menu_open Columnists
Joshua Keating

Joshua Keating

Slate

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

The age of AI-run cyberattacks has begun

Menu planning, therapy, essay writing, highly sophisticated global cyberattacks: People just keep coming up with innovative new uses for the latest AI...

previous day 7

Vox

Joshua Keating

What happens when allies don’t trust America to keep a secret?

Can allies still trust the United States with sensitive intelligence in the Trump era? Two stories this week suggest even the closest partners are...

13.11.2025 6

Vox

Joshua Keating

Is there any way out of Sudan’s nightmare?

For the past two and a half years, events in war-torn Sudan have been characterized by wild swings — not only between which side in the conflict has...

08.11.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

How tariffs ate American foreign policy

President Donald Trump has described the ongoing Supreme Court case over the legality of his use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on more than...

06.11.2025 7

Vox

Joshua Keating

Trump just threatened to invade a new country

The big Donald Trump foreign policy question heading into this week looked like it was going to be when and if the US was going to launch military...

04.11.2025 8

Vox

Joshua Keating

A trade truce, a nuclear threat: What to make of the Trump-Xi meeting

Since President Donald Trump’s second term began, his administration’s approach to China has been arguably the toughest aspect of its foreign...

30.10.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

Has Trump actually ended any wars?

In Malaysia on Sunday, on the sidelines of a summit of Southeast Asian leaders, President Donald Trump presided over a ceremony for the signing of a...

28.10.2025 9

Vox

Joshua Keating

Is the US about to attack Venezuela?

The US is up to something in Venezuela. But what exactly?  Since early September, the US military has carried out at least five lethal strikes on...

18.10.2025 4

Vox

Joshua Keating

The Gaza peace deal’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness

After the euphoria and relief of Monday’s prisoner exchange and ceasefire, Tuesday has brought some ominous portents for the future of the Gaza...

15.10.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

The bleak lesson Israel — and the world — might learn from the peace deal

At last, Israel and Hamas have reached a deal — of a sort. On Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump announced that the warring parties in Gaza...

09.10.2025 3

Vox

Joshua Keating

Netanyahu prolonged the war to save himself. It may have worked.

Benjamin Netanyahu has now served as prime minister of Israel longer than anyone in history — three non-consecutive stints over 18 years, or almost...

07.10.2025 4

Vox

Joshua Keating

Trump and Hegseth gather the military’s top commanders for a loyalty test

Could this meeting have been an email? Last week, when news broke that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered hundreds of generals from around...

01.10.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

A reality check on Trump’s Gaza peace plan

After a pivotal Allied victory, years into World War II, Winston Churchill famously proclaimed that when it came to hopes for the end of the war, it...

30.09.2025 20

Vox

Joshua Keating

Europe is readying for direct conflict with Russia

In the early months of the war in Ukraine, Gen. Mark Milley, then chair of the joint chiefs of staff, carried a note card in his briefcase outlining...

25.09.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

Turning point or political theater? The big push for Palestinian statehood, explained

Palestinian statehood has never had so much international support — or seemed less attainable.  As world leaders gather in New York on Monday for...

23.09.2025 3

Vox

Joshua Keating

Russia just inched closer to open war with NATO

Nineteen suspected Russian drones entered Polish airspace on Monday, where they were intercepted by a joint operation that included Polish, Dutch, and...

11.09.2025 4

Vox

Joshua Keating

What Israel’s strike in Qatar could mean for Gaza

Israel’s attempted killing of Hamas’s senior global leadership on Tuesday was the clearest indication in months that the war in Gaza is unlikely...

10.09.2025 7

Vox

Joshua Keating

Why it’s called the Department of “Defense” in the first place — and why Trump wants to change it 

President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Friday renaming the Department of Defense the “Department of War.” The move on...

06.09.2025 20

Vox

Joshua Keating

What happens when Trump combines the war on drugs with the war on terror

With this week’s unprecedented deadly military strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat in the Caribbean, it’s clear that the US plans to use...

05.09.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

Why the Ukraine war is so hard to end

At the height of the Iraq war, bloggers coined the term “Friedman unit” in reference to the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s habit of...

04.09.2025 4

Vox

Joshua Keating

Are America’s four main adversaries really in cahoots?

Editor’s note, September 2, 12:10 pm ET: This week, the leaders of Iran, North Korea, and Russia, along with around two dozen other heads of state,...

02.09.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

Donald Trump is a globalist

The defining photo of the recent White House Ukraine summit will likely turn out to be one depicting five European leaders plus the leaders of the...

01.09.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

Gaza’s famine is now official. What does that change?

The hunger crisis in Gaza reached another grim milestone on Friday when the world’s leading hunger watchdog confirmed that a famine is taking place...

22.08.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

Why Ukraine won’t just give up its territory

Ukrainian forces still control 2,550 square miles of the eastern Ukrainian region known as the Donbas, an area roughly the size of Delaware. For...

19.08.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

Is it possible to “win” a nuclear war?

Following their first meeting in Geneva in 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev issued a historic joint statement...

