What Caught My Eye (no. 43)
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.
Edward Wong, Tyler Pager, Charlie Savage, Julian E. Barnes, and Maria Abi-Habib, “How Oil, Drugs and Immigration Fueled Trump’s Venezuela Campaign,” The New York Times, December 27, 2025. The Times details how overlapping agendas inside the Trump administration pushed the United States toward a militarized confrontation with Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed Nicolás Maduro as a narco-terrorist to justify pressure and possible regime change; Stephen Miller linked the campaign to mass deportations and revived wartime legal authorities; and Trump himself was driven by a desire to punish Maduro while preserving U.S. access to Venezuelan oil and countering China’s influence. The article portrays a secretive, improvised process in which oil politics, immigration hard-liners, and counter-drug rhetoric fused into an escalating campaign that now risks open conflict with Venezuela.
Daniel Michaels and Sune Engel Rasmussen, “China’s Push to Master the Arctic Opens an Alarming Shortcut to U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2025. Michaels, WSJ’s Brussels bureau chief, and Rasmussen, a WSJ foreign correspondent, report that China’s expanding presence in the Arctic has alarmed U.S. and NATO security officials. Beijing’s push to master Arctic navigation could shorten global shipping routes, unlock access to resources, and allow Chinese submarines to approach North America via a poorly defended northern flank. China’s Arctic ambitions threaten to upend long-standing assumptions about U.S. and allied security in the High North.
Paul Sonne, Anton Troianovski, Milana Mazaeva, Nataliya Vasilyeva, and Alina Lobzina, “How Russia’s War Machine Brutalizes and Exploits Its Own Soldiers,” The New York Times, December 31, 2025. Based on more than 6,000 leaked complaints to Russia’s human rights ombudsman, the Times exposes a hidden system of coercion, abuse, and lawlessness underpinning Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Commanders routinely force wounded, ill and psychologically traumatized soldiers back into combat, extort bribes, and mete out brutal punishments. The investigation shows how Russia sustains its war of attrition by terrorizing its own troops and their families while suppressing dissent through censorship and fear.
Andrew England, “How the UAE–Saudi Arabia alliance ruptured,” Financial Times, December 31, 2025. The FT’s Middle East editor describes how a Saudi airstrike on an alleged UAE weapons shipment to a Yemeni separatist group exposed deepening rifts between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Once close allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have drifted apart as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Mohammed bin Zayed compete for regional leadership and clash over Yemen, Sudan, oil policy, and economic influence. The Yemen crisis marks the most serious rupture yet, threatening broader regional stability and cooperation between the Gulf’s two dominant powers.
Chris Whipple, “Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the ‘Junkyard Dogs’: The White House Chief of Staff on Trump’s Second Term” Part 1 and Part 2, Vanity Fair, December 16, 2025. Whipple presents an unusually intimate portrait of Susie Wiles, the powerful White House Chief of Staff. Drawing on months of on-the-record interviews, Whipple’s bombshell article gives a unique look into the inner workings of the Trump Administration. The central question of the piece is not whether Wiles can restrain Trump, but whether she has any desire to do so.
Andrew Carter, Caroline Kubzansky, Gregory Royal Pratt, and Laura Rodríguez Presa, “After 64 Days, They Celebrated,” Chicago Tribune, December 2025. The Tribune chronicles Operation Midway Blitz, a 64-day federal immigration crackdown that transformed daily life across Chicago. U.S. Border Patrol agents conducted mass raids, used tear gas and pepper spray in neighborhoods, detained more than 4,500 people, and repeatedly targeted Latino communities. Despite claims that the operation focused on “the worst of the worst,” government data showed only a tiny fraction of those detained had violent criminal convictions. Through detailed reporting and personal stories, the article documents families torn apart, U.S. citizens wrongly arrested, immigrants “disappearing” through rapid transfers, and widespread fear that reshaped neighborhoods.
Matthew Purdy, “After Watergate, the Presidency Was Tamed. Trump Is Unleashing It,” The New York Times, January 2, 2026. Purdy, the New York Times’ editor at large, argues that Donald Trump’s second term represents a direct assault on the post-Watergate system of restraints designed to curb presidential abuse of power. After Nixon, Congress built guardrails such as inspectors general, whistle-blower protections, ethics offices, limits on war powers, and Justice Department independence to prevent the White House from weaponizing government for personal or political ends. Trump has systematically dismantled those safeguards, firing watchdogs, purging ethics officials, politicizing law enforcement, and blending presidential authority with personal financial gain.
Michael McKee, “Incendiary Inequality: ‘Nepo Kids,’ Nepal & the Gen-Z Uprising,” Bloomberg Television (Wall Street Week), December 6, 2025. Bloomberg’s international economics and policy correspondent reports that a youth-led protest movement in Nepal, sparked on TikTok by anger over inequality, corruption, and nepotism, exploded after the government abruptly banned social media. Gen-Z activists mobilized thousands, clashes turned deadly, and the unrest culminated in the collapse of the government. Placing Nepal alongside similar movements in Morocco, Madagascar, Kenya, and Peru, this segment argues that social media has intensified awareness of inequality and led to a new era of Gen-Z political power.
Finally, in case you missed it here are links to some of the things I did and wrote this week.
I wrote about what comes next in Venezuela on America Abroad, and if we are about to repeat the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I joined Chris Jansing on MS Now to discuss the appointment of Jeff Landry as U.S. Special Envoy to Greenland.
I spoke with Erica Hill on CNN about the progress of U.S.-led Ukraine peace talks.
I wrote in America Abroad on the revelations from the New York Times’ piece on the unraveling of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship.
I wrote in America Abroad on 2025 in review, a year of global upheaval and a growing substack community.
I wrote for Politico on Europe’s 5 stages of grief over the loss of the transatlantic relationship.
And World Review featured a special—my conversation with NATO’s Deputy Secretary General, Radmila Šekerinska.
Happy reading, watching, and listening!