Day: September 18, 2025

When Kansans think of the border wars, they tend to recall hard-fought battles on the hardwood and gridiron, with coaches named Brown and Stewart and players like Manning and Peeler. The real border war, however, was fought in fields, forests and farms and along the roads and railroads of eastern Kansas and western Missouri, in countless skirmishes and hit-and-run engagements that were far more brutal and consequential than the scuffles celebrated in the movies and on the sporting pages.

A new display at the British Museum lays out the world’s oldest recorded example of protracted boundary dispute, the fight between the city states of Lagash and Umma over a strip of land called Gishakidu or “Edge of the Plain.” As Rachel Campbell-Johnston writes in The Times, this conflict may have been one of the first armed conflicts recorded in history, and its settlement is documented on a stone pillar—perhaps the earliest known depiction of what we now call a no man’s land—erected by the king of Lagash.

Since 2020, when clashes along the 2,100-mile contested border between China and India killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers, the two sides have conducted 18 rounds of corps-commander level talks to limit unwanted escalation and establish military buffer zones. Yet such efforts have done little to disengage the two countries from each other, and sporadic armed clashes between troops still occur along the LAC. If tensions continue to rise, large numbers of troops near the border could be engulfed in full-scale conflict.

President Trump has launched a trade war that’s unlike any America has seen in decades. Against the advice of almost every professional economist, he has announced tariffs against most major economies. This shock could reshape global trade and supply chains, including your own company’s.

The President says he wants to use tariffs to reduce the gap between the value of goods the US buys from foreigners and those it sells to them – known as the trade deficit. He also says that it will encourage US consumers to buy more American-made products, increase tax collections and boost investment.

But economists say the opposite is more likely. Tariffs raise the price of imports, and higher prices reduce demand. In fact, the average household’s annual consumption drops by about 4% for each percentage point increase in the cost of their favorite imported brands. And the cost to companies of shipping those goods to consumers eats up profits and cuts corporate investment.

Business leaders are expressing serious concerns about the impact of the trade war on their prospects. A survey by the Business Roundtable found that CEOs have reduced their plans to hire and invest because of the tariff turbulence.

The economic consequences of a full-blown trade war are hard to predict. But the history of previous trade wars offers some clues. Most importantly, a successful diplomacy that achieves negotiated agreements will depend on carefully managing Trump’s mercurial nature. Otherwise, negotiating partners will be hesitant to make deals for fear that they could be undone by his next bombastic threat.