Battle for the Pentagon
The world this week
Politics
Business
The weekly cartoon
This week’s covers

Leaders

High alert
Will Donald Trump and Elon Musk wreck or reform the Pentagon?
America’s security depends upon their success

European politics
Can Friedrich Merz save Germany—and Europe?
He is on track to win the election, but to fix Europe he will have to fix his country first
US Vice President JD Vance delivers a speech during the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, France on February 11th 2025
The Paris discord
After DeepSeek, America and the EU are getting AI wrong
Europe has a chance to catch up, whereas America should ease up
A Chinese naval ship during naval exercises
Words before war
Countering China’s diplomatic coup
China has turned much of the global south against Taiwan. That could be laying the ground for forced unification
The image shows a black judge's gavel resting on a sound block, symbolizing justice or legal authority. The background is red with a halftone pattern, and the faint eyes of Lucy Letby are visible in the background
Blind Britain
The Lucy Letby case shows systemic failure and a national malaise
Whether or not the neonatal nurse is guilty of murder, her saga is revealing

Letters
On diversifying portfolios, the London Gazette, exit taxes, social media, red tape, braindance
Letters to the editor
By Invitation

Jaw-jawing at Yalta, 80 years ago
The neglect of Asia was the great failure of Yalta, writes Stephen Kotkin
Briefing
Soldiers of the Ukrianian Armed Forces inspect FPV drones
Disrupting the Pentagon
America’s military supremacy is in jeopardy
To win future wars it needs new weapons, new suppliers and a new system of procurement
Asia
A woman browses Chinese clothing on sale in Bangkok, Thailand
A tidal wave of trade
South-East Asian producers are being hammered by Chinese imports
America and India
Is MAGA great for India?
Three’s a crowd
New Zealand and the Cook Islands fall out over China
Banyan
Can Indonesia make its Top Gun dreams a reality?
China
An elderly farmer digging a field of sweet potatoes, beneath a high-speed railway line in Beijing
Food security
Tensions with the West are fuelling China’s anxiety about food supplies
Get your skis on
Hail China’s new “ice-and-snow economy”
Own goal
Panama symbolises the Sino-American struggle for influence
United States
Pro-sanctuary supporters hold placards whilst a demonstrator shows his displeasure with a proposed "sanctuary city" ordinance, as the Los Angeles City Council considers the measure during a meeting at City Hall in Los Angeles, California.
Federalist capers
Donald Trump wants states and cities to do as they are told
Dodgy politics
Donald Trump and the art of the quid pro quo
Plane to see
Inside the world’s most famous aeroplane boneyard
Foreign aid
What happened next at USAID
America’s payment system
Elon Musk has been pushed out of the Treasury
The Treasury
What is Elon Musk getting up to with America’s payment system?
Lexington
How Bob Dylan broke free

The Americas
Venezuelan migrant holds his daughter while resting in a hammock
Migration
Most Latin American migrants no longer go to the United States
Showdown
Guatemala is grappling with a globetrotting Jewish “cult”
Slashing the state
Javier Milei’s liberal reforms are hurting yerba mate growers
Middle East & Africa
Residents attends a meeting at a community hall on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa
Volk music
For Donald Trump, South Africa is DEI in the form of a country
Tasty Tilapia
How to go from fish lover to fish farmer
The new disorder
Homs’s troubles show the challenges facing Syria’s leaders
Raiding a bookshop
Israel mounts an attack on Palestinian intellectual life
Militants, disempowered
Hizbullah’s decline is a boon for Lebanon’s new government
Playing with fire
Instead of luxury condos, Gaza faces a resumption of war
Europe
Friedrich Merz, Chairman of CDU
The man who could lead Europe
Germany’s “business model is gone”, warns Friedrich Merz
Going over their heads
Ukraine’s fears are becoming reality, after Trump talks to Putin
An interview with Volodymyr Zelensky
Ukraine fears being cut out of talks between America and Russia
A populist turns towards Putin
Robert Fico’s pleas for cheap Russian gas bring Slovaks onto the street
Erdogan’s endgame
A new crackdown is gathering strength in Turkey
A feline helper
Le Chat, the cat-bot France has pinned its AI hopes on
Charlemagne
How India became an unexpected role model for Europe
Britain
Lucy Letby face with a red piece of paper torn over her eyes
Letby case
It increasingly looks as if Lucy Letby’s conviction was unsafe
Criminal incompetence
Britain’s review body for criminal convictions is struggling
Carrot and stick
Parliament is advertising for a new Black Rod
Founders and flyers
A British incubator of businesses often bound for the Bay Area
Romance in Britain
Valentine’s Day may need to adjust to the times
Urban demography
London is ageing twice as quickly as the rest of England
Bagehot
Is Sir Keir Starmer a chump?
International
A collage illustration showing part of Xi Jinping's face, the UN logo, a map of Taiwan and the word "peaceful" with part of it cut away.
Semantic strikes
China’s stunning new campaign to turn the world against Taiwan
Business
Workers work on the production line at the production workshop of Qingdao Wushun Auto Mold Parts Co. LTD. in China.
High-speed chase
Chinese cars are taking over the global south
Crisis in Standort Deutschland
German business is being suffocated by high costs and red tape
Back to petroleum
BP is underperforming and under pressure
Spoiler alert
Elon Musk’s $97bn offer is a headache for Sam Altman’s OpenAI
Rearmament revolution
Could a German startup disrupt Europe’s arms industry?
Bartleby
How to get people to resign
Schumpeter
Defence tech is blowing up Silicon Valley’s beliefs
Finance & economics
A man in a suit going up an escalator made of glowing mesh material. It represents AI in the workforce. Two workers, on in a suit and one in a blue overall are at the bottom of the escalator, unable to take it to go up.
Ascension, for some
How AI will divide the best from the rest
Buttonwood
Why you should repay your mortgage early
Bluster-busting
Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending
In rust we trust
Donald Trump’s Super Bowl tariffs are an act of self-harm
War economics
Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?
Sunburst
Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral
Free exchange
The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research
Science & technology

AI up to bat
How artificial intelligence is changing baseball
A game of two graphs
AI is being used to model football matches
Whizz-bang
A neutrino telescope spots the signs of something cataclysmic
For a fistful of dollars
Forget DeepSeek. Large language models are getting cheaper still
Well informed
Does intermittent fasting work?
Culture
An illustration of an old television set showing six people against different coloured backgrounds: Adam Sandler, Tina Fey, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Mike Myers and Chevy Chase.
Infinite jest
The secret to the success of “Saturday Night Live”
By the book
Do societies need more, or less, discretion in enforcing rules?
Haplessly ever after
What explains the enduring appeal of Bridget Jones?
Face-off
Faceless influencers are becoming famous online
Chapter and (re)verse
How did the Catholic church go so wrong?
The old college try
Does more education lead to less sex?
The Economist watches
Six of the best films about love
Economic & financial indicators
Indicators
Economic data, commodities and markets
Obituary
Donald Shoup beside a parking meter
Aparkalypse Now
Donald Shoup knew how to get cities going