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Columns

Guns or butter?

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El Pais

Last year, global military spending surged by nearly 7%, marking the largest increase since 2008, according to researchers at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Collectively, governments expended over $2.4 trillion on military personnel, equipment and weaponry. That is 2.4 million times a million dollars.

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Let’s talk about nuclear weapons

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El Pais

On the fateful morning of August 6, 1945, the United States dropped a bomb that obliterated the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Nagasaki suffered the same fate. The Japanese Empire realized that without surrender, its territory would be devastated. Thus, 24 days after the bombing of Nagasaki, the Emperor signed the unconditional surrender of Japan.

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Fat Leonard and Alex Saab’s interesting story

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El Pais

His name is Leonard Glenn Francis, but everyone called him Fat Leonard. His company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, made him very wealthy. His business was supplying — food, fuel, etc. — to U.S. Navy ships in Asian ports. Fat Leonard became good friends with the American admirals and captains who went to his parties. He was a generous host, and everybody knew that his already large fortune continued to grow.

Something similar happened with Alex Saab. He is a key financial operator for Nicolás Maduro and his associates worldwide. Saab started with a small trucking company in Colombia but moved to Caracas and quickly gained the trust of influential players in the Bolivarian Revolution. Relying on his new friends, he began to launch increasingly ambitious business schemes.

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The Earthquakes in Gaza and Israel

Andrea G

Moisés Naím / El Pais

Earthquakes are geological surprises and human tragedies. They produce enormous suffering and massive damage. But they also reveal hidden truths about the deepest recesses of the planet. For scientists, an earthquake opens up a window into what’s happening under the earth’s crust.

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Xi lost the plot

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El Pais

Ten years ago, we thought we understood how China worked. The Asian giant had left Mao Zedong's dictatorship behind and was becoming a hybrid entity, neither capitalist nor socialist but always pragmatic. Leadership was no longer exercised by one person but by a collegiate institution—the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In that body, the country’s top seven leaders would hash out the policies of the state.

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Which Milei Will Govern?

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

Argentina has chosen to live through interesting times. In Javier Milei, they elected a president as far from politics as usual as it is possible to imagine. Because Milei is many things: an orthodox libertarian economist, a born-for-TV right-wing provocateur with a larger than life ego, a dog-cloning enthusiast with a penchant for esoteric mysticism, and a power-oriented politician willing to build alliances with people he’s spent years berating. The trouble is, we’re not quite sure which one of them is going to end up governing Argentina.

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What is climate “Sticker Shock”?

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

2.4 trillion dollars. With a “t”. A two, a four, and then eleven zeroes. That’s the astronomical figure needed to confront climate change. And not just once. That’s the amount that would have to be spent year after year just to avoid the worst impacts of the changes we’ve made to our atmosphere. No one actually knows how to raise such a sum or who will pay it. But we had better figure it out.

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The Stealth Recession

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

Much has been said about the “democratic recession,” meaning democracy is retreating in many parts of the world. But there is another recession, less well-publicized, that goes hand in hand with the first and could be more damaging: the global rule of law recession.

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A World Without Precedents

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

This is new. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Many of us shared these thoughts last week after first —and correctly— recoiling horror and indignation at the barbarity of Hamas.

Despite the countless tragedies that Israel has suffered in its 75-year history—ranging from full-scale wars to terrorist attacks—it has never experienced a military assault on this scale targeting its civilian population

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The Day Putin Turns off the Internet

Andrea G

Moisés Naím / El País

It’s easy to imagine the Internet as an ethereal, immaterial phenomenon. We go about our days connecting to wireless networks and storing our data in the "cloud" with the reasonable assumption that our information is safe as it flows from one part of the world to another.

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Dictators without an exit

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

One of the critical debates of our time is how to deal with dictators. In dozens of countries there is a fierce clash between those who will only accept the unconditional defeat and the eventual prosecution of a dictator and his cronies and those who are willing to accept horrible concessions in order to establish a democracy.

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A gold rush in space

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

While the world is preoccupied with climate change, war and artificial intelligence, another profoundly transformative phenomenon is in full swing: space exploration. And getting to where we are today is just part of a long and fascinating history. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a rocket into space. It carried a polished 23-inch metal sphere that weighed 185 pounds and had four antennas. This first artificial satellite, Sputnik, sparked a fierce race between the United States and the Soviet Union to achieve technological dominance in space. A lot has changed since then.

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How our language got disrupted

Andrea G

Moisés Naím / El País

Changing times infuse new importance into some words, while marginalizing or completely transforming others. “Platform” is a good example of this. The word used to refer primarily to — according to Merriam-Webster — ”a flat horizontal surface that is usually higher than the adjoining area.” Not anymore.

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This time it’s different

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

New scientific discoveries and technological innovations are often exalted as harbingers of sweeping change. However, few of these “breakthroughs,” live up to the hype. Instead, they are overtaken by other discoveries or technologies that go beyond what had initially been seen as a life-altering historic contribution.

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Russia’s population shrinks and China’s ages

Andrea Guerra

Moisés Naím / El País

Can a military superpower maintain its global dominance even if its population is shrinking? What about when its population is aging and will soon be dominated by the elderly? These are not hypothetical questions; they are happening right now. Russia is depopulating and China is aging rapidly. And these are not the only demographic woes that are weakening these two nuclear powers.

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Bibi, AMLO and Freedom

Andrea G

Moisés Naím / El País

Bibi, the prime minister of Israel, and AMLO, the president of Mexico, couldn’t be more different. At the moment, however, their political strategies could not be more similar. Both are trying to change the politics of their respective countries in profound ways, and both are doing so using profoundly undemocratic means.

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The other deadly pandemic

Andrea G

Moisés Naím / El País

The world’s governments are currently dedicating enormous resources to containing Covid-19 and its mutations. Fortunately, they are succeeding. What is less fortunate is that they are neglecting another pandemic that has been claiming millions of lives each year, as well as disabling thousands more – mental illness.

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Years that define eras

Andrea G

Moisés Naím / El País

Just mentioning certain years in history like 1789 (the French Revolution), 1945 (the end of World War II) or 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall) is enough to bring to mind profound transformations. So it’s worth asking, what will we eventually look back on as the first iconic year of the 21st century?

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