05.08.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

How Gaza’s hunger crisis reached its “worst-case scenario”

The “worst-case scenario” is unfolding in Gaza. Though there are larger hunger crises in the world in terms of sheer numbers, Gaza is, in many...

31.07.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

Trump and Netanyahu weren’t on the same page for long

One month ago, while announcing US airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program, President Donald Trump said that he and Israeli Prime Minister...

22.07.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

Israel is taking its old Gaza model abroad

During an Oval Office meeting on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had nominated President Donald Trump for a Nobel...

11.07.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

Will we know if the next plague is human-made?

In October 1979, a top-secret CIA intelligence report featured the first inklings in the West that something unusual and disturbing had allegedly...

08.07.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

Why the US just can’t quit Middle East wars

In April 1980, President Jimmy Carter authorized Operation Eagle Claw, an ill-fated military operation to rescue the American hostages held at the US...

25.06.2025 90

Vox

Joshua Keating

This time, it’s Trump’s war

Donald Trump claimed during his 2024 campaign for president that America had fought “no wars” during his first presidency, and that he was the...

22.06.2025 50

Vox

Joshua Keating

Is Israel trying to destroy Iran’s nukes — or topple its government?

Iran’s state broadcaster, which was bombed mid-broadcast by Israel on Monday, was many things to many people. It was the employer of hundreds of...

18.06.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

Will the US get drawn into the Israel-Iran war?

In announcing Israel’s strikes against Iran’s military leadership and nuclear program last night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the case...

13.06.2025 4

Vox

Joshua Keating

Why Trump probably can’t cut Musk loose

Breaking up is hard to do — especially when one party is a billionaire with near-unassailable dominance of the nation’s ability to launch things...

06.06.2025 5

Vox

Joshua Keating

Ukraine hasn’t won over Trump. But it might not need to.

President Donald Trump’s seemingly infinite patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin may, in fact, have limits.  “Something has happened to...

30.05.2025 3

Vox

Joshua Keating

The return of the nuclear threat

Humanity has lived with nuclear weapons for so long — 80 years, this year — without destroying itself, that we sometimes take them for granted....

27.05.2025 2

Vox

Joshua Keating

Why Trump’s biggest global allies aren’t very happy with him

Is President Donald Trump leading a vanguard of right-wing populist world leaders, working together to lay waste to the liberal international order...

21.05.2025 7

Vox

Joshua Keating

Trump’s surprising new approach to Israel

What’s the opposite of a “bear hug”? That was the phrase often used to describe President Joe Biden’s approach to Israel since the October 7,...

15.05.2025 3

Vox

Joshua Keating

Just how bad can the India-Pakistan crisis get?

The most likely outcome is that the latest deadly flare-up between India and Pakistan will end relatively soon: In the little over 25 years that the...

09.05.2025 6

Vox

Joshua Keating

A confusing US peace deal, explained

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news...

07.05.2025 7

Vox

Joshua Keating

The rising tension between India and Pakistan, briefly explained

India and Pakistan seem headed for a military conflict in the wake of India’s worst terrorist attack in years. The question is what form that clash...

01.05.2025 30

Vox

Joshua Keating

The hidden danger in Trump’s trade war

When it comes to the escalating trade war with China, the most obvious historical analogy for the US launching an all-out economic assault on a rising...

30.04.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

The US has quietly gotten into another war in the Middle East

President Donald Trump has, in the past, described America’s military involvement in the Middle East as “the worst decision ever made” and came...

24.04.2025 10

Vox

Joshua Keating

One unexpected side effect of Trump’s tariffs

When President Donald Trump unveiled tariffs on more than 180 countries and territories early this month, there was one place that was conspicuously...

15.04.2025 20

Vox

Joshua Keating

Trump’s new talks with Iran could end in a deal — or a war

American negotiators are headed to Oman this weekend for a round of high-level talks with Iran over its nuclear program. President Donald Trump...

11.04.2025 9

Vox

Joshua Keating

Trump’s tariffs are an opportunity for China. Can Beijing seize it?

 It’s not often the case, but this is a week when the hard-working spokespeople for China’s foreign ministry have a pretty easy job.  The trade...

09.04.2025 3

Vox

Joshua Keating

Are China, Canada, and Mexico really to blame for fentanyl?

Over the past decade, the synthetic drug fentanyl has devastated the United States, killing more than a quarter of a million Americans, making it,...

31.03.2025 6

Vox

Joshua Keating

Why is the US bombing Yemen in the first place?

Washington has been convulsed over the past week by the question of how a prominent journalist was invited into a private Signal chat between senior...

28.03.2025 20

Vox

Joshua Keating

The viral story of Trump’s team texting war plans to a journalist, briefly explained

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news...

25.03.2025 30

Vox

Joshua Keating

A tale of two ceasefires

Put the Nobel Peace Prize on hold for just a bit.  President Donald Trump came into office promising a swift end to two wars in Gaza and Ukraine. He...

22.03.2025 20

Vox

Joshua Keating