One question I get repeatedly these days: What is wrong with the Russian military? Many in the West had a mistaken belief that the Russian war machine was a rough match for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), and they are surprised at how much trouble the massive force is having subduing a much smaller and less-equipped neighbour, Ukraine. During ...

Singapore appears to be shutting its doors to foreign talent just as the exodus of expatriates from Hong Kong gathers pace. The government recently tightened visa rules for white-collar workers, adding hoops to a process that employers already complain is too onerous. Will the city-state miss its golden opportunity to scoop up Hong Kong’s disgruntled elites? Hardly. It’s a different ...

  At the dawn of the 20th century, Norman Angell famously (or infamously) predicted that the era of global commercial integration had made great power conflict so costly and destructive as to be unthinkable. A few years later, the outbreak of World War I proved him right about the cost and destruction, but wrong about being unthinkable. The Great War ...