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Foreign policy is the conduct of the nation’s government in relations with other countries. It encompasses a wide variety of activities including diplomacy, defense policy, foreign aid, and national security. Its broadest meaning includes the promotion of America’s values abroad and the development of international institutions that reflect American interests.

Despite globalization, foreign policy remains one of the most challenging, complex, and vital tasks facing the United States. Ultimately, the question is not whether or not the United States should engage in foreign policy; rather, the question is how to best pursue its goals in a rapidly changing world.

Americanists see great virtue in the fact that America’s primacy allows it to set its own goals unconstrained by other nations, international agreements, or institutions. As Charles Krauthammer puts it, “An unprecedentedly dominant United States must reassert its freedom of action.”

Globalists, by contrast, believe that in an age of rapid change, the world needs to create new institutions and regimes that reflect a growing number of voices. As the architects of the European Union, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and International Monetary Fund demonstrate, a more diverse approach to global governance can reduce the chances of cultural and political tactics that sap the strength of the world’s greatest power.

The reality is that the world faces many serious challenges and problems, ranging from climate change to nuclear proliferation to regional instability in Asia. Both Americanists and Globalists are right that it is important for America to continue building partnerships throughout the world to address these challenges, but to do so successfully requires that Washington upholds democratic values while promoting economic growth. Upholding democracy and human rights requires speaking out against abuses in China, Iran, and Russia; maintaining laws that prohibit the provision of security assistance to abusive regimes; and employing a full range of policy carrots and sticks to encourage democratic development and hold rights violators accountable.

Across the globe, growth has slowed this year as higher tariffs and ongoing policy uncertainty slow investment and trade. Weaker global GDP growth is projected to persist this year and next. However, our analysis suggests that a reduction in global trade restrictions and less policy uncertainty could lift world GDP by 0.2 percentage points over the course of 2025 and 2026.

The largest component of GDP is C (consumption), which includes the purchase of durable and nondurable goods and services by households, such as food, jewelry, gasoline, and medical expenses. Another important component of GDP is I (investment). I includes expenditures on fixed assets by businesses and individuals, such as machinery and equipment. It also includes the value of any government investment in infrastructure.

While GDP is an important indicator of economic performance, it has limitations. For one, it relies on recorded transactions and official data, and it does not capture the extent of informal or unrecorded economic activity. In addition, it does not take into account certain phenomena that impact citizens’ well-being, such as pollution from traffic jams or the contribution of unpaid labor. As a result, alternative measures of economic development have emerged. These include the Human Development Index and the Better Life Index, which are designed to measure aspects of well-being that go beyond GDP.

Economic stimulus refers to monetary and fiscal policies that are implemented by governments in order to boost the economy. These policies may include deficit spending and lowering taxes. These policies can be used to help combat a recession or slowdown by encouraging private-sector growth.

Monetary stimulus, which is most often carried out by central banks, usually involves lowering interest rates so that it becomes cheaper to borrow money. This encourages people to spend more money, which can stimulate the economy. Fiscal stimulus, on the other hand, is a more direct government effort. For example, the government may offer tax credits or lowered payroll taxes as a way to spur consumer spending. This can help businesses, which then hire more workers and produce more goods. This creates a virtuous cycle of spending, which can then help the economy grow and avoid a recession or slowdown.

However, some economists are skeptical of economic stimulus efforts because they may not work. For example, they might not work if consumers don’t actually spend the extra money they are given by the government. Also, deficit-funded spending can cause higher borrowing costs, which would make it harder for businesses to obtain financing and increase their debt burdens.

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A State visit is a formal visit by the head of state (or their representative) of a sovereign country to another sovereign country. State visits are primarily characterised by an emphasis on official public ceremonies.

Visiting heads of state are welcomed by the monarch (or, when he or she is not present, his or her Lord-in-Waiting). The host monarch and/or government act as official hosts. The visit can also include a parliamentary element, with the visiting head of state or prime minister being invited to speak in both Houses of Parliament if desired.

