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Kanishk Tharoor

@kanishktharoor.bsky.social
665 followers 419 following 141 posts

Author of "Swimmer Among the Stars" (FSG), presenter of "Museum of Lost Objects" (BBC), and Deputy Editor at Foreign Affairs. Pitch me at ktharoor@foreignaffairs.com.

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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Foreign Affairs @foreignaffairs.com · 19/04/2026
On the latest episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” Matias Spektor and Kishore Mahbubani discuss what the war in Iran means for countries across Latin America and Asia. Start listening here: fam.ag/3Qx4fpH
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
As Trump searches for a way out of the war @ilangoldenberg.bsky.social argues in @foreignaffairs.com that the president has no good options to successfully escalate and that "the most responsible course is...to step back before a limited conflict becomes an engulfing quagmire."
foreignaffairs.com
America Has No Good Options in Iran
Trump needs an off-ramp.
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Justin Vogt @jvogt.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Stephen Kotkin has spent his career trying to understand what makes authoritarian regimes strong—and what makes them vulnerable. (Often the same things!) He and I spoke about how the US-Israeli war on Iran fits into the longer history of "regime change." podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Ladies and gentlemen, the globalist elite:
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Justin Vogt @jvogt.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
In my view, this is the best take on Carney's speech: Matias Spektor on why the world will come to miss Western hypocrisy. "A world in which powerful states no longer feel compelled to justify themselves morally is not more honest—it is more dangerous." www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
foreignaffairs.com
The World Will Come to Miss Western Hypocrisy
An overtly transactional order spells trouble for everyone.
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Foreign Affairs @foreignaffairs.com · 29/01/2026
“The defining feature of the current moment is not that the United States violates the principles it once championed but that it increasingly dispenses with the need to justify its actions in those terms at all,” writes Matias Spektor.
foreignaffairs.com
The World Will Come to Miss Western Hypocrisy
An overtly transactional order spells trouble for everyone.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
As the US seems poised to intervene again in Iran, I spoke with Karim Sadjadpour for the latest episode of the @foreignaffairs.com podcast about the weakness and brutality of the regime, what U.S. intervention can and cannot achieve, and what lies ahead. www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/wha...
foreignaffairs.com
What Kind of Change Is Coming to Iran?
A Conversation With Karim Sadjadpour
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Read Jennifer Sciubba in the new issue of @foreignaffairs.com on the potential costs of the global panic around depopulation. www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/depo...
foreignaffairs.com
The Depopulation Panic
What demographic decline really means for the world.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
For the latest episode of The Foreign Affairs Interview, I spoke with @dacemoglumit.bsky.social about technology, great power competition, and the fall--and possible rise--of liberal democracy. Available here www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/how... and in all podcast apps. @foreignaffairs.com
foreignaffairs.com
How Liberal Democracy Can Survive an Age of Spiraling Crises
A Conversation With Daron Acemoglu
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
It was a pleasure to participate in the recent Global History and Politics Dialogue in Istanbul. Many fascinating conversations on the European security order of the twentieth century and the present--and the convulsions ahead. @koerberhistory.bsky.social @chathamhouse.org @ox.ac.uk
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Ever year, @foreignaffairs.com publishes hundreds of book reviews. Here's our selection of the best books we covered in 2025, featuring @edwardluce.bsky.social @katherinestewart.bsky.social @johncassidysays.bsky.social and many others. www.foreignaffairs.com/lists/best-b...
foreignaffairs.com
The Best of Books 2025
The very best of the hundreds of books on international politics, economics, and history that were featured in the magazine this year, selected by Foreign Affairs’ editors and book reviewers.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
"To drive a Cybertruck is to partake in the fantasy of a premodern lawlessness in which the mightiest warlord made his own rules, unencumbered by legislation or moral stricture." Maya Vinokur in @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/soci...
thenation.com
What Was the Cybertruck?
Elon Musk’s car from space offered a vision for a sustainable and autonomous future. All along, it was as awkward, easily bruised, and volatile as the entrepreneur himself.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
A really bracing essay from Michael Beckley in the new issue of @foreignaffairs.com on the stagnation of the global order. "The world is now a closed club of aging incumbents, circled by middle powers, developing countries, and failing states." www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
foreignaffairs.com
The Stagnant Order
The end of rising powers.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
As Lula speaks at the UN, read the scholar and former Brazilian official Hussein Kalout on Trump's vendetta against Brazil: www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
foreignaffairs.com
Trump’s Collision Course With Brazil
How U.S. policy is playing into China’s hands—and remaking Latin America.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
According to Robert Pape, Israel's war in Gaza has killed five to ten percent of the pre-war population, making the Israeli offensive "the most lethal case of a Western democracy using the punishment of civilians as a tactic of war." www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/unpar...
foreignaffairs.com
The Unparalleled Devastation of Gaza
Why punishing civilians has not yielded strategic success.
