The high point of Daniel Craig’s portrait of James Bond over five movies is undoubtedly the moment in Skyfall where Bond runs through London to rescue M, portrayed by Judi Dench, as she finishes her testimony in front of a select committee—assembled to put her and her agency out to pasture—with the closing passage of Tennyson’s Ulysses. The duality of meaning embedded in this sequence is profound. In the movie itself, the depiction of the ageing and wounded, but still capable, hero encapsulates the narrative arc of James Bond, who in Skyfall has almost literally come back from the dead to save his country. In a wider context, Tennyson’s closing lines can be seen as the saplings of a post-empire English identity, in which erstwhile grandeur and power have been replaced with grit, determination, and pride—and more distantly, with common sense, decency, and respect.
Read MoreDani Rodrik is disappointed with the way the world is responding to Mr. Trump’s wrecking-ball foreign and economic policy. Professor Rodrik opens with the argument that Trump’s policies are “misguided, erratic, and self-defeating,” lamenting that the rest of the world is only feebly resisting—failing to recognize that “imperialism must always be challenged – not accommodated – and that [this] requires both power and purpose.”
Read MoreGlenn Loury and John McWhorter are at their best when they disagree, and I enjoyed their discussion about the disastrous exchange between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky at the White House. Both agree that the U.S. is right to push for a negotiated settlement, which involves pressuring Ukraine to acknowledge its precarious position. However, they diverge on how this pressure was communicated and its potential repercussions. Glenn argues that Trump and the vice president rightly prioritized American interests by applying pressure on Zelensky, while John takes the opposite stance, framing his argument within a broader critique of the U.S. president and his administration.
Read MoreLast week, I questioned how seriously we should take the initial direction of Mr. Trump’s attempt to end the war in Ukraine—an approach that involves openly conceding to Russia’s demand for territorial annexation and a binding commitment to block Ukraine from NATO membership. This was followed by a bizarre attack on Zelensky on X, where the U.S. president accused his Ukrainian counterpart of being a dictator and of instigating the war. On Friday, scenes at the White House made it abundantly clear: we should take it very seriously indeed. On first glance, Noah Smith and Niall Ferguson were right, and I was wrong. The fates of the key players in this drama are deeply intertwined and will converge soon enough, but it’s worth examining them separately.
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