Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle is the home of criminal militias and corrupt politicians. With quiet Chinese support, one man has made it his empire.

I arrived in Kharkiv as Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. Here’s what I saw.

With war underway in Ukraine, Russia and Europe are once again divided. Their ultimate dependency on China and the U.S. sounds the death knell for a multipolar world.

El Salvador, Russia, and Afghanistan have become unlikely hubs of crypto use. Instead of evading state power, digital currencies are reinforcing it.

Whistleblowers expose corruption. But they represent a breakdown in trust and loyalty. Confucian thought presents an alternative method of accountability.

Kazakhstan’s leaders blamed foreign infiltration for its violent January protests. In the city of Almaty, I learned that the real answers lie within the state itself.

Ukraine was said to be on the eve of invasion. I went to see things for myself.

French presidential candidate Éric Zemmour believes France is on the brink of self-destruction. Parts of the political establishment, including President Emmanuel Macron agree.

I went to New York to learn about NFTs and their subculture. I found a vision for society that seems all too familiar.

You can’t affect the world in the most important ways from within established patterns of action. You need to spend some time in the wilderness.

In the nineteenth century, America’s most powerful families became a national ruling class. Then came their rapid collapse.

Rulers and crime lords are often made of the same stuff. For those who can handle it, the underworld has valuable lessons to teach about power.

Yale’s legendary secret society used to train powerful elites. But it could only reflect elite culture, not define it.

Lebanon’s state is collapsing under the weight of its own dysfunction. Visiting its capital, I found a gallery of street art, urban wreckage, and political nihilism.

Our approach to education is reproducing society’s worst neuroses. The alternative isn’t institutional reform, but a different consciousness.

The party cadre Jiao Yulu embodied a Chinese political culture with room for experiments and risk-taking. Xi’s turn to digital technocracy may threaten its survival.

America’s elite universities have an aristocratic mission. The Confucian tradition has lessons for how to achieve it.

While in Lebanon to report on a disintegrating state, I found Hezbollah building a different kind of regime.