LATEST ANALYSIS:
America’s Self-Obsession Is Killing Its Democracy
The U.S. still has a chance to fix itself before 2024. But when democracies start dying—as ours already has—they usually don’t recover. Brian Klaas writes for The Atlantic.
Brian Klaas on why we choose the wrong leaders
Brian Klaas discusses why the corruptible are drawn to positions of power and how we help put them there in an interview with The New Statesman.
Putin’s mistake was to discard the velvet glove
Until this year, 21st-century dictators have generally avoided pariah status by employing spin rather than violence to pursue their ruthless aims. David Patrikarakos writes about where Putin has gone wrong for The Spectator.
If the West looks away now, Russia WILL triumph.
David Patrikarakos writes for The Daily Mail: Ukraine is losing hundreds of troops a day and yesterday another vital city fell. Yet the EU still seems to care more about Putin's gas.
Turkey — NATO’s Disruptive Ally
Of all the countries playing a part in the Ukraine crisis, Turkey is perhaps the most difficult to read. Aslı Aydıntaşbaş speaks to Arthur Snell on Doomsday Watch to discuss what Turkey and its president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are trying to achieve.
Tunisian Exceptionalism: Kais Saied and the Democratic Condition
Karl Karim Zakhour writes for InsideArabia about how Tunisia’s brand of populism reveals important implications about the nature of democracy and the inherent threats to it.
‘Businesses are a lifeline for dictators’: In conversation with Brian Klaas, professor of global politics at UCL
Brian Klaas tells Sebastian Shehadi in an interview for Investment Monitor how the Ukraine war heralds a new era for the relationship between democracies and autocracies. Business as usual cannot go on.
It’s Time to Beat Putin at Poker and Call His Bluff
Jason Pack writes for Foreign Policy that Putin’s disordering leadership style cannot be understood through the metaphors of chess or martial arts, but by viewing the current confrontation between the West and Russia as a game of televised poker.
Vladimir Putin Has Fallen Into the Dictator Trap
Brian Klaas writes for The Atlantic on how and why Putin, a man recently described by Donald Trump as a strategic ‘genius’, miscalculated badly by invading Ukraine.
Author Talks: Why your boss may indeed be a psychopath
McKinsey Global Publishing’s Author Talks chats with Brian Klaas, who speaks to some of the world’s most corrupt people and says we need to rethink the way we select our leaders.
Why Putin Is Playing Poker, Not Chess
Jason Pack writes for New Lines Magazine that Russia and the West are now at war. And the delicate dance leading to conflict between nuclear powers is a form of poker, not chess. Putin is used to bluffing and stealing the pot.
Struggle over legitimacy in Libya begins third period of dueLling governments
Jonathan Winer explains for the Middle East Institute how Libya has ended up with two parallel governments led by Bashaagha and Dabaiba, and what can be done to address this political unrest.
Why we always get the wrong political leaders — and how to get the right ones
Power attracts those most likely to abuse it and then makes them worse. So how do we stop voting for narcissistic psychopaths? Brian Klaas explains for The Times.
Prosecuting Trump and his Accomplices: Their Crimes and the Laws They Broke
There was indeed a conspiracy to invalidate a lawful presidential election, but what laws did Trump break and how can be prosecuted? Jonathan Winer explores for The Washington Spectator.
The Prospect Interview #208: Brian Klaas: Does power corrupt or do the corrupt choose power?
When most people are decent, why are there so many bad leaders, politicians and CEOs? Are despots made or born? Brian Klaas discusses his new book, Corruptible, with The Prospect Podcast.
Does Power Corrupt?
Brian Klaas writes for Foreign Policy on how the corrupting nature of power and how selfish behaviour we see exhibited in world leaders and criminals alike can be explained through parking tickets, bankers, and even bees.
World War Xi
What are the forces that shaped China’s paramount leader? Will his psychological make-up, and his belief that his country has been robbed of its rightful place, lead inexorably to confrontation with the West? Arthur Snell examines Xi Jinping, the mind behind the unstoppable rise of China, on Doomsday Watch.
Road Map for a Constitutional Coup: The Republican Plan for Legislative Nullification of the Popular Vote for President
Jonathan Winer explains in The Washington Spectator how the efforts of Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn the 2020 elections were a multi-front attack.
The toxic side-effect of the Trump Twitter ban
David Patrikarakos writes for The Spectator on the wider ethical and even philosophical ramifications of Twitter shutting down Trump’s account following the storming of the US Capitol.
America’s allies despise Trump — and that’s a threat to NATO
Brian Klaas writes for The Washington Post on how Trump’s deepening unpopularity in the other countries of the West is becoming as much of a threat to NATO as to Trump himself.