As part of the visit, the visitor is usually greeted with an arrival ceremony at the Palace. This may include an inspection of the guard of honour, followed by a welcome from the monarch and the visiting head of state or prime minister.

After a tour of the Palace, the visitor is hosted at a State banquet. This is a formal occasion, with around 150 guests invited on the basis of their cultural or diplomatic links with the country being visited.

Depending on the programme of the visit, other ceremonial events might occur, such as the rekindling of an Eternal Flame at Yad Vashem (a typical component of a visit by the emperor and empress of Japan) or a wreath-laying ceremony at a memorial to those who lost their lives in wars fought between the two countries. Sometimes, the Royal Collection arranges an exhibition of themed items for visitors to view – such as when the King and Queen hosted the emperor and empress and the amir sheikh and sheikha of Qatar in 2024.

Invasion refers to a large-scale military operation in which the armed forces of one geopolitical entity enter another territory with the intent of conquest or occupation. This can occur within the framework of a war or as an independent conflict. Invasions typically result in the reshaping of the culture and political landscape of the invaded nation.

Invasions may be carried out by land, sea, or air, with each method having arguments both in favour of and against it. Invasion by air usually entails the use of aircraft to transport troops into the target country, or it may involve the dropping of troops from an aircraft. In the past, invasions by sea or land were often accompanied by other forms of attack on the target in order to “soften up” the country and deprive it of resources; such preparations have been referred to as an act of preemption.

Land-based invasions have been used since the invention of warfare, often involving a straightforward crossing of borders or other demarcated zones. Invasion by land can be complicated by the existence of defensive emplacements and structures, which can prove difficult to overcome. Communication between the invaders and defenders has historically been crucial, and the development of voice or morse code communication has allowed even small units of skirmishers to relay defensive positions to their commanders.

Arguments in favour of an invasion by sea usually include the ability to perform a surprise attack from sea, or that the defences of the target nation are insufficient to repel such an attack. The logistical problems associated with this form of invasion, however, have made it a rare form of invasion.

Ethnic cleansing (from the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and Latin suffix cide, meaning killing) describes extreme forms of violence and persecution motivated by racial or ethnic animosities. In the most precise sense, it involves the indiscriminate expulsion or mass murder of members of a particular group in order to alter the population composition in favor of another, often through destroying their religious and cultural monuments, places of worship and cemeteries. Ethnic cleansing can occur during international armed conflicts as well as in times of peace, and can be punished under the Statute of the International Criminal Court if certain preconditions are met.

The term was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. He developed it in response to the genocidal policies of the Nazis against Jews during World War II and other examples throughout history, including the destruction of Carthage by the Romans, the massacre of Poles in Volhynia by the Soviets in 1943, and the forced expulsions of the indigenous populations of Bosnia and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

In 1948, the UN General Assembly passed the Genocide Convention and made it a crime under international law. It has been ratified by 153 States. The ICJ has established that the prohibition on genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (or ius cogens), and States cannot deviate from it. However, the distinction between genocide and other types of mass atrocities is contested by many experts, and has become an issue of ongoing debate.

The last year has been a tumultuous one for cryptocurrency and digital asset markets, with volatility and scandals contributing to trillions in losses. As such, calls for improved regulatory protections have become a lot louder.

Regulations can help balance innovation with investor and consumer protection, financial transparency, and systemic stability. Governments have begun asserting clearer authority over how crypto is issued, traded, and taxed.

For example, the U.S. recently passed the GENIUS Act and other legislation to provide more robust regulation of stablecoins and digital assets, with requirements for full reserve backing, monthly audits, and anti-money laundering compliance. Meanwhile, the EU’s unified Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation aims to reduce regulatory fragmentation by defining how blockchain assets are treated under relevant securities and commodities laws.

At the state level, New York has established a comprehensive set of regulations for digital assets that provides a friendly environment for market participants, while ensuring customer protection. Other states have passed or proposed more restrictive rules that treat digital assets as property for tax purposes, while also requiring money transmitter licensing and imposing Know Your Customer norms.

