Section: The Atlantic (USA)
Trump Is Set to Send More Troops Overseas—This Time to Poland
With a president forever battling questions about his ties to Russia, Donald Trump’s administration keeps finding ways to confront Russia. There have been sanctions, diplomat expulsions, and NATO buildups; on Wednesday it was the announcement of a framework for deploying a further 1,000 troops into Poland.Those troops will reportedly be...
There’s Nothing Wrong With Posing for Photos at Chernobyl
On Sunday morning a Twitter user named Bruno Zupan posted screenshots of four Instagram photos: A man’s hand holding a geiger counter. A woman posing near a burned-out bus. A woman in a hard hat and face mask. And, most disturbingly, a woman pulling down a hazmat suit to reveal her white thong. All were geotagged Pripyat, Ukraine, the ghost...
An Aging Autocrat’s Lesson for His Fellow Dictators
NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan—Looking around Kazakhstan’s glitzy capital, you’d be forgiven for not realizing that the country is on the verge of one of its most meaningful political moments since the collapse of the Soviet Union.Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s autocratic president who held power for nearly 30 years, resigned in...
Chernobyl Should Make Humanity Count Its Blessings
The HBO series Chernobyl is not only majestic television, but also a reminder that the world is a better place than it used to be. This seems counterintuitive to people who have become accustomed to declaring that we are living in bad times, the worst times, or even the End Times. But as the series draws to a close, Chernobyl should serve as a...
Nothing Prepares You for Visiting Omaha Beach
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France—The first thing you notice, at the end of the narrow roads that lead to this precipice, is how peaceful this place is. The cliffs are thick with rough green vegetation and drop down—sharply, then more gradually—to a Prussian-blue sea and a windswept beach. Omaha Beach.The morning I went, the sun was bright, and a few...
Is Stalin Making a Comeback in Russia?
NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia—To find Joseph Stalin here in Russia’s third-largest city, drive down the main thoroughfare, Red Аvenue, past Lenin Square. At the Ob River, turn left on Bolshevik Street until you reach a two-story wooden building with traditionally carved window trimmings.There, at the Communist Party’s local headquarters on a...
Measles Can Be Contained. Anti-Semitism Cannot.
As the measles has spread in and around New York, so has anti-Semitism.Amid an outbreak largely attributed to the anti-vax movement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disclosed that, as of mid-May, 880 cases have been confirmed nationwide in 2019, “the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994 and since measles was...
The Merkel Model
To the six women currently running in the 2020 presidential race, I offer this advice: Study German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the world’s most successful living politician, on the basis of both achievement and longevity. Now in her 14th year as chancellor of Europe’s powerhouse, Merkel has upended the rules of the male-dominated...
Congressional Inaction Is Emboldening Trump
It took Rudy Giuliani less than a month after the release of the Mueller report to begin colluding. In a buoyant interview with The New York Times on May 9, President Trump’s personal lawyer unveiled his plans to push the incoming Ukrainian government to kickstart an inquiry that, Giuliani hoped, would be politically damaging to former vice...
Trump’s ‘Good Cop’ Routine With Putin Could Seriously Backfire
Listening to President Donald Trump, he sounds like a heretic inside his own government: the lone official prepared to accept that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trustworthy and sincere.Nikki Haley, the president’s former ambassador to the United Nations, last week called Putin an enemy. National Security Adviser John Bolton has...
