By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 15 July 2026 (IDN) – Is the world being captured by what the late Harvard academic, Joseph Nye, has termed American “Soft Power”? President Donald Trump says he’s pushing for this. The debate about American influence on the world at large is not new. Charles Dickens, the great British […]
Power, Fear, and Submission
By Dr. Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 10 July 2026 (IDN) — How is it possible that the Republican Party, at the peak of American power and at the new dawn of the country’s 250th anniversary, became a cult of personality around a leader they know to be a felon, a liar, and a danger […]
Russia’s Power Is Not Weapons, It’s Culture
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 8 July 2026 (IDN) — Observers say that what drives President Vladimir Putin is to make Russia respected. But perhaps Putin underestimates how much power Russia already has. He has overlooked which trumpets to blow. It is not his “hang tough” policies in military affairs. It is Russia’s culture. […]
Can the World Still Work Together?
Hamburg and the Future of International Cooperation “The United Nations was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell.” – — Dag Hammarskjöld By Ramesh Jaura This article was first published on https://rjaura.substack.com BERLIN | 7 July 2026 (IDN) — Eighty years after the founding of the United Nations, the […]
My Conversation With Karl Marx About Donald Trump
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO | 7 July 2026 (IDN) — The following has been edited for clarity and length. Norman Solomon: You’ve downplayed the importance of the individual in history. But the United States now has as president an individual who transformed power relations and the political landscape. Karl Marx: I can assure you that […]
America at 250: A Reckoning and a Call to Conscience
By Dr Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 3 July 2026 (IDN) — As the United States marks its 250th anniversary—a testament to endurance, sacrifice, and democratic aspiration—it does so under a dark and foreboding shadow. At this defining moment, the nation finds itself led not by steadiness or vision, but by a figure whose erratic conduct, […]
Malawi Has No Coastline. We’re Fighting for The Ocean Anyway
By Dr George Chaponda The writer is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Malawi. LILONGWE, Malawi | 1 July 2026 (IDN) — When Malawi became the first landlocked country to ratify the BBNJ Agreement, we affirmed a simple but powerful principle: stewardship of the global commons is a shared responsibility, not a […]
Whither the Law of the Sea?
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 1 July 2026 (IDN) — David Attenborough said in his wondrous documentary film, Ocean, that it had taken him a long time in his 99 years of life to understand that for the survival of our planet the oceans are more important than the land. This past four months, as […]
From a Respected Hegemon to a Drifting Power
As midterm campaigns accelerate and disillusionment with Trump’s domestic and foreign policies widens, a stark scenario emerges: America faces a perilous inflection point demanding immediate action before democratic erosion becomes irreversibleBy Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 28 June 2ß26 (IDN) — Donald Trump did not invent America’s vulnerabilities, but he has driven them to a breaking point. […]
Why Biden’s Debate Disaster Two Years Ago Matters for the Future
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO | 25 June 25 (IDN) — The saying “that’s history” is usually meant to be dismissive, but in politics, the past casts a long shadow over the future. Now, two years after President Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump, the patterns that dominate the Democratic Party are damaging its prospects […]