By Harral Burris

At the Jackson Hole Symposium last week, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh struck a more hawkish tone than at his first two press conferences. Warsh said the central bank’s Board of Governors has “work to do if they aren’t confident that inflation is moving to 2% and at sufficient speed.” He went on: “Price stability is not self-executing, nor is the inflation rate necessarily mean-reverting. It is the Fed’s job to deliver stable prices.”

At least for now, the market liked what it heard. The yield on the 2-year Treasury note began to rise even before he finished speaking, but the 30-year bond held steady. The bond vigilantes are in wait-and-see mode. By taking a more aggressive stance against inflation, Warsh may be forced to hike interest rates next month, especially if the Consumer Price Index (CPI) shows a month-to-month increase.

If Warsh can somehow avoid raising rates at the September meeting, and if Republicans are handed the sweeping midterm defeat the polls predict, he may find much-needed support from Congress as he begins the all-too-necessary rate-increase cycle, incurring Donald Trump’s ever-more unhinged wrath.

The next CPI report drops on September 11. If it comes in soft, Warsh can argue for holding rates steady before the election. But if inflation is even slightly above target, he risks an out-of-control bond market should he fail to act.

If the Fed holds rates in September, Warsh buys time. But with inflation already nearing 4%, and with the September CPI likely to show continued pressure from the Iran war and renewed tariff wars (especially with Canada), the bond vigilantes could have a field day, driving long rates to new highs. Mortgage rates would rise further, the very outcome that Trump desperately wants to avoid before the midterms.

Treasury Secretary Bessent has already demonstrated that the Treasury cannot manipulate long rates with a tiny $4 billion operation against a $40 trillion debt load. If the long bond retests its pre-twist high of 5.33%, pressure will build on Warsh to act, and the president be damned. A Fed chair who holds rates steady while the long bond sells off and the mortgage rate rises above 7% will be blamed by both Democrats and Republicans and, more importantly, by history.

Trump said in a February interview that Warsh would not have been his nominee if he had wanted interest rate hikes. That statement was both a public declaration of what the president expected in exchange for the appointment and a revelation of just how little Trump knows or cares about modern finance. No one should be surprised by the president’s outlandish ignorance anymore.

Warsh pursued the Fed job knowing what he faced. He has spent his first hundred days trying to avoid the inevitable clash with Trump. His Jackson Hole speech may be the first sign that he has accepted an inevitable conflict between the Fed and the White House.

Warsh acknowledged that inflation is well above 2% and rising, and that if things don’t improve soon, it will be the Fed’s job to confront the issue. He conceded that the inflation trend is not meaningfully improving, and he reiterated that the Fed’s 2% inflation objective is firm and non-negotiable.

Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist, stated the obvious: “If they can possibly put it off till after the midterms, it would be good for the institution.” Translation: if Warsh raises rates at the September meeting, Trump could try to tear the entire institution apart as Republican congressmen go down to defeat.

The September Fed meeting is shaping up to be the most consequential since Paul Volcker’s 1979 appointment. Economic theory argues for a hike while the dysfunctional White House demands unrealistic cuts. Kevin Warsh, now the man in the middle, must decide whether he goes down in history as a heroic Paul Volcker or a compromised Arthur Burns.

The bond market, dollar, and inflation rates will give an immediate verdict. The midterm results may confirm it. The moves Kevin Warsh makes in the next three weeks will define the rest of his career.

In the end, Warsh finds himself searching for a path between institutional integrity and political survival that may not exist in the Trump administration. He is caught between Scylla and Charybdis – minus Matt Damon’s charm and stage presence. And to think, he asked for this job.

Hal is a retired investment professional with 40 years of experience in money management. The interface between geopolitics and global investments has always been his area of specialization. History has always been one of his interests and passions, in fact, that’s how Hal and Jeremi became friends in Madison, Wisconsin.

By Jeremi Suri

The United States has the most sophisticated, best-trained, and best-financed military in the world. We have no peers for our global reach. Yet, the basic security of our society from foreign enemies is weaker than at any time since the Cold War.

This is not because of the growth of our adversaries, which is serious but manageable. This is not because of our internal turmoil, which is dangerous but largely insulated from day-to-day military preparations. Our country is insecure because political leaders have misused the military in ways that deeply weaken the nation’s basic defenses. And political leaders continue to resist efforts to correct these grave mistakes. Instead, they are doubling down in ways that make us weaker and give enormous, tempting advantages to those who wish to do us harm.

I believe my analysis has broad agreement from current warfighters at the top of the military. They are sounding alarm bells in the Pentagon. The Washington Post reports that “the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the four-star commanders overseeing U.S. operations throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America” have warned that extended deployments to the Middle East are degrading capabilities in other regions, including homeland defense.

The evidence for this sober assessment is obvious. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier spent more than 250 consecutive days in the Persian Gulf without a port visit. The normal rotation involves a port visit every thirty to sixty days. The five thousand sailors on the ship endured food and water shortages, mental health breakdowns, and a precipitous decline in combat preparedness. The USS George Washington recently left the Western Pacific Ocean, near Vietnam, to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln. For the first time in decades, the United States does not have an aircraft carrier stationed in the Pacific to deter China.

Admiral Daryl Caudle, chief of Naval Operations, reports that only one-fourth of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is ready to deploy, following extended operations in the Caribbean and the Middle East. Delayed maintenance on ships, according to a U.S. Navy report to the Pentagon, jeopardizes future operations in other regions, especially if a crisis arises. The American Navy is not prepared for another war right now.

For missile defense, the U.S. inventory of Patriot interceptors has diminished by more than sixty percent, creating shortages in Europe and other regions. This is one of the reasons that Russian drone attacks on Ukraine have increased in effectiveness in recent weeks. A similar shortage exists for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors. American drone stocks are also down about twenty-five percent. These munition deficits limit U.S. abilities to deter and fight wars, including the current conflict with Iran.

The holes in American capabilities are growing. The Trump administration canceled planned joint exercises with South Korean forces, in part because more than two thousand of the U.S. Marines scheduled to participate were sent to the Middle East instead. The cancelation occurred at the same time that North Korea has expanded its nuclear and missile arsenals. North Korean soldiers are also gaining combat experience alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.

Trump’s criticisms of NATO have created concerns about the ability of the Western alliance to act cohesively and effectively if Vladimir Putin expands the war in Ukraine. Limitations on American contributions have meant that European states are depleting many of their inventories for operations in other parts of the continent. Although Russia has faced repeated setbacks in Ukraine, it appears that Putin perceives European and American weakness. Deterring Russia has become more difficult.

And then there is cyberdefense. The Trump administration has cut the size of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), fired its most experienced employees, and suspended cooperation with state leaders who oversee vulnerable water and energy systems. CISA has turned away from election security too; if anything, it is spreading misinformation about past elections. Cybersecurity experts see evidence that countries like Iran, China, and Russia are hacking into American utility systems, and the federal government is now less prepared than at any time since 2016.

The problem is not resources, but how the Trump administration is using them. It is fighting a costly, endless, losing war in Iran that is draining American military capabilities everywhere else. It is politicizing cyberdefense to distract attention from growing threats to American communities.

These presidential choices are opening the door for aggression by foreign actors who want to do us harm. We have reduced our deterrence capabilities – the most effective posture to prevent conflict. We have diminished our capacity for retaliation – the most essential way to discourage risk-taking. For leaders sitting in Pyongyang, Beijing, or Moscow right now, I fear that it might be rational to think this is their window of opportunity for aggression in South Korea, or Taiwan, or the Baltic States. The U.S. will probably respond in each of these theaters, but its strength will be diminished.

At home, the United States is vulnerable, especially in cyberspace. Our defenses are weakened, and our non-cyber responses are limited. What more can we do to Iran if they hack a city’s water systems? And how are we prepared to respond to a non-state hacker in the Middle East or Russia?

I fear a disaster is waiting to happen. It feels a little like the months before September 11, 2001. The warning lights are flashing, but we are distracted, preoccupied, and in denial.

We need to talk about this loudly. Congress needs to investigate. And Congress should not appropriate another dollar to the Pentagon until there is a clear return to international and homeland defense priorities, and an end to the disastrous, unpopular war in Iran.

“War is politics by other means,” Carl von Clausewitz famously wrote. We are going to lose more wars soon if we do not change the politics around military and defense matters.

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Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

By Harral Burris

Well, shake it up, baby, now
Twist and shout
Come on, come on, come, come on, baby, now
Come on and work it on out…

On August 19, Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. Treasury Department will increase buybacks of long-dated government bonds from $2 billion to at least $4 billion. On Friday morning, after his announcement proved underwhelming to bond traders, he claimed he could increase the amount purchased, alleging he possesses an extensive “toolkit” to push long rates down.

The Treasury also confirmed on Wednesday morning that the federal debt has passed $40 trillion, a number so large it’s hard to fathom. The two announcements are related, though Bessent would never admit it.

The bond operation, known as a “twist,” attempts to push long rates down by selling long-dated bonds while simultaneously purchasing short-term T-bills. It’s been tried twice for very different reasons, with limited success.

The John F. Kennedy administration deployed the original Operation Twist in 1961. It wanted to shore up a weak economy without pushing down short-term rates. With the dollar still pegged to gold under the Bretton Woods system, any fall in short-term rates would encourage foreign central banks to trade dollars for gold, depleting U.S. stocks. The Federal Reserve sold bills from its balance sheet and used the proceeds to purchase long-term bonds. The name was a nod to the new dance craze sweeping the country. Long rates fell slightly, and gold outflow slowed, but the operation had little lasting effect.

The Fed revived the tactic in 2011 for different reasons. The U.S. recovery from the 2008 recession was faltering, Greece was imploding as the euro debt crisis raged, and the Fed’s short-term rates were already near zero. So the Fed got creative, selling bills to buy bonds while keeping its balance sheet constant. This operation had a measurable short-term effect on the economy by driving down mortgage rates and corporate borrowing costs, but economists debate just how effective the program was.

In 2011, though, inflation was low, the economy was recovering from recession, and corporations were not competing for available debt. With short rates at 0.5%, lowering long rates was the only option.

