Patrick Lawrence

Patrick Lawrence is a longtime columnist, essayist, critic, and lecturer. He was a correspondent abroad (writing as Patrick L. Smith) for many years, chiefly for the Far Eastern Economic Review, the International Herald Tribune, and The New Yorker, and chiefly in Asia. His most recent books are Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World (Pantheon) and Time No Longer: America After the American Century (Yale). His next book is tentatively titled After Exceptionalism. His website is patricklawrence.us.

September 29, 2026

Sri Lanka

What Sri Lanka’s Easter Judgment Finally Reveals

Sri Lanka’s September 22, 2026 Easter Sunday judgment marks a decisive legal reckoning with one of the country’s deadliest terrorist attacks, convicting 15 of 24 defendants after an extensive examination of thousands

Geopolitics/Human Rights/Judiciary

Exclusive: Inside Sri Lanka’s Easter Plot — Read the Full TAB Judgment

The 22 September 2026 Trial-at-Bar judgment provides a detailed account of the alleged network behind Sri Lanka’s 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, tracing the prosecution’s case from ideological indoctrination and recruitment to weapons, explosives, logistical support and the coordinated suicide bombings

September 29, 2026

Bluffing Is Not Diplomacy

Editor's Choice/Geopolitics

Sri Lanka has every right to speak forcefully on Palestine and international justice. But moral authority abroad cannot substitute for diplomatic precision at home.

Sri Lanka and China Deepen Indian Ocean Policy Dialogue

Events/Sri Lanka

The Pathfinder Foundation and the China Center for South Asian Studies (CCSAS) at Sichuan University launched the Colombo Maritime Dialogue 2026 Report at a

After Nasrallah: What His Death Means for Netanyahu’s Future

October 1, 2024

Israel

You have probably heard by now, or heard about, Bibi Netanyahu’s viciously vituperative hate speech before the U.N. General Assembly last Friday. The Israeli prime minister let it be known he hates more or

Psychosis and Its Consequences

September 20, 2023

Columns

Remember that startling remark Karl Rove made while serving as an adviser to George W. Bush? It was October 2004, the so-called war on terror was going full tilt, and Rove was

Europe: Shrinking Within

October 24, 2022

Defence/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/United States

Absolutely remarkable, Western media’s determination to ignore the recent Baltic Sea detonations, which knocked out the Nord Stream I and II gas pipelines. A major piece of Europe’s energy infrastructure, the joint