As an advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons, I don’t have the luxury of mincing words. There are an estimated 15,000 nuclear warheads scattered around the world, and eliminating them means speaking truth -- and often hard truths -- to power. In that spirit, let me be unequivocal: Today’s leaders are too emotionally unstable to be trusted with the world’s nuclear stockpile.As I told the Nobel committee last year when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of my organization, the Intern

May 3, 2018

Last month, the US and UK governments released a joint “Technical Alert” on the dangers of “Russian state-sponsored cyber actors.” While timely and targeted, this alert shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.　We’ve witnessed enough cyberattacks in recent years to understand that the digital domain is humanity’s new battlefield. And while the West is ramping up its defenses, its efforts aren’t guided by an overall doctrine. That’s right: There is no master plan.　What we need now, before a more serious

May 3, 2018

In a stunning diplomatic development, the leaders of North and South Korea met Friday at the Demilitarized Zone that divides the warring countries. They smiled, shook hands on both sides of the border and sat down for an engaging chat. Could this be the beginning of the end to the Cold War-era conflict that, on its worst days, raises the threat of nuclear war?　Get this: The day’s best analysis was also the simplest, tweeted by President Donald Trump, who wasn’t there at Panmunjeom but played a k

May 2, 2018

The flowers are constantly replenished on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky bridge near the Kremlin’s walls, at the spot where liberal opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down in February 2015. A volunteer cadre of Nemtsov’s admirers regularly resupplies the blooms and tries to guard the memorial from destruction by thugs.　A visit to that bridge is a potent reminder of the risk of publicly opposing the Kremlin.　As Vladimir Putin prepares for his fourth term as president -- a post that many Russian

May 2, 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron wants to rescue the Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. His office made a joint announcement with the office of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that the two leaders would work together on preserving the deal, in the wake of Macron’s state visit to the United States, where he tried to convince his American counterpart to give the deal a chance. Macron has put forward a proposal that could, indeed, improve the situation and

May 2, 2018

Chinese business magnate Jack Ma says he’s ready for China to make semiconductors at home. It’s a longstanding goal for the Chinese government. And thanks to a recent crackdown on certain technology exports by the US, it’s now a critical one. The question is whether China can finally conquer this challenge after decades of failures.　Semiconductors are the building blocks of electronics, found in everything from flip phones to the servers that make up a supercomputer. Although China long ago mast

May 1, 2018

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and a team of White House heavyweights are expected to visit Beijing, possibly as early as this week, for talks aimed at defusing a tense, US-China trade standoff. The delegation comes amid optimism in Washington that its get-tough strategy is working after Beijing announced a slate of reforms to open up sectors including automobiles, finance and aerospace.　But as is often the case in China, how things appear on the surface is not actually how they are. That’s es

May 1, 2018

In the 21st century, a country’s gifted children are arguably a more valuable natural resource than, say, oil or gas. A new study shows that France is largely wasting this precious resource.The study is by Laurence Vaivre-Douret, a professor of neuropsychology at the University of Paris; it was presented at a recent conference organized by the Ministry of Education and has not yet been published. It found that 39 percent of French gifted children are medically depressed, versus 2 percent for the

May 1, 2018

It is astonishing how often Donald Trump does an about-face on major policy issues. Even more surprising is that none of his ardent supporters seems to mind his absurd U-turns.　Midwestern corn and soybean farmers are not only staring glumly at their soaked, cold fields, meaning they haven’t been able to start planting on time, but they are facing the possibility that China will retaliate against Trump’s plan for higher tariffs on imported steel and aluminum by buying soybeans and corn from South

April 30, 2018

Today, I will violate one of my favorite principles, and hereby make this prediction: No Brexit! In other words, the UK will not exit the European Union. By 2023, we will look back at the entire ridiculous affair as if it were a rediscovered lost episode of “Fawlty Towers.”　Soon after the referendum in which Brits unwisely voted to leave the EU, I suggested there was a 33 percent chance that Brexit wouldn’t occur. Now, I raise that to 75 percent, and with each passing day of incompetence shown b

April 30, 2018

Two months after the Italian general election on March 4, amid continuing uncertainty about what kind of government will emerge, a strange complacency seems to have set in. Yet it would be foolish to believe that a country where anti-system parties won 55 percent of the popular vote will continue to behave as if nothing had happened. The populist Five Star Movement, which won by a landslide in Southern Italy, has promised to increase spending on public investment and social transfers, while reve

April 30, 2018

The four-story building at 55 Savushkina St. that housed the infamous Russian internet “troll factory” that meddled in America’s 2016 election now appears empty. 　The main trolling operation has moved to an impersonal seven-story glass office building in the distant Lakhta business district. I couldn’t enter the building due to tight security. The city’s leading business daily Delovoy Peterburg reported late last year that the operation’s workspace has tripled.　Yet, little known to Americans, th

April 29, 2018

Give President Emmanuel Macron of France an A for effort -- he is pulling out all the stops in his effort to manage the mercurial Donald Trump. Last week, Macron visited Washington for what was surely the handsiest summit in the history of French-American diplomatic relations, as part of his continuing bid to influence a volatile US president by hugging him as tightly as possible.　Macron’s is a strategy that a number of US allies have been pursuing, and so far it has borne some fruit. But now it

April 29, 2018