The new twist operation is different. The Federal Reserve ran past efforts; this one is a Treasury project. There is no global economic emergency calling for immediate rate cuts; in fact, the global economy faces a growing inflation risk, made worse by rate cuts. The pressing need for lower long rates is to aid Republicans in the midterm elections.

When the Fed ran Operation Twist in 2011, it sold bills it already owned to buy long-term bonds, a true portfolio rebalancing that required no new debt. What Bessent’s Treasury is doing is completely different: every bond it purchases and adds to its inventory must be replaced with new bill issuance, thereby increasing the national debt total.

On the surface, this appears to be an off-the-cuff operation with little contingency planning. For one thing, the scale of the purchases is too small to make a difference. The Treasury is buying back $4 billion per operation across the long end of the curve. The U.S. issues roughly $2 trillion in net new debt per year, and the AI-related corporate bond supply is soaking up hundreds of billions more. Against these numbers, $4 billion is a small finger in a very large dike.

The purchase level may be too small to accomplish much, but the operation does manage to put Bessent and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh at odds. Warsh spent much of his last press conference contending that he could keep short rates low and let the long bond appreciate, thus doing the Fed’s work through market action. Weeks later, he finds the administration actively trying to push long rates down through blatant manipulation. Warsh is scheduled to give a much-anticipated speech at the annual Jackson Hole financial conference this Friday. He’s got a lot of explaining to do.

Markets have certainly not given the plan a vote of confidence. The day after the announcement, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) fell below 99, while gold rose 4%. For a few hours after the announcement, 30-year yields fell, but by the end of the day, rates had risen back to near where they’d been the day before. The overall impact of the announcement on the bond market had thus disappeared, but weakness in the dollar and strength in gold continued.

The structural forces driving rates higher — AI demand, rising inflation, and fiscal debt at historic levels — are not going to be fazed by $4 billion. The Treasury does not have enough brakes to stop this train. The best Bessent can hope for is to tear up some track and slow the advance.

The simple fact is that this is a blatantly political attempt to push down mortgage rates before the fall election. Mortgage rates follow the 10-year Treasury, so falling long bond rates will reduce borrowing costs for home purchases. The announced buybacks, running from September 9 through November 4, will inevitably be read as fiscal policy deployed in service of Republican political gains, precisely the kind of institutional credibility damage that makes bond vigilantes smell blood.

The bond market delivered its verdict on Bessent’s announcement with brutal efficiency. Markets weren’t fooled; they simply moved on, leaving the Treasury secretary holding a laughably small $4 billion toolkit against a $40 trillion problem. When Kevin Warsh takes the podium at Jackson Hole on Friday, he’ll face the unenviable task of explaining how the Fed can maintain its independence while the Treasury Department actively works to undermine his authority.

A dance craze inspired the name of the original 1961 Operation Twist. The 2026 version feels less like a dance and more like a high-wire act, performed without a safety net.

Hal is a retired investment professional with 40 years of experience in money management. The interface between geopolitics and global investments has always been his area of specialization. History has always been one of his interests and passions, in fact, that’s how Hal and Jeremi became friends in Madison, Wisconsin.

By Jeremi Suri

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome, then U.S. policy toward Iran belongs in a lunatic asylum. Since November 1979, presidents from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump have pledged to break the revolutionary regime in Tehran through economic sanctions. Each administration promises to make the sanctions stronger and deliver victory, at last. Presidents since George H.W. Bush have also argued that sanctions will shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons project.

None of that happened. The revolutionary regime in Iran has survived nearly fifty years of ineffective American sanctioning, and it has only grown more radical in recent months. Tehran continues to stockpile nuclear materials, and it is capable of developing a weapon on a short timeline. American sanctions did not end Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Trump made all these points about the weakness of sanctions when he launched a massive air assault on Iran in February. He promised regime change and denuclearization, at last. His secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has repeated those promises in his testimony before Congress.

But none of that happened either. After more than $50 billion in spending and a dangerous depletion of American missile stockpiles, the revolutionary regime in Tehran remains firmly in power. It has replenished much of its rocket arsenal – faster than we have. It has closed the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy transit routes. The U.S. has blockaded Iranian shipping, but we have not dared to challenge Tehran’s unilateral control of the waterway they seized after we attacked them. Our navy is too frightened to combat Iran in that space; lots of Americans will die if we do.

In an interview on Sunday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that the “kinetic phase” of this war is done. Yes, that is another way of saying that it failed. Iran did not buckle under the air assault, and Abbott and other Republicans understand that American voters this November do not want to see this war continue. We have lost.

So, what is the Trump administration doing to recalibrate? They are returning to sanctions. Oh, I am sure those will work now.

What Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday would be comical if it were not downright pathetic. After failed sanctions programs called “Maximum Pressure” and “Economic Fury,” now the Trump administration is enacting “Operation Economic Outcast.” This will bring an “economic D-Day” for Iran, Bessent thundered. Yet again, he promised “regime change.”

If only words could get the job done, but they won’t. Bessent was clear, when questioned, that the United States would not take decisive action to stop Chinese trade with Iran. Beijing buys 90% of Iranian oil, despite sanctions, and it provides banking and finance to Tehran, also despite sanctions. That keeps the lights on for the revolutionary regime.

Just as the Trump administration will not send our ships into the Strait of Hormuz for fear of Iranian rockets killing Americans, it will not embargo Chinese trade with Iran for fear of Beijing’s retaliation across the supply chains that keep the American economy intact. As before, sanctions on Iran are doomed to fail. Operation Economic Outcast will only add to international perceptions of American weakness and further alienate the allies we pressure to follow our failed policies. We are making ourselves the outcasts.

This is insanity. Neither war nor sanctions are the answer. Iran is ruled by a tyrannical regime that sponsors some of the most violent terrorists in the world. To change this government and make the world safer, the United States must work with its allies to support the people in Iran. Instead of sanctions, this requires more economic and cultural penetration. Instead of belligerence, it means keeping the government at arm's length, but offering incentives for better behavior. For example, foreign investment, which Iran desperately needs, can be tied to human rights and anti-terrorist measures. Some sanctions will still be necessary, but the emphasis should be on opening Iranian society, not isolating and attacking it.

What we know in Iran, and elsewhere, is that bombing a society from the air and cutting off its food only rallies people to the regime in power. Doing more of those things is inhumane and insane. Trying to open a society through targeted incentives is not a silver-bullet solution, but it offers something more realistic.

Communist societies, including the Soviet Union, were not bombed and sanctioned to a violent death. They opened up because their people believed other societies offered a better way of life. We need to make that case in Iran.

So far, the United States looks like just another oppressor, drunk on belligerent rhetoric, expensive missiles, and empty economic threats. Who are the crazy people in this conflict?

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Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

By Jeremi Suri

Since the Second World War, Canada has been America’s best ally. On every major military and economic issue, the Canadians have helped the United States. The two countries have an integrated air defense system (NORAD) that provides mutual monitoring of foreign attacks and joint responses to territorial threats. This arrangement was the foundation for American nuclear security during the Cold War, and that remains the case in the twenty-first century. Canada’s huge northern landmass and its surveillance capabilities support U.S. defenses. Canada supplies critical minerals, including uranium for nuclear weapons and samarium and gadolinium for missiles.

Canada is America’s second-largest trading partner, with nearly $900 billion in goods and services exchanged in 2025. Approximately 1.4 million American jobs are tied to this trade. Although the largest U.S. exports to Canada are manufactured goods, the Canadians mainly export raw materials south of the border – including petroleum, aluminum, and steel – that fuel American industry. In 2024, more than 20 million citizens from each country visited the other for work and pleasure; Americans spent $15.6 billion annually in Canada, and Canadians spent an even larger sum, more than $20 billion, down south. Like security, prosperity for the two countries is deeply interdependent.

Donald Trump has ruined this relationship. He is not the first American leader to enter difficult trade negotiations with Canada, but he is the only president since the Second World War to flagrantly insult and bully our friends up north. He has repeatedly called Canada the “fifty-first state.” (That should be Washington, D.C. or Puerto Rico!) He regularly refers to the prime minister in Ottawa as an American governor. Most significant, Trump has levied high unilateral tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S., particularly aluminum and steel, and he has threatened grave harms when Ottawa has retaliated with its own tariffs on American automobiles and whiskey. At best, Trump has treated Canada as a weak little brother; at worst, he has tried to bully them into becoming a colony subject to his personal whims.

The breakdown of recent trade negotiations intensifies this self-defeating dynamic. Trump made daily threats and promised an imminent “deal” because he believed the Canadian negotiators would have no choice but to bow before American strength. Throughout the negotiations, a disorganized U.S. team raised its demands, including last-minute insistence that Canada weaken French-language protections and follow American dictates on trade with other countries, especially China.

Trump overplayed his hand. As in Iran, excessive bullying in Canada unified national resistance to American power. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has widespread support across all parties and provinces to push back against Trump. Carney’s rebuke of the president was wildly popular: “We cannot accept what they offered and we will not give what they asked,” Carney firmly announced. “We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or undermine our key industries.”

Trump made it worse with his response, on social media, of course: “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one,” the president wrote. “No more!!!” These belligerent words only increase Canadian fears of American bullying.

“You’re at war when you’re attacked,” Carney calmly explained in a national speech, “and we got attacked.” The prime minister described how Trump’s rhetoric and tariffs “are designed to hurt and divide us.” But he assured listeners: “They are a miscalculation because Canadians will always take care of each other. We know we’re stronger together.”

Just a few years ago, Canadians and Americans believed they would take care of each other. Recent polling finds that Canadians now see the United States as a greater threat than Russia. Two-thirds of Canadians expressed a belief that Washington did more to hurt than help its allies. And Canadians are voting with their feet. Their trips to the United States dropped 25% in the last year, reducing personal and business spending by more than $2 billion. The friends we insult don’t want to visit us (or our tourist sights) any more.

As with every relationship ruined by Trump, the main beneficiaries are the Chinese. Earlier this year, Carney made the first visit for a Canadian prime minister to China in almost a decade. He spoke explicitly of building a “new strategic partnership” with Beijing. Canada opened its market to more Chinese electric vehicles, and China reduced tariffs on Canadian agricultural products. In both sectors – automobiles and agriculture – Canada-China trade replaces U.S.-Canada and U.S.-China trade. Ottawa and Beijing pledged to “collaborate closely” in pursuit of multilateralism, a clear contrast to Trump’s unilateralism.

