Mostly things on Russia and Ukraine but not exclusively.
1) Robert Kaplan discusses whether the West should tolerate some dictatorships (Bloomberg Opinion). I disagree, broadly, with the content of this article, but it is thought provoking and worth reading. The reason I disagree is that the "exemplary" autocracies that Kaplan describes are actually societies in the midst of the slow and gradual process of graduating to the status of democracy. The West has a moral duty to push along these evolutions rather than adopting a complacent attitude that is tolerant of autocracy for reasons of expediency - thereby risking their entrenchment. Of course, we should remain realistic about the prospects for poor countries to evolve into democracies rapidly. The Isaiah Berlin quote included in the article ("“Men who live in conditions where there is not sufficient food, warmth, shelter, and the minimum degree of security can scarcely be expected to concern themselves with freedom of contract or of the press.”) is spot on - which is precisely why a high income is a precondition for sustained democracy. But dictators should not be lulled into the misconception that their regime constitutes the endpoint of their societies' histories.
2) Andy Mukherjee on India's geopolitical choices (also at Bloomberg Opinion). Here, I agree with the author. But I think India is likely to continue maintaining a sort of middle way, which is in its short term interest. Whether the decades-long gradual untethering of India from Russia - and its concurrent rapprochement with the US - will continue, is the real issue. I hope India chooses alignment with the West, but I am not confident in predicting that it will.
3) An in-depth Wall Street Journal article on the 20-year history that led to the Russia-Ukraine war. The photos are particularly telling, including one of President George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport, Maine, and another of Macron, Merkel, Zelensky and Putin in Paris in 2019. Recommended.
4) On Darrick Hamilton and Baby Bonds. An inspiring life story, and a politically feasible proposal to tackle the dearth of wealth that holds back disadvantaged people. Now written into law in Connecticut, and considered in other states as well. Questions that remain are: 1) how to finance a full-fledged program, 2) how to study what people with do with the entitlement, given that (unlike for UBI) any experimenter would have to wait 18 years to find out, and 3) how to create a bipartisan political coalition to support the generalization of the idea. The latter is a particularly daunting problem, not because conservatives would necessarily oppose the proposal (as the article correctly points out, the idea of baby bonds is compatible with conservative principles), but mostly because the proponents have adopted positions that are very politically patterned (on the left) and so are unlikely to be effective in appealing to the other side.
5) Larry Summers on the Ezra Klein Show. This is a listening, not a reading. Readers of this blog know that I am partial toward Larry Summers, and in this podcast he does not disappoint - with wisdom on many subjects including inflation and the other ills that afflict America (I wish he had spoken more about education policy as one of the major solutions to these ills). Ezra Klein's show is one of the very best podcasts out there on all matters political/economic. I have become a regular listener.
6) A Russian perspective on the current conflict. A little too gloomy and pessimistic, in true Russian form. Also full of hubris: Russian elites seem to believe their country can be a great power, despite an economy the size of Spain's, stagnant fertility and a mere 144 million inhabitants that are fast ageing. This remains a mystery to me - the fundamentals just aren't there.