In modern 21st-century warfare, non-military approaches — propaganda, and economic, cultural and humanitarian sabotage — will play a greater role than purely military methods, Russian Armed Forces chief Valery Gerasimov argued, a year before the Russian occupation of Crimea. “In a couple of months,…

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A cease-fire between Syria’s government and the weakened rebel forces arrayed against it took effect early Friday, but within hours, violations were reported. Still, the agreement — announced on Thursday by the Syrian government’s strongest backer, President Vladimir V. Putin of…

Photo illustration of David Fahrenthold by Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post “Arnold and Tim, if you’d come up, we’re going to give you a nice, beautiful check,” Donald Trump said. He held up an oversize check, the kind they give to people who win golf tournaments. It was for $100,000. In the…

Getty The world order we know is already over, and Russia is moving fast to grab the advantage. Can Trump figure out the new war in time to win it? A little over a year ago, on a pleasant late fall evening, I was sitting on my front porch with a friend best described as a Ukrainian freedom fighter.…

The country has entered a dangerous period. The president-elect is the least qualified man to ever hold high office. He also operated the least transparent campaign of the modern era. He gave succor and voice to bigoted elements on a scale not seen in two generations. He openly praised dictators —…

EXCERPT The Soviet leader is remembered as the man who killed a superpower. But Gorbachev’s gambit on reforms could have worked -- if only he wasn't betrayed by the Communist Party. By December 21, 2016 Amid the thousands of protesters who assembled on China’s Tiananmen Square in May 1989, just…

I think I’m not the only one who hasn’t been getting much done lately in the realm of “normal work”. I may pretend like I’m working on documentation for a new CMS, but — I’m sorry, who was just appointed to the cabinet? He said what? Oh, for fuck’s sake. When a solid 67% of your soul is engaged with…

Anti-American murals at the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where the Iranian government held dozens of American diplomats hostage. PHOTOGRAPH BY SCOTT PETERSON / GETTY Short of last-minute diplomacy, Donald Trump will inherit another hostage crisis with Iran on Inauguration Day—thirty-five years…

“Welcome to fuckyoupalooze,” El-P offers on Run the Jewels 3 , and it might as well be the album’s alternate title. Since the initial 2013 team-up of the rappers Killer Mike and El-P, Run the Jewels have built a rep as fierce protest musicians, but their work is best understood as an omnidirectional…

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon does not want Scotland to leave the European Union. She also does not want Scotland to remain in the United Kingdom. She reiterated both points on Friday. But, she added, she would be willing to forego a second referendum on Scottish independence, provided…

‘The breaking point for me wasn’t the trolls themselves – it was the global repercussions of Twitter’s refusal to stop them.’Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP I deactivated my Twitter account today. It was more of a spontaneous impulse than a New Year resolution, although it does feel like a juice cleanse,…

It was only eight years ago that the United States had just one president at a time. Yet those days have felt much more distant over the past two months as the president-elect, Donald Trump, has set about merrily reshaping U.S. policy 140 characters at a time. Tuesday evening saw what might turn out…

Wells Fargo. JPMorgan Chase. Fidelity Investments. Prudential PLC. Vanguard Group. These are among the major financial institutions that own business debt held by Donald Trump, according to an investigation just published by the Wall Street Journal. While the president-elect’s finances remain murky,…

T wenty-five years ago this week, the Soviet Union ceased to exist and the Cold War ended. Moscow lost, Washington won. I’m not one for historical anniversary stories, but this one seems to me to be truly significant, though mostly in its breach. Twenty-five years ago, the Western conception of…

It’s not the sort of accomplishment that ESPN is likely to crow about, but Philadelphia Phillies center-fielder Ben Revere is on track to set an astonishing baseball record—a mark that says as much about the game today as Barry Bonds’s 73 home runs said about the swollen biceps that defined the…

Philip Anschutz. Image via AP. This week, the 2017 Coachella line-up was released to a typical flurry of excitement. Along with headliners Kendrick Lamar and Radiohead, the big news was that the popular Indio, California festival was finally able to nab Beyoncé for an official spot—as the first…

It’s not that unusual for a public figure to go from hero to villain. But going from villainy to heroism? That’s a tougher road to traverse. Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and central figure, has managed to do both over the last few months, culminating in a remarkable embrace by the…

MOST economists might hazard a guess that voiding the bulk of a country’s currency overnight would dent its immediate growth prospects. On November 8th India took this abstruse thought experiment into the real world, scrapping two banknotes which made up 86% of all rupees in circulation.…

image courtesy of Nelson Minar I am a millionaire. The first in my family. A self-made success. It’s the story we love to tell ourselves in America about how anyone can make it. Except it’s not true. The reality is that most entrepreneurs—myself included—are the product of generations of privilege…

WASHINGTON — American intelligence officials have concluded that the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, personally “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” and turned from seeking to “denigrate” Hillary Clinton to developing “a clear preference for…

Story highlights WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied that Russia was the source of leaked Democratic emails The emails roiled the 2016 campaign to the detriment of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton Washington (CNN) US intelligence has identified the go-betweens the Russians used to provide…

Score Another bar-raising collaboration from the most buzzed-over act in rap Hip-hop is a genre that thrives on freshness and the shock of the new: hot rappers rarely get more than three years in the spotlight, and late-career renaissances are unheard-of – which makes the ongoing, mainstream-nudging…

(Getty Images/Ringer illustration) I was told there would be Plinko. Showstoppers is an event at the Consumer Electronics Show that is a kind of mini CES. Except instead of big brands like Microsoft, Sony, and Samsung showing off, it’s for nascent startups. It is not unlike the early rounds of…

Comic Books’ Scary Sexism Isn’t Going Anywhere – Dose

Space Cowboys (2000). A delightful meme emerged on Twitter this past weekend: a collection of screengrabs from the lowbrow-brilliant reality-TV series Jersey Shore , mislabeled as classic works of cinema. The thread was part of a larger growing trend on social media, a running gag about how when it…

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top intelligence official, in a comment aimed at President-elect Donald J. Trump, said on Thursday that there was a difference between expressing “skepticism” of intelligence reports that Russia interfered with the American election and “disparagement” of the intelligence…

Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic Like Spider-Man and Deadpool, Marvel’s hero and antihero whose respective spindly gallantry and dark humor finally earned them a full-fledged buddy comic last year, Run the Jewels is an unusual pairing but also a natural fit. Since the late ’90s, rapper/producer El-P…

Last week, upon leaving the president-elect’s office, Douglas Brinkley, a historian and conservationist, reported that Trump “was very interested in a man going to the moon.” Before that point, the entirety of Trump’s utterances of space policy consisted of two sentences: “Honestly I think NASA is…

Tuesday afternoon, Stephen Braun and Eileen Sullivan of the Associated Press released the results of a review of State Department appointment data that they used to make some striking claims about Hillary Clinton’s schedule as secretary of state. According to their reporting, Clinton spent a…

Goddammit Run The Jewels , you couldn't wait seven days could you? Now you've gone and compromised the integrity of every 2016 Best Of list going. As every single tweet that day agreed, RTJ3 was the best Christmas present we never knew we asked for, and - with my body clock still running on office…

(Getty Images/Ringer illustration) Television has become a mess. Mainly because, for anyone who’s stopped paying for cable, it’s not actually “television” anymore — it’s video content delivered via apps to whatever internet-connected screen we happen to be staring at. TV streaming has mutated into a…

If you hate the monotony of running on the treadmill, but drag yourself to the cardio room daily, believing self-torture will eventually become a habit—that’s not heroic; it’s bad design. According to B.J. Fogg , a psychologist and researcher at Stanford University who has studied behavior change…

Filmmaker Aaron Ohlmann has risked life and limb on more than a few occasions to get the right shot. With experience filming in over 54 countries, Aaron Ohlmann has covered underground hip hop artists in Cuba, refugees fleeing the battle with ISIS in Iraq, and survivors of sexual violence in…

First, we spent a year playing video games. Then we spent a couple weeks debating which ones were best. Here, in alphabetical order, are Kotaku ’s top 12 games of 2016. BoxBoxBoy Civilization VI Darkest Dungeon Dishonored 2 Doom Dragon Quest Builders Hitman Inside Overwatch Pokémon Sun and Moon…

Ladykiller In A Bind —which Heather found to be a bold exploration of sexual experiences and perspectives—is finally coming to Steam on January 9. It’ll be fully uncensored, despite the way Valve usually handles these things. For creator Christine Love, reaching this point wasn’t easy. (Warning:…

we need to stop caring about “alienating” white folks Gabriel Barletta for Unsplash Dear Black folks, Stop coddling white folks, their feelings, and their tears. Treating anything white as if it was a harmless blessing has not gotten us anywhere, and despite what we have been taught, it won’t get us…