This is really bad for the United States. America’s best military and economic ally is now collaborating closely with America’s most dangerous adversary. As Washington and Ottawa remain locked in a trade war, Canada’s trade with China will grow rapidly. China will benefit from further penetration of our northern neighbor, including access to the resources that fuel continental defenses and job growth. The United States will suffer further supply chain difficulties and job losses. Although Canadian industry is deeply dependent on the United States right now, the damage to the American economy will be at least as serious. The harm to American security – in both defense cooperation and critical mineral supplies for depleted munitions – will be even worse.

There were many good reasons why the United States treated Canada as a valued, respected, and irreplaceable ally for more than seventy-five years. We were friends who made each other stronger and more prosperous. Although the United States has always been more powerful, it has long depended on Canada for its military security and economic growth. This was a mutually dependent and mutually beneficial relationship.

Trump does not understand those words. His world is filled with bosses and slaves. He is a boss, and he believes Canada is a slave that he can push around. The people of Canada, like those in other societies Trump has targeted, are rallying to resist this treatment and find new friends.

That is what Prime Minister Carney meant when he called for “middle powers to live the truth.” Former American allies are accepting a break in old relationships and seeking out new partners with confidence. Canada is doing that, and it is leaving the United States in the dust. Canada is moving on:

“Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. In other words, we have capital, talent…we also have a government with immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire. Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable and reliable partner in a world that is anything but…A partner that builds and values relationships for the long term.”

Very soon, Americans will regret the damage to the Canadian alliance. Americans will feel the pain as our neighbors find new partners hostile to us.

The sooner we recognize our mistakes, the better. Americans must remember how important Canada is to our security and prosperity. We must stop alienating our northern friends and show that we truly value them as a sovereign, equal state. The United States needs Canada at least as much as Canada needs us.

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Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

What I found most useful was how Zachary talked through how a story like the one he wrote on Milwaukee County’s 2001 pension decision gets built: not just interviewing the former governor and policy experts, but standing at bus stops and closed pools asking ordinary residents how service cuts made decades ago changed their daily lives. That’s the piece I think most people miss when they wave off local news as boring: the translation work between a budget line item and someone’s commute or swim schedule. We also got into how he manages press handlers who no longer need reporters the way reporters need them, now that politicians can route around the press entirely on social media, and why he thinks that shift cuts both ways.

I ended the episode more convinced than when we started that this is a story about democratic infrastructure, not just an industry in decline, though I’ll admit my optimism here is partly a proud father talking.

Click here to listen to the full episode or read the transcript.

The founders of American democracy feared partisanship, but it is unavoidable today. Democrats and Republicans get their news in different places. MAGA Republicans accuse traditional, long-time party members, like Liz Cheney, of being RINOs – “Republicans in Name Only.” On the other side, Democratic Socialists renounce mainstream party members, including Barack Obama, as “bought and sold politicians.” In elections and primaries, citizens are pressured to vote for a label, or more accurately, to vote against a label.

This is indeed bad for democracy because it divides people and it makes pragmatic compromise difficult. The Democratic and Republican primaries this summer, however, offered some good news. Despite breathless partisan rancor and negativity, the evidence is strong that citizens are voting for candidates, not labels. People appear to be focusing on the personality, experience, and values of the individual on the ballot, not partisan cues.

Let’s start with Wisconsin and Michigan. In the two midwestern Democratic primaries this month, voters narrowly chose candidates from different parts of the party. Francesca Hong generated enormous excitement among Democratic Socialists, but she was defeated by David Crowley, the well-regarded public executive for Milwaukee County. In Michigan, Congresswoman Haley Stevens lost to Abdul El-Sayed, a Rhodes Scholar and former health director of Detroit and Wayne County. The candidates with the most money – Hong and Stevens – were defeated. The candidates with the most experience managing large, diverse communities – Crowley and El-Sayed – won. For voters concerned about affordability, housing, and health care, these two men clearly showed the most ability to deliver.

That same logic appears to have carried in South Carolina, and its recent primary for the late Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat. His sister, Darline, who was appointed to hold his seat until November but has no political experience, failed to secure a majority in her primary. She will have to face a run-off against Ralph Norman, who has served in Congress since 2017, and in the South Carolina House of Representatives before that. Despite intense pressures from Donald Trump and the MAGA machine, Republican voters in South Carolina are hesitant to endorse nepotism over experience.

And then there is Texas. The Senate race between Attorney General Ken Paxton and State Representative James Talarico remains close in the polls, but even Republicans are showing intense misgivings about Paxton, who has the Trump and MAGA endorsement, but who is perhaps one of the most corrupt politicians in the United States. So far, traditional Republican donors have not made the expected contributions to his campaign. Independent voters widely oppose him.

None of these races tell us that people have abandoned partisanship. Americans live in a highly sorted world – sorted by where we live, where we work and study, and where we worship. Social media algorithms encourage us to hear and see only what we already believe. In the vast majority of cases, MAGA voters will remain MAGA voters and mainstream Democratic voters will remain mainstream Democratic voters.

What is significant is that within these partisan outlines, candidate quality still matters enormously. People want to vote for someone who they believe can deliver, someone who they respect, and someone who they trust to lead. Weak candidates with questionable experience and untrusted personalities have trouble generating enthusiasm; their voters don’t turn out. That was Hong’s problem, in particular, in progressive Dane County. It is Darline Graham’s challenge too.

In the era of Donald Trump’s presidency, it is easy to believe that bombast and lies can win elections. Sometimes they can, but the old rules still apply, perhaps more than ever. Voters want competence, experience, and someone they can respect. Although they might vote for charismatic candidates, they want those candidates to have something worthwhile backing up their curated image.

Trump convinced voters that he was more than a partisan when he ran for office. Millions of people viewed him as a successful businessman and someone who cared about them. Candidates with his personal endorsement must do the same, and many just can’t.

This historical insight offers a path forward for people who want to improve the governance of our democracy. Instead of arguing over party positions, which never convinces anyone, advocates of reform should focus on high-quality candidates. To change our politics, we need to elect men and women of substance, ethics, and commitment to democracy in the fullest sense. They need to think for themselves and work toward common goals for society, not a party or a person.

Candidates with these high qualities exist, and new candidates with these qualities can be found. As in the past, our democracy renews when we elect the best men and women – not just one party or another. This November might be one of those historical moments when serious new talent enters government. If that is the case, our democracy will be much better for it. And maybe partisanship will recede, just a little.

Also see in:
German, Turkish, Chinese, Spanish

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

By Harral Burris

The July jobs numbers for the U.S. released last Friday reported an unexpected loss of 23,000 jobs, a complete reversal of an expected 85,000 increase. The numbers are not as bad as they appear; the report contained numerous seasonal adjustments and job losses in the hospitality sector as a result of the end of the World Cup. Still, an unexpected drop of this magnitude is worrisome. Ultimately, a sustained drop in job creation will lead to tighter household budgets, slower consumer spending, and a downturn in economic growth.

A significant downward revision of 103,000 jobs in May and June compounded the July loss. While the drop in the unemployment rate from 4.2% to 4.1% seems encouraging, it was the result of hundreds of thousands of workers giving up and leaving the labor force entirely, many of them at the encouragement of ICE.

Those still employed face decelerating wage growth, which has slowed to a five-year low of 3.2%, well below the inflation rate of 3.5%. Real wage growth is shrinking just as workers are asked to pay $50 for a steak at an average chain restaurant or $12 for a burger and fries at McDonald’s.

Construction jobs remain plentiful, with the sector reporting 22,000 new jobs in July, directly attributable to the AI data center buildout. After a slump last year, manufacturing has gained 30,000 jobs so far this year, again with AI as the source.

That growth now seems in question. The American economy, battered by high energy costs and tariff constraints, is getting by on AI data center construction, and suddenly the American people have decided they want none of it.

Overnight, a pause on the data center buildout has become the one thing most people in this divided nation can agree on. A year ago, 43% of Americans said they would support the construction of a data center near them, while 42% were opposed. The latest survey, conducted last month, shows just 21% supporting construction, while 71% are opposed.

The opposition is bipartisan, with both Democrats and Republicans lining up to block the buildout. New York became the first state to halt construction in July after Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order temporarily blocking the state from approving new permits. Texas quickly followed suit as Governor Greg Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas to freeze approvals for new facilities until it completes a statewide audit. Now, 15 additional states are considering data center bans or moratoriums.

The movement is building before the midterm elections. States blocked or delayed $130 billion in data center projects in Q1 2026, and the industry is set to be the all-American villain until after the November elections. Bernie Sanders has been calling for a moratorium since the first of the year with little success, but now he’s all over cable news and social media.

Whatever the ultimate merits of a buildout pause, the effect on the labor market will be immediate and consequential. Unlike manufacturing layoffs, which require notice and take time, construction shutdowns happen instantly — crews simply stop work, get into their financed Ram pickups, and go home.

The numbers are significant. The AI data center construction boom employs an estimated 200,000 highly paid workers nationwide. Electricians, ironworkers, concrete specialists, and HVAC technicians form a highly paid, interlocking ecosystem with wages averaging $38 per hour. If these jobs suddenly disappear, the economy will feel it immediately, and the ripple effects will hit companies like Caterpillar, United Rentals, and Cummins, likely triggering layoffs and adding to unemployment.

The newly reported slowdown in job creation will allow Kevin Warsh’s Federal Reserve to keep rates steady for fear of the economy falling off a jobs cliff, even as inflation pressures continue to build. In this situation, there is no “correct” position on interest rates. Inflation concerns would indicate that rates need to go up, but weak employment figures argue the opposite. A sudden reversal in AI-related construction employment, added to already weak jobs numbers, could trigger an economic slowdown.

In a normal environment, last week’s July jobs report would suggest the need for a rate cut. But with inflation high and rising, and three Fed governors already calling for a rate increase, the Fed cannot respond to labor market weakness in the traditional way.

This is a textbook definition of stagflation: a period of rising inflation coupled with a stagnant or falling economy. What was a long-shot risk in January, a concern in the spring, and an admitted possibility by midsummer is beginning to look like an unavoidable reality before the first NFL game. It is no longer a future worry but an inconvenient fact.

