In Europe and the US, there used to be a tradition of pragmatic and often harshly realist statecraft. It went back at least as far as the 5th century B.C. Greek historian Thucydides, whose influential history of the war between Athens and Sparta was essentially an account of the coercive …

The post-Merkel era is set to kick off in Germany, as the ‘traffic light coalition’ of Social Democratic Party (SDP), the Greens, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) have agreed to form a new government headed by the SDP’s Olaf Scholz. Success was anything but assured given the wide variance …

China has one of the most hide-bound rituals for its political events that overawe its audience with pageantry, but with a definite intention of such proceedings. The November plenary session, in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elite gathered, in the run-up to the 2022 National Congress was no different. …