The Day the Institutions Stop Saying No

Photo with thanks to Independent.co The true test of democratic institutions is not whether they obey those in power, but whether they can tell them no. The erosion of professional independence risks turning America’s most important institutions from guardians of the public interest into instruments of political will. The Steady State asks this question: What […]

The Return of War as Plunder

By Steven A. Cash When war becomes a means of acquisition, sovereignty becomes a privilege of the strong. Trump’s transactional foreign policy risks taking America—and the world—back toward the age of conquest and plunder. For more than a millennium, Western political thought has insisted that war requires a cause—a casus belli. The tradition stretches from […]