The one industry keeping the American economy afloat is now the same industry that American voters, in their infinite wisdom, have decided they absolutely don’t want in their backyards. A couple of hundred thousand construction workers are a governor’s signature away from a pink slip. If a significant portion of those workers lose their jobs, the U.S. economy is out of luck.

In an economy experiencing slowing job growth and rising inflation, the current Fed will face the same insurmountable problems that confronted the central bank four decades ago. How do you fight inflation with the economy in recession, and how do you grow the job market without lowering rates? There is no easy answer, but it’s up to the Fed to find a solution. Good luck with that.

Hal is a retired investment professional with 40 years of experience in money management. The interface between geopolitics and global investments has always been his area of specialization. History has always been one of his interests and passions, in fact, that’s how Hal and Jeremi became friends in Madison, Wisconsin.

By Zachary Suri

It was my fourth day as a politics reporting intern at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and I was standing at a sweltering bus stop in Downtown Milwaukee on an early morning in June.

Plagued by years of financial crisis, the Milwaukee County Transit System was announcing a modest surplus for fiscal year 2026. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, then slowly fading out of the Democratic primary for Governor, stood to speak.

Instead of simply celebrating the surplus and touting his administration’s efforts to turn around a transit system that had, only a year before, blindsided county leaders with a surprise $10.9 million deficit, Crowley did something very rare in politics. He talked about the problems to come. He warned reporters like me, half-asleep on a Thursday morning, that the bus system was facing a looming fiscal cliff in 2027. More work had to be done, he said. Milwaukee County needed more help from the state.

Two months later, after perhaps the most remarkable stretch in the history of any recent campaign, Crowley might soon be in a position to make that happen. After his surprise victory in the Democratic primary for governor on Tuesday, Crowley is favored to defeat the Republican nominee in November.

On July 9, I watched in a nearly empty ballroom at the top of the Milwaukee Athletic Club as Crowley officially dropped out of the race, endorsing Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez. A week later, she dropped out. And a day after that, a block from that sweltering bus stop, Crowley announced he was reentering the race with the coveted endorsement of Wisconsin’s popular two-term governor Tony Evers.

When Rodriguez announced on July 12 that she was firing her campaign manager after discovering major discrepancies in her campaign finance reporting—the scandal that eventually led to her bowing out of the race—I was driving to Milwaukee County’s Housing Authority to report on Crowley’s affordable housing programs.

That reporting, more than any of my time covering the race, revealed the most about Crowley as a politician.

Milwaukee County has had one of the lowest homelessness rates of any major city in the country almost every year of his tenure. In 2025, there were only 54 unsheltered homeless in a county of over 900,000 people, and none under 24 years old, according to federal data.

Driving around the county with his housing director James Mathy, I learned why.

Milwaukee County has done something very simple, and apparently effective. It has combined a half dozen federal housing programs and behavioral health services under one roof. County officials go into the streets to encourage homeless people to move into transitional or permanent housing, paid for by county housing vouchers. The county has provided small chunks of money, much of it from federal COVID relief funds, to developers across the county to encourage affordable housing development.

Much has been made of Crowley as a “moderate” or “establishment” candidate, the one endorsed by the sitting governor to oppose the democratic socialist frontrunner. But as county executive, probably the second-most powerful position in the state, Crowley has championed progressive policies like housing-first homelessness outreach.

The difference is none of it has been flashy. Few in Milwaukee know that their community has one of the lowest homelessness rates in the country. Until a few weeks ago, Crowley himself hardly seemed to mention it. Just as he did at that bus stop, he often prefers to focus on the problems that still need to be solved.

Milwaukee County government is not known for its efficiency, its pragmatism, or its fiscal stability. Just the opposite. But Crowley is the first to admit that those problems persist. He has embraced a progressive politics that is focused on slowly solving them. Gap financing and social service consolidation are hardly sexy political programs. They are pragmatic approaches to difficult policy questions that Wisconsin’s largest county appears somehow to have gotten right.

The first time I spoke with Crowley was at a press conference announcing a new county initiative to impound vehicles involved in reckless driving. Standing with sheriff’s deputies, Crowley spoke forcefully to the problem of dangerous driving in Milwaukee. It is a serious public safety issue in Milwaukee County (trust me when I say this — in less than two months, two different cars I was borrowing were totaled on Milwaukee streets). This policy, Crowley argued, was a pragmatic solution, one that empowered law enforcement.

Crowley’s opponent in the race embodied the opposite approach to public safety. In the wake of a police shooting in her assembly district in Madison last month, Francesca Hong called the shooting an “execution” and criticized city leaders for clearing an encampment that shut down a busy intersection for days. For weeks, protestors disrupted life in the state’s most liberal county, forcing small businesses to close and forcibly ending a popular outdoor concert series on the state capitol grounds. Meanwhile, Hong was on CNN defending old tweets calling for the cancellation of Thanksgiving.

In the end, voters in Madison went for their ‘favorite daughter’ with surprisingly low margins on Tuesday. Hong did not even win a majority in Dane County, and she lost many of the more populous wards on the city’s wealthier and whiter west side.

Crowley managed to bring together a coalition of voters that included the wealthiest zip codes in the state and the poorest. He won liberal college professors on the west side of Madison, wealthy suburbanites in Whitefish Bay, and huge margins from Black voters on the north side of Milwaukee where he grew up.

In the days leading up to the election, Crowley barnstormed across the state with Governor Evers, but he was still polling far behind Hong. Republicans spent millions trying to boost her campaign, assuming she would be easier to beat in November. Hong was nearing 50% of the vote in most polls, with more than 30% of voters undecided. But somehow, Crowley won almost all of those undecided votes. And establishment Democrats everywhere breathed a collective sigh of relief. “For now, we polka,” Evers tweeted. “Tomorrow, we’re back at work to win.”

As Republican nominee Rep. Tom Tiffany told his supporters Wednesday morning, chances are Thanksgiving is safe this year. His chances of making it to the governor’s mansion? Not as good.

Zachary Suri is a senior at Yale University studying literature and history. He is an aspiring political journalist with experience covering policy and politics in Connecticut, Texas, and Wisconsin. You can read more of his recent reporting for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel here.

By Evan Buckingham

Word of Mouth Still Rules the Land

By Monday in Marfa, the internet had become less useful than asking another person.

Hours were fluid, inventory was uncertain, and the reclusive artsy getaway I had imagined became what the oracles described: a place where posted hours were aspirational and institutional knowledge was infrastructure. Local knowledge moved across bar tops, music venues, and food-truck-adjacent operations from someone who had already made the mistake you were about to make. And you will make it in Marfa.

That was the rhythm of the week. You learned by showing up, getting something wrong, asking again, and then seeing the same person two hours or two days later somewhere else. Someone working one night might be standing next to you at a show the next. Even the overheard mistakes had texture. One patron, reaching for “specific,” landed instead on “pacific,” which felt more accurate for the spirit of West Texas, especially in the absence of a large body of water.

Phones were still everywhere, because West Texas does not suspend modern life; it only curbs it or makes it that much more essential. The contrast was harder to ignore there, under that sky, in a place where the internet could tell you less than the person standing next to you.

Marfa has its own contradictions: glamping in rugged country, curated roughness, expensive minimalism, and middle-aged hostel kids who never fully surrendered the fantasy of being temporarily lost. At times it felt like a place where everyone knows your name, except they also follow you on Instagram. Still, beneath the art-world sheen was an older form of social life: repetition, proximity, inconvenience, and the obligation to deal with whoever is actually there in real time.

That obligation extends beyond people. In West Texas, even darkness is something residents have learned to protect. The New York Times describes Terlingua as a place where dogs roam free, parking is informal, and the night skies feel almost endless; on the darkest nights, the Milky Way is bright enough to alter the desert floor. I felt the dog part first: the summer sun in the high desert meant carrying my old black dog so his paws were spared from the heat. Nothing there lets you pretend physics are theoretical.

West Texas does not feel empty when you are there. It only looks vast and empty on Google Maps and in the dearth of Yelp reviews.

Big Bend National Park is now being treated, again, as something that can be understood from far away: desert, river, towns, guides, workers, flood risk, border history, local economies, dark sky, and local memory flattened into a line on a national security map.

A National Park Becomes a National Security Concern

In May, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) awarded Southwest Valley Constructors a $1.7 billion contract for Big Bend 4, a project the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) describes as hundreds of miles of patrol roads and 17 miles of vehicle barriers in remote canyon country. By August, the Big Bend Sentinel reported that heavy equipment had moved into the park, survey crews had been spotted along river roads, staging areas had appeared north of the park, and local officials still did not have straight answers. The same article reported that the project is slated to cost at least two-thirds of last year’s entire National Park Service budget, on a stretch of border that sees fewer than 0.045% of illicit cross-border traffic. (Big Bend Sentinel)

CBP says the plan does not include 30-foot steel walls inside Big Bend Ranch State Park, Big Bend National Park, or Black Gap Wildlife Management Area. The work is described as road upgrades, surveillance equipment, and limited low-profile barriers. A road is different from a wall, and a sensor is different from a steel fence. Still, the vocabulary can narrow the question in haste. A national park is being folded into a border-security buildout with almost no macroeconomic logic.

Toward the end of my West Texas tour, I entered Big Bend proper after driving a stretch of road in Big Bend Ranch State Park that made my car feel like a bougie rollercoaster. Only when my old dog woke up along the route did I realize I was pushing the limits of comfortable physics for large mammals. It was beautiful in the way places are beautiful when they make your own existence seem irrelevant. You do not conquer that landscape. You adapt.

The modern wall is steel in some places and something more dispersed in others: roads, barriers, surveillance equipment, eminent domain, staging areas, contractors, shifting maps, legal waivers, lighting, and machines arriving before many residents understand what has been decided.

The dark-sky issue makes this visible. The New York Times reports that Big Bend National Park was certified as a dark sky site in 2012, and today the park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and Black Gap Wildlife Management Area sit inside the largest dark sky reserve on Earth — established in 2022 and spanning more than nine million acres across the U.S.-Mexico border. Darkness is part of the landscape, the draw, the economy, and the mental escape that satisfies both city folk and locals.