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Mira Kamdar @mirakamdar.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
“There’s no hunger in Gaza,” Eliyahu said in the same interview, dismissing reports of starvation as anti-Israel propaganda. “But we don’t need to be concerned with hunger in the Strip. Let the world worry about it.” @ishaantharoor.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
washingtonpost.com
Column | As Gaza starves, Israel’s far right sees a dream coming true
Members of Israel’s government embrace the Trump-inspired vision of a Gaza of gleaming towers, ritzy tourism and pristine neighborhoods, but without Palestinians.
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Nicholas Danforth @nicholasdanfort.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
The Brilliance is in the Bullshit: another look at the Clash of Civilizations foreignpolicy.com/2025/06/27/s...
foreignpolicy.com
How to Sell a Clash of Civilizations
The incoherence of Samuel Huntington’s famous thesis is also its power.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
If @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social eventually becomes mayor of NYC, that would mean that the mayor of NYC and the mayor of London, @london.gov.uk Sadiq Khan, the mayors of two hugely important global cities, will both belong to the same fervent, zealous tribe. Like me, they are supporters of Arsenal FC.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
For many of us who came of age around the time of the Iraq War, this all feels rather bleak and familiar. And yet, before the US invaded Iraq, there were millions in the streets. If an antiwar movement remains in the US, it has been entirely subsumed by the convulsed state of American politics.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Read Robert Pape in @foreignaffairs.com on why Israel's air war on Iran will fail. www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/israels... Even if the United States supports Israel in an attack on Fordow, it will not be able to destroy Iran's nuclear program.
foreignaffairs.com
Israel’s Futile Air War
Precision strikes will not destroy Iran’s nuclear program—or its government.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Surreal that so much hinges on the wisdom of Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, MTG, and others prevailing in the internecine war in the American right over the Israel-Iran conflict.
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
America now has the foreign policy of a personalist dictator. New piece from me in @foreignaffairs.com www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
foreignaffairs.com
Imperial President at Home, Emperor Abroad
American foreign policy in an age of unrestrained executive power.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Looking forward to speaking with Andre Aciman about his new book, Room on the Sea, at my local bookstore, @greenlightbklyn.bsky.social greenlightbookstore.com/event/2025-0... on July 1
greenlightbookstore.com
André Aciman with Kanishk Tharoor
Brooklyn independent bookstore
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Some context for my comment above about higher ed as a valuable export: In dollar terms, last year, the United States sold more educational services to the rest of the world than it sold in natural gas and coal combined. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 27/05/2025
Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert says his country is committing war crimes
theguardian.com
Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert says his country is committing war crimes
Prime minister over 2006-09 and former Likud member says Palestinian victims are at ‘monstrous proportions’ The former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, has said that Israel is “committing war crimes” in Gaza, saying “thousands of innocent Palestinians are being killed, as well as many Israeli soldiers”. Olmert, who served as the 12th prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, wrote in an opinion piece for the Israeli newspaper and website Haaretz that “the government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success”. Continue reading...
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Christian Odendahl @codendahl.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
"Big Tech companies may be about to discover that not only are they never going to have access to the Chinese market but they are increasingly persona non grata in European markets, too." www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
foreignaffairs.com
The Brewing Transatlantic Tech War
How Silicon Valley got entangled in geopolitics—and lost.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
In the history of empires, how often has the metropole said, "Oh, wait, I want to be just like the periphery"?
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoor.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
My latest, sifting through the wreckage: Trump hails ‘liberation.’ The world sees America alone. Free to read. wapo.st/4li0ob2
wapo.st
Column | Trump hails ‘liberation.’ The world sees America alone.
Trump’s tariff announcements in his so-called “Liberation Day” have ushered in a whole new era of global politics, world leaders, officials and analysts say.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Awaiting the avalanche of pieces on how the rest of the world can de-risk its supply chains... away from the US.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
"Trumpism, in other words, is an intensification of long-standing, antidemocratic, and profoundly American trends. There is hardly a need to use the term fascism to understand it. This is America, and Trump is nothing if not deeply American." Daniel Bessner jacobin.com/2025/03/trum...
jacobin.com
This Is America
Donald Trump’s authoritarian second term has led critics to describe him as a fascist in the mold of Adolf Hitler. But Trump’s reactionary politics are all-American — and the path to defeating him runs through reform of America’s antidemocratic institutions.