Federally, the CFTC retains jurisdiction over digital commodity markets, while the SEC has authority over ICOs and other offerings that qualify as securities. The pending CLARITY Act would further clarify these roles and provide greater coordination between federal agencies. Additionally, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) continues to apply its sanctions compliance standards to transactions involving crypto.

War crimes are serious violations of international humanitarian law that can be committed in the course of armed conflict. They are punishable by both domestic and international tribunals. They include acts of murder, extermination, enslavement, imprisonment or deportation or forcible transfer of population, torture, grave forms of sexual violence and cruel treatment.

In the past, armies regularly behaved brutally to their enemies and civilians during armed conflict and whether they were punished depended on who won the war. At the end of World War II the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis and the mistreatment of prisoners of war by the Japanese led to a change in attitudes. The victors of World War II made a commitment to prosecute anyone they suspected of war crimes and the UN established four different treaties and conventions that became known as the laws of war.

These treaties are a significant body of international law that defines what is permissible in armed conflict and limits the means and extent of violence that can be used by belligerent nations during war. They are also designed to limit the extent of harm that can be done to civilians and property.

The law of war was further developed by subsequent international conferences including the Hague Rules for War at Sea of 1899, the Geneva Conventions of 1907, the First Geneva Convention Relating to the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded and Sick Members of Armed Forces at War of 1929 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. These conventions and their Additional Protocols form the core of international humanitarian law, which has been further developed by customary international law, human rights law, and the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The Civil War, a four-year conflict that preserved the nation as one country and ended slavery—the system that had shaped the South’s economic life from its inception—cost more American lives than any other war in the nation’s history. It also transformed the country, turning a decentralized republic into a centralized government that taxed people directly, drafted men into military service, created an internal revenue bureau and national bank, established a federal court system, confiscated billions of dollars in personal property (by emancipating slaves), and consolidated power at the top by confirming cabinet secretaries and a Supreme Court justice.

The war began with Nat Turner’s bloody slave revolt in Virginia in 1831, the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery bestseller “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in 1852, and John Brown’s raid on a federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Abolitionists convinced many Northerners that slavery was morally wrong, but they were unable to change the nation’s political structure so that the Constitution could be amended to ban slavery in the United States.

Starring Kirsten Dunst and featuring performances from Narcos’ Wagner Moura, Lady Bird’s Stephen McKinley Henderson, Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny, and Nick Offerman as a tyrannical President, Alex Garland’s Civil War depicts a near-future United States ravaged by secessionist violence. The film follows Lee, a jaded photojournalist who travels with two younger colleagues, a Southern journalist and a rookie photographer, to Washington, D.C., where they hope to interview a President who hasn’t spoken to the press in more than a year.

Stock market volatility can be a source of investor anxiety and fear. But a well-diversified portfolio, including stocks and bonds, can help reduce the impact of volatile markets on your financial goals.

Volatility refers to how much the price of an investment (like a stock, mutual fund, or exchange-traded fund) moves up and down over time. An asset’s volatility may be influenced by its past performance, its expected future returns, or both.

A stock’s volatility is typically expressed as the standard deviation of its daily price movements over a defined period, such as a month or a year. This measure is then annualized by multiplying it by 16 (the square root of 256), which approximates the average number of trading days in a year. Alternatively, a stock’s volatility can also be measured by its beta, which compares the fluctuations of the stock to those of the overall market or an appropriate index.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange created the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), a key gauge of 30-day expected volatility conveyed by options prices on the S&P 500 Index. The VIX is widely used by traders to gauge the riskiness of investing in the US stock market.

Investors can reduce their vulnerability to market turbulence by working with registered investment professionals—check FINRA BrokerCheck to see if a person is licensed to sell securities—and sticking to a comprehensive financial plan. It can also be helpful to maintain a diversified portfolio and to avoid chasing the market, either during a downturn or in a recovery.