The threat is not only the wall itself, but the ecosystem that comes with it: worker housing, road upgrades, surveillance stations, and lighting connected to construction and enforcement. CBP told The Times that lighting would depend on location and operational needs, and that not all sections would be illuminated. Yet in a place this dark, even distant light matters. Terlinguans can already see the artificial glow from Presidio roughly 50 miles away.

The Big Bend Sector represents 26.5% of the U.S.-Mexico border but only 1.3% of total apprehensions in 2025, citing CBP data. (No Big Bend Wall)

Distance from Power

West Texas is easy to misread because distance does strange things to the political imagination. From far away, open land can look like nothing. Up close, it becomes the distance to a hospital, a school, a grocery store, a mechanic, a courthouse, a river crossing, or a venue that may or may not be open.

Texas’ 23rd Congressional District has long made this visible. Third Way describes it as nearly 58,000 square miles across two time zones, more than twice the size of West Virginia, with fewer than one million residents represented by one member of Congress. The same report notes that, despite the district’s proximity to Mexico and the wall debate, immigration does not dominate local conversations the way national politics might suggest. (Third Way)

A Marfa local told me Terlingua can hold conservatives and liberals who disagree about nearly everything but still share one operating principle: they are off-grid for a reason, and they do not want the government in their business. That does not fit the cable-news version of border politics. It is more local and more stubborn than that — people who know the place versus institutions that treat it as a security canvas.

The Times lands in the same place, noting that Big Bend residents, including some Trump voters, have been energized against the wall by a shared desire to keep the region wild. In West Texas, the divide is not always left versus right. Sometimes it is near versus far.

Anxiety Becomes Procurement

The procurement story deepens the concern. A Big Bend Sentinel, ProPublica, and Texas Tribune investigation reported that Posillico Civil alleges CBP awarded nearly $14 billion, about 73% of the Texas border-wall contract value at issue, to Fisher Sand & Gravel and Barnard Construction out of 11 prequalified vendors. DHS secured $46.5 billion for border-wall construction in 2025. CBP says the bidding process was fair and that contracts were awarded based on qualifications, timeliness, and prices deemed fair and reasonable. (Big Bend Sentinel)

The civic problem does not wait for a final ruling. The same reporting notes that government planning has been accelerated and opaque, while residents have had to rely on shifting maps to understand what may be built near them. In a low-trust country, procurement becomes part of legitimacy. Pew found in 2024 that only 22% of Americans said they trust the federal government in Washington to do what is right just about always or most of the time. (Big Bend Sentinel)

The trust issue was not abstract for me either. My dog and I were diverted into CBP inspection twice during the trip. One stop was invasive. The other felt benign enough that, when I described it to a close Peace Corps friend, his interpretation was simple: “You’re not who we’re looking for.” I am very light-skinned and drive a German car. The experience did not make me an expert in border enforcement. It reminded me that security is never experienced evenly.

That is where the story gains its democratic center. At a park meeting for outfitters and concerned residents, the Sentinel reported that outfitter Charlie Angell was grateful for the park’s communication but disappointed that neither CBP nor Southwest Valley Constructors attended. Michael Ryan, a former river ranger, planned to record contractor activity because so many natural and cultural-resource protections had been waived. (Big Bend Sentinel)

Costs always travel downward. The benefits are announced at scale; the losses arrive locally. The language gets cleaned up along the way. Resource manipulation becomes modernization. Risk becomes optimization. Political uncertainty becomes an immovable mandate.

Nobody Avoids the Bill

In Presidio, the bill may land on a levee.

The Presidio Municipal Development District and Democracy Forward sued DHS in June, arguing that construction through the Presidio Flood Control Project could threaten the levee system protecting the city from flash flooding. City officials fear that replacing the earthen slope of the existing levee with concrete and 30-foot steel bollards could alter how water interacts with the system. (Big Bend Sentinel)

At that point, the wall stops being a symbol and becomes a question of practical power, water, and risk. The wall is sold as protection. In Presidio, the fear is that it will interfere with what already protects the town.

Big Bend is not just scenery; it is an economic pillar of West Texas. The Sentinel reports that Big Bend generates around $63.7 million annually for local businesses, with around a quarter directly tied to Rio Grande access through river tours and camping trips. The access concern is not theoretical either: more than 140 outfitters and business owners wrote to Texas officials warning that planned vehicle barriers would cut across practically every campground and boat launch in the backcountry, severely limiting public access. (Big Bend Sentinel)

None of this requires pretending every border-security measure is illegitimate. It requires taking the place seriously enough to ask what kind of security is being built, for whom, at what cost, and through what process. Big Bend is one of the few landscapes in America where scale still disciplines the ego. When I entered the park, I imagined Jurassic Park creatures roaming the grounds. The background seemed AI-generated. The place felt that old, that indifferent, that capable of making human urgency look ridiculous.

National politics often struggles to read places that way. It sees distance and assumes emptiness. It sees a national park and assumes scenery. It sees darkness and assumes nothing is there.

The hopeful part, to the extent there is one, is civic insistence. Presidio sued. Residents organized. Journalists kept asking the right questions. Business owners tried to explain why river access, park integrity, and the night sky are not just decorative adornments.

People who know the place are still trying to make the government respect it, and not destroy it.

America loves openness as scenery, and frames it as freedom, but it has a harder time with openness as politics.

Evan Buckingham writes from lived experience shaped by Peace Corps service in El Salvador, finance work across North America and the Caribbean, and leadership roles across startups and global firms. His work brings a grounded, international lens to economics, business, and culture, tracing how incentives, institutions, and technology shape everyday life.

By Jeremi Suri

The United States is a country of continental size. The U.S. landmass is roughly the same as all of Europe. There are other continent-sized countries: Russia, China, India, Brazil, and Canada. (Alaska, Texas, and California are subcontinents unto themselves!)

Continental size has always been a challenge for democracy. James Madison grappled with this issue in the eighteenth century when he theorized that more size and diversity could prevent any “faction” from exercising tyranny over others. But how do you form an enduring Union when your land is so vast and the residents are so far removed from one another? The Civil War emerged from this challenge, as did long-standing tensions over the balance of federal and state power.

The U.S. Constitution ingeniously balances representation of people in the House of Representatives with representation of land in the Senate. I just drove through North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. These beautiful lands have 2.3 million residents and 6 senators. I live in Texas with 32 million residents and just 2 senators. Puerto Rico is home to about 3 million U.S. citizens, and it has 0 senators. Currently, the balance does not seem right.

This problem is at the root of our current political difficulties. Too few people are defining the policies of our democracy for too many. That is not a Republican or a Democratic problem; it is an American problem as a continental country with people concentrated in some places and largely absent in others. Please see the photos included with this article.

There are no easy answers. Our beautiful lands must be preserved and protected, but the few people living in them should not tyrannize those in densely populated places. There is no democratic theory to justify the 2 million people in the Dakotas and Wyoming exerting more influence than the 35 million people in Texas and Puerto Rico. James Madison would not have accepted that as an appropriate balance; Abraham Lincoln would have feared the future of a Union with such disproportionate representation.

The time has come to address this long-standing constitutional dilemma that has deepened with recent population shifts. Should we re-design the U.S. Senate? Should we admit new states, and even redraw state boundaries, as we did in every generation until Alaska and Hawaii’s admission in 1959? Should we rethink electing presidents by state rather than population?

These are knotty questions, but our democracy will only survive if we debate and pursue serious reforms. Prior generations from the Founders to the Civil War to the Progressive Era worked through these problems imperfectly in their times. We must do the same.

As I visited our beautiful Western lands, I renewed my love of America, my appreciation for the courage of pioneers, and my wish to see this legacy renewed and rejuvenated. We must overcome our fears of change and pursue serious political reforms to preserve our national bounty. That is the real American exceptionalism: the vast lands and the firm commitment of its peoples to equal political participation.

Also see in:
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Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

By Jeremi Suri

Mount Rushmore is the most American monument. It explodes out of the lush, green Black Hills, towering more than one thousand feet above the landscape. Improbably, the pensive faces of four presidents — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt — stare out from the mountain top. They look over our heads. They neither exult nor scowl, but remind us how serious this all is.

What makes Mount Rushmore so American is how it sits within the beautiful, rough, mountainous South Dakota terrain — a frontier setting still like what settlers encountered in the century before work on the monument began in 1927. It is a sparsely populated space where the greens and browns of nature continue to overwhelm the senses. There are no skyscrapers or big cities anywhere close. Although it required enormous energy and industry for Gutzon Borglum and his team to build this giant monument, you see little evidence of oil and steel around the natural stone that comprises the presidents’ faces and the rocky pile below them.

The presidents are not depicted as gods, warriors, or geniuses. They look very human and imperfect. Their eyes are keen and curious. This is no Mount Zion or Mount Olympus. The presidents are extraordinarily ordinary — they have reached highs of accomplishment from common foundations.

Crowds of visitors reenact the magic of the ordinary in American society when they visit each day. During my recent visit, sun-burnt motorcyclists, cranky children, and awed foreigners walked around the monument. The setting was informal, with most people in shorts and t-shirts. Admission was free and welcoming to all. And no one was told what to think. The space encourages reflection on the presidents, the country, and the future, but there is no rigid guidance.

Visitors are prompted by the somewhat haunting faces to think freely and individually, and I heard fascinating cacophonous conversations about politics as we roamed around. The monument actually says little explicitly about the presidents and their policies — we are asked as citizens to make sense of it all. It is a civil, happy, democratic space. And the sale of ice cream makes it all fun, even for the cranky children.

Mount Rushmore is on Sioux land, stolen from them. When the monument was declared finished in 1941, the United States was still legally segregated under Jim Crow. The monument does not deny these truths; it encourages us to reflect on the contradictions that each of the presidents struggled with in their own lives. Their stern faces tell us they are still struggling.

I love Mount Rushmore because it challenges us all to live up to the dreams of these men for a better democracy. They look out at us, humbly and zealously, without guns, gold, or any other gilding. The presidents ask us to live up to their high aspirations, to find something deeper in ourselves and our society than the stuff we argue about most days. They are not gods, but, yes, they are prophets, inspiring us to act with more purpose.

Also see in:
German, Turkish, Chinese, Spanish

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

By Harral Burris

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?

-Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell, 1970

The short answer: nobody knows. Recessions are notoriously hard to predict. The economy is still growing, albeit at a slowing rate. Early second-quarter numbers show a 1.5% annualized expansion, not thrilling, but at least positive, while unemployment stands at 4.2% with steady payroll gains and a low quits rate. Inflation sits at an elevated 4.5% and is at best stable.

At the July meeting, a divided Federal Reserve voted to hold the federal funds rate at 3.5%-3.75%. Employment seems steady, but with slowing GDP growth, it might not take much of a rate rise to send the economy into negative growth.

On the other hand, several economic indicators are still flashing green. Initial jobless claims are low, and manufacturing production numbers have been in expansion for the last six months. How much of that expansion is AI-driven is not clear.

Wall Street analysts and the IMF put the probability of a recession at 20%-30%, although their track record for predictions is terrible. Of the 60 recessions in various countries since 1989, only two were forecast. Since 1968, there have been 23 quarters of negative growth in the U.S., and yet not a single analyst called a drop.

A simple yes-no prediction should produce a roughly 50% hit rate by chance. Well-trained economists have produced something a whole lot worse than random. It’s so bad it looks rigged, because it is, sorta.

Most analysts, either explicitly or implicitly, have a bullish bias. The Wall Street types understand that their bosses want a growing economy and that a bearish prediction could be a career-limiting decision. Even if there’s no professional connection between an analyst and the likes of Goldman or JPMorgan, there is still a huge reputational risk in calling for a recession and then being wrong. A call like that can stay with you for life, while being wrong with the herd never hurts a year-end bonus.

Key indicators are still positive. The yield curve, the difference between short-term and long-term yields, remains positive. An inversion, when the 2-year note begins to yield more than the 10-year bond, has preceded every U.S. recession since 1968, with only one false positive.

Credit spreads, the gap between junk bond yields and Treasury yields, tend to widen meaningfully before recessions. The current level is slightly elevated but not close to recessionary levels.

Based on these indicators, a recession is likely not imminent. Still, while no one knows the future direction of the economy, there are clear risks that bear watching.

The Iran war widens into a true regional conflict.

Global stocks of gasoline, and especially diesel and jet fuel, are quite low, and strategic reserves have been drawn down to critical levels. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be an off-ramp for either side. The Houthi rebels have at least partially shut the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the all-important Hormuz Strait remains open by Iranian invitation only.

An oil spike north of $100 would hit inflation and consumer spending just before the Fed’s September meeting. An oil price shock coupled with slowing consumer spending is the most direct path to stagflation.

The Fed is forced to hike into a slowing economy.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh would rather not put his boss on the warpath so early in his tenure, but there’s a level of oil price shock and inflation spike that simply can’t be ignored, at least if he wants to keep a scintilla of respectability. Central banking rules say that raising rates when the economy is falling is not recommended. Stagflation is a cruel mistress.

The AI boom goes bust.

AI is a marvelous thing, but whether it’s profitable in its current configuration is still an open question. If either OpenAI or Anthropic admits that Chinese competition is making its path to profitability difficult, the data center buildout could stall, along with all those construction jobs and tech hardware purchases. A significant reduction in AI capital spending would remove the economy’s primary growth engine, with no obvious replacement.

The labor market suddenly softens.

Labor market growth has already lost considerable momentum, down to 60k per month from the 200k pace of 2023-2024. A further softening, whether from AI data center buildouts, white-collar job losses from AI adoption, or tariff-related manufacturing disruptions, would turn off consumer spending and send growth expectations south quickly.

The bond vigilantes express growing concern regarding levels of federal debt.

At current levels, the federal deficit is roughly 6-7% of GDP, with total debt sitting at 128% of GDP. The only other time federal debt levels came close was in 1946, at the end of WWII, when it stood at 119% of GDP. During the war years, the government spent $2 of borrowed money for every $1 of tax revenue; financing the war consumed 40% of GDP at its peak, but Rosie the Riveter’s paychecks never bounced. This time, tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, coupled with out-of-control entitlement and defense spending, caused the imbalance.

The whataboutism crowd likes to point out that Japan’s debt load is an astounding 260% of GDP, while Greece comes in at 177% and Italy at 145%. Still, Japan built up its debt over a 30-year slowdown when rates were almost zero, and I for one don’t want the U.S. compared to the examples of Greece or Italy. Regardless of what goes on in Rome or Tokyo, the U.S. spends $1.33 for every dollar of tax revenue it collects. That is not good, and it might not be sustainable.

At the moment, the economy is still growing, the indicators are mostly green, and analysts rate the odds of a recession as low. Still, there are storm clouds on the horizon, and the risks are converging: a war with no end in sight, an AI boom yet to prove profitable, a labor market losing momentum, and a bond market beginning to smell blood in the water. Nobody rings a bell at the top. The economy just quietly slows to a crawl and stops. We’re not there yet, but the combined risks say we’re closer than we’ve been in years.

And always remember: hope is not a strategy.

Hal is a retired investment professional with 40 years of experience in money management. The interface between geopolitics and global investments has always been his area of specialization. History has always been one of his interests and passions, in fact, that’s how Hal and Jeremi became friends in Madison, Wisconsin.

By Jeremi Suri

I had the opportunity this week to visit the brand new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. It is not a federal institution, but a non-profit created by wealthy benefactors and the state of North Dakota. Although Roosevelt was born in New York and spent most of his life there, he traveled to the very difficult-to-reach Medora, North Dakota, because that is where the scion of a wealthy family frequently went to escape the city and find himself, especially after repeated tragedies in his life. The Badlands were his Jerusalem, his sacred land for finding meaning and purpose.

Now, I admit that I was skeptical about how well a museum project like this one, in our partisan times, would handle the biography of our nation’s most pugnacious and often misunderstood president. I feared a showcase of chest-thumping cheerleading for American dominance. I also worried that the exhibits would be used to justify current policies or their opposite.

The museum avoided these traps, and it exceeded my expectations. I encourage everyone to visit, if they can make the trek. This new narrative of Theodore Roosevelt’s life has a lot to teach us.

The museum is built around one theme above all others: service. Roosevelt’s father, Theodore Sr., devoted himself to charities and helping the less fortunate. He taught his son to do the same. Although often sickly, young Theodore strived to improve himself and make a mark on the world by improving the lives of other citizens, especially those who could not help themselves. From his earliest days in the New York state legislature, this blue blood investigated the experiences of less privileged citizens, and he worked on policies that would address their needs.

Roosevelt formulated some of the most far-reaching legislation that improved the conditions of labor, the safety of food, and, of course, the health of our environment. He also supported the growth of business and industry. Far from perfect, Roosevelt was a pragmatist committed to working across philosophies and parties to raise the quality of American life. He valued knowledge, expertise, and real results – not just talk, even though he surely talked a lot.

Roosevelt was also an unabashed imperialist, and often a militarist. He was the small man who relished opportunities to show how he could bully others, especially struggling Caribbean states. He assumed American “civilizational” superiority, especially over dark-skinned peoples. Roosevelt believed in international law, but it was Western international law.

What makes this whirling dervish of a politician so fascinating is that he never stopped trying to make things better. He might have been misguided at times, and he surely had an overinflated ego, but he defined success by improving the world for fellow Americans. Money did not drive him, nor did the distribution of power and other goodies to family and friends. He wanted to prove he was a great man by doing great work. He epitomized Max Weber’s famous argument that American protestants sought to show their “chosenness” for salvation in the next world by improving this one first.

That approach does not guarantee success in repairing our society. Again, Roosevelt made many mistakes. That approach does, however, offer a path to restoring trust, hope, and commitment in our democracy. If we believe that our fellow citizens and politicians are sincerely striving to improve the world, we can respect them when we disagree, and we can find common ground to cooperate across differences. We need not deny ourselves to show that we are driven to make our mark by helping to raise those around us.

When Roosevelt famously spoke about the importance of getting “in the arena,” he captured this attitude – the attitude we need to cultivate today. Those of us with advantages must try hard not to just replicate those advantages, but to spread them to others. We must think beyond ourselves and find glory in that. And we must be willing to fail, often because of resistance, and try again.

The new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Museum is a much-needed antidote to cynicism. There is an alternative in service, and it is a way of life we all can choose. I can’t do better than quote Roosevelt’s famous words:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Also see in:
German, Turkish, Chinese, Spanish

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

By Harral Burris

When people say the 10-year Treasury note is “rising,” they mean investors are demanding a higher return to lend money to the U.S. government for ten years. U.S. Treasuries are considered among the safest investments in the world, but ten years is a long time, and the modern world is an unsettled place.

The 10-year Treasury note yield closed at 4.69% on Friday, July 24, 2026. In this month alone, yields have surged from 4.49%, a move of 20 basis points in three weeks. This rise is rapid and unusual, and it has rattled stock and bond markets globally.

What’s Pushing Yields Higher

Inflation and inflation expectations. Rising inflation reduces the real, inflation-adjusted return on bonds, so investors demand higher yields to compensate. In the current environment, an oil supply shock combined with relentless tariff pressure is fueling inflation expectations and pushing bond prices down (and yields up).

A growing chance of a Federal Reserve rate hike. At the just-completed July meeting, the Fed elected to keep rates unchanged, but the odds of a September hike remain elevated. When the Fed is expected to hike, the entire yield curve shifts upward since investors won’t accept a 10-year note yielding 4% if the Fed funds rate might be 4.5% by fall. The term premium, the extra compensation investors demand for bearing the inflation risk of longer-dated bonds, has been climbing all year and still has room to run before reaching its historical peak.

The unwinding carry trade. Roughly a third of U.S. government debt is held by foreign investors, and some of that money is heading home. For years, a massive global trade has worked like this: investors borrow Japanese yen at near-zero rates, convert the yen to dollars, hedge the currency risk, and invest the proceeds in higher-yielding U.S. Treasuries. This suppressed U.S. yields by propping up demand for Treasuries. But as Japanese rates rise and the yen strengthens, the trade no longer works. In fact, it’s now running in reverse. Yen borrowers are selling U.S. bonds to repay their yen loans, adding more Treasuries to the global supply.

Deficits and debt-spiral risk. As interest rates rise, interest payments consume an ever-larger share of the federal budget. With borrowing costs approaching expected GDP growth rates, the risk of a debt spiral and fiscal crisis is growing. Investors are demanding higher returns for what they see as increased risk. The U.S. must now issue more than $2 trillion in new debt each year, and that figure keeps climbing.

The government has run a budget deficit for more than two decades, dating back to the tax cuts of the early 2000s, and continuing through the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic. Yet even now, with inflation down from its post-COVID peak and jobless claims at their lowest level since 1969, the government continues to issue more bonds. Over time, that isn’t sustainable. As Treasury supply grows faster than demand, yields rise further. As the government rolls over maturing bonds at those higher rates, the cost of servicing the national debt climbs again, reinforcing the cycle. Absent a substantial increase in tax revenue, the U.S. risks a debt spiral in which debt-service costs crowd out essential government services, ultimately forcing some combination of higher taxes, spending cuts, or inflation that erodes the value of existing debt.

Fading safe-haven status. Global bond markets are showing signs that U.S. government securities are losing their once-undisputed status as the world’s safe haven. Historically, when markets got nervous or geopolitical risk flared, money flowed into Treasuries, pushing yields lower, but not this time. Even with two active wars and a tense South China Sea, Treasury yields are rising as the dollar weakens against a basket of foreign currencies. As rates rise and U.S. government securities issuance appears increasingly out of control, that offshore capital is at risk of being repatriated amid concerns about political instability and an out-of-control federal budget.

How Weakness in Treasuries Affects the Real Economy

If rates keep rising, the stock market could come under pressure since higher rates typically act as a headwind for equities. The 10-year yield is the risk-free rate used in discounted cash flow models, so higher yields reduce the present value of future earnings and put downward pressure on the price-earnings multiples investors are willing to pay. Higher borrowing costs are also a net negative for most businesses, which face higher loan costs and lower profits. Rate-sensitive sectors like real estate, utilities, and high-growth tech tend to perform poorly in rising-rate environments.

It isn’t just Wall Street that feels the pinch. The 10-year yield is the benchmark that shapes borrowing costs across the broader economy. Mortgage rates are directly tied to it, and auto loans, corporate bonds, and other forms of credit all get more expensive as it rises. Consumers, facing higher rates on credit cards and car loans, tend to pull back on spending, putting further pressure on economic growth.

Ultimately, today’s rate surge reflects a convergence of forces: trade imbalances that have been building since COVID, energy-supply disruptions dating back to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sustained tariff pressure, and now war with Iran and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Stagflation Risk

All of these threads converge on a worst-case scenario called stagflation: stagnant economic growth, elevated unemployment, and persistently high inflation occurring simultaneously.

Stagflation is dangerous because the standard policy tools work against each other. Central banks normally fight inflation by raising interest rates, which cools growth and demand. They fight weak growth by cutting rates, which can fuel inflation. When both problems show up together, there is no simple solution. Raising rates to tame inflation could tip a fragile economy into recession, while cutting rates to support growth risks letting inflation run further out of control. The last time the nation was faced with this set of circumstances, in the 1970s, it took the better part of a decade to right the ship.

Current circumstances have several of the ingredients that produced stagflation before: an energy supply shock, tariff-driven cost pressure feeding into higher consumer prices, and a central bank that will need to keep rates high (or raise them further) even as higher borrowing costs slow the economy. Add a heavy and growing federal debt load, and the room for American policymakers to maneuver narrows further.

None of this means stagflation is inevitable. Inflation could cool if energy prices stabilize or tariff pressures ease. The labor market’s current resilience is a buffer that wasn’t available in the early 1970s. But the direction of the last few weeks is exactly the kind of pattern that shows up in the early stages of stagflation. It is worth watching closely in the months ahead.

The Federal Reserve has serious work ahead of it and a president who does not intend to let it act independently. I am old enough to remember former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, who tamed inflation after the 1970s. Kevin Warsh is no Paul Volcker, but at least around the economy and Iran, Trump’s presidency is beginning to resemble Jimmy Carter’s…

Hal is a retired investment professional with 40 years of experience in money management. The interface between geopolitics and global investments has always been his area of specialization. History has always been one of his interests and passions, in fact, that’s how Hal and Jeremi became friends in Madison, Wisconsin.

Yesterday, Zachary published another sharp analysis in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, this time on Milwaukee County's "housing first" program and the federal funding cuts that could end it. We have published an excerpt below to share some of Zachary's important analysis. Find the full story here.

In recent years, Milwaukee County has quietly become a nationwide model for homelessness services and affordable housing programs. But now, county officials warn, that success could be in jeopardy thanks to the Trump administration.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development opposes “housing first” policies like Milwaukee’s. They say that permanent housing programs for the homeless only encourage dependence on government and discourage self-sufficiency.

Now, the Trump administration is trying to redirect federal funds for permanent housing — the source Milwaukee County relies on to support its housing efforts — to shelters and other temporary programs.

“It’s been a very cool ride the last couple of years. It’s a shame it’s going to end,” housing director James Mathy said, adding he fears a sharp rise in homelessness as a result.

Milwaukee County’s Housing Division is one of the only housing departments in the country to combine federally funded housing vouchers, development funding, and behavioral health support under one department, Mathy said. This approach brings together multiple federal funding sources, allowing for more coordination.

Public-private partnerships are also critical to the county’s success in getting homeless people off the streets, Mathy said. The downtown business district pays the salary of a county outreach coordinator who works to find homes for those living on downtown streets.

Outreach coordinators meet homeless where they are, help them tour properties and sign a lease. Instead of trying to force homeless individuals into shelters, Milwaukee County is able to offer homeless individuals a wide array of temporary and permanent housing options in neighborhoods across the city. Soon those options might include the factory that built the shovels that dug the Panama Canal.

Everything we publish is free, and that isn’t changing.

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That work is more personal than a masthead makes it look. Before a column goes out, I’ve checked its claims against primary sources and edited it line by line. Before a weekly recommendation list reaches you, I’ve read, watched, or listened to everything on it. I’m also a doctoral researcher, and this publication is part of how that work gets supported. When you pay for a subscription, you’re not funding an abstraction called “independent media.” You’re also funding my ability to keep doing this carefully, on top of a dissertation.

I don’t think the case for that needs inflating.

American democracy and U.S. foreign policy are hard to analyze well right now, and that will still be true next year. But the honest reason I’m asking is simpler: this is my work, I care about doing it right, and right now a small group of paid subscribers is covering the cost of that for everyone who reads for free.

If something we’ve published this year has been worth your time, I’d ask you to become one of them.

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By Jeremi Suri

Rich, powerful countries often lose wars. History is filled with examples. What matters is not the outcome of the war, but what you do afterwards. Let’s remember that the German states were soundly defeated by Napoleon in the early nineteenth century, but they reformed under Otto von Bismarck to lead the continent militarily, economically, even culturally less than a century later. It is not fatal to lose a war.

What is far worse is staying in a losing war and compounding the costs. That is what brought Germany down during the First World War, and what led to the rise of fascism among a suffering and resentful population. One essential rule of strategy is to recognize losses when they occur, accept them, and move on. Don’t turn losses into quagmires by doubling down on the same flawed tactics and assumptions. That sounds tough, but stubbornness sinks the state. The best leaders surrender when necessary, so they can fight again.

These are the current circumstances for the United States in Iran. Donald Trump attacked Iran on February 28, 2026. Since then, the United States and Israel have struck more than 13,000 targets inside Iran with the most sophisticated bombs and rockets. They killed Iran’s leader and most of his top advisers. For months, they have limited Iranian oil exports – the country’s largest traditional source of revenue.

So far, eighteen American soldiers have died, and more than six hundred have suffered injuries in this war. Iranian missiles have caused extensive damage to numerous American bases in the region, and they have exposed continuing vulnerabilities. Military operations have cost the United States at least $37.5 billion, probably much more. The Pentagon has depleted as much as half of its most advanced missile stockpiles, and it will take years to replenish them.

Iran has stopped America’s allies in the Persian Gulf from shipping oil, gas, fertilizer, and other vital commodities through the Strait of Hormuz, reducing world supplies by as much as twenty percent. Businesses, farmers, and consumers everywhere are encountering inflated costs. And now the Houthi allies of Iran in Yemen are threatening to close off an alternative shipping route in the Red Sea. Like Iran, the Houthis have a resilient missile arsenal to terrorize shipping in their vicinity. The United States has failed repeatedly to eliminate enemy missile capabilities.

Trump continues to claim that Iranian leaders will accept some “deal” to reopen shipping and give up their nuclear weapons program, which the United States has also failed to eliminate. At every turn, Iran has continued to fight instead. And the regime continues to rebuild its military capabilities, tighten its control over long-suffering citizens, and inflict costly damage on America’s military and the world economy. The pain for the United States and its allies is rising, and the war remains deeply unpopular, even among Trump’s Republican base.

There really is no way to concoct a “victory” story for the United States in Iran so far. There are no signs that things are going Trump’s way. In fact, all signs indicate the war is getting worse for the United States each day. Trump seems desperate to get out of this war, but he keeps threatening to “hit them harder.”

Each move in that direction makes it more difficult to get out. That is another lesson from history: you cannot shoot yourself out of a losing war. Presidents surely tried in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan…

History offers only one productive path for Trump at this point: he must admit that we have lost in Iran. That is hard for any leader, but Trump has a cabinet of advisers who are even less popular and respected than he is. Trump should start by targeting Secretary Pete Hegseth for his atrocious leadership of the Pentagon and his horrible management of the war. Every senior military officer I know secretly shares that judgment, as do most members of Congress.

Trump and the American people have been poorly served by civilian leadership in the Department of Defense that has misunderstood the enemy, poorly prepared for this conflict, and then lied repeatedly about it. To accept defeat, the president should blame and remove his civilian military advisers, replacing them with people of serious qualifications. Anyone have Robert Gates’ phone number?

The White House should push to end the war and return to the status quo before it all began. That involves a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz for global shipping again. That also requires an end to all attacks on Iran, in exchange for Iran ending all of its rocket and drone strikes in the region. The Iranians will surely demand something else – after all, they correctly feel like they are winning. Trump should offer to begin lifting sanctions on their oil exports, and he should release some of their money still held in American and other foreign banks. These are serious concessions to Iran, but they serve U.S. interests more than continuing a losing war.

