Editor-at-large, World Politics Review. Spent more than a year in Provence. Used to be an American in Paris. Currently bringing coal to Newcastle. https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/ @wpr.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3mlbbvn6fws2bIf the deal remotely resembles what's being reported (a huge if), the US will have bought back the status quo ante at the cost of giving Iran an enormous new and permanent source of deterrent leverage (Hormuz) in exchange for massively but temporarily degrading Iran's infrastructure. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-sees-swift-end-war-iran-reviews-us-peace-proposal-2026-05-07/07 May 2026 13:07 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlbbvn6fws2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3mlaynfiauc2mThinking about the role played by geography in state behavior and state systems, and the fundamentally different experiences between crossroads states and states isolated by geography, as well as between states at the extremities of land masses and those within them. 🧵07 May 2026 10:22 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlaynfiauc2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3mlay253w5k2mIn reading this discussion of Byzantium, I couldn't help but think that the decline of cosmopolitanism, the embrace of know-nothingism and the vilification of knowledge of the other in the U.S. during the Trump era are all symptoms of the decline of U.S. empire.07 May 2026 10:11 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlay253w5k2mhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml7mjx3hck2rWhat a match, what a series. Elite football. The only flaw tonight was the officiating.06 May 2026 21:12 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml7mjx3hck2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml6wb44vdk2xI'll say this about Obama. He was the first person I ever voted wholeheartedly for, even if the 2nd time was less enthusiastically. I supported most of his policies, even as I found their impact to be unsatisfying. I then developed an antipathy toward him days into his post-presidency. And yet...06 May 2026 14:34 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml6wb44vdk2xhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml6rrscbqc25If you haven't been following Guatemala, this is huge. Porras had been central to efforts by the establishment (known as the pacto de corruptos) to keep Arévalo from taking office and, failing that, to block his agenda. This won't guarantee reform but it removes a major obstacle to it. https://apnews.com/article/guatemala-attorney-general-arevalo-porras-corruption-3d16abc099d8cec656dc375dc9c4dc9906 May 2026 13:13 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml6rrscbqc25https://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml6gxu7xtc2fWait, is it Friday COB already?06 May 2026 10:00 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml6gxu7xtc2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml6gqnsats2fJust realized it's now been longer since I quit smoking than the time I smoked. It took multiple attempts, some lasting weeks, some years, before I made it stick. The trigger for me was realizing I was as addicted to quitting as I was to smoking and equally sick of both. It's hard, but possible!06 May 2026 09:56 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml6gqnsats2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml6frqf2nc2jMan, nothing makes you feel old quite like having to scroll down further and further each time to reach your year of birth on those dropdown menus.06 May 2026 09:39 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml6frqf2nc2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml6fgxhiik2jThis made me think of the early medieval papacy and Christendom as a rough analog of the U.S. and the liberal international order: Simultaneously a set of rules and norms generating horizontal power across states and an ultimate authority exercising vertical power above states.06 May 2026 09:33 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml6fgxhiik2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml65j55les2bI did not realize Bolloré had bought Fayard and Grasset as well. I hate him most for making me now feel the urge to defend the French publishing industry. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/opinion/french-publishing-grasset-olivier-nora.html06 May 2026 07:11 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml65j55les2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml54mdqfek2zI once described waiting for the 1 Train at the 181st St station in Manhattan as being as close as you can get on Earth to one of Dante's circles of hell, it's that deep. (I've never described the ridge on which Prospect Park is located as a "big pile of dirt," though.) [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 May 2026 21:22 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml54mdqfek2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml4okbf5kk2zAnyone check in on the Easter Bunny lately? [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 May 2026 17:10 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml4okbf5kk2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml4nzgxunc2zJust got the eldest this one for his 25th. Got there after he left for vacation, he still doesn't know it's waiting for him when he gets back today. [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 May 2026 17:01 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml4nzgxunc2zhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml4c2ecgpk2vIt's disconcerting to see this rush among US liberals to adopt Roman virtues to replace political progressivism as a mobilizing narrative. As I put it earlier, that argument's political salience in the US context is one of racial/racist reaction, where Thiel cut his teeth in the 80s at Stanford. [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 May 2026 13:27 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml4c2ecgpk2vhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml3wfhn2xc2jEasy to forget because the timing was off (it always is) and France never got its EU partners to buy into it, but the Union pour la Méditerranée was one of Sarkozy's major initiatives. These were taken at the Bastille Day parade in 2008. [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 May 2026 09:58 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml3wfhn2xc2jhttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3ml3ryvcb422cTo add another reason the Iran war was such a strategic blunder, the reconstruction of Syria (and Gaza) was predicated on Gulf money. That was ambitious prior to the war given how overstretched Gulf budgets already were. Now there's less money and a need for it at home. Major regional implications.05 May 2026 08:39 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3ml3ryvcb422chttps://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3mkzx2z6v5c25I was just reading today about Roman jurisprudence, and it occurred to me that all societal rules are ways to solve for the problem of virtue being inconsistent and unreliable as a human quality. And yet the emphasis here on the Western canon makes me uneasy, as does the contempt for liberals. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/opinion/public-schools-politics-democracy-minnesota.html04 May 2026 15:05 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkzx2z6v5c25https://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3mkzu2twsp226Great piece on the resilience of African economies and the factors explaining it, by by @kopalo.bsky.social, who takes a more sanguine view of the SAP period's legacy than I've usually seen. Definitely worth reading in full. https://www.ft.com/content/d84cc813-777b-4729-9784-7c6d2bdb04aa04 May 2026 14:11 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkzu2twsp226https://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3mkztkqin7s26"Luxon said he ⁠would welcome interest in the framework of the deal from like-minded countries, given the challenges of ​the geopolitical shift from a multilateral world guided ​by rules ⁠to a multipolar one driven by power." This is what I was getting at on the podcast & what I argue in the book. [contains quote post or other embedded content]04 May 2026 14:02 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkztkqin7s26https://bsky.app/profile/judah-grunstein.bsky.social/post/3mkxtmwrrmk2fI've been thinking a lot recently about how easy it is right now to accept the fundamental primacy of power, or to put it the other way around, how hard it is right now to insist that ideas really do matter. Without effort, times of crisis and disruption can make realists of us all. [contains quote post or other embedded content]03 May 2026 18:58 +0000at://did:plc:bnwgpceahml6a7nemat4ouac/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkxtmwrrmk2f