Author: TheConversation

By Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University A hastily arranged summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin was set for August 15, 2025, in Alaska, where the two leaders discussed a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was not invited to attend. Politics editor Naomi Schalit interviewed longtime diplomat Donald Heflin, now teaching at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, to get his perspective on the unconventional meeting. HOW DO WARS END? Wars end for three reasons. One is that both sides...

By Xinyu Huang, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina Flooding from hurricanes Helene and Milton inflicted billions of dollars in damage across the Southeast in September and October 2024, pushing buildings off their foundations and undercutting roads and bridges. It also caused dozens of electric vehicles and other battery-powered objects, such as scooters and golf carts, to catch fire. According to one tally, 11 electric cars and 48 lithium-ion batteries caught fire after exposure to salty floodwater from Helene. In some cases, these fires spread to homes. When a lithium-ion battery pack bursts into flames, it...

By Sarah Federman, Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution, Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego The Holocaust could not have happened without the railways. Preeminent Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg underscored that almost everyone murdered at a camp arrived by train, including Jews, political prisoners, and other “undesirables.” Since the 1990s, groups of survivors have asked European railway companies to acknowledge and atone for their critical role, a reminder that war, genocide and other atrocities cannot occur without corporate participation. One long-running attempt met a setback on February 21, 2025, when the U.S. Supreme Court threw out an...

By Daniel Treisman, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles Donald Trump’s critics often accuse him of harboring authoritarian ambitions. Journalists and scholars have drawn parallels between his leadership style and that of strongmen abroad. Some Democrats warn that the U.S. is sliding toward autocracy, a system in which one leader holds unchecked power. Others counter that labeling Trump an autocrat is alarmist. After all, he hasn’t suspended the Constitution, forced school children to memorize his sayings, or executed his rivals, as dictators such as Augusto Pinochet, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein once did. But modern autocrats...

By Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, Honorary Reader in Migration and Politics, University of Kent Based on pronouncements in 2024, you might think now is the time to see U.S. citizens streaming out of the country. Months before the 2024 presidential election, Americans were saying they would leave should candidate Donald Trump win the election. Gallup polling in 2024 found that 21% of Americans wanted to leave the United States permanently, more than double the 10% who had said so in 2011. And indeed in June 2025, a Vermont legislator announced that she was resigning her seat and moving to...