What Caught My Eye (no. 11)

Some interesting articles and podcasts that caught my eye this week

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Here’s this week’s edition of articles that I thought worth reading and sharing. Don’t hesitate to recommend your own reads; I may include some as well.

• Edward Luce, Trump’s assault on the rule of law: ‘the speed and intent is remarkable’, Financial Times, March 21, 2025. The FT’s US Commentator dissects the remarkable rapidity with which the Trump administration is turning the law into an instrument of executive power.

• Yaroslav Trofimov, What Is the Endgame for Ukraine? Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2025. The Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent examines historical examples of how wars end, with a cameo appearance of yours truly.

• David Sanger, How Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill, New York Times, March 22, 2025. The Times’s national security correspondent details how the many rash cuts and changes instituted by Doge provides an opening for China to seek advantage over the United States. It’s “unilateral disarmament,” he quotes one analyst.

• Marc Daalder, What the Royal Commission really said about the Covid response, Newsroom, March 24, 2025. A detailed look at how New Zealand dealt with Covid, which it did better than just about any other country in the world, by a reporter who covered the story from day one. (And, yes, we are related.)

• Simon Shuster, Exclusive: Zelensky on Trump, Putin, and the Endgame in Ukraine, Time, March 24, 2025. The first interview by a US journalist with Zelensky since that dreadful Oval Office meeting provides an insightful view of how the Ukrainian president felt and what he took away from it.

• Jeffrey Goldberg, The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans and Goldberg and Shane Harris, Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal, The Atlantic, March 24 and 26, 2025. The bombshell stories that shook the Trump Administration and the world, detailing what was said in that Signal chat and how a journalist got access to the chat.

• Selam Gebrekidan and Joy Dong, The Scammer’s Manual: How to Launder Money and Get Away With It, New York Times, March 23, 2025. A detailed look at how Cambodia has become the money laundering capital for scammers around the world.

Finally, in case you missed it here are links to articles I wrote, interviews I did, and a synopsis of my weekly podcast on world news.

• NATO Without America, Foreign Affairs, March 28, 2025.

• What Signalgate really tells us, Politico Europe, March 28, 2025.

• About that Signal Chat ..., America Abroad, March 28, 2025.

• World Review: Signalgate Blows Up, Turkey in Crisis, Vance Visits Greenland, America Abroad, March 28, 2025.

Happy reading and listening!