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 9, 2026

Editor's Choice/Geopolitics

Why Tamil Nadu Keeps Killing Its Own Projects

The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government has announced the cancellation of a series of projects initiated by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), which governed Tamil Nadu from 2021 to 2026. Among them

Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI’s Mathematical Breakthrough Triggers a Battle Over Credit and Ethics

OpenAI has claimed to have solved one of the most celebrated problems in the history of mathematics: the “existence and smoothness” problem of the Navier–Stokes equations, one of seven Millennium Problems identified by the Clay Mathematics Institute, each carrying a

September 9, 2026

Anthropic Researcher Resigns, Warning AI Race Could ‘Gamble With Our Lives’

Artificial Intelligence

A young researcher at Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, has resigned from the company, warning that the race to develop increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems is

Germany’s Far-Right Surge Tests, But Does Not Upend, Democracy

Geopolitics

The German Embassy in Colombo has sought to clarify Germany’s political situation following news of a surge for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)

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

Uncategorized

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