Bikini, which was once inhabited by a hundred Marshallese, which once belonged to the Germans, and then the Japanese, now belongs to an unknown future along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. David Bradley, No Place to Hide Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No: thisRead More

It’s Stockholm, 14 December, 1992, and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev has begun to address over 50 of his counterparts at a summit meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), an institution widely considered instrumental in helping end the Cold War. Just two years afterRead More

“There was no shortage of resources to avoid the tragedy of a Famine. … Instead, the government pursued the objective of economic, social and agrarian reform as a long-term aim, although the price paid for this ultimately elusive goal was privation, disease, emigration, mortality and an enduring legacy of disenchantment.”–Read More

Wen Mr Clevver wuz Big Man…they had evere thing clevver. — Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker    Last month, I explored the potential political impact of a newly-commissioned study by the American National Academies of Sciences on the environmental effects of nuclear war. This month, I turn to a recently-concluded study intoRead More

“We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life…” — From Greetings to the Natural World, the ThanksgivingRead More

As previewed in last month’s column, on January 22, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) – popularly known as ‘The Ban Treaty’ – became international law. Hailed by UN Secretary General António Guterres as “a major step toward a world free of nuclear weapons,” itRead More

“Nuclear weapons are like a rifle hanging on the wall in a play. We did not write the play, we are not staging it and we do not know what the author intends. Anyone could take the rifle from the wall at any time.” — Mikhail Gorbachev, What Is atRead More

Author’s Note: As this year unlike any other grinds to a bleak close, I offer – in the spirit not of prophecy, but satiric thought-experiment – ‘alternate universe’ visions of the near future. And bear with me, dear reader, as I first appear to lose my mind…   “The extremelyRead More

Editor’s Note: To mark Remembrance Day, we’re republishing this 2018 article by our War and Peace columnist Sean Howard.   When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you needRead More

Thirty Novembers ago, leaders of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) met in Paris to inaugurate a post-Cold War order of peace and prosperity. The Conference – encompassing North America and Soviet Asia as well as Europe – had convened at Summit level only once before, inRead More