China buys lithium, copper and bull semen, and doesn’t export its ideology

Bullying foreigners can be sadly effective, but also a dangerous distraction

Trump’s Pentagon pick wants women off the battlefield

Youthful excess continues to decline

Baby-boomers are keeping their bad habits into retirement

Geopolitics terms, from “Abraham accords” to “zero-sum game”, explained in plain English

Modern warfare, from “ambush” to “zapad”, explained to you in plain English

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

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

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