Trump’s Pentagon pick wants women off the battlefield

Baby-boomers are keeping their bad habits into retirement

Youthful excess continues to decline

The growing effectiveness of air-defence systems could blunt the West’s most powerful weapons

Lessons from a 17th-century thinker on preventing crimes against humanity

Technology is transforming cattle farming, but not fast enough

Donald Trump will have vast leverage over American allies, but ruthless despots may resist his dealmaking

Those are the regions where the Catholic church is growing fastest

Democratic activists in Russia’s near-abroad pin their hopes on admission by the EU and NATO

Eye-witnesses to the drama of the first Trump presidency brace for the sequel

Globalisation and technological progress are leading to a boom in organised crime

This year’s negotiations made very modest progress

New data show a shockingly high proportion of courses are a waste of money

Finland’s cold-war past offers urgent lessons for Ukraine’s future

The world’s bad actors will relish any power vacuum

A dozen officials offer tips on the dangerous art of Trump-flattery

Rumours of its rapid demise have been greatly exaggerated

Donald Trump’s re-election accelerates a crisis for globalisation

From Ukraine to Israel there is a frantic scramble to flatter and sway Donald Trump

A new poll of 30,000 people worldwide has some surprising results

The BIS ditches a new payments platform the Kremlin wants to mimic

If you thought its freezing icescapes would escape a world on fire, think again

The old order is dying. Our geopolitics columnist will tell you what’s coming next

He hopes this week’s BRICS summit will spark a sanctions-busting big bang

Russia is enacting a revolutionary plan of sabotage, arson and assassination

Half the world has had elections so far this year

The rulers of China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are growing worryingly close

Russia and China are riding a surge of support for the Palestinians since the Gaza war started

As players vomit and boil, even John McEnroe reckons “it is not humane”

And why governments want to wrest back control

Polarisation makes it harder to adapt to climate change

A booming middle class, budget flights and Bollywood

In a dangerous world, cutting-edge missile defence is all the rage

Sugar taxes and obesity drugs will not be enough

The games will test the success of new solutions to old bugbears

The speed and intensity of prospective conflicts could test the laws of war

The undersea cables that connect the world are becoming military targets

Threats to Western alliances lie both within and without the club

Deadly heat is increasingly the norm, not an exception to it

Will rich countries welcome them the way they did Chinese students?

Big powers are preparing for wartime sabotage

Too often politicians tout awful solutions for helping tenants

The world’s atomic watchdog fears a terrifying regional arms race

But China’s bullying of Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines risks an explosion

Human-rights lawyers are trying to save laws meant to tame violent rulers

They are using the war in Gaza to radicalise a new generation

America, China and the battle for supremacy

Military conscription is on the agenda in the rich world

In a dog-eat-dog world, competition is fierce

Mass killings are at their highest level in two decades

Migrants help campaign for the prime minister at home and lobby for the country abroad

Diverging worldviews could affect politics, families and more

An opportunity to join our editorial staff in London

To keep its competitive edge the Ivy League will have to change