What Caught My Eye (no. 42)
Some interesting articles and podcasts that caught my eye this week
Here’s this week’s edition of articles I thought worth reading and sharing. Don’t hesitate to recommend your own reads; I may include some as well.
Tim Wu, Could America win the AI race but lose the war? Financial Times, December 12, 2025. The Columbia Law School professor and former Biden official well known for his technology policy commentary, argues that the massive, singular financial bet on Artificial Intelligence may be a strategic mistake compared to China’s more diversified approach. While Silicon Valley pours hundreds of billions into a "quasi-religious" pursuit of superintelligence, China is hedging its bets by dominated tangible "future" sectors like electric vehicles, batteries, and green energy. Wu warns that the U.S. risks falling into a trap of corporate groupthink and speculative "alchemy" that could leave it economically vulnerable if AI returns become incremental rather than revolutionary. Ultimately, he suggests that America’s obsession with winning the AI race might result in losing the broader contest for global economic pre-eminence.
Peggy Noonan, Trump May Be Losing His Touch, Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2025. The Journal columnist writes that President Trump is becoming increasingly disconnected from the economic anxieties of everyday Americans as he focuses on grand legacy projects and foreign missions. She suggests that while the President celebrates his own performance, voters on the ground are feeling "tremors" of instability and financial pressure that his administration is failing to address. This perceived distance, compounded by controversial aesthetic changes to the White House and a reliance on an insular circle of advisors, indicates that he may be losing the intuitive political "touch" that originally fueled his populist appeal. Ultimately, Noonan warns that this detachment could alienate his base as the reality of high prices clashes with the administration's optimistic rhetoric.
Jeffrey Gettleman, Hari Kumar, Agnes Chang, and Pablo Robles, with photographs and video by Atul Loke, How Did the CIA Lose a Nuclear Device? New York Times, December 13, 2025. In a brilliant piece of journalism, The Times’ correspondents describe how, in 1965, the CIA and Indian intelligence attempted to plant a nuclear-powered monitoring device atop the Himalayan peak Nanda Devi to spy on Chinese missile tests. However, a massive storm forced the team to abandon the equipment. The plutonium-fueled generator was subsequently lost in an avalanche and remains missing today, sparking long-standing fears that it could eventually contaminate the headwaters of the Ganges River. This investigative report relies on new interviews and declassified documents to reconstruct the harrowing mission and the failed, secretive search efforts that followed. Decades later, the "nuclear ghost" of Nanda Devi continues to haunt the region as climate change increases the risk of the device being unearthed by melting glaciers.
Philip Stephens, Making sense of international order, Inside-Out, Substack Newsletter, December 13, 2025. The former FT commentator examines the breakdown of the post-Cold War international order, arguing that the world has shifted from a rules-based system toward a period of volatile "polycrisis." He highlights how the erosion of Western hegemony and the rise of revisionist powers like China and Russia have created a fragmented landscape where traditional diplomacy often fails to contain localized conflicts. Ultimately, Stephens suggests that navigating this new era of disorder requires a realistic acknowledgement that the old stability is gone, replaced by a complex struggle for influence in a multipolar world.
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart brilliantly compares Trump Administration’s language and arguments on Venezuela to Bush Administration’s arguments in the sunup to the Iraq War.
Joe Parkinson, Rebecca Ballhaus, Drew Hinshaw, Thomas Grove, Benoit Faucon, and Yaroslav Trofimov, How Putin Got His Preferred US Envoy, Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2025. “Steve Witkoff, a billionaire real-estate developer and longtime golfing partner of Donald Trump, was just days into his job as the new president’s special envoy to the Middle East when he received a tantalizing message from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Vladimir Putin was interested in meeting Witkoff—so interested that he might consider releasing an American prisoner to him. The invitation came from a Kremlin moneyman named Kirill Dmitriev, using the de facto Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, as an intermediary. There was just one thing: Witkoff would be expected to come alone, without any CIA handlers, diplomats or even an interpreter, a person familiar with the outreach said.” — So begins another brilliant piece of Journalism, describing how the Russians succeeded in making Steve Witkoff their unsuspecting envoy for Ukraine.
Anton Troianovski, The Putin Confidant Who Pushed Back Against the War, New York Times, December 18, 2025. The Times’ long-term Moscow correspondent reveals that Dmitri Kozak, a longtime senior aide to Vladimir Putin, has emerged as a rare internal critic who warned against the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and subsequently faced political sidelining. Drawing on leaked documents and interviews, the article details how Kozak’s preferred strategy of using diplomatic pressure and the Minsk agreements was discarded in favor of total war, a move he reportedly viewed as a catastrophic strategic error. Despite his disagreement with the Kremlin's path, Kozak remained within the government until his resignation last September, illustrating the complex dynamics of dissent and loyalty among the Russian elite during the ongoing conflict. His story provides a unique window into the fractured opinions within Putin's inner circle regarding the invasion's necessity and execution.
Peter Baker, Trump Takes America’s ‘Imperial Presidency’ to a New Level, New York Times, December 21, 2025. The Times’ chief White House correspondent provides a must-read overview of how President Trump has rapidly consolidated executive power during his first year back in office, moving to dismantle traditional checks and balances within the federal government. By leveraging loyalist appointments and aggressive legal theories, the administration has asserted unprecedented control over the civil service and federal agencies, a shift critics describe as the dawn of a truly "imperial" presidency. Baker details how this centralization of authority has allowed the White House to bypass congressional intent on key policy fronts, ranging from immigration to national security. Ultimately, Baker suggests that these structural changes are fundamentally reshaping the American system of government, potentially creating a new blueprint for executive dominance that could last long beyond the current term.
Finally, in case you missed it here are links to some of the things I did and wrote this week.
I wrote about the supposed breakthrough on security guarantees for Ukraine on America Abroad, raising doubts about how serious the Trump Administration really was
I spoke to the Harvard Gazette about the prospects for peace in Ukraine.
Finally, this week’s World Review focused on the escalation in Venezuela, negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, and Trump’s faltering efforts as peacemaker.
Happy reading, watching, and listening!