In 2025, FP’s readers stored coming again to tales about U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy strikes since his return to workplace and his administration’s results on the world. In addition they gravitated towards essays that examined the post-Chilly Struggle period, what has succeeded it, and what the geopolitical panorama seems like now.
These are 10 of 2025’s most learn tales, as measured by web site site visitors amongst subscribers.
In 2025, FP’s readers stored coming again to tales about U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy strikes since his return to workplace and his administration’s results on the world. In addition they gravitated towards essays that examined the post-Chilly Struggle period, what has succeeded it, and what the geopolitical panorama seems like now.
These are 10 of 2025’s most learn tales, as measured by web site site visitors amongst subscribers.
The Finish of Growth
By Adam Tooze, Sept. 8
Two of FP columnist Adam Tooze’s print journal articles are amongst this yr’s most learn. On this first one, Tooze examines improvement economics at a time of disaster for our Fall 2025 situation, reviewing the latest historical past of world improvement and competing visions for its future.
Samuel Huntington Is Getting His Revenge
By Nils Gilman, Feb. 21
“We stand on the cusp of a reordering second in worldwide relations as important as 1989, 1945, or 1919—a generational occasion,” historian Nils Gilman wrote in February.
In accordance with Gilman, “the brand new post-Chilly Struggle hegemony that emerged within the Nineteen Nineties rested on a number of normative pillars”—and every pillar has been more and more challenged since. On this essay, Gilman revisits earlier debates in worldwide relations on the character of the worldwide order and considers what a brand new order would possibly seem like.
The Periodic Desk of States
By Parag Khanna, March 13
In March, international strategist Parag Khanna offered a “periodic desk of states”—a meta-index based mostly on greater than two dozen metrics, with the objective of evaluating states’ general stability. Along with the desk itself, readers can discover nation knowledge and graphics mapping diplomatic our bodies, nonstate actors, and extra all through the article.
The Finish of Modernity
By Christopher Clark, June 30
Sara Gironi Carnevale illustration for Overseas Coverage
“As the worldwide blocs of the twentieth century dissolve, we’re witnessing a return to the extra cellular and unpredictable world of the nineteenth century,” historian Christopher Clark wrote in FP’s Summer season 2025 situation. Citing the latest historical past of political events and techniques in addition to international economics, Clark argues that uncertainty and polarization are defining traits of the post-Chilly Struggle period.
When the Risk Is Contained in the White Home
By Tim Weiner, July 11
In an tailored essay from his newest e book on the Central Intelligence Company, The Mission: The CIA within the twenty first Century, journalist Tim Weiner talks to company insiders to know paradigm shifts in intelligence forward of the Russia-Ukraine warfare, how the CIA started “to see contained in the Kremlin,” and deep division between the U.S. government department and nationwide safety institution.
America Is Locked in a New Class Struggle
By Adam Tooze, Jan. 7
In FP’s winter print situation, Tooze identified that exit polls from the 2024 U.S. presidential election discovered that low-income revenue voters shifted to the best, whereas essentially the most prosperous People swung left. This knowledge, he writes, means that “in analyzing the U.S. political scene, we’ve to permit for a three-class slightly than a two-class mannequin.” Such an method, Tooze argues, is vital to understanding “class forces round Trump.”
Is America a Kleptocracy?
By Jodi Vittori, March 25
In accordance with scholar Jodi Vittori, anti-corruption establishments and norms are coming beneath stress in the USA. In an essay for our Spring 2025 situation, Vittori examines and compares international examples of the event and penalties of corruption and kleptocracy.
It’s Time for Europe to Do the Unthinkable
By Kishore Mahbubani, Feb. 18
Europe has discovered itself on the again foot because it grapples with the continuing warfare in Ukraine and its relationship with the USA, Singaporean statesman Kishore Mahbubani writes. Now, he argues that Europe ought to contemplate “three unthinkable choices” to advance its personal geopolitical pursuits.
Why Beijing Thinks It Can Beat Trump
By Scott Kennedy, April 10
Writing after U.S. tariffs on China had been introduced in April, Scott Kennedy examined why Chinese language elites had renewed resolve. Unfavourable perceptions of the USA beneath Trump “have grow to be an imperceptible mirror during which Chinese language look to reevaluate their very own nation’s current and future,” Kennedy writes.
4 Explanatory Fashions for Trump’s Chaos
By Emma Ashford, April 24
In April, FP columnist Emma Ashford weighed in on the primary 100 days of Trump’s presidency, writing that it’s clear that his administration is “aiming for change—not inertia—in U.S. overseas coverage, although the route of that change is unclear.” Ashford presents 4 attainable explanatory fashions for Trump’s choices, from a return to realpolitik to a Republican foreign-policy showdown.