If anything, the war has reduced American leverage over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Washington has failed to destroy it, and its aggression has illustrated to the Iranians why they need nuclear weapons. They recognize that we have never dared to attack a nuclear-armed North Korea in the same way. The best we can hope for is to slow Iran’s nuclear program through covert operations, export controls, and other negotiated offers later. Right now, Trump is best served by letting that issue go. He can blame Hegseth for that too.

Strong, rich countries can afford to lose wars because they have the resources and resilience to redirect their power to better purposes. Our long-term strategy should be to change the oppressive, terrorist-sponsoring Iranian regime through measures short of war – including opening the society to economic and cultural penetration from the West, which most Iranians desire. That is a long-term strategy with no guaranteed success, but it is much better than continuing a losing war that only promises a continued multiplication of failures.

Real leaders recognize failure and move on. It is Trump’s best and only option.

If he doesn’t have the chutzpah to take this medicine, his successor surely will. But then, the loss in Iran will overshadow everything else. President Zohran Mamdani will thank Trump for it.

Also see in:
German, Turkish, Chinese, Spanish

Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the University’s Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Professor Suri is the author and editor of eleven books on politics and foreign policy, most recently: Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy. His other books include: The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office; Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama; Henry Kissinger and the American Century; and Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente. His writings appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Atlantic, Newsweek, Time, Wired, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other media. Professor Suri is a popular public lecturer and comments frequently on radio and television news. His writing and teaching have received numerous prizes, including the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas and the Pro Bene Meritis Award for Contributions to the Liberal Arts. Professor Suri hosts a weekly podcast, “This is Democracy.”

By Harral Burris

If Gulf oil producers cannot transport their product through the Strait of Hormuz, they will find another route. There is an old saying: “If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.” When a situation cannot be changed to suit your purposes, you must adapt.

Across the region, governments and oil companies are aggressively rerouting crude oil away from its natural path through the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudis are expanding their East-West pipeline to the Red Sea. The UAE is building a pipeline to its port of Fujairah, outside the Strait entirely. Iraq is planning a new pipeline that would reach the Syrian port of Baniyas on the Mediterranean. In all, seven pipeline and infrastructure projects are either under construction or in the final stages of planning. What was once a purely commercial conversation has become a matter of national security.

Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that by the end of next year the new pipelines could carry enough oil to replace 45% of what Gulf producers currently ship through the Strait of Hormuz. By the end of 2028, that number rises to 60%.

Japan aims to be part of the financial solution. Shunichi Kito, president of the Petroleum Association of Japan, confirmed that Middle Eastern producers have formally requested Japanese involvement in funding pipeline expansions. The investment makes strategic sense as Japanese refineries are configured for sour Middle Eastern crude and would require significant and costly modifications to process sweet U.S. shale oil efficiently.

The trans-Arabian project is coming together quickly. Money is not a problem, and there are no permitting delays or NIMBY issues. Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, is not a man whose infrastructure projects face public protest. MBS has a well-documented history of dealing decisively with those who cross him, as Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi discovered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Expect these pipelines to be completed in record time.

The UAE is pressing ahead on a parallel track, accelerating construction of a second pipeline to double capacity to the port of Fujairah. The $3 billion project is already 50% complete and is expected to come online sometime next year.

Outside the Arabian Peninsula, Chevron has signed an agreement with the Iraqi government to build a pipeline connecting Iraqi crude to the Mediterranean coast through Syria. The U.S. State Department has welcomed the Iraq-Syria agreement that makes the project possible. Chevron has yet to commit money since agreements between Baghdad and Damascus can have a short shelf-life.

The alternative routes are not risk-free. Pipelines terminating at the Red Sea face potential blockage at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where Houthi rebels, under the direction of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have already demonstrated the ability to attack passing ships. Pipelines terminating at Mediterranean ports send oil into a well-supplied European market or force expensive transits through the Strait of Gibraltar and around Africa to reach Asian refineries.

The Bab el-Mandeb situation is deteriorating. Houthi rebels have already fired missiles and drones at a Saudi airport. They have now imposed a navigation ban on Saudi tankers, threatening to strike Riyadh’s main airport and the kingdom’s oil infrastructure. Their drone and missile stockpiles are dispersed across Yemen’s mountainous terrain, and operational decisions rest with the IRGC on the ground. President Trump has continued targeting bridges and electric plants in Iran, making the closure of the Bab el-Mandeb inevitable. At the same time, strikes on the refinery and port complex at Yanbu, which is currently operating at capacity and constitutes the Saudi kingdom’s primary alternative export channel, cannot be ruled out.

Oil heading north from Yanbu through the Suez Canal reaches Europe, a shrinking market well supplied from other sources. Oil destined for Asia must run the Houthi gauntlet at the Bab el-Mandeb before reaching Asian refineries thousands of miles away. Neither route is easy or secure.

In the long run, the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz may be remembered less for causing a global oil crisis than for accelerating a permanent restructuring of how crude oil moves around the world. The seven bypass projects now underway are not a temporary workaround but a generational infrastructure shift, one that would have taken decades to execute under normal commercial conditions.

The Strait of Hormuz will never again be an open waterway. The world will not revert to the old map because the strategic calculus has changed. The chokepoint that empires have fought over since the Persians faced the Greeks will hold fewer of the world’s economies hostage than it did before the war began.

What emerges from this is not a world without chokepoints, but one with more of them. Hormuz concentrated the risk in a single strait that a lone actor could threaten. That risk will now be spread across pipelines, ports, and new shipping facilities from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

This is not a solution, but rather a trade-off: the global economy trades one large vulnerability for many smaller ones. Producers who spent the last several decades betting everything on one waterway now understand that dispersion is a better method. Dispersion may be imperfect, but it will be permanent – or, until advances in renewable energy make the whole exercise redundant…

Hal is a retired investment professional with 40 years of experience in money management. The interface between geopolitics and global investments has always been his area of specialization. History has always been one of his interests and passions, in fact, that’s how Hal and Jeremi became friends in Madison, Wisconsin.

By Barry S. Kahn

With fans brandishing jerseys bearing their nation’s colors and performance on the pitch serving as a proxy for each nation’s standing on the world stage, the World Cup is more than a sporting event. Small nations like Cape Verde and Curaçao use it as a stage to garner global awareness, while perennial powers like Spain and Argentina take the opportunity to assert global dominance. This combination of national pride and fandom creates a sense of community unlike almost any other event on the planet.

So when ticket prices became a barrier to entry, the public outcry was loud and swift.

For an event built upon inclusion and belonging, being told that you can’t enter the building creates a sense of exclusion—the contrast is too great.

But regardless of pricing, not everyone can attend.

New York City, the site of the final, has over 20 million people. MetLife Stadium has a capacity of just over 80,000. Even with 8 matches and under the unrealistic assumption that every ticket was issued to a different resident—with no seats reserved for sponsors, media, dignitaries, or other visitors—only 3% of the city’s population would ever set foot inside the stadium.

In Kansas City, with its far smaller metropolitan area, that figure rises significantly. But it still could not seat even one in five of its residents.

Such a strategy would also minimize the economic benefits of tourism.

Any method for allocating scarce inventory involves tradeoffs. To evaluate those tradeoffs, there needs to be clarity about the objective.

The challenge is that the stakeholders naturally have different priorities. FIFA is an international organization with a different set of objectives than the host nations and cities. It alone receives the revenue from ticket sales. Meanwhile, cities have their own priorities and spend large sums to host the event.

By way of example, Toronto published a budget of CAD 380 million (~USD 275 million) to host five group-stage matches and one knockout match. There were 15 other host cities, some—such as New York—hosting more consequential, and likely more expensive, matches. Across the three host countries, the federal governments also committed approximately USD 500 million each in support.

That is public money, collected from taxpayers, to fund a global spectacle from which cities receive no direct revenue. So what is it that cities are hoping taxpayers and residents receive for their investment?

Hotel occupancy tax is the normal metric for the value brought to a city by a large-scale event—one that local boosters use to justify tax breaks provided as an incentive for event organizers. Local sales taxes and transit revenues are other metrics considered when evaluating the impact of live events. Individual business owners—hoteliers, restaurateurs, and shop-owners—all stand to benefit as well.

But incremental taxes don’t offset the full bill. And business owners are a small minority of the population. This is not to ask whether cities should devote public funds to stage major events or to build new stadiums for professional sports franchises. That is another debate.

The question is what those cities should be asking in return. Should they be optimizing for locals, maximizing visitors, or pursuing another objective entirely?

Kansas City provides the best window into how this has played out in practice. Its fan fest was 54% local compared with 46% tourists, about a quarter of whom traveled internationally to attend. Inside the stadium, those numbers shifted as 20-30% of attendees were international. Perhaps the free fan fest was the intended benefit to locals while visitors attended the matches.

But Kansas City may be a unique case. Arguably the soccer capital of the United States, it is not a major tourist hub, and hosting the World Cup offered it significant international exposure. But for a city like New York or Los Angeles, already among the world’s leading cities, that branding benefit carries less weight. The value proposition is not the same for every city—a reality reflected in decisions by cities such as Chicago and Las Vegas not to pursue hosting.

That leaves every city its own question to answer. Is hosting primarily a marketing expense? An opportunity to maximize tourism? A boon for local business?

Or should it be creating an experience for the people who ultimately were responsible for paying the bill—allowing residents to participate in the event itself?

In the lead-up to this World Cup, many host cities publicly expressed frustration with the agreements they had signed. As operational plans became more concrete, several realized that they had committed to more than they had anticipated. The opportunity to host the World Cup had been compelling enough that many cities focused more on securing the event than on defining what they wanted in return.

But competition is not as fierce as it once was to host such international spectacles. The 2030 and 2034 Men’s World Cups were awarded without competing bids. The same holds true for the 2031 Women’s World Cup.

Cities have the opportunity to advocate for what they value. The priorities they advance–and their ability to secure them–will shape how access is allocated.

But first, they need to decide what they are trying to achieve—and who they should serve.

Barry S. Kahn is Principal of Kanmoa Expert Strategy, where he advises clients and serves as an expert witness on ticketing, pricing, and the live events industry. Previously, he founded Qcue, the pioneer of dynamic pricing in live entertainment. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin and a BS in Applied & Engineering Physics from Cornell University.