In our cover story Sarah Marks and Daniel Pick explore the radicalized mind, going back to the 1950s when the West was convulsed by the fear of communist ‘brainwashing’. They conclude that easy assumptions about mind control will never make good policy.
Away from the news spotlight, Cleo Paskal looks at France’s new commitment to the South Pacific, until recently seen as ‘the edge of the map’ but now emerging as ‘the new strategic front line between Asia and the Americas’.
It is a brave analyst who looks beyond the blood and bombs of the Middle East to sketch out what a more stable regional order might look like. This is what Wadah Khanfar does, arguing that the basis must be democracy not the chimera of ‘authoritarian stability’.
