Ernst / ReutersThere’s no getting around it: Barack Obama is a phenomenal arguer. He’s got superb legal training; he’s got point-by-point debating skill; he’s got a feel for nuance; he’s got historical examples and...
How Russia Saw the ‘Red Line’ Crisis
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Valdai, Russia ReutersSince the summer of 2013, when President Obama walked up to the red line over the use of chemical weapons in Syria and then pivoted away from it, it’s become something of a truism among Washington hawks that this bit of cowardice paved the way for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to...