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Justin Vogt @jvogt.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
"Put simply, 'global South' is a euphemism, a seemingly innocuous substitute that allows those in polite society to avoid using the phrase they really mean: the nonwhite world." — Zachariah Mampilly www.foreignaffairs.com/world/what-g...
foreignaffairs.com
What “the Global South” Really Means
A modern gloss for old divisions.
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Reposted by Kanishk Tharoor
Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Trump is seen as serious about trying to remove Gazans from the territory. There have been conversations with various Arab and African states about whether they'd be willing to accept them. The Arab plan for Gaza is seen as unrealistic because it glosses over key issues.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Interesting study that suggests the world’s population has been systematically undercounted and could be much larger than we imagine.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Narrator voice: in fact, all the official intended was disrespect.
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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Drezner's World has never published anything not written by the hard-working staff. Until now. danieldrezner.substack.com/p/guest-post...
danieldrezner.substack.com
GUEST POST: We Are Professors at Columbia. Here is How We Would Respond.
Five Columbia University political scientists offer their unofficial response to the Trump administration's demands on their university.
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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
I decided to start a #thread 🧵 of stories about legal residents and tourists being (illegally) arrested, detained and/or deported by the Trump regime. I'll only post stories from serious sources, as rumors and conspiracies are really not needed in this authoritarian moment.
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Hassan Hassan @hhassan.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
Western writers have long hesitated to call Byzantium what it was: the Roman Empire. Historian Anthony Kaldellis calls this “Roman denialism” & has spent years critiquing it. Now he takes the fight to a popular audience. By Luka Ivan Jukić in @newlinesmag.bsky.social newlinesmag.com/essays/overc...
newlinesmag.com
Overcoming the Deep Roots of Byzantine Orientalism
A new book masterfully lays out the history of the Eastern Roman Empire and its legacies
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
People in the media in the last decade who, despite everything else happening in the country and the world, thought it was worth your time and ours to get exercised by the things kids on campuses do and say—you bear a great deal of responsibility for this.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
🚨 Holy crap. Marco Rubio is seemingly purporting to exempt nearly all immigration regulations and policy, along with things like export controls, trade rules, and more, from notice and comment rulemaking requirements. public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-04116.pdf
5. For these reasons, I hereby determine that all efforts, conducted by any agency of the federal government, to control the status, entry, and exit of people, and the transfer of goods, services, data, technology, and other items across the borders of the United States, constitute a foreign affairs function of the United States under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 553, 554.
Dated: February 21, 2025.
Marco Rubio, Secretary of State.
[FR Doc. 2025-04116 Filed: 3/13/2025 8:45 am; Publication Date: 3/14/2025]
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Veena Dubal @veenadubal.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
This should terrify every person in this country. The use of machine learning systems to approximate an individuals views on war and then, if they are here lawfully on a visa, tag them for deportation is about as sci-fi dystopian as it gets. www.axios.com/2025/03/06/s...
axios.com
Scoop: State Dept. to use AI to revoke visas of foreign students who appear "pro-Hamas"
The effort includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts and marks a dramatic escalation in the U.S. government's policing of foreign nationals' cond...
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Dana Rubinstein @danarubinsteinbsky.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Then the mayor says the following, re: Khalil: "What I'm finding surprising is the level of support you're all displaying, but I didn't see that support for me"
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
It looks like the lair of some brooding parasitic alien queen. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
bbc.co.uk
Man Utd to build 'iconic' £2bn 100,000-capacity stadium close to Old Trafford
Manchester United announce plans to build the biggest stadium in the UK - an
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Yuliya Komska @ykomska.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Here to highlight the “culture section” on the list of words banned by/for Trump’s government. The choice of the policed terms is not just about DEI, transphobia, & misogyny. It’s about razing the foundation of how culture is studied & matters *across borders*. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
At @foreignaffairs.com we were pleased to run a review of the book here: www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/caps...
foreignaffairs.com
Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War
Lyall claims that armed forces whose composition reflects severe inequalities between ethnic groups will fare far worse in battle than those whose composition.
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Kanishk Tharoor @kanishktharoor.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
There may be something to the left accelerationist view that the chaos of Trump 2.0 will open new pathways. But it seems far more likely that this is just right accelerationism in action.
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