The Booker dilemma: inside US Army transformation - Global Defence Technology | Issue 153 | June 2025
Officially, the M10 Booker is a ground combat vehicle.
selected writing
recent work
Trump's Ukraine Peace Is a Bust. He Is Still Transforming the War.
In recent days, Russia has bombarded Ukrainian cities with some of the largest air strikes since the start of its invasion three years ago.
DOGE Destroyed America's Ability to Respond to Myanmar's Disaster
On March 28, a magnitude 7.7-earthquake struck Myanmar (also known as Burma), near Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.
“Are We Still Friends?”: How Donald Trump Is Unraveling the Western Alliance
European officials were bracing for a more adversarial America ahead of the Munich Security Conference, a diplomatic gathering that has traditionally been a showcase for the Western alliance.
feature reporting
Golden Dome: Smart strategy or risky business?
Imagine that tensions between the United States and a nuclear-armed adversary are intensifying.
How the US helped protect a $20B promise to Ukraine ahead of Trump
In October 2024, the World Bank approved a new fund for Ukraine.
What Happened to Germany’s Climate Movement?
Last year, Katharina Kewitz, a 26-year-old from Lübeck, northern Germany, joined fellow climate activists for a meeting with bus drivers.
Italy’s Plans To Process Migrants in Albania
At the edge of a flat expanse of pavement, several small ships were moored side by side.
Ukraine's Summer of Uncertainty
LVIV – Andriy Kravchuk and Nazar Bihun want to make this a war between devices.
What to Make of Europe's Far-Right Spike
UTRECHT, Netherlands – At last Thursday’s election party for the Netherlands’ left-wing coalition, not losing felt almost as good as a dominating win.
The Party That Could Shake Up German Politics
STUTTGART, Germany—At a rally organized around Germany’s newest political party on May 25, those in the crowd seemed most eager to talk about what was wrong with the country’s other parties.
At the Venice Biennale, Ukrainian Artists Examine the Many Realities of Russia’s War
In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, civilians seemingly mobilized overnight.
Poland’s democracy is on the brink. Can these elections save it?
WARSAW, Poland — “We have been talking that these are the most important elections since 1989, which was the first partly free elections since the fall of communism,” Jakub Kocjan, a rule of law campaigner for Akcja Demokracja, a Polish pro-democracy organization, told me from his apartment in Warsaw, less than a week before parliamentary elections that may determine the democratic future of Poland.
2023 was the year the US finally destroyed all of its chemical weapons
The United States’s Chemical Warfare Service readied hundreds of thousands of mortar shells and artillery rounds filled with mustard gas in the 1940s.
How Russia’s invasion transformed one Ukrainian city
In Kharkiv, you hear the boom first. Later, the air-raid siren blares.
Can a 50-year-old treaty still keep the world safe from the changing threat of bioweapons?
GENEVA — Venomous Agent X is a deadly nerve agent, though you likely know it by another name: VX.
Europe’s unprecedented response to Ukrainian refugees faces new challenges
BERLIN — People fleeing Ukraine arrive at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof on every train from Warsaw, volunteers say.
Why firewood is suddenly in high demand in Germany
PUTZBRUNN, Germany — Konrad Kötterl lights another cigarette, which seems risky in a barn full of firewood.
Public transit for nine bucks a month? Germany tried it.
MUNICH, Germany — Maybe you buy the 9-Euro-Ticket to travel from Saxony to Bavaria to go to the Helene Fischer concert in Munich.
Why thousands of Afghans are still on US military bases
One set of clothes took Enayatullah Sadat from Nimroz province, in the southwest of Afghanistan, to Fort Pickett, a United States military base in Blackstone, Virginia.
Germany’s (sort of) change elections
BERLIN — The release of one of the first election exit polls showed Germany’s center-left Social Democrats with a slight lead.
How Senegal stretched its health care system to stop Covid-19
DAKAR, Senegal — Aissatou Diao talked about Covid-19 a lot.
A pandemic year in the life of a New York City block
Jesús Delgado and three of his employees are making tortillas like they’ve been doing every day for the past month.
Why C-SPAN’s quirky call-in show has endured for 40 years
The Senate had just rejected witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, and for those who had feelings about it, there was a phone number for “guilty,” another for “not guilty,” and another for “undecided.”
Meet the Future Voice of the Brooklyn Nets. Maybe.
Things you learn at an open-call public-address announcer audition in a dead-quiet basketball arena: An accent — be it Brooklyn or Jersey or vaguely Australian — can disappear into the boom of the mic.
Abandoned North Brother Island Might Finally Have (Legal) Visitors Again
North Brother Island is a 20-acre speck off the Bronx in the East River.
Why You Can’t Go Here: NYC’s Perpetual Public-Toilet Problem
A decade ago, New York City made a deal for 20 automated public toilets — APTs, for short — to be installed in all five boroughs, at the behest of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen
Then-22-year-old Steuer worked at the University of Massachusetts and met Cosby there after he gave a lecture in 1978.
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news reporting and explainers
Israel Is Starving Gaza
Israel has blocked aid from reaching Gaza since March 2. It has cut off new supplies of food, fuel, and medicine to more than 2 million people for more than two months. Israel is starving Gaza as it continues to bombard it, attacking the remaining infrastructure left that people need to survive, and displacing more than 400,000 civilians since Israel broke the ceasefire in March.
Gavin Kelleher, humanitarian access manager in Gaza with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on a press call wi...
Gavin Kelleher, humanitarian access manager in Gaza with the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on a press call wi...
Friends like these: US vs Europe - Global Defence Technology | Issue 152 | April 2025
In March 2025, the outgoing Portuguese Defence Minister questioned his country’s potential purchase of F-35s amid concerns around the United States’s reliability as an ally.
What The Hell Is Going on With Ukraine Negotiations?
As a candidate for president, Donald Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.
JD Vance Makes the Case to the World on Why No One Should Invite Him to Anything
Munich, Germany – Vice President-ish – the hierarchy is confusing these days – J.D. Vance just whiffed on his first major foreign policy speech at the Munich Security Conference.
Trump Might Take the Whole World Down With Him
As America threatened to return Donald Trump to the presidency, and then did, the world braced itself for a return of “America First.”
How Biden Broke His Promise on American Arms
This week, after 15 months of war, the Israel-Hamas ceasefire went into effect.
So How Do We Save Democracy?
A little more than a year ago, in the fall of 2023, Poland held parliamentary elections.
The GOP's Lawsuit Against Overseas and Military Voters Failed, But Why Is It Even a Thing?
Election season can have familiar beats: lawn signs, the exact same political attack ad airing every time you watch a show, the “I Voted” sticker you get after finally submitting your ballot.
Iran Doesn’t Have Nuclear Weapons Yet. Israel Might Push Them Closer.
In July 2020, an explosion damaged a facility at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz.
Does the U.S. Even Want out of This Middle East War?
One year after Hamas murdered 1,200 and abducted hundreds more, and one year after Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment and starvation of Gaza killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, the war is unresolved and still expanding.
Europe Can Expect Continuity from Kamala Harris
In February of this year, at the Munich Security Conference, US Vice President Kamala Harris had the job of reassuring allies about the reliability of America’s global leadership.
A Lack of Aid and Water in Gaza Are Creating “A Catastrophe the Size of Which We Don’t Know Yet”
Searching for water, finding water, waiting for water, lugging the water in buckets and jerry cans: this is the daily struggle in many pockets of Gaza.
The Conflict in Sudan the World Forgot
“No place seems to be safe in Sudan now,” Fatima Ahmed said.
A Make-or-Break Year for a Ukraine in Limbo
It’s been a chaotic and contradictory week for Ukraine and its backers.
There are now more land mines in Ukraine than almost anywhere else on the planet
The sign is red, marked with a skull and crossbones and a warning: “Danger mines!”
An act of Congress could grant legal status to thousands of Afghan allies. What’s the holdup?
Two years ago, the Taliban marched into Kabul, the Afghan government collapsed, and the United States, already scheduled to depart on August 31, rushed to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies.
What to know about the $60 price cap, the plan to limit Russia’s oil revenues
A European ban and price cap on Russian oil went live this week, as the United States and its allies go after Russia’s all-important oil revenues.
Can Ukraine’s infrastructure survive the winter?
In Kyiv, residents prepare for daily blackouts.
Afghanistan’s staggering set of crises, explained
The markets in Kabul have food, but few can afford it. A sack of flour can cost about $40.
Why grain can’t get out of Ukraine
Approximately 20 million tons of grain sit in storage in Ukraine, with few ways out of the country.
Are sanctions against Russia working?
The United States and its allies imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The other members of Ukraine’s resistance
Tymofii Brik and his girlfriend spent Friday evening walking around their neighborhood in Kyiv, looking at the ground, at walls, and up at roofs
Oregon already votes by mail. Here’s what it can teach us in 2020.
Steve Druckenmiller loved voting, and he loved elections, but he really thought voting by mail was a crazy idea.
Trump’s purge of inspectors general, explained
“It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General,” President Donald Trump wrote to congressional leaders in a letter dated